Silgado Knocked Out as Lebedev Retains WBA Title
By Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media Correspondent
*All photos Copyright Robert Brizel, Real Combat Media, All Rights Reserved
Brooklyn, NY (December 18th, 2012)– The dream of 23-0 cruiserweight boxer Santander ‘Cha Cha’ Silgado, a Colombian fighting out of Brooklyn, New York, ended in disappointment when World Boxing Association Interim Cruiserweight title holder Denis Lebedev. a 25-1 Russian southpaw, knocked him out in the fourth round at 2:16 to win the vacant full WBA World Cruiserweight title.
Silgado has been a frequent sight at Aviator Arena in Brooklyn in 2012, and won three consecutive eight rounds decisions in the main event at Aviator: two over Joell Godfrey; and one over Willie Herring. But he appeared slow and powerless in these last three local bouts against limited fighters, and Silgado did not establish himself as a legitimate ten round fighter or world ranked contender despite his 23-0 record.
In fact, the longest fight Silgado had coming into this world title fight was a nine round decision-that’s right-a nine round decision (not ten) over 15-18-2 Sergio Martin Beaz in Argentina four years ago. Silgado’s lack of experience pales next to Lebedev, who went 12 rounds in WBA and WBO world title bouts with Marco Huck and James Toney, and ten rounds with Roy Jones-all in the last 24 months.
The loss occurred for one simple reason-Havoc Boxing Promotions overprotected the fighter by not giving him some beneficial step up fights. Silgado was not yet a ten round fighter, and as such should not have been in a 12 round title fight.
The title opportunity for Silgado happened by sheer luck.
Guillermo Jones of Panama, the longtime World Boxing Association Cruiserweight champion, specialized in avoiding title defenses. After winning the WBA world cruiserweight title in 2008 by stopping First Arlsan in the tenth round in Germany, he waited over two years before stopping challenger Valery Brudov in the eleventh round in Panama in 2010-a two year period of inactivity in which, amazingly, the WBA did not strip Jones of his title. A year passed before Jones defended his WBA title against Michael Marrone by sixth round stoppage in Florida in 2011. Marrone, a heavyweight, not a cruiserweight, somehow qualified for the Jones world title bout despite having lost three of previous five fights.
Jones was supposed to defend his WBA cruiserweight title against Andres Taylor of Pennsylvania, who was knocked out in the twelfth round by USBA champion Garrett Wilson in April 2012. Jones back out of the Taylor WBA defense, and finally got stripped of the belt for refusing to fight Lebedev. Taylor traveled to Germany, where he promptly lost a ten rounder to 15-0 Rakhim Chakhkiev.
Silgado will probably go back to fighting on local Brooklyn New York cards again for Havoc Boxing Promotions, who represents him, in thehopesof getting another world title shot. However, Silgado is not yet a ten round fighter and has never beaten a contender or opponent of note. If the Havoc people are interested, they could always make a step up fight in with 40 year old Guillermo Jones, 38 year old O’Neil Bell, or 37 year old Wayne Braithwaite, former champions past their prime who should provide the ultimate test to decide once and for all if Santander Silgado can beat a real world class fighter-or not.
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