Heavyweight Nicolay Valuev (left) explains to Ruslan Chagaev that it's not nice to give people hepatitis B - or at least that's what we think he's saying.More loquacious than Jim Lampley, it’s the Finito Five!
1. Absolut Cintron
Quick, show of hands for all those who though that Kermit Cintron’s days as any kind of factor in the 154-pound division were over? Yeah, me, too, but I guess that’s why they fight the fights. After Cintron’s ridiculous draw in February against Sergio Martinez (which should have had Cintron knocked out and then at least a points loss), his performance in taking down red-hot rising puncher Alfredo Angulo a couple of weeks ago was nothing short of shocking. Cintron nearly folded tent in his second fight with Antonio Margarito, and loaded fists notwithstanding, there are more then a few observers who thought that this was a performance that “the Killer” just didn’t have in him. Although Angulo was determined to use his aggressiveness and power, Cintron was having none of it, giving the Mexican a boxing lesson he hadn’t gotten before in his young career. Angulo did press the action a little better late, but Kermit had the fight well in hand by then.
Now, in a strange irony, the win made Cintron the mandatory for Martinez’ title again. Short of Martinez just wanting a little revenge, there’s not a lot of compelling reasons to make the fight. Cintron clearly has revitalized his career, but he’ll need a bigger win than this (Vernon Forrest, anyone? He’s not busy!) to start the talk about being a serious factor in the junior middleweight ranks. As for Angulo, while this was surely a disappointing loss, he’s got a lot of career to go, and maybe needed a wake-up call like this to let him know he can’t just show up and steamroll everyone. Pressure fighters are great until that tactic doesn’t work; Angulo will need to learn a plan B. Good thing is, there’s plenty of time for that.
2. Absolut-ly ridiculous
You know, I’m not a drinker, so maybe this is way out of my league, but how many damn types of vodka does Absolut need to make, anyway? There’s almost no fruit that seems to have escaped the Asolut treatment: grapefruit, raspberry, vanilla, lemon, grape, orange, lime, mango, peach. What’s next, pomegranate? Star fruit? I mean, how much of a vodka snob does one have to be to drink freaking mango vodka? I thought vodka was supposed to taste terrible! Look, I’m all for variety, but when my local liquor store has to tear out the 7-up cooler to find enough rack space for the Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors of Sweden’s finest vodka, something’s wrong. Besides, everyone I’ve ever seen drink the stuff is wasted in like an hour; Absolut drunkenness is a far more accurate title (no word on whether the WBA will make that an official title, but they do make decisions like they’ve been drinking most of the time)!
3. Inoculations, anyone?
Only in boxing. At this point, the Sweet Science has seen a million fights cancelled for a million strange reasons. Then there was the third attempt at the Nicolay Valuev-Ruslan Chagaev heavyweight tilt that was supposed to happen on May 30 in Helsinki, Finland. You would figure if it didn’t happen the first two times, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, right? Especially if the second cancellation was due to Chagaev’s hepatitis B! Well, hepatitis is the gift that keeps on giving, and even though the fighters had weighed in and were ready to go, that same night, a Finnish lab determined that the risk of infection from the disease was too great. How the hell Chagaev gets a license anywhere boggles the mind, but he has 25 fights already, so evidently it’s not a problem elsewhere.
The best part is, after Chagaev’s promoter, Universum, tried to explain that since they’ve had Chagaev tested before and he’s no threat, they would offer Valuev the option of getting a vaccine prior to the fight so it could go forth. Fine, but what about the referee, chief seconds, announcing crew and the first three rows of fans? Next thing you know, Chagaev gets busted open, blood goes everywhere, and you’ve got a HAZMAT crew sequestering folks into a plastic bubble. Come to think of it, that would be way more exciting than the actual fight between these two! Valuev refused the shot, of course, so the fight was called off. Boxing fans may have been saved from far more than just a hepatitis-filled night.
4. One man’s deadly disease is another man’s heavyweight showdown
So, given that the Fins thought that Chagaev was an infection risk, it only makes sense that he’d get another fight in two weeks, right? Well, the gelatin in the petri dish hadn’t even become solid before the Russian dove right in to replace David Haye against Wladamir Klitschko on June 20, after Haye pulled out with a back injury. Forgetting for a minute how Chagaev could even get this fight after his hepatitis troubles, the fact is that Haye only needed until July 11 to make the fight happen, and Kitschko’s camp told Haye to take a walk. Really? Three weeks seems like a very reasonable time frame to wait for the only heavyweight fight anyone wants to see. So, naturally, HBO then told Klitschko to take a walk, deciding not to televise the fight. Wlad’s manager Bernd Boente actually said he couldn’t understand why, as if Wlad could fight a Balsam Fir and HBO should put it on the network. HBO’s only going to put fights on it thinks people will watch; this should tell Boente and Team Kitschko how much the network thinks of his drawing power. Or maybe they were just afraid of Larry Merchant having to be inoculated before fight time…
5. And you thought Iron Mike was strange before
Tragically, we’ve all heard by now about Mike Tyson’s daughter, Exodus, and her accidental death a couple of weeks ago. So it was even stranger to hear that Tyson, fresh off what has to be a devastating loss far greater then any he’s had in the ring, actually got married this last weekend. Yes, you heard that right; he tied the knot with his third wife Saturday. Now, I know nothing of Tyson’s family or how much they did or didn’t grieve, but I can’t believe you couldn’t just postpone something like this in light of that kind of tragedy. What must their wedding night or honeymoon have been like? Wouldn’t you have the loss of your daughter on your mind constantly so soon after it happened? It just seems so wrong on so many levels that even if you were OK enough to go through with the wedding, you wouldn’t just out of respect for your deceased child. I have always thought Tyson was a little off, and this surely won’t change my mind.
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