Weak week.

(...in more ways than one!)

The holiday season is usually a big slow-down for boxing, yet I can't recall it ever being as bad as this. We have exactly one remotely notable televised card occuring anywhere in the world in the next 7 days, until the usual Japanese star-studded blowout extravaganzas on New Year's Eve and the preceding day.

That would be Fernando David Saucedo, headlining on TyC Sports on Saturday night against 19-10-1 countryman Jorge Luis Rodríguez. :!:

Y nada más. :verysad

(and when I say that is the most notable, that's BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS over the next closest runner-up, which is probably Devis Boschiero in a non-televised comeback tuneup in some Italian grotto against some guy with twenty-odd wins and forty-something losses :scaredas

The fact that El Vasco will beat El Pelado is a foregone conclusion. The only remotely interesting angle here to make it the least bit sporting is speculating on whether Saucedo - notorious for having recorded only ten stoppages in 66 bouts - can halt Rodríguez inside schedule. I'd call it a pick 'em wager. Rodríguez has only been stopped 5x in thirty bouts, yet has been KO1'ed thrice (all by relatively average punchers - two of them career super bantams and one now a light welterweight). He is also highly susceptible to cuts, with a recent No Contest after three completed with Jonathan Maicelo and technical decision loss in 4 to Paulus Moses, both resulting from Rodríguez's inability to continue after head clashes opened him up. Saucedo, if he can't push the magic button on Rodríguez's chin, may be able to just slice his face up to satisfy the ringside physician's Hippocratic urges before the end of the scheduled ten.

So rather than waste our breath (or keystrokes, very costly in fingertip skin and carpal tunnel constitution! :nono) let's spend now through our Christmas or Kwanzaa hangovers speculating not on Pacquiao vs. Broner, the release of hard numbers on PBC and its affiliated network's financial net gain in the very dynamic and experimental year that was 2015, Klitschko vs. Fury II, or the return of Mayweather - as there'll be plenty of time for all of that after we're done stressing about last-minute shopping and spending time with our goddamn families err) - but rather on something we can all sink our teeth into and care about.

Can the unstoppable force Saucedo roll through immovable object Rodríguez???!!! :admin op

 

IB Funfact: should he do the job, Saucedo will have tied his previous banner year of 2011 by recording three stoppages on a single calendar.

 

IB Funfact #2: it would also mean Saucedo had thrice in his life achieved the remarkable feat of consecutive stoppage victories! :shock:

 

...or will Rodríguez really get up for this and pull off the greatest Xmas-time miracle performed by a boxer from Argentina since Maidana UD12 Broner? :think

 

You reckon Saucedo could deal Stalker a loss (or at least another draw) in a battle of the feather-fists at lightweight since both are now campaigning there? :think

I actually think he could. Far more experienced and probably has an edge in fundamentall boxing skill. Stalker's just bigger (having fought at 140, while Saucedo was a longtime super feather), and that won't count for much as he isn't stopping El Vasco.

Could be a schooling, actually.

 

Nah, all pretty much junk.

 

Even the cards next Tuesday and Thursday (featuring the return of Monster Inoue, as well as title defenses by Uchiyama, Taguchi, and Tanaka as well as Yaegashi challenging for a belt) are only so-so by year-end bash standards. All of the aforementioned have respectable opponents in front of them but nothing you'd expect them not to handle. The brightest spots next week as far as competitively matched and potentially exciting wars are Ioka vs. Reveco II, and Hosono vs. Shimoda on the Inoue undercard for the Japanese featherweight title.

 

:good

True boxing fan right there.