In the most important fight of the weekend, Junior Witter defended his WBC junior welterweight belt by stopping former champ Vivian Harris in 7 rounds. Despite the fact that he was the favorite, I think this is a very impressive win for Witter, who has been calling out Ricky Hatton for ages. I don't know if he'll be getting his hands on Hatton any time soon, but this win should open the door to bigger fights. Honestly, I wasn't that sold on Witter before last night, but from what I understand he put on an impressive performance in Doncaster. Maybe one of you UK readers who actually saw the fight can give us a few more details about it. One thing's for sure, after this loss, we probably won't be hearing from Vivian Harris again for a while. At best, a Friday Night Fights slot next season.
Speaking of which: Zab Judah won a comfortable 10-round decision over journeyman Edwin Vasquez in the FNF Season Finale. Believe it or not, this is Judah's first win in over two years, and the first one in his last five fights (Losses to Baldomir, Mayweather and Cotto, and a NC against Ruben Galvan). Yet Judah thinks his next fight ought to be another superfight. He actually had the balls to call out the winner of Cotto-Mosley last night. In my honest opinion, Judah looked far from impressive in beating Vasquez. Consider this: Vasquez's record was 3-5-2 in his previous 10 fights. Judah couldn't even knock him down. He kept his hands down all night, looking to land a KO uppercut that he was never able to land. The winner of Cotto-Mosley? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Go out and beat somebody, Zab. And I'm not talking about kicking some poor-ass guy in the face when he's already on the ground:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2015089624
(Yeah, that's really Zab kicking some poor-ass guy in the face when he's already on the ground). I'm talking about a decent opponent. Go fight Margarito, Clottey, Collazo, Demetrius Hopkins. Rack up a little winning streak. Then we can talk.
As an aside, Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley were the in-studio guest analysts last night, and, boy, there was not a shred of animosity in the air. They might as well have been holding hands. On the one hand, it's nice to see sportsmanship and professionalism during the promotional campaign, but these two were just way too chill. When Kenny asked both fighters how the fight would play out, they were both like, "Well, you know, it's gonna be a good fight." They didn't even predict victories for themselves! I have to say, though, I'm impressed with how much Cotto keeps growing as a professional: sitting there with Kenny with no translator in sight when two years ago he wouldn't dare utter a word in English to Larry Merchant. Of course, the truth is, we don't need animosity or hatred in this promotion. We all know how fake that usually is. And we all know that styles make fights, and this one is destined to be a very, very good one. I was going on about it last night, and when I woke up this morning, my girlfriend gave me a print-out of two Ticketmaster tickets. Cotto-Mosley. November 10th. The Garden. I have the coolest girlfriend in the world. And I'll motherfucking be there.