Showtime ShoBox Recap

 

November 21, 2008

Casino Rama-Rama, Ontario, Canada

 

IBF Junior Featherweight/WBA Super Bantamweight (122 pounds) 12-Round Championship Unification Match:

Steve Molitor (28-0, 11 KO's, 121.6 pounds) (IBF Junior Featherweight Champion) vs. Celestino Caballero (30-2, 21 KO's, 121.6 pounds) (WBA Super Bantamweight Champion)

 

Molitor won his IBF Junior Featherweight Championship when it was vacant via knockout at 1:32 of round 5 over Michael Hunter on November 10, 2006 at Borough Hall in Hartlepool, England. The previous champion was Israel Vazquez who vacated the championship to take a bigger match with Oscar Larios. This is Molitor's sixth title defense.

 

Caballero originally won a freshly created interim version of the WBA Junior Bantamweight Championship via 12-round unanimous decision over Yober Ortega on October 15, 2005 at Centro de Convenciones Figali in Panama City, Panama. The resident of Panama City's title was unified with the full WBA Championship, when Caballero defeated the reigning champion Somsak Sithchatchawal via technical knockout at 1:48 of round 3 on October 4, 2006 in Wat Ban Rai, Thailand. Caballero is making his sixth defense of the full version of this championship.

 

Molitor had a solid amateur boxing career where he won 5 national amateur titles, but lost in his bid to qualify for the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympiad.

 

The Canadian is a slick defensive minded southpaw that tends to go to decisions or when he does score knockouts they come very late in the match. Of his last 6 knockouts 4 came in round 8 or later.

 

Molitor's last match was a technical knockout victory at 2:34 of round 10 over Ceferino Dario Labarda on August 29, 2008 at the same building that is hosting this event. All of Molitor's title defenses have come at Casino Rama.

 

Molitor is The Ring magazine's number 4 contender at 122 pounds to their champion in the weight class, Israel Vazquez.

 

Caballero is huge for a boxer at 122 pounds. At 5' 11" tall and with a 72" wingspan, Caballero would make for a good sized 154-pounder. He is able to produce a lot of power out of his lean frame and has knocked out his last 3 opponents and 4 of his 5 title defenses have not gone the distance.

 

The Panamanian is used to boxing in a hostile environment. Caballero has said he feels less pressure boxing in his opponent's home arena then in Panama City. During his run as WBA Champion Caballero went to Thailand and defeated Sithchatchawal and made a title defense in Venezuela against Lorenzo Parra. Most boxers pass on title opportunities in those countries, because it is notoriously hard to win in those environments.

 

Caballero's last match was a technical knockout victory at 2:51 of round 1 over Elvis Meija on September 18, 2008 at the Centro de Convenciones Figali.

 

Caballero is The Ring's number 2 contender at 122 pounds.

 

At 28-years-old, Molitor is 4 years younger then the 32-year-old Caballero. Caballero will have the height advantage standing 5' 11" tall, while Molitor stands 5' 7" tall. The native of Panama has the reach advantage with a 72" wingspan compared to the 67" wingspan of Molitor. The IBF requires boxers to weigh-in again on the day of the match within 10 pounds of their official weigh-in weights. At the 7 AM weigh-in both boxers weighed 129.2 pounds. The opening bell is going to sound for this match at 11:23 PM, therefore both boxers have probably added several pounds since then. Neither boxers' unofficial weight approaching match time is available. However, Caballero has historically had problems making weight and should be the heavier boxer in the ring. Molitor will employ the southpaw stance and Caballero will box out of the orthodox stance.

 

The unified rules of boxing are in effect for this match with the modification that both the referee and doctor can stop the match. The judges keeping official score of this match from ringside are from Connecticut, New Jersey and Ohio. The referee is Luis Pabon. Pabon was the referee for Caballero's last 2 matches, as well.

 

Caballero is more aggressive and wins round 1 easily, 10-9. The Panamanian wins round 2, 10-9. Caballero has severe difficulties boxing backing up or boxing on the inside. However, Molitor is not pressuring Caballero. Instead, Molitor is backing away from the larger boxer which is giving Caballero essentially free shots. Caballero is landing his punches on the outside, while using his gargantuan reach to keep Molitor so far away that the Canadian cannot even touch graze with a punch. Caballero's 2 losses have both come decisively to boxers who employ the southpaw stance. Caballero has a huge defensive liability where he holds his hands low that open himself up for southpaws to easily land power shots with their left hand. However, Molitor backing up is taking that punch out of his repertoire. Caballero had fun out boxing Molitor in round 3 and took the round, 10-9. Caballero at times was forcing Molitor to be the one to punch first. Then whenever the natural counter puncher rushed in, Caballero would time the rush and hit him. Whenever, Caballero would initiate the action, Molitor would be unable to counter the bigger boxer. After 3 rounds, Caballero leads on my scorecard, 30-27. Both Steve Farhood and Nick Charles, who are the Showtime broadcast team for this event, have Caballero ahead after 3 rounds, 30-27.

