LAS VEGAS — It wasn’t a defining moment. For the fighter known simply as JuanMa, that will have to wait. JuanMagnifico, he wasn’t.
But JuanMature he might become after a bruising battle Saturday night at the MGM Grand that ended with Rafael Marquez unable to continue after the eighth round because of an injury to his right shoulder.
After early dominance, Juan Manuel Lopez (29-0, 26 KOs) fought through trouble, recovered and reasserted himself to stay undefeated in defense of his featherweight crown, the World Boxing Organization’s version of the 126-pound title. The 27-year-old Lopez had the crowd chanting his name – JuanMa, JuanMa — in the opening rounds and again in the end for the stinging power in his hands and the young legs that carried him into trouble, out of it and finally up the ladder to stardom. Early on, JuanMa smiled and gestured at the crow, which included boyhood idol Felix Trinidad, as though he thought he was in for an easy night. His hands were faster; his legs younger. At the end of the first round, JuanMa bounced a succession of punches off Marquez (39-6, 35 KOs) at the rate of a pinball. After the bell sounded, he turned, smiled at his corner and waved his gloved hands in front of him as if to say it would end quickly. For the next two rounds, there was nothing to change his mind.
In the third, a short left hand from the left-handed Puerto Rican sent Marquez stumbling half way across the ring and into the ropes. How tough could it be? Turns out, very tough. The experienced Marquez caught Lopez with a head-rocking counter seconds after it looked as he might be finished in the third. In the fourth, the 35-year-old Mexican began to put together punches that looked like a lesson plan. Suddenly, JuanMa’s early success began to look like a mirage. Left-handed counters left JuanMa looking dazed, yet still on his feet.
“It’s going to happen,’’ JuanMa said. “”You get hit. He gets hit. He has tremendous power.’’
Translation: JuanMa endured that part of the lesson and survived, although his youth showed for a moment. He was penalized a point by referee Tony Weeks for hitting Marquez on the back of the head. He argued with Weeks after the round ended.
But the frustration dissipated as quickly as Marquez’ chances. Marquez began to look his old. That might have been because of an unspecified injury. “I was hurt before the fight,’’ said the Mexican great, whose thumb injury in August forced the fight to be postponed from Sept. 18. Marquez said he hurt his right shoulder in the third round. After the eighth, he told his corner about the injury.
“I can’t move it,’’ Marquez said he told trainer Daniel Zaragoza. Zaragoza asked him if would have to stop the fight. Then, somebody touched Marquez shoulder. He winced. The pain was evident. “I can’t go,’’ Marquez told Zaragosa. The injury happened sometime in the third round, said Marquez, who said it limited his ability to throw punches. “I couldn’t punch the way I always do,’’ he said, “If I could have I would have won the fight.’’
Marquez seemed to be saying that he wanted a rematch. Against a JuanMature, that might be a tough sequel.
Johnson scores 8th-round TKO over Green
It took a sub to make another one look sub-par. Glen Johnson made Alan Green look like a sub sandwich in the super-middleweight’s Super Six Classic Saturday night at the MGM Grand. Green went down easily against an older and much tougher Johnson.
The 41-year-old Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KOs), who looked more comfortable at 168 pounds than he has at light heavyweight (175), threw right hands early, later and almost at will. The 31-year-old Green (29-3, 10 KOs) had no counter, no defense and not much else other than perhaps a quick shuffle out of the Showtime tournament. Like hammer to nail, Johnson’s right hand finished the job at 36 seconds of the eighth round when at least two rights put Green down.
“ I knew that eventually he would move into a position where I could really land those punches,’’ said Johnson, whose fight-ending blows crashed off of Green’s left temples As he tried to get up, referee Robert Byrd looked and saw shaky legs, unsteady feet and uncertain eyes. Byrd had seen enough. As Byrd waved his arms, Green there was a hint of relief in his dazed eyes, even though he was leading on two of three scorecards. Judges Jerry Roth and Dick Houck had Green leading, 67-66. Johnson led, 68-65, on Burt Clements’ card. En route to his TKO victory, Johnson delivered an early message, a wicked overhand right, in the first round that must have told Green that next time he should try to get into a different kind of tournament. Table tennis, anyone? Green, Johnson’s longtime friend, backpedaled until there was nowhere to go. There was no refuge in retreat. Only the ropes. That’s where Green found himself near the end of third. Johnson caught him once in the back of the head.
Then, he followed with the right hand that already had displayed its power. The bell ended the round. But Green was in trouble. He stumbled in search of his stool. It was only a matter of time before he would find only defeat and an exit from the Super Six.
Knockouts are early theme on JuanMa-Marquez undercard
Derrick Campos (20-10, 11 KOs), a super-featherweight from Topeka, Kan., got up, close and personal with the canvas. Unbeaten Diego Magdaleno (17-0, 5 KOs) of Las Vegas made sure of it a in bout that was part of Showtime’s international telecast. Magdaleno put Campos down three times in four rounds. A left-right sent Campos tumbling in the final second of the first. A right hook sent down again in the third and encore right at 15 seconds of the fourth ended it.
Knockouts were the early story. Through the first three fights, they were the only story. The biggest was delivered by Washington D.C. lightweight Daniel Attah (25-6-1, 9 KOs), whose right hook at 1:55 of the second round almost sent Mexican Marvin Quintero (20-3, 16 KOs) skipping across the canvas like a flat stone on a pond. It took several minutes before Quintero could walk under his own power. He was helped onto stool at the center of the ring where he sat, dazed, while his corner men try to tell him what had happened. He was unconscious at the moment Attah’s right landed.
Attah only took a little bit longer than Jesse Magdaleno and McWilliams Arroyo did in the first two fights of the untelevised part of a card featuring featherweights Juan Manuel Lopez and Rafael Marquez.
In the night’s opener, Arroyo (5-1, 4 KOs), a Puerto Rican flyweight, won a by TKO at 2:55 of the first round over Mexican Cesar Grajeda (7-2, 1 KO,).
Magdaleno (1-0, 1 KO), a Las Vegas super-featherweight, won his debut with a TKO at 1:38 of the first over Matthew Salazar (1-3-1, 0 KOs) of Albuquerque.
The judges finally had some say-so in the night’s fourth fight, won by Las Vegas welterweight Anthony Lenk (8-1, 4 KOs), who scored a 6-round unanimous decision over formerly-unbeaten Danny Escobar (6-1, 5 KOs) of Riverside, Calif.
In the last fight before the card moved onto the Showtime stage, Cleveland lightweight Mickey Bey stayed unbeaten (16-0, 8 KOs) with a 6-round,unanimous decision over Erick Cruz (7-6-3, 7 KOS), a Puerto Rican who was on his knees in the second after he was rocked by a right-left combo.
