Eric Armit's World View by Eric Armit Feb 23rd 2007

Argentinean Jorge “Locomotora” Castro is some fighter. Late last year he was finished. He had been stopped by Jose Luis Herrera, a very modest opponent, and then spent 20 days in a coma following a traffic accident. There seemed no way back for this amazing fighter. However on January 27 in Mar del Plata at the age of 39 he returned and destroyed Herrera in two rounds. Jorge turned pro back in 1987 as a welterweight. He won Argentinean and South American titles at light-middleweight, won the WBA middleweight title and made five defences, challenged for the WBC, IBF and IBO cruiserweight titles and won the South American title in the same division. In 140 fights he has won 130, lost eleven and fought three draws. He probably has more stoppage and kayos to his name than any currently active fighter with 90 and lost only two of his 55 amateur fights. All of that would be incredible, but this is a guy who trains rarely and likes a drink. Imagine how good he could have been if he really tried! Talk about chickening out. The WBC has told Samuel Peter and Vitali Klitschko to go to the Court of Sports Arbitration to decide who gets to fight their champion Oleg Maskaev. It is the WBC title and they have Board of Governors who are supposed to make decision on matters such as this. Peter twice beat James Toney to earn the shot and they should have supported him, but Maskaev-Klitschko would be a big money fight so they were tempted to screw the Nigerian. I guess after almost being put out of business when they screwed Graciano Rocchigiani they have become smarter if not more honest. Canada is benefiting from a number of their top amateurs turning pro. On a show in Montreal on January 26 saw three of the most promising, Benoit Gaudet, Sebastian Gauthier and Antonin Decarie all scored wins. Super-featherweight Gaudet outpointed David Gomez, bantamweight Gauthier kayoed Zacarias Chan in two and Decarie, the Canadian light-welterweight champion outpointed Jose Corona. Gaudet was Canadian champion six years in a row and won a bronze medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Gauthier won 4 Canadian titles and a bronze in the same Commonwealth Games and Decarie was a 4-time Canadian champion. All four are good prospects. Stejpan Bozic, Devis Boschiero and Paolo Vidoz were also top amateurs. Croatian super-middleweight Bozic took his record to 19-3 by halting poor Stefan Stanko in three rounds in Rijeko on January 26. Now 32, Bozic beat Carl Froch on his way to a silver medal in the 2000 European Games. Boschiero and Vidoz scored wins in Cividale on January 27. Devis went to 16-0 by halting Ferenc Szabo in four rounds at super-featherweight. He was a 3-time Italian champion as an amateur. Vidoz, the former European heavyweight champion, out pointed French trial-horse Antoine Palatis. Paolo competed in the 1996 Olympics, won a bronze in the 1997, 1998 and 1999 World championships, but lost to Audley Harrison in the 2000 Olympics. He is 23-3 as a pro. Young Ugandan Peter Semo added to his score of wins with a points victory over experienced Venance Mponji in Kampala on January 27. Roy Hilder's lightweight, who halted Jonathan Jones in one round in Coventry in December 2004, now has 14 wins. South African boxing is going through a rough patch-out of the ring. No one seems happy with the way that Boxing South Africa is running the game and their General Manager Krish Naidoo is suspended with rumors of financial irregularities in the background. There has been too much politics in the appointments and too little focus on the quality and knowledge of the people being appointed. However, South Africa remains the most active country in Africa and attracts boxers from other parts of the Continent. The latest is lightweight Kgotla Baeti from Botswana. In Kempton Park on January 27 the hard punching southpaw halted modest Hugo Manqina in one round and now has 12 wins, 11 inside the distance and five in the first round. For homegrown talent South Africans can point to middleweight champion Kgotso Motau. In only his tenth fight in Kempton Park on February 2 Kgotso was already making a first defence of the national title with a first round kayo of Xolani Ngemntu. The 25 year old southpaw has beaten all of his opposition inside the distance. He won a silver medal in the African championships and competed in the World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics and beat Ricardo Samms in the Copenhagen Cup back in 2002. One to watch. At the other end of the experience range Brazilian Giovanni Andrade retained his World Boxing Commission super-bantamweight title with a third round kayo of Sergio Rodriguez. Andrade has a 53-10 record and every one of those 10 losses have come outside of Brazil. You have to admire his persistence. He failed in challenges for WBO, WBU, IBC and IBO titles before he could find one he could win in the World Boxing Commission (Yes yet another “world” title sanctioning body). Antonio Cervantes was a true boxing great and one of the best boxers ever to come out of Colombia. His son, Jose Antonio, is hoping to follow in his footsteps but he is a lot heavier than his famous father. In Barranquilla on February 2, fighting at super-middleweight, he kayoed Freddy Barrios in three rounds for his sixth win and fifth inside the distance. The main event saw the former WBA straw weight title challenger Ronald Barrera kayo Jose Caraballo in three rounds. Ron has a 20-2-1 record with one of those losses coming in a title challenge to Yutaka Niida last March. He is the brother of the former IBF strawweight champion Miguel Angel Barrera who retired after needing surgery for a blood clot when he lost his title to Edgar Cardenas in 2003. Still on the sons of the fathers, David Canto, the son of flyweight great Miguel Canto is boxing as a pro in Merida as a featherweight and has a 2-0 record. El Maestro held the WBC flyweight title from January 1975 until March 1979 and made 16 defences. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam may be near passing his total but Miguel met much better opposition and put his title on the line not just in Mexico but also in Chile, Korea, Japan the USA and Venezuela and ducked no one. On the subject of Venezuela, I missed it at the time, but they lost one of the leading figures in boxing there with the death of promoter Rafito Cedeno. For a while Rafito was “The Man” in Venezuelan boxing and promoted their first world champion Ramon Arias and also other world champions such as Carlos Hernandez, Betulio Gonzalez, Luis Estaba, Rafael Orona and Fulgencio Obelmejias. In Venezuela's golden age he was King Midas. Jose Napoles is another legendary figure in boxing and he is still active in the game. Now 66 and Based in Ciudad Juarez “Mantequilla”, a former world welterweight champion is training fighters there. No big names yet but it would be nice to think he could find someone even half as good as he was. Mexican Gamaliel Diaz was on the verge of a world title fight when he beat Robert Guerrero back in December 2005 and a match with Nicky Cook was on the books. However it never happened and instead he blew his chance when he was kayoed in a return by Guerrero last June (and Guerrero went on to win the IBF title). After almost 8 months out Gamaliel returned to action in Vera Cruz on February 3 with a points win over Ramon Mendez. After a bad start to his career, that loss to Guerrero ended an unbeaten run of 17 bouts, so with only one loss in his last 18 he must have a chance of a title shot if he can stay busy and not look too dangerous. It is always good to hear of boxers involving themselves in charity work. Former heavyweight title challenger Monte Barrett heads up the quaintly named BLESS. This stands for “Beautiful Ladies Equal Sure Success”. No it is not about models or pole dancers (whatever they may be!!). The charity provides help for single mothers, so good on you Monte. Prospects watch: Australia has a light-middleweight to note in Daniel Geale. The 25 year old southpaw competed in the 2000 Olympics, won a Gold Medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games and was a multi title winner in the Australian amateurs. The Tasmanian born Geale is 5'10” tall and is managed by Jeff Fenech. He has 15 wins with 11 inside the distance and is going well. American light-welterweight Rock Allen has ten wins with seven inside the distance. He is also 25 and hails from Philadelphia. His brother Tiger is also a pro. Rock was United States amateur champion in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and competed win the 2004 Olympics after beating highly touted Lamont Peterson in the trials. He was part of Bernard Hopkins' gym team.

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