 

With 2:30 to go in round 4, a right uppercut sends Molitor to the mat. That is only the second time Molitor has been on the canvas in his pro career. With 2:17 to go, Molitor satisfactorily answers the referee's count, but is in real bad shape. Molitor fell back into the ropes standing up and is staggering a little. The Canadian probably would not have been able to stand by the count of 10 if he had not fallen into the ropes to help him gain his balance. Caballero follows up and with 2:09 to go in the round the referee stops the match. Molitor's legs were buckling and he was going down when the referee stepped in to stop the match. Molitor was not going to make it out of the round. However, many times the hometown boxer is given more of a chance, but Molitor was only going to take more unnecessary punches if the match continued. The crowd is angry, but it was a good stoppage. It appears Molitor's corner was on the ring apron to throw in the towel. On replay it is clear, Molitor's corner threw in the towel and the referee may have been going to stop it at the same time. Following the stoppage, Caballero collapses in tears of joy on the mat. The greatest Panamanian boxer in history, Roberto Duran, is coming in the ring to celebrate with Caballero.

 

The final outcome from Jake Gutierrez is: at 52 seconds of round 4 the referee has stopped the contest making the winner by technical knockout and now unified IBF Junior Featherweight and WBA Super Bantamweight Champion of the World, Celestino "Pelenchin" Caballero. The win moves Caballero to 31-2 with now 22 wins coming by way of knockout.

 

Molitor said in his post match interview that he thought he could keep going when the match was stopped. However, his trainer said that the referee stopped the match while he (the trainer) was on the apron to throw in the towel. The referee never saw Molitor's trainer. Molitor's trainer threw his towel into the ring at Molitor so the referee would see it just as the referee was getting to Molitor to wave off the match. Molitor said he would look at the video tape and see, since both the referee and his corner thought he was finished. Molitor is probably pretty fuzzy on what happened, and may have a mild concussion. Interviews with boxers who may be concussed should really be stopped. There is no way Molitor accurately remembers those few minutes.

 

Caballero said in his post match interview that he wants all the belts at 122 pounds. He then issued the expected challenge to Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez.

 

Caballero dominated from the opening bell in this match. He is the logical next contender to Vazquez. Caballero is an aggressive action boxer that could make for an exciting match with Vazquez or Marquez. However, Caballero is so defensively flawed that he is unlikely to come out on the winning end of either match up. There is a high likelihood both Marquez and Vazquez would knockout Caballero in an exciting and short match.

 

This was Molitor's debut on English language television in the United States and it could not have gone worse. He appeared to have problems with elite aggressive boxers. Molitor will need some quality wins on television in the United States to rehab his image following this loss.

 

 

This match was never competitive and the show is an easy skip.

 

 

News and Notes: Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe is making a comeback. He is scheduled to face an opponent that is still to be determined on the undercard of Wladimir Klitschko vs. Hasim Rahman in Mannheim, Germany on December 13. The Klitschko match will be carried on HBO, Bowe's match will not.

 

Antonio Margarito has decided to not face Shane Mosley on January 24 on HBO. It appears Margarito wants to wait until summer 2009 to have his next match be a PPV rematch with Miguel Cotto. Margarito was offered $2 million guaranteed to face Mosley. However, Margarito feels he can make more by waiting for the rematch with Cotto. Their original PPV did 450,000 buys. Almost all of those buys can be attributed to Cotto. A large part of the reason Margarito-Cotto I did so well on PPV was because Cotto had the image of an unstoppable brawler that was supposed to defeat Margarito and then face Oscar De La Hoya in De La Hoya's farewell match on December 6. The aura of the unbeatable Cotto is gone and so is the hype for a De La Hoya match. Therefore, Margarito's wallet may significantly regret this choice.

 

It appears Andre Berto is now going to get the call to face Shane Mosley on January 24. Berto will not get $2 million to face Mosley.

 

On Thursday the United States Olympic boxing team was taken off probation. It had been on probation since 2002 for organizational issues.

 

Gambling is one of the more common reason college teams are put on probation by the NCAA. However, Las Vegas does not take bets on amateur boxing. Las Vegas as a rule doe not like to allow gambling on sporting events that can be decided by subjective judging. There are only 3 sports that can be determined by judging that Las Vegas will always take bets on: professional boxing, MMA and women's Olympic figure skating. There is not enough interest for Las Vegas to put up lines on any other ice skating event. Besides the people who want to bet on the world championships of ice dancing need the same type of help that the guys who bet the last pre-season NFL game do.

 

 

The next recap will come out tomorrow covering the HBO event that is being headlined by Ricky Hatton vs. Paulie Malignaggi.