Chad Dawson may be the man at light heavy, but will he take on his biggest threat, Glen Johnson?Back off the canvas after a left hook, it’s the Finito Five!
1. Andre Ward tames “The Panther”
Remember when your mother told you that good things come to those who wait? Not that she had super middleweight Andre Ward in mind when she said that, but with his decisive victory over Columbia’s Edison Miranda Saturday in Oakland, boxing fans finally got to witness Ward beating a real contender. How long had it been? Ward won a gold in the 2004 Olympics, so if the math is correct, that would be five years on the road to contention. While it can easily be argued that the journey should have been a lot quicker, it’s hard to be disappointed with the result. Ward just took it to Miranda, relegating the Columbian to trying to land a big shot at the end of the fight that wasn’t coming. Ward also showed some real heart after a semi-legal head butt cut him in the first round, the first cut of his career. The promise that the Oaklander showed now looks to be the real thing, and it will be interesting to see what he does against other top 168-pounders.
For Miranda, though, all his usual pre-fight trash talking came up empty on the big stage once again. Although it’s hard to hold losses against a fighter when they’re to Arthur Abraham (twice), Kelly Pavlik and Ward, Miranda needs a big win desperately. He can’t ride that Allan Green win forever. He’s always competitive and in great shape, but so was Frank Bruno, so you know how much that counts for. If Miranda can’t get a win over someone in the division’s top 10, his days as anything other than a division gatekeeper are over. He doesn’t want to become the next Ricardo Mayorga.
2. Man, I’d hate to be the guy doing the marquee…
As every hard-core boxing fan knows, one of the great parts about the sport is its true international flavor. Fighters from all different countries, all different backgrounds make a moniker like “Championship Of the World” ring true. However, thanks to the invasion of Thais in the lower weight classes, watching a fight featuring Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym or Oleydong Sithsamerchai can send you running for a widescreen TV that’s big enough to fit their names on. Usually, that’s the worst of it – until now. Italy’s Giacobbe Fragomeni apparently decided his cruiserweight title reign would not be complete unless he defended it against the only other name in the division as impossible to spell as his, that being Poland’s Krzysztof Wlodarczyk. How do these guys even fit their names onto their trunks, anyway? Imagine if Bernard Hopkins did the fight; he loves to call fighters by their first name, but by round two he’d be calling them the Italian guy and the Polish dude! And, of course, the result of the fight was a draw, so they’ll lace up the gloves again in a few months. Better head out and get that TV…
3. The short-selling of Juan Manuel Marquez
With Manny Pacquiao’s two-round annihilation of Ricky Hatton that changed him into Ricky Flattened, the clamor for a Pac-Man-Floyd Mayweather showdown started almost immediately after the fight was over. This would be the greatest showdown in years! Not so fast. Has everyone forgotten that Mayweather is fighting one of the greatest Mexican fighters in history, Juan Manuel Marquez, this summer? From the talk coming out of the boxing media, a Mayweather win seems like just a formality, like Marquez is some kind tune up. There has been only one fighter since 2005 that has stayed in the ring with Pacquiao, and that’s “Dinamita”. Many observers think Marquez has beaten Pacquiao twice already, just not gotten the correct decision either time. Mayweather’s not been in the ring for two years, while Marquez just got done knocking out the excellent Juan Diaz in February. Marquez thinks he has unfinished business with Pacquiao, and I think Pac-Man’s people dread the possibility another fight with him. Let’s just put it this way: The Pretty Boy Floyd of old better be present and accounted for on July 18th, or Marquez just might send him back into retirement.
4. Chad Dawson needs to do the right thing
OK, so we all finally got that second Chad Dawson-Antonio Tarver fight out of the way, and Dawson is still the class of the 175-pound division. Although Tarver was more competitive this time around, they could fight a hundred more times without any change in the result. With a dearth of capable opponents in the light heavyweight division that anyone wants to see, a rematch between Dawson and Jamaican Glencoffe Johnson is the only one that makes any sense. The problem is, Dawson and his people want none of it. At this point, they’ve given every excuse in the book except Johnson has swine flu and they don’t want to catch it. What they don’t want to catch is all the right hands Johnson landed in their last fight, which many thought Johnson won. If Dawson thinks that a fight with Zsolt Erdei is going to get anyone excited, he needs to see a shrink. Johnson is deserving of a shot, and Dawson needs to do the right thing and give it to him.
5. This is what the opposite of a superfight looks like
Show of hands: How many people thought that the Hector Camacho that fought 37-year old Yory Boy Campas 10 days ago was Junior, not Senior? Amazingly, it wasn’t the younger Camacho, it was “Macho” Camacho, who, at 46, makes Evander Holyfield look like he’s not hanging on. Campas, who has taken a million punches in 117 fights and hasn’t been a factor in nearly ten years, seems bent on turning his brain into soup by 2012. How did Camacho’s people decide on Campas, anyway? Was Greg Haugen not available? Worse yet, this eight-round fight (yes, an eight-round main event) was on PPV for the ridiculous price of $30; frankly, any price would have been ridiculous. But here’s the kicker; as if this fight wasn’t enough of a farce, its originally scheduled venue in New Jersey wouldn’t license Camacho to fight after the commission saw him sparring. So with less than a week before fight time, instead of canceling the fight, they just moved it to some hotel in Orlando where he could get a license (no word on whether it came from a Cracker Jack box). I guess it’s too bad if you bought tickets in New Jersey, huh? What a joke of a promotion and fight, everyone involved should be embarrassed. Even Don King wouldn’t haul out his “Only in America!” for this one.
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