Angel Manfredy cannot accept defeat. It is one of the reasons he is a good fighter. When he was stopped by Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Manfredy claimed the bout was halted prematurely. When he was steamrolled by Diego Corrales, he claimed he could no longer make the weight. I do not remember what he said after the Stevie Johnston loss, but I'll bet Angel thought that decision went the wrong way.

Angel fought a fantastic fight against Johnston, but Stevie beat him decisively. The referee was quick to jump in and stop his fight against Mayweather, but moments after the stoppage Angel did not complain as he walked towards his corner on unsure legs. It was only after some time passed and his head cleared that he began to protest. The ref saved Manfredy from serious trouble against Mayweather. Angel struggled to make weight against Corrales, but no one had a harder time making 130 pounds than Diego himself. Manfredy was simply beaten by better men.

Angel himself however, never accepts that he is ever beaten. He does not believe that the other guy is ever the better man. He always believes that he is the best. His ego is his greatest asset. It is why he has been a top contender for half a decade now. But he has never been champion. He beat Arturo Gatti at a time when Gatti held a junior lightweight belt. Their bout took place at lightweight, however, and Gatti's title was therefore not on the line. He beat up contender Ivan Robinson and squeaked by hot prospect Julio Diaz, so it is not as if Manfredy never beats good fighters. He just cannot beat the very top guys. He is good, just not good enough. As I have said often on Friday Night Fights, and as Larry Merchant also pointed out on HBO during Manfredy's tussle with Paul Spadafora this last Saturday night, Angel Manfredy is a B-plus fighter. After listening to Manfredy insist that he won a fight he had clearly lost against Spadafora I must now amend that B-plus theory. Angel Manfredy is actually probably a B fighter who believes he is an A, and therefore fights a little over his head.

He was in a little over his head against the sweet boxing Spadafora. And that is significant because the intrigue going into this bout was not so much about Manfredy, who was ostensibly facing a less daunting assignment in this title try than in his three previous opportunities. The intrigue from the hard core boxing fan's perspective was whether Paul Spadafora really had the goods. He has them. It doesn't look like he will be coming down with a case of the greats anytime soon, but I wouldn't put anything past this "New Pittsburgh Kid."

On the way up the professional ladder, young prospects are generally fed a steady diet of opponents brought in to lose. Thus after the first year or so of a fighter's professional career, it is difficult to tell how well they take a punch, for they have seldom been hit hard. It is likewise difficult to determine whether they are able to overcome adversity in the ring, for they have never been in the position of trailing in a fight. In short, it is the "intangibles" as they are called in the fight game -- the heart, the chin, the will to win -- that fans must wait to see if a young fighter possesses. Talent on the other hand, is generally on display from the beginning of a fighter's career. We can see pretty early on if a guy hits hard, or if he has fast hands or feet.

It was therefore ironic that as Paul Spadafora entered the ring against Manfredy we knew all of the things we usually don't know about a fighter who has never been in with the elite of his division. We knew that Spadafora could rise to an occasion -- we watched him do it against Israel Cardona when he fought for the IBF belt Shane Mosley had vacated. We knew he could get up off the canvass after going down -- we watched as he rose from two knockdowns against Victoriano Sosa. We knew he could fight back when the going got tough -- he wound up winning the Sosa fight. The very fact that we knew these things about Spadafora however, suggested that he was not all that talented. We were learning too much about him against second- and third-tier opposition. With all of his technical skill, why was he pushed so by mediocre opponents? Was he not fast enough? Did he not punch with enough authority to keep his opponents honest? Was he just not that talented -- is that why he struggled?

It was Manfredy who did most of the struggling last Saturday night. He struggled to hit a boxer who always seemed to be in punching range, yet who never seemed to get hit. At least not hit with anything hard. Manfredy figured out pretty early on that he would not be able to land real, forceful blows, so he elected to take all of the snap off of his punches and simply "touch" Spadafora when he could. It appeared that Angel was trying to find his range for the latter rounds, when he would start to put more weight behind some of the pity pat stuff he was landing, but Spadafora's defense was too tight. The hard punches from Manfredy never came, nor did it appear that they would have landed had Manfredy ever thrown them. Spadafora won seven or eight of the first nine rounds, and having already sewn up the fight on points, gave away the last three. All three judges scored the fight the same way: seven rounds to five for Spadafora.

I was in Pittsburgh working as ringside analyst for the first edition of ESPN2's Tuesday Night Fights last May. Spadafora was defending his belt against Joel Perez, and Paul and I spoke for a while on and off camera about his career. The impression that Spadafora left with me was of a kid who wanted more than anything to know how good he actually was. "Spaddy" -- as he is known to his fans -- wants to prove to himself that he belongs with the best of his era. Well, he beat Angel Manfredy and thus far only the best of this era have done that. It is not inconceivable that he could also beat Jose Luis Castillo, and what a win that would be. Were he to beat Floyd Mayweather, Jr. however, then Paul Spadafora would know not only that he belongs with the best of this era, but that he belongs with the best of any era. No one said it would be easy.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights.