It should be a truly excellent week of boxing on television, both in the quality and quantity departments. Just take a look at the schedule:
- It’s time, already, for this season’s “The Contender” season finale. Wednesday on Versus, cruiserweights (200 lbs.) Troy Ross and Ehinomen “Hollywood Hino” Ehikhamenor will square off for all the marbles. We’ll have a fuller preview before the show, which I expect to be a good one. (Unfortunately, a Contender alum who should probably move on from boxing, Jaidon Codrington, is slated to resume his career in a super middleweight [168 lbs.] bout on the undercard of the June heavyweight David Tua-Shane Cameron fight that’s going to be big in New Zealand. It’s too bad Codrington’s continuing his career, considering how bad he looked in his last go.)
- Also later this week, we’ll have previews and predictions for the excellent Saturday HBO card pitting lightweight (135 lbs.) champion Juan Manuel Marquez against Juan Diaz, with featherweights (126 lbs.) Chris John and Rocky Juarez on the undercard. It has a chance to be the best card of the whole year.
- AND we’ll have a preview and prediction for the Showtime card on Friday featuring cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek defending his lineal Ring magazine belt against Johnathon Banks. (No preview or prediction for the intriguing middleweight [160 lbs.] bout between Giovanni Lorenzo and Dionisio Miranda on the undercard, though.)
- AND lastly, we have one of the better ESPN2 Friday Night Fights headline events, a rematch between light heavyweights (175 lbs.) Glen Johnson and Daniel Judah. (No preview piece for that one, either.)
If all those fights break the way I expect, it could be one thrilling bout after another, which should be the antidote to a mostly underwhelming past weekend, as I reviewed here. Because that’s plenty workload for one man this week, best just to unload all my Quick Jabs now.
The (unfortunately) unretiring Mexican great Erik Morales had a good point last week: The ranks of Mexican boxing heroes is a little thin. Just as welterweight (147 lbs.) Antonio Margarito had taken the throne with his ultra-macho style, he got busted cheating last month and then knocked out. The Marquez brothers are kind of the last men standing, and neither of them have incited the kind of passion Morales once did and are aging a tad; likewise, Israel Vazquez (122 lbs.) may be forced into retirement by injury. I think if Mexican fans can embrace Mexican-American who fight in a slightly more technical style, Diaz and junior welterweight (147 lbs.) Victor Ortiz could eventually step into the role, and all-Mexican junior middleweight (154 lbs.) Alfredo Angulo has all the qualities Mexican fans love. But just last year, before I got excessively busy in the day job, I was going to write a piece about the way Latin American fighters and European fighters had taken over the ranks of best boxers in the world from African-American fighters. Now, look at the ranks of best boxers in the world and there are a lot fewer Mexicans than there were just in 2008. Given the degree to which Mexican fans have propped up the sport for years, it would be wonderful to see someone captivate them…
When will people realize it’s not cool to boo anyone’s national anthem for any reason, short of “we’re at war with that country?” And yet, fans classlessly booed the British national anthem before this past weekend’s welterweight Miguel Cotto-Michael Jennings fight. How drunk do you have to be to be THAT kind of asshole?…
Out of nowhere, one of the best under-the-radar fights on the 2009 ledger, the April 4 junior welterweight bout between Timothy Bradley and Kendall Holt, has become contentious. I suspect it’s a bid to get the fight on-the-radar, because Bradley in particular has always been of the gentlemanly variety. The exchange went thusly, according to a news release transcript: “BRADLEY: He is talking so much trash and he has never faced a guy like me. He lost twice and he’s been down eight times. In his last fight with [Ricardo] Torres he went down twice before he knocked Torres out with a head butt. He has a suspect chin and I will take it to him. Holt is lucky Torres did not make weight (for their planned third fight last Dec.) because I think he would have gotten knocked out. HOLT: Bradley is a nice fighter but has no experience, not enough to beat me. He better hope and pray that he will win this fight. He said I have been down, but you can’t measure a fighter by his undefeated record. Champions are the ones that find a way to get off the canvas, fight and win. His ‘0’ has got to go. BRADLEY (Responding to Holt’s comments): Oh, really? There is no way you are taking my belt, but I will take yours. You have no heart, I am here to take your heart out and take your belt along the way.” Good news, while we’re on the subject — that Showtime card, in Montreal, is expected to include the broadcast of a super middleweight bout between Librado Andrade and Vitali Tsypko, site of Andrade’s controversial loss to Lucian Bute…
