GOLDEN BOY BOXING

BY JOHN MASTALIR jmastalir@yahoo.com

GOLDEN BOY BOXING....that is, boxing promoted by The Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya and his company. This event the lead in to the Mosley-Mayweather match the following night...promoters often do an event on the eve of a big fight to help stir interest in the following event or give those of interest a place to go with less hassle. True here !

Worked perfectly here with 6 matches at the Tropicana in Las Vegas across the street from M and M at the MGM the next night. It has been awhile since the Tropicana hosted a match...not a new venue...Marco Antonio Barrera fought here in his early days...also not new to this reporter who has covered matches at 47 venues in Las Vegas. Not bad here, with comfortable accutriments...usual negatives starting late and lots of dead time between matches...some of this for TV and some not.

On this card date the promotion, the preview and THE EVENT the message. Oscar really attends as does Mike Tyson, Erik Morales, Tommy Hearns among others who are all on their best behavior and available to the fans who wish autographs or some access to boxing heroes...something not available at the MGM...really this the bottom line for the card itself for a fair price and the chance to rub elbows...a nice event !

Oh yeah boxing....most of it like all events...they are what they are and you only have the potential of the unknown and undetermined for real fans to witness.

Main event Rober Guerrero 26-1-1 (18kos) TKO at 29 seconds of the eighth round over Roberto Arrieta 35-16-4...the loser with 15 losses coming in and 55 fights now hardly a headliner.... and with 3 or 4 losses everyone falls into the journeyman category.

Co-Main Frankie Gomez 2-0 second round TKO over Ricardo Malfavon 0-2...records ? ? ?

Heavyweights opened the card Deontay Wilder 10-0 a third round knockout over Alvaro Morales 4-8-5...Wilder 2008 Bronze medalist needs to step up !

3 more bouts with insignificant competition...this a card as is common at this level with all the fighters in the red corner winners...the red corner home to Golden Boy controller boxers...in the old days Top Rank used to do this and we had a media contest to pick the winners...it was always tough to go against the homers who always had the best pre fight records...... GBP fighters 6-0 on this nicht. Nice press kit and acces for all this...making the reporters job easy. It is what it is.

As a reporter I am always glad to see real boxing live and thank the promoters for the event...this one with Oscar De La Hoya's name on it always first class.

Thanks Oscar...hopefully more to come for this reporter in the best city of them all.

85 B