THE WAR ZONE II: Revisiting Classics, Revisited (V.9 - Miguel Acosta vs Artyom Hovhannisyan)

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Just shy of eleven thousand kilometers. That is the distance between Gyumri and Barrio Nueva Tacagua - respective birthplaces of these combatants. Figuratively an even wider gulf separates them in terms of cultural & economic background, as well as their in-ring styles...and where they were in their careers as of 2012.

Acosta was born into a planned but abandoned urbanization project of former president Hugo Chávez, which for decades now has suffered from administrative neglect of its notoriously underdeveloped infrastructure. Dirty water, incomplete roads...place is a mess.

Hovhannisyan, meanwhile, came up in what before he was born had been a foremost story of success for another Communist regime - a major trade center of the USSR, and which continues to be an industrious city and popular tourism destination today. He was also virtually mollycoddled with access to plenty of high-quality equipment and sparring as part of the Armenian national team from his early teens, winning four national titles before following a trail blazed for him and his countryman by the likes of Arthur Abraham and Vic Darchinyan to train alongside Americans and make his home base here after a short stint in France in his novice year.

Both were a few years removed from their absolute peak hype (if not abilities), in 2009. Hovhannisyan was then (in 2009) a primary sparring partner for Manny Pacquiao at perhaps the apex of Pac-Mania's fever pitch. This was the year the Filipino legend stopped both Hatton and Cotto and not long after his decimation of former PPV king Oscar De la Hoya, this being the string of victories that would cement his place in the Hall of Fame. Acosta would in that same year score his signature win, stopping Urbano Antillón in nine rounds in a sensational upset to become interim WBA lightweight champion. Ranked the number one and three contenders respectively by the WBA,both Antillón and Acosta were already held in higher regard than its full-status "regular" titlist, Paulus Moses of Namibia. Ten months later Acosta would knock out "The Hitman", in Namibia, to further legitimize himself and consolidate supremacy - at least temporarily, until running afoul Brandon Lee Ríos.

In that Ríos fight even more than here against Hovhannisyan, the slick Venezuelan was facing a sharp contrast to his quick, fluid, score-and-don't-be-scored-upon modus operandi. Bam-Bam, like "Art the Lionheart", played the role of straight up mauler (never mind brawler) and served as the crudely effective foil to Acosta's cute boxer, providing a handy blueprint for Hovhannisyan. There was a period of time, pre-Ríos, where many observers, myself included, were surmising that despite being a near-contemporary or coming along in the immediate wake of the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Joan Guzmán, Cory Spinks, Iván Calderón, etc., Aguacerito might be among the p4p very slickest in the game in the new millennium. For a bit, he might well have been just that - but his crash down to earth was far abrupter than any of his peers, and more painful to watch than a five-car pileup on the freeway.

You'd be forgiven if this were your first time seeing either for thinking Aguacerito (roughly translates into something like "The Deluge") was the more seasoned amateur. Lo, it was the Armenian who actually had an enormous experiential edge - to the tune of a 5:1 ratio. Yes, (actually slightly more than) quintuple as many bouts! It was apparent throughout most of the first half of this contest that Acosta was the vastly superior craftsman - but just as obvious that Hovhannisyan could obliterate him with a single well-placed (or honestly even not that well-placed) touch. Hell, all that was obvious within the very first round - in which Acosta boxed his ears off laudably for 2 minutes and change only to suffer the most doubly humiliating sort of KD imaginable ...capable of making two very different sorts of ESPN SportsCenter highlight reels, top plays for Hovhannisyan and bloopers for Acosta, the defensive master, getting caught with such a looping haymaker with his guard let down just slightly premature of the safety of the bell. He was splattered all over the canvas, and it really is a shame that everyone's shock turned into amusement watching in real time overshadowed what probably should have been the more important takeaway: giving Acosta kudos for actually getting the heck up from that (and then clawing his way back into the contest for another nine frames!)

Hovhannisyan would taste some canvas himself in the fifth. Acosta was determined to not just survive, now, but summon up some of his vintage magic from his mercurial prime only a couple of years earlier. It was a valiant effort, but there was just so much ground to make up from that disastrous start - reminiscent of the uphill climb Juan Manuel Márquez faced in his first encounter with Hovhannisyan's old boss Pac-Man, finding himself in a deep points hole early and having to cross all his t's and dot all his i's in their 2004 meeting just to earn a (still controversial) draw.