The Avoided/Neglected Chronicles, entry 1: Check out welterweight Joshua Clottey’s outburst against the welterweight division, his management and the whole sport of boxing. If anyone has a right to be peeved, it’s Clottey, a contender for the title of the boxer with the most ability who’s the most neglected. I still don’t understand why he isn’t very popular with fans, and rumors of him making excessive demands at the negotiating table may have something to do with his current career lethargy. But come on. Somebody get Clottey a good fight. He’s in the running for Cotto in June, and I’m kind of rooting for him to get the shot…
The Avoided/Neglected Chronicles, entry 2: Middleweight Winky Wright and promoter Golden Boy say that rumors of his own excessive demands during negotiations are false, and that people just don’t want to fight him. I’d remind Winky that just a few months ago, he was rejecting plenty of major names, including some he now says turned HIM down. Maybe he’s changed his position as his situation has grown more desperate, at which point he loses the moral high ground, but if not it’s hard to revise history when it’s recorded…
The Avoided/Neglected Chronicles, entry 3: Wright’s April 11 opponent is Paul Williams, a man who’s had his own trouble getting big fights. His list of opponents he wants is rather ambitious: Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins, Joe Calzaghe. As always, I appreciate Williams’ desire, but he shouldn’t get too far ahead of himself. He’d be wise not to underestimate Wright, long layoff or no…
The Avoided/Neglected Chronicles, entry 4: Talented junior welterweight prospect Devon Alexander recently called out basically the entire division, eager as he is to get some attention for himself. One of the men on his list, Vivian Harris, has said he wants some. Howsabout it, HBO, Showtime, Versus or ESPN2? I’d watch…
In the past week, a Hatton and a Pacquiao have added some nice honorifics to their names. A school in the Philippines awarded
Manny Pacquiao, set to fight junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton
May 2, an honorary doctorate. That’s in addition to the college
education Manny’s in the midst of. This Pacquiao cat — he’s having
just about as interesting a life as he can, right? And it’s all good.
He’s getting educated, he’s the best boxer on the planet, he’s gearing
up to run for political office. Now he gets another cool thing to call
himself — Pacman, The Mexecutioner (which is something others call him
more than he does himself), and the newest title, Dr. Pacquiao. Just
fantastic. Meanwhile, Hatton’s longtime girlfriend Jennifer Dooley,
pictured at right, is set
to become Mrs. Ricky Hatton, and good for them. It’s really too bad
someone is going to have to lose in Pacquiao-Hatton. They’re both
lovable as all get out, and both are living well…
The fortunes of lightweights Ali Funeka and Nate Campbell couldn’t have gotten more opposite following their close fight a couple weekends back. Funeka isn’t in the alphabet title picture, which we’ll get to in a second, and now he’s in trouble with the government in his home country. It sounds like total b.s. It’s heartbreaking to see a guy come up short just barely in a game effort where he was so generous, to a fault, even, by letting the fight go on at the same pay despite Campbell losing his belts on the scale. Nate Campbell, meanwhile, is in high demand as he moves up to the junior welterweight picture, with Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi potential opponents, although not Juan Urango, because Campbell’s friend Randall Bailey is in line for a mandatory title shot at Urango…
