Trinidad-Mayorga Highlights Big Boxing Week

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The New York Sun

Two fight cards separated by a single block are on tap for New York this week.


The hors d’oeuvre comes on Thursday night, when DiBella Entertainment promotes a seven-bout card in the Grand Ballroom of the Manhattan Center at 311 West 34th Street.


Then, on Saturday night, Don King emcees the return of Felix Trinidad (41-1, 34 KOs) against Ricardo Mayorga (27-4-1, 23 KOs) at Madison Square Garden.


DiBella’s show features a scheduled 10-round battle between junior middleweights Sechew Powell (13-0, KOs) and George Armenta (12-3, 10 KOs).


Powell is favored. After a successful amateur career, he’s 13-0 as a pro. But Armenta is a credible opponent, who has won eight of his last nine fights, including a fourth-round knockout of former Olympian Dante Craig. Also, Powell’s last outing raised more questions than it answered about his skills.


Powell was born and raised in Brooklyn. He decided he wanted to become a fighter in 1988, when he was 8-yearsold.


“We lived on Prospect Place,” Powell remembers. “Mike Tyson had an aunt who lived across the street. The night Tyson beat Michael Spinks, he came back to Brooklyn to visit. A big white limo pulled up. Mike got out with all of his championship belts strapped around him. Right then, I knew I wanted to fight. After that, I bugged my dad for months. ‘I want to be a fighter; I want to be a fighter.’ He didn’t take me seriously; but finally, he took me to Gleason’s Gym.”


Until June 17 of this year, Powell was considered a rising star. That night, in his first fight on national television, he was knocked down and hurt by a tough journeyman named Grady Brewer and barely escaped with a one-point split decision win.


“That’s the first time I was ever knocked down,” Powell says. “What happened was, I lost focus for a second and got caught.”


How does a boxer lose focus when someone is trying to knock his head off?


“It happens,” Powell explains. “It’s not like you’re thinking about going to the movies or what you’ll have for dinner after the fight. It can be something like, ‘Am I winning this round?’ or ‘I wonder how the judges are scoring the fight.’ Just for a moment, you’re not concentrating one hundred percent on your opponent and what you’re doing technically at that time.”


“The punch Brewer caught me with shook me up,” Powell admits. “It affected me for the rest of the fight, because I never got my head completely together after that. Physically, I wasn’t right. But I won and I’m proud of that.”


In the evening’s co-featured bout, lightweight prospect Koba Gogoladze (15-0, 7 KOs) faces off against Marteze Logan (14-9-2, 2 KOs) in a scheduled eight-round contest.


***


If DiBella’s show is blue-collar, Don King will be offering lots of glitz. In addition to Trinidad and Mayorga, the Garden card also features Travis Simms (23-0, 18 KOs) against Bronco McKart (47-5, 31 KOs) for the WBA junior-middleweight crown and Rosendo Alvarez, (32-2-2, 21 KOs) taking on Antonio Mendoza, (30-2, 24 KOs) for the WBA 108-pound championship. Zab Judah (31-2, 22 KOs) will see action against Wayne Martell (24-2, 15 KOs) in a non-title fight.


Simms, Alvarez, and Judah are all favored. But no matter how many courses are served, all eyes will be on Trinidad, who is returning to the ring after a 29-month “retirement.”


“I want to hear the crowd roaring and chanting my name,” the 31-year-old Trinidad says of his comeback. “I want that moment again.” Mayorga thinks that that Felix will be a less formidable fighter than he was before the layoff. “Once you retire from boxing,” Ricardo opines, “boxing leaves your heart.”


Mayorga is tough and a hard puncher, but he’s also one-dimensional. If Trinidad has anything left (and the guess here is that he does), he should knock Mayorga out.


***


Boxing fans who stay home on Saturday night can choose between King’s pay-per-view card and a tripleheader on Showtime. In the latter, Jeff Lacy (16-0, 13 KOs) faces off against Syd Vanderpool (35-2, 23 KOs) for the vacant International Boxing Federation 168-pound title.


Kassim Ouma (19-1-1, 13 KOs) challenges Verno Phillips (38-8-1, 20 KOs) for the IBF 154-pound belt. And heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko (42-3, 39 KOs) returns to the ring against DaVarryl Williamson (20-2, 17 KOs).


Lacy is the first of the 2000 Olympians to fight for a world championship. But in today’s world of devalued titles, he’ll have to beat someone better than Vanderpool to be recognized as a legitimate king.


Ouma-Phillips shapes up as an exciting fight, with Ouma expected to win. Klitschko and Williamson both have suspect stamina and questionable chins. But Klitschko is bigger and better and should prevail.


The New York Sun

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