Gamer
11-30-2010, 09:19 PM
c/p By Chris Robinson
Heading into last Saturday night the stock was pretty high on Celestino Caballero. A two-time champion in the super bantamweight division, the dynamic Panamanian had been calling out the likes of Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa for a few years but had to settle for Minnesota’s Jason Litzau at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was a contest that Caballero was expected to win handily but in one of the year's biggest upsets he would lose a split decision to his brawling counterpart.
Known best for his rangy attack and volume punching, Caballero was completely out of sync as Litzau had success bullying the 34-year old around the ring on certain occasions while weathering whatever punishment came his way. It’s back to the drawing board for Caballero and his trainer Jeff Mayweather concedes that it was almost painful watching everything unfold.
“It was very, very frustrating,” Mayweather stated. “I feel bad, not just for me, but for Celestino as well. Because he’s worked so hard to get big fights and he ran into a bump in the road to a guy who didn’t have the talent that he had. It’s an unfortunate situation and a lot of fighters go through it. Every fighter is entitled to an off night but sometimes when you have an off night you have to find a way to rise above it and unfortunately Celestino, he just didn’t have it. I thought the fight could have went either way. That was Litzau at his best and Celestino at his worst.”
Earlier this year Caballero moved up from the junior featherweight division to 126 pounds but had to face Litzau at 130 after failing to find any suitable opponents. That makes it all the more surprising that Caballero initially weighed a pound and a half over the limit before shaking the weight off in an hour’s time and Mayweather feels some obvious mistakes were made.
“I think that what happened is probably that with the pound and a half over was because he was weighing himself on a scale that wasn’t right and the second part is that he had the mentality that most fighters do when they move up in weight, which is they think they have room to play with and they don’t,” Mayweather stated bluntly.
Digging into the situation further, Mayweather was sure to give all credit to Litzau, pointing out that he came prepared and gave a great effort, but was also sure to note just how much time Caballero had been spending in various gyms in Las Vegas over the past four months. They like to say that fights are won during training camp and it appears that Caballero may have extended himself a bit too much.
“He had a fight scheduled before this one,” Mayweather said of Caballero. “He was here in camp for about six weeks waiting for the fight to happen and it never materialized. So then he took two weeks off and came right back. Once he came right back he went right back into camp. This camp was probably about nine weeks. Training that long probably had more effect on him than anything. I think he was worn out but the signs weren’t really there for me to say ‘Let’s pull back’ because he was just being himself. It was a misjudgment or miscalculation on my part and his as well.”
Some in the industry are going as far as pointing to Caballero’s demise following his lackluster effort, as bouncing back from a loss in your mid-thirties in the lower weight divisions is no easy task no matter how talented you are. I asked Mayweather if he felt that either Lopez or Gamboa would be more open to facing Caballero seeing as though he showed some weakness on Saturday night but he seems to think the opposite.
“To be honest, no. I think that basically all that does is give them bragging rights. It allows them to be able to talk trash as to why they aren’t going to waste their time fighting him. Because realistically they are fighters and fighters know other fighters can have an off night. They just hope that they aren’t really on that night. Celestino isn’t going to look like that the next time out and they know that as well.”
Heading into last Saturday night the stock was pretty high on Celestino Caballero. A two-time champion in the super bantamweight division, the dynamic Panamanian had been calling out the likes of Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa for a few years but had to settle for Minnesota’s Jason Litzau at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was a contest that Caballero was expected to win handily but in one of the year's biggest upsets he would lose a split decision to his brawling counterpart.
Known best for his rangy attack and volume punching, Caballero was completely out of sync as Litzau had success bullying the 34-year old around the ring on certain occasions while weathering whatever punishment came his way. It’s back to the drawing board for Caballero and his trainer Jeff Mayweather concedes that it was almost painful watching everything unfold.
“It was very, very frustrating,” Mayweather stated. “I feel bad, not just for me, but for Celestino as well. Because he’s worked so hard to get big fights and he ran into a bump in the road to a guy who didn’t have the talent that he had. It’s an unfortunate situation and a lot of fighters go through it. Every fighter is entitled to an off night but sometimes when you have an off night you have to find a way to rise above it and unfortunately Celestino, he just didn’t have it. I thought the fight could have went either way. That was Litzau at his best and Celestino at his worst.”
Earlier this year Caballero moved up from the junior featherweight division to 126 pounds but had to face Litzau at 130 after failing to find any suitable opponents. That makes it all the more surprising that Caballero initially weighed a pound and a half over the limit before shaking the weight off in an hour’s time and Mayweather feels some obvious mistakes were made.
“I think that what happened is probably that with the pound and a half over was because he was weighing himself on a scale that wasn’t right and the second part is that he had the mentality that most fighters do when they move up in weight, which is they think they have room to play with and they don’t,” Mayweather stated bluntly.
Digging into the situation further, Mayweather was sure to give all credit to Litzau, pointing out that he came prepared and gave a great effort, but was also sure to note just how much time Caballero had been spending in various gyms in Las Vegas over the past four months. They like to say that fights are won during training camp and it appears that Caballero may have extended himself a bit too much.
“He had a fight scheduled before this one,” Mayweather said of Caballero. “He was here in camp for about six weeks waiting for the fight to happen and it never materialized. So then he took two weeks off and came right back. Once he came right back he went right back into camp. This camp was probably about nine weeks. Training that long probably had more effect on him than anything. I think he was worn out but the signs weren’t really there for me to say ‘Let’s pull back’ because he was just being himself. It was a misjudgment or miscalculation on my part and his as well.”
Some in the industry are going as far as pointing to Caballero’s demise following his lackluster effort, as bouncing back from a loss in your mid-thirties in the lower weight divisions is no easy task no matter how talented you are. I asked Mayweather if he felt that either Lopez or Gamboa would be more open to facing Caballero seeing as though he showed some weakness on Saturday night but he seems to think the opposite.
“To be honest, no. I think that basically all that does is give them bragging rights. It allows them to be able to talk trash as to why they aren’t going to waste their time fighting him. Because realistically they are fighters and fighters know other fighters can have an off night. They just hope that they aren’t really on that night. Celestino isn’t going to look like that the next time out and they know that as well.”