Sad though the inequity might be, Campbell did get back into my heart again a little bit with some fun quotes the other day to Fightnews.com’s Flattop, answering some trash talk from Judah: “Let me tell you something Flattop. Zab can get it! If he can make 140, he can come get it! But I’m not doing all this calling out business anymore. I’ll fight anyone [adviser] Terry [Trekas] puts in front of me. I called out everyone and their mother at 135, and what did it get me? A cancelled [Joan] Guzman fight, and a very tough fight with a friggin giant in Ali Funeka. And to top it off, now I hear all these 135 guys are trying to make their fights for all my old titles. Ain’t none of them wanted those titles when I had them, but now that I’m moving up all the sudden they all want the belts. Too funny! But here’s the thing, I’m done with all that calling out stuff. All Zab needs to know is that if he can make 140, then we can do this. Zab says that 140 is his house? Man, 140 is a vacant house. If anything, it’s Hatton’s house. Zab ain’t lived there in 5 years or better. So let’s save all the yapping for the press conferences, and if he can seriously make 140, then come on with it. Lets do it!”…
We’ve already touched on it some in a comments section, but welterweight Kermit Cintron’s mea culpa was a must considering the way some fans were badmouthing him, and with some justification. Cintron acknowledged that someone DOES punch that hard and that the Sergio Martinez knockdown was fair and square, not with a head butt, and he didn’t act so ripped off about getting a draw in a fight most people thought he lost. Good for him for doing that, even if it was out of necessity for him to rehab his rep a little…
Remember that early ’09 fight graveyard? Another plot opened over the weekend when the junior middleweight Richard Gutierrez-Jesus Gonzalez main event on ESPN2 was called off after Gonzalez unprofessionally couldn’t make weight and Gutierrez foolishly turned down half Gonzalez’ purse to make the fight happen anyway. Is Gutierrez in some kind of position to turn down that kind of attention over four pounds?…
On the FNF tip, I’m slightly concerned about Golden Boy ending up with many of the remaining cards for the season under a deal in the works. But I’m grateful that Golden Boy is stepping into the contentious negotiations for the heavyweight bout between David Haye and Vitali Klitschko. Keep your fingers crossed, team…
Interesting tidbit from this Kevin Iole column, emphasis mine: “Margarito was stopped in the ninth round of his first post-Cotto fight, on Jan. 24 in Los Angeles, and Top Rank president Todd duBoef said Margarito’s people indicated to him that the Cotto fight had taken a lot more out of their man than they’d anticipated.” I hadn’t previously seen that acknowledged. If true, how much stupider does it get that Bob Arum has sided with Margarito so vociferously that Cotto, angry over the hand wrap scandal that may have influenced their July fight, has threatened to leave Top Rank? Cotto looked healthy and Margarito looked like damaged goods. And there are signs Top Rank realizes it may have handled this poorly…
All right, so it won’t be Cesar Canchila-Giovanni Segura II after all. It’ll be Canchila against junior flyweight (108 lbs.) champ Ivan Calderon in May. I still wish Calderon was looking at Ulises Solis, and I was desirous of Cancila-Segura II, but this is an interesting fight between a puncher and the consummate boxer…
I agree with this point about the airing of highlights. Promoters should make it easier for ESPN to cover (and therefore help sell and promote) bouts, not harder. The whole thing’s so counterintuitive, it could only happen in boxing…
Sanctioning belt politics department: Funeka, if there’s any justice in the world, should be fighting for one of the lightweight titles Campbell vacated. Instead, Guzman, of all people, is getting to fight for one of them, against Yuri Romanov, and the other two are going to Marquez-Diaz. Meanwhile, it’s hailed as progress when Martinez finally gets on the road to a shot at Vernon Forrest’s junior middleweight belt after waiting in line for a mandatory title shot for about a year. (Forrest, by the way, told BoxingTalk [no link available] he didn’t have a crapped-upon fight in the Cayman Islands lined up, contrary to reports.) I was guilty this weekend of praising Jennings for doing better than I expected against Cotto, but Jennings was a sympathetic figure. I’ve not got much to say for one of the alphabet gang making one decision that appears in accordance with fairness.
