The Baby Bull Dispatches of the Action Hero

Juan Diaz won last night's battle for reclamation with a controversial split-decision win over fellow one-loss fighter Michael Katsidis. If you ask the Katsidis camp (or just Michael's delusional manager) they'll contend that they won the fight, however the only real controversy was over what that first judge had been smoking all evening. The Baby Bull took the fight to the all-action Katsidis, dominating the Aussie for roughly nine of the fight's 12 rounds. While it won't go down as the Fight of the Year that many predicted, it was an outstanding combination of beautiful boxing and pure tenacity. Diaz busted up Katsidis's face with never-ending attacks of jabs, right hands, and the occasional uppercut to gain the advantage, but also to keep the latter's attack at bay. The young Houston native showed that the best way to defeat a guy like Katsidis is to never stop punching, lest he give Katsidis any windows to mount a serious attack. Katsidis was taken to an area hospital after the fight where it was learned he'd suffered a broken hand, which in hindsight explains a lot about the fighter's tactics in the championship rounds. Chicago smile! Rocky Juarez, the other local favorite, was the victor in a great undercard battle against rough-and-tumble Jorge Barrios when the fight was stopped in the eleventh round due to a huge gash. Once again Juarez looked quite tentative in the early-going, but eventually he picked up the pace and began to visibly tire out his opponent. Barrios was clearly winded from several body shots, and he didn't seem at all comfortable with his mouth piece for most of the night. In the eleventh these two factors collided when Barrios was caught sucking wind with his mouth open only to have it shut forcefully by another Juarez barrage. The attack left Barrios spurting blood from a flap of skin that was once part of the fighter's lip. Not good times. The fall of Khan. Amir Khan, the supposed next big thing out of the United Kingdom, was placed firmly on his ass in a first round knockout loss to fellow undefeated fighter Breides Prescott of Colombia. Yeah, that's a shame, idnit? Image by Julio Cortez of the Houston Chronicle. Congratulations to fellow blogger, and master of the fistic arts, David " Large" Larzelere on the birth of his son. May he always keep his gloves up.