FOTY Candidates?

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In 2005, an unbeaten kid from Magangua with heavy hands and fighting out of Barranquilla took a dangerous fight on short notice. His name was Ricardo "Mochuelo" Torres and he traveled to New Jersey to meet WBO light welterweight super champion Miguel Cotto. Not knowing who he was or how many rounds he could stay in front of the Puerto Rican idol, Larry Merchant wondered: "Who knows what we have here." Merchant got his answer 1:99 seconds into the first round, when Torres hurt Cotto with a jolting left hook. Twenty-four seconds into the second and another rattling left hook made it crystal clear: "This guy has a tremendous punching power!" Eventually, Cotto survived the surprise life-and-death battle, but that fight once again put Colombian fighters on the boxing landscape--this time as bombers and bangers.

After winning WBO light welterweight title against tough Mike Arnaoutis, Torres defended it twice (once against Kendall Holt in Barranquilla) before losing it to Holt a year later in Las Vegas. Many observers thought Holt had been the victim of a punishing head butt that finished him at the 1:01 mark of the first round after he decked Holt twice and had him ready to go. Then, 10 months later, he faced countryman Raul Pinzon, 16-2(15) coming in, and this one surprisingly turned out to be a war of epic proportions (and the fact it was fought under the radar in Barranquilla made it all the more intriguing). As James Slater describes it in a May 12, 2009 piece:

Knocked down in the opening round, the fourth round and in the seventh round, Torres was behind on all three official cards going into the 10th and last round. Told by his corner he needed to score a KO to save the day, the fighter who has never been short on guts and courage did just that. Downing a tired Pinzon three times in an amazing final round, Torres pulled out a comeback win courtesy of a stoppage at 2 minutes and nine-seconds of the 10th round.

Dramatic and admirable Torres' win was, but this much of a handful was not what he needed in such a fight. Was the ten month layoff at least partly to blame? Was welterweight too high a weight for Torres to box at? Did Torres underestimate Pinzon? Or, least appealing of all, is the former WBO champ shot or close to it? We will find out in the coming months, as there seems little to no chance the Barranquilla native will retire. 29-year-old Torres is now 33-2(29), 29-year-old Pinzon - who may have made a real name for himself - is now 16-3(15).

Anyone who was lucky enough to have seen this one will never forget it, particularly the backward somersaults that Pinzon took when he got blasted in the tenth and final stanza. In any normal year, it would be a fight-of-the-year winner, but this is not a normal year because this is the year when Irishman Bernard Dunne stopped Ricardo "Maestrito" Cordoba in even more dramatic fashion in March. Thus, Torres-Pinzon probably will be relegated to mere closet classic status, but what a closet classic it was.