Pacquiao vs. Clottey Undercard: Results and Ramblings

March 14th, 2010

Undercard fights are generally reserved for the privilege of being swallowed whole by the main event. Considered as expendable padding to turn the arms of the clock more quickly, there hasn’t been a rich recent history of truly interesting matches to fuel excitement for the final fight. Placing frivolous bouts on an already overpriced program is a bold step in the wrong direction, but it still hasn’t seemed to serve as a legitimate enough deterrent for promoters. They repeat the practice at will.

In the case of Top Rank’s Pacquiao vs. Clottey undercard in Arlington, Texas, credit is due to Bob Arum for at least trying to make the lead up look good. Arum was in a bit of a position with this one. After all, he had the challenge of making Joshua Clottey into a palatable substitution for the intangible Mayweather; a difficult task to say the least.

These modern day pay-per-views hardly qualify as drops in the bucket for most buyers, and an effort put forth to justify sky-high prices is crucial. By compiling a quality card for the entire broadcast, an incentive is created to keep digging deeply into those wallets. The problem occurs when the crowning bout culminates as little more than a compensatory exhibition to keep Pacquiao in form while he waits for his ultimate opponent.

The undercard showed some promise in theory, but like the main event, was deflated in practice. The first fight of the evening in the middleweight division saw Ireland’s John Duddy (29-1, 18 KO) taking on Michael Medina (23-2-2, 18 KO) in an evenly, if not excitingly, paced bout. In the early rounds of the 10-rounder, Medina tried using his jab to close the distance; Duddy remained relatively restrained. He would throw a couple of combinations, but didn’t seem committed to any one course of action. This has been a marked problem for Duddy since he decided to abandon his Hell’s fury style of slugging.

By round 4, Duddy had remembered his right hand, and in the 5th, he seized a moment of Medina’s inactivity to launch a flurry. In the middle and latter rounds, Duddy became busier. For the most part, though, the two fighters were balanced in their exchanges. Medina suffered a point deduction for repeated low blows in the 8th round. Duddy was able to emerge with an indecisive split-decision victory. Two judges saw the fight 96-93 for Duddy, while the other saw it 96-93 for Medina.

The second fight between welterweights Jose Luis Castillo (60-10-1, 52 KO) and Alfonso Gomez (22-4-2, 11 KO) was more than once branded by commentators as purely a money venture for the reputedly deprived Castillo. Castillo made half- hearted use of his jab, but it was Gomez who remained the busier of the two while the action lasted.

Assessing Castillo’s performance, it was difficult to imagine he had any more passionate inspiration for the fight than money. He bore no resemblance to the fighter who had taken Floyd Mayweather to task and who had knocked out Diego Corrales in their second meeting. By the 5th round, Castillo was getting caught continuously by Gomez’s shots. Unmotivated to go on any longer, Castillo’s corner stopped the fight before the commencement of the 6th round.

The third and final fight to grace the ring before the main event featured lightweights Humberto Soto (51-7-2, 32 KO) and David Diaz (35-3-1, 17 KO). Diaz had been out of the ring for a while and was early on showing signs of rust. In the 1st round, he went down on a solid right-left combination from Soto. He spent the next couple of rounds trying to shake off the dust.
By the 4th round, Diaz was throwing more punches and connecting some successfully. He threw a good right hand in the 7th round. In the closing rounds, Diaz had succeeded in tiring Soto out; both fighters were leaning against each other. Still, it was Soto who was more effective in spurts, and who had clearly won the majority of the opening rounds. Soto won a unanimous decision as well as the vacant WBC lightweight title with two scores of 117-109 and one of 115-111.

In the final summation, the Pacquiao vs. Clottey undercard might not have delivered any brilliant, rousing action. But in light of what happened in the main event, it could never be derided for inconsistency. There is an adage that warns against bride’s maids outshining the bride on her wedding day. Though the fighters were all worthy of their inclusion on this card, and more so than most of late, there was certainly no threat of eclipsing the star. In relative terms, Manny is still the most beautiful thing standing at boxing’s altar.