Editor's Note: Part 2
Reasonable people can disagree, as the saying goes, but there is one criterion that is most important in considering a great prizefight: Does it entertain?
Be not boring. That's the first commandment. Then you consider layers: How many different ways a prizefight entertains how many times. Like all enduring things, a great prizefight must be simple enough to enthrall initially and then complicated enough to reveal more on each return. It must stay beyond the powers of its appraisers.
There are at least three ways a great prizefight entertains. First, there must be action: A high level of activity by both combatants. Second, there must be competitiveness: The winner must be in danger of losing. Third, there must be consequence: A great prizefight must be for supremacy of the craft.
A few thousand words from now I'll return to this third element as a reason there should be no Vazquez-Marquez IV any time soon. But for now, let's begin a celebratory return to this year's best fight.
On August 4, 2007, Israel Vazquez stopped Rafael Marquez in the sixth round of their rematch to become the world's best super bantamweight. The next afternoon I sent a simple request to my editor Marc Abrams: Wherever in the world Vazquez-Marquez III happens, let me cover it. Rumors soon swirled that the rubber match would happen in Mexico City. Such were international ambitions. By the time the fight was announced, though, it would happen in Carson, Calif., on March 3.
I planned to fly into LAX on Friday morning, take a cab to some motel near the Home Depot Center and make do. But on Wednesday afternoon 15rounds.com's co-founder John Raygoza called with a considerable change in plans. He would pick me up from the airport, rent me a car and have a room ready at Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown.
It was a reunion of sorts. John was the first boxing writer I ever met. Years ago, while writing a weekly column for a small website in Phoenix, I e-mailed the author of a story about Jesus "El Martillo" Gonzales. John replied five minutes later. We soon began making road trips to Tucson fight cards. A year after that I joined 15rounds.com.
John's fortunes had improved a great deal since then. His search-engine-optimization company was successful enough to fill the entire floor of a downtown Los Angeles office building. He had a full staff and, not surprisingly, a heavy bag in an adjacent office.
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| Israel Vazquez' name will be mentioned whenever there's talk about legendary fights. (Getty Images) |
Whereas Las Vegas fights come with a full promotion and site fee, other prizefights require heavy lifting by promoters. Fight week in Las Vegas is filled with reminders. The participants are ubiquitous; their faces are on your hotel room key-card. Los Angeles, on the other hand, was oblivious to what Carson hosted.
The weigh-in was an odd spectacle. Its fantastic overcrowding and disorder suggested one reason its whereabouts were kept quiet. There was a small stage near the entrance of a convention room. There was a collection of tables with officials milling round them, stage right.
In a room filled with stern looking folks there were only three friendly faces. Veteran fight scribe Robert Morales, then with 15rounds.com, Mexican great Marco Antonio Barrera, then considering a return to the ring, and trainer Nacho Beristain, longtime mentor of Rafael Marquez and his brother Juan Manuel.
Morales graciously pointed me towards a person who might have my media credential. Barrera answered a couple of perfunctory questions while posing for pictures. Beristain showed me all the seriousness and courtesy I'd learned to expect from him during our conversations in Tucson four months earlier.
"Initiate, initiate, initiate," Beristain said. "Rafael must initiate."
That would make the difference, Beristain assured me. The fighters were of equivalent reflexes. They were of similar skill sets. They both hit hard. Whoever initiated would win the rubber match.
I wrote a weigh-in report and began the drive back to Los Angeles. If there is a time traffic is sparse on that city's freeways, I did not find it -- not on a Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, Saturday evening or Sunday morning. The entire city seems to function on a barter system. Nothing works particularly well, and everyone knows some way to get around this hindrance or that inconvenience. The locals find this charming. Outsiders have myriad other words for it.
That evening I met John Raygoza and our site's other founder, Ted Molina, for drinks. Unbeknownst to many readers, Ted is often the man behind 15rounds.com's technical infrastructure and improvements. The three of us sat in the Sheraton Lobby Lounge and shared stories. John explained why he has eschewed media credentials for the last three years.
"Sometimes you don't want to be quiet," he said. "Sometimes you just want to buy a ticket, be a fan and yell for your guy."
The next morning I awoke and did some eschewing of my own. Despite having an SUV to drive anywhere I wished, I walked across the street to a Starbucks on 7th & Figueroa -- lest a tangle of traffic and one-way streets undo the whole purpose of my trip six hours later.
I sat and read Peter Mayle's A Good Year and marveled at how much better the movie was. Then came the usual nervousness. Logistics, credentials, the chance of rain. And words, words, words. There would be no excuse for not finding adequate words that night. A great spectacle was guaranteed. An apt description must follow.
Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com
