Bantamweight Brawlers: The Little Guys Take Center Stage on Showtime

This Saturday night, Showtime kicks off a four-man bantamweight tournament.  The hope is that the winner of the tournament will fight the winner of February's match between Nonito Donaire and Fernando Montiel, who is ranked number one by Ring Magazine at 118 pounds.  

Showtime originally wanted a six-man tourney similar to the Super Six 168 pound tournament that has been going on for the last twelve months, but Montiel and Donaire declined invitations.  It seems like this simpler four man tournament may work out much better than its predecessor.  The Super Six was a great idea and extremely ambitious, but it started out dubiously with Jermain Taylor being destroyed and sent into retirement, and it only got worse from there.  

Two other fighters dropped out citing injuries, and two more forgot to show up for their fights.  I'm referring to Allen Green and Arthur Abraham.  Green did a whole lot of nothing against Andre Ward and then got knocked out by 73 year old Glen Johnson.  Abraham got schooled by Andre Dirrell before being disqualified for drilling him after a slip, and then humiliated himself even further by throwing about 14 total punches against Carl Froch.  The tournament has essentially come down to a three man show, with Ward and Froch as the favorites to fight in the finals.  

The Bantamweight tournament, by going directly to the semifinals, makes for a much more succinct and less diluted show.  Vic Darchinyan fights Abner Mares, while Joseph Agbeko takes on Yohnny Perez in a rematch of their fantastic fight from last Halloween.  The winners face each other, while the losers battle for third next year.  All four of these guys bring it, so it's very likely that both fights will involve ridiculous action and multiple knockdowns.  It's also very likely that we will hear the sound of Gus Johnson ejaculating on the air when things heat up.

Darchinyan lost in July of 2009 to Agbeko, who then lost to Perez, who drew with Mares, so there's plenty of history between these four.  Despite being the most well known, Darchinyan may be the long shot here.  He doesn't seem to have quite the same pop in his left hand at 118 as he did when he was pulverizing guys at 112 and 115.  His bizarre, crab-like style was fairly easily neutralized by Agbeko.  "King Kong" was aggressive and completely threw "The Raging Bull" off of his game plan, reducing Darchinyan to desperately throwing the occasional wild, lunging left hand.  

It's possible that the speedy Mares will follow the same script.  Vic never looked comfortable against Agbeko, and he had the same frustrated expression on his face as he did right before Nonito Donaire waxed him with one perfect counter left hook in the summer of 2007.  Viewers couldn't decide who was more confused, the concussed and stumbling Darchinyan, or Showtime interviewer Jim Grey, when Darchinyan shockingly couldn't answer Grey's battery of questions with the eloquence Grey expected from him.

Agbeko and Perez engaged in a thriller last year, and there's no reason to believe Saturday will be any different.  They traded bombs the entire fight, and we should expect to see more of the same thing in the rematch.  Perez won the first fight by unanimous decision, but it seemed closer than the judges' scorecards indicated.  I'm leaning towards Darchinyan by knockout and Perez by another close decision.  Either way, both matches look like they could contend for fight of the year.