By Bart Barry-
Saturday in Los Angeles, Thai super flyweight world champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai majority-decisioned Mexican Juan Francisco Estrada in a fantastic prizefight HBO deserves much credit for enabling. It was the second installment of a SuperFly series that resides alongside the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament as the best things to happen to our beloved sport in some years.
Once again it was Sor Rungvisai’s composure that fascinated. Volume punchers are men of a composure begotten by great self-awareness; volume guys know their limitations much better than cocky defensive specialists or fragile psyche-ed powerpunchers. But Sor Rungvisai is no longer much of a volume puncher; he no longer wastes much motion with shifting his opponent’s footing or considering his opponent’s timing. He no longer wastes hardly a motion at all. He stands placidly at ringcenter and attacks when whim dictates and throws nearly no setup shots. Everything Sor Rungvisai throws intends, now, to devastate.
He wears the same obliviousness mask today with which he greeted the world’s best fighter about a year ago. His countenance betrays no emotion whatever. Not even his eyes seem to grow or slighten. He got angry a few times at Estrada, Saturday, and his body showed deep fatigue by the fight’s 35th minute, but his face remained wonderfully expressionless throughout.
One hesitates to project too much on a man who is determined to be unknowable, but watching Sor Rungvisai’s face in combat while considering his ledger brings to the imagination a man who achieved unattachment by first attaching himself to prizefighting and its myriad of cruelties then letting disgust with it all detach him from prizefighting and its systemic irregularities until he was sufficiently unattached to career or outcome to match himself with prizefighting debutants in his 44th and 45th and 46th career matches. That bears repetition: Sor Rungvisai passed the entire second half of 2016 feasting on three men who’d nary a prizefight between them.
That was how he prepared to swap fists with his profession’s master, Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. That evinces some combination of otherworldly arrogance, noteworthy misfortune and perfect unattachment. Sor Rungvisai then brought the arrogance and unattachment to Chocolatito and delivered him noteworthy misfortune, breaking the master body and spirit – Chocolatito was resigned unto tranquility at the brutal end of his September match with Sor Rungvisai.
Until the final round little that happened Saturday surprised Sor Rungvisai, which was itself surprising because Juan Francisco Estrada is one hell of a creative counterpuncher. Estrada made Sor Rungvisai miss often, too. But Estrada appeared so relieved each time one of Sor Rungvisai’s weighty fists flew harmlessly past he took few retaliatory acts till he was certain the worst of Sor Rungvisai’s power was spent.
Notice how infrequently Estrada pursued Sor Rungvisai even when the Thai allowed aggression to imbalance himself. Compare that to the savagery with which Estrada’s inspiration, Juan Manuel Marquez, pursued Manny Pacquiao each time the Filipino’s aggression circuitbroke his footwork. Some of that was a difference of conscious choosing but much of it wasn’t; Estrada needed a lot of rounds to override what panicked signals his body disseminated across the nervous system each time Sor Rungvisai’s knuckles made definitive contact.
You cannot problemsolve in a panicked state or think creatively while your mind madly scrambles for refuge. Whatever plans Estrada and handlers made for Sor Rungvisai’s attack went largely ignored for rounds 2-9 while Estrada searched frantically for a means of avoiding Sor Rungvisai’s punches.
Sometime after that, though, Estrada’s experience and training and gradual adaptation to the pain wrought by Sor Rungvisai’s punches led the Mexican to throw a right uppercut, the one punch to which Sor Rungvisai’s aggression made him singularly vulnerable. That got both men’s attention, converting Sor Rungvisai from a machine to a man, emboldening Estrada for the championship rounds no matter how little import Sor Rungvisai initially showed Estrada’s emboldened spirit.
By the match’s penultimate minute it was Sor Rungvisai whose consciousness got overwhelmed by what panic fatigue visits on every fighter. Sor Rungvisai was the unthinking man in the fight’s final 90 seconds, not Estrada, but Estrada had only so much remaining impetus. Estrada absolutely did not win Saturday’s fight, whatever the Forum’s partisan-Latino crowd opined, but he verily did win the fight’s final round, which should make the Mexican hopeful for his chances in a rematch.
Now some words about the telecast.
HBO’s combination of Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman no longer works at all – they haven’t chemistry, and they step all over each other’s lines, either by embroidering them needlessly or negating them with dead air whose effect is most pronounced by a telecast featuring so little of it. This is mostly Kellerman’s fault, yes, but Lampley no longer helps things. Kellerman believes himself an extraordinary improviser, which would work better if he didn’t believe his audience too ordinary to hear his brilliance on first or second recital.
So much exhausting noise of every telecast now goes to Kellerman reiterating decent points till dullness, ostensibly for the audience’s benefit – for if not the audience’s benefit, whose? Occasionally Jim and Max must discipline Harold for a scorecard that deviates from the consensus narrative, and they do, but Kellerman cannot possibly believe Roy Jones or Andre Ward needs his help to understand the combat happening a yard or two from their eyes.
Kellerman and Lampley now disrupt one another’s rhythm in a way that is five parts irksome for every one part entertaining, and they talk far far too much. They don’t need to be fired, but they do need to be separated; either man might work just fine by himself with Ward, who’s much better than Jones, and nowhere is it written a four-man team needs to explain a two-man combat.
In its first two years the Peter Nelson era at HBO Sports has been marked by its marklessness, Top Rank’s departure and a gray detente with the PBC. HBO has become the official network of the super flyweight division, which is noble, while Showtime has cornered the exponentially more consequential heavyweight division (unless you count Andre the Giant). Nothing about HBO Sports today portends boldness. Separating Lampley and Kellerman is a subtle move, then, that might at least bring aficionados more enjoyment.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
