Agbeko-Mares and the pursuit of authenticity

SAN ANTONIO – Saturday night as the HBO fights were getting under way, an enormous event happened here in the downtown area. Fiesta Flambeau, the annual commencement of this city’s 11-day Battle of San Jacinto celebration and our country’s largest illuminated night parade, sent brilliant floats and marching bands through the town, eliciting roars of gaiety from Texans along the route.

A parade that begins after dark in America’s seventh-largest urban area says many things about its city’s safety and sense of community. All of them good.

While this was going on, HBO showed British junior welterweight Amir Khan make an enthusiastic homecoming in Manchester’s M.E.N. Arena. A few hours later, Showtime presented Puerto Rican champion Juan Manuel Lopez in a homecoming of his own before a similarly raucous gathering at Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez.

Then there was the sobriety of Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, where welterweight titlist Andre Berto swapped blows with Victor Ortiz – and the cheers of a few hundred paying customers soughed over the canvas like a gentle breeze on a field of blue bonnets.

For once, the attendance at these three shows was inversely proportionate to the quality of their prizefights. The Mancs went wild, as ever, for Khan’s talented-amateur routine, as he won a technical decision over someone named Paul McCloskey, after a protect-the-brand stoppage by a squeamish British doctor. The Puerto Ricans, meanwhile, expressed some robust displeasure with referee Roberto Ramirez when he decided Lopez’s fourth minute of walking unconsciousness was somehow more disagreeable than its three predecessors and raised Mexican Orlando Salido’s glove in the eighth round.

These were authentic crowds, though, whatever else they were.

There was nothing authentic about the purses or celebrity enjoyed by Andre Berto and Victor Ortiz before Saturday night. Had someone thought to follow Berto’s career four years ago and drop breadcrumbs, today he could walk that path backwards to the place HBO Sports lost its way. And Victor Ortiz reminded Oscar De La Hoya of himself, which was the main reason he was still fighting on HBO.

Much of the derision both men’s careers had merited went away Saturday. Ortiz manhandled Berto, beating him by unanimous decision in a fantastic scrap – and a tip of the cap to Norm Frauenheim, who took us to task for questioning Ortiz’s heart and character last week. Berto proved to be about what we thought he was, though after looking frightened in the opening round fought back hard and made it to the closing bell.

And that brings us – smoking, juking, feinting – to what will happen at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater on Saturday when Ghana’s Joseph King Kong Agbeko fights Mexican Abner Mares in the finals of Showtime’s Bantamweight Tournament.

What does Agbeko-Mares have to do with Berto-Ortiz, Lopez-Salido, Khan-McCloskey or Fiesta Flambeau? Authenticity, and how we perceive it.

There was a time in our sport when shortcuts to authenticity were abetted by network television. Excite a programmer’s fixation with viewer demographics, put together a snazzy out-of-ring persona, and cash checks disproportionate to your achievements.

But as Thomas Hauser emphatically noted almost two years ago: “A television network has the power to give fighters exposure. A television network has the power to steer fighters to a particular promoter. A television network cannot (repeat, cannot) create stars.”

In its novel tournament structure, introduced with the Super Six and furthered by the Bantamweight Tournament, Showtime gave 10 lesser-celebrated prizefighters a chance to earn stardom. From the original Super Six, two fighters – Andre Ward and Carl Froch – have emerged as authentic stars. Two others, Arthur Abraham and Mikkel Kessler, have proved to be good but somewhat less than their reputations implied. Andre Dirrell is now considered suspicious if not fraudulent. And Jermain Taylor was driven into retirement.

Of the four men elevated by the Bantamweight Tournament, all have acquitted themselves according to form thus far. Armenian Vic Darchinyan was already seen as a bully with a fragile psyche who nevertheless made entertaining matches. Colombian Yonnhy Perez is a man who is capable of beating anybody when he is on, and carries a chance of being a little off each time he fights for a title.

Abner Mares surprised plenty of folks in December when he bullied the bully, roughing up Darchinyan and beating him by split decision. And Agbeko, as it turns out, might be boxing’s best-kept secret.

Joseph King Kong Agbeko – what his Ghanaian birth certificate apparently reads – comes from an East African country much better at producing world-class prizefighters than supporting them. Agbeko is soft-spoken and polite. Aside from the gorilla mask and manacles he used to wear to the ring, preceded by a leggy blonde as his moniker demanded, Agbeko is nondescript. But he is a special talent.

Agbeko does many things well. He reminds us that a low lead hand and good legwork mustn’t always make for an insipid style. He can box, slug or fight. He is a pleasure to watch. He is worth the trip from South Texas to Southern California – especially if he’s sharing a ring with Mares and a marquee with Perez and Darchinyan.

I’ll be in Los Angeles on Saturday because I believe in what Showtime is doing with the Bantamweight Tournament. I’ll not be in Las Vegas two weeks later because I am unsure what Showtime is doing with Pacquiao-Mosley. Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley are authentic stars, but Pacquiao-Mosley may not be an authentic superfight.

Authentic stars: Agbeko-Mares creates an opportunity to find another one. The winner of the Bantamweight Tournament will be the best 118-pound prizefighter unless Filipino Nonito Donaire demonstrates otherwise. Donaire is crazy talented, yes, but his authenticity, of one kind or another, seems to face annual crises.

Communities see through promotional noise and find authenticity where it exists.

I’ll take Agbeko, SD-12, on Saturday – and regard him as his division’s ruler until he’s beaten, and hope you all do the same.

Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com