Baldomir Too Strong for Gatti
Sunday July 23, 2006
Arturo Gatti was every bit the equal of welterweight champ Carlos Baldomir in the toughness department. Unfortunately for Gatti, he was completely overmatched in terms of pure physical strength. Baldomir, an extremely solid, natural welterweight, steadily and methodically broke Gatti down over the course of nine rounds. Gatti landed plenty of clean shots of his own, but they had no effect whatsoever on the iron-chinned Baldomir. In the ninth, Gatti - who had been eating right hands all night - was dropped by a vicious left hook. Gatti - as he always does - showed tremendous heart in climbing off the deck to continue ... but, on this night, there was to be no miraculous comeback as Baldomir quickly floored Gatti a second time and the fight was waved off without a count at 2:50 of the ninth.
After the fight, Baldomir - who proved conclusively that his January win over Zab Judah was no fluke - called on Floyd Mayweather Jr. to step up and fight the "true" welterweight champ. Ricky Hatton or Antonio Margarito would also make fascinating opponents for Baldomir. Gatti, who has provided as many thrills for boxing fans as any fighter in the past 20 years, said that he would take some time off and give serious consideration to retiring from the sport.
Comments
The Gatti vs. Baldomir bout demonstrated the need for a
one-hour before the bout weigh-in
and the requirement to be within five ( 5 ) pounds of the required weight. I
suspect Baldomir weighed considerably more than 147 pounds on fight night. I have seen all too many fights where boxers at fight time were far over the weight limit. Severe de-hydrating to make weight is dangerous and all should be boxing in appropriate weight division. I was sorry to see Gatti lose. I do feel he was battling a tough man that was not a true welterweight.
it was a tremendous fight, i know ur a fan of gatti, but if ur not so bias about the game. u will see that baldomir was also in great shape and has heavier hands than gatti. so he floored him twice and not even made it to stand up. just be the one to tap on gatti’s shoulder and say…better luck next time dude. i love seeing an upset
and one thing more kiddo…i won lots of dollars when baldomir won.