Halfway stats:

Jabs
Hovhannisyan 18 of 87, 21%
Acosta 22 of 161, 14%

Power
Hovhannisyan 33 of 78, 42%
Acosta 17 of 57, 30%

Total
Hovhannisyan 51 of 165, 31%
Acosta 39 of 218, 18%

Body
Hovhannisyan 8
Acosta 2

It was fairly obvious who the more confident fighter had been in the first half. Hovhannisyan threw and landed more power shots, and at a significantly higher clip. Acosta did out-jab him, and in fact threw only four more jabs than Hovhannisyan did punches altogether, but he wasn't taking many risks at this point, before evening the score in terms of knockdowns.

Acosta would dust off the jab and set to work in the next four rounds (might've swept the whole second half, but for a Hov right hand that shook him in the finale), managing to back Hovhannisyan up with incisive combinations of straighter punches and then effectively play the nimble matador. He very nearly pulled out the W on my card (ultimately a 94-94 draw), but even if he did manage to avoid being visibly rocked in Round 10, it would have been academic on the official scorecards. Abe Belardo and Marty Denkin both finished with the Armenian up 95-93, meaning a single 10-9 flipped on their cards in that closer would have still left Raul Caiz Jr. (who scored it 96-92 for Acosta) outnumbered; the result then would have been a split draw instead of a SD victory for Hovhannisyan. It was the biggest of his career, and would ultimately be his only even remotely important one. Acosta may have been shot to bits (he would remain in the sport another four years, losing three more bouts in a row, in the very last being kayoed by Antonio Orozco in under two minutes) - yet he raged against the dying of a light and in the long run despite not getting the draw I thought would have been fair, in a sense fought Hovhannisyan to a stalemate as the mutually assured destruction of their intense ten round meeting wrought enough damage on both to make sure that Acosta pulled Hovhannisyan's career into the grave with his own. The difference is, Acosta left behind a decent legacy above ground, while Art just has ...well, Miguel. With plenty of asterisks.

Final stats:

Jabs
Hovhannisyan 28 of 204, 14%
Acosta 60 of 401, 15%

Power
Hovhannisyan 76 of 203, 37%
Acosta 64 of 193, 33%

Total
Hovhannisyan 104 of 407, 26%
Acosta 124 of 594, 21%

Body
Hovhannisyan 14
Acosta 10

Attentive souls will note the narrowing of the gap in body punches scored between them, as well as the power stats margin shrinking - in throws, connects, and percentage. Acosta wanted this one. Losing to a guy like Richar Abril - like him, a hit-and-don't-get-hit artist, but more of a pain in the ass spoiler than a traditionally slick cutie-pie - may have been in the cards even in his prime, but to lose on points to someone like Hovhannisyan must have seemed unacceptable to Aguacerito, who likely felt he should have been dancing figure-eights around such barbarians if he possessed even a shred of his old "stuff". He did possess a shred, it turned out, but just a smidgen less than he needed.

Eagle-eyes will, apropos of nothing, also spot in the crowd (before the post-fight celebrations, that is, where she is blatantly front & center) a pre-fame Ronda Jean Rousey (or rather, pre-UFC; she was already known in judoka circles for her Olympic bronze medal in Beijing and was generating buzz at the height of her run in Strikeforce, where she was already the women's bantamweight champion ...but it wasn't until her days in the storied Octagon that she would achieve crossover mainstream stardom, riding it all the way to headlining Wrestlemania earlier this year ) - then still a shy hanger-on and borderline groupie in the Armenian combat athlete scene, training with & dating several fellow judokas as well as other disciplinarians (kickboxing, MMA, etc). It was hotly gossiped (including by yours truly) Hovhannisyan was the beneficiary of some ...private wrestling tutoring from the future queen of the arm-bar. Not a bad way to celebrate your biggest professional coup.

Here, for the record, is my RBR thread for the fight:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/shobox-art-hovhannisyan-vs-miguel-acosta-rbr.419050/