The Finito Q & A – February edition

Wladamir Klitschko may be able to fill a European arena, but American eyes won't be seeing his fight against Eddie Chambers unless it's via the Internet.

This month’s ten burning questions, from Victor Ortiz on the comeback trail to a bunch of can’t-watch TV:

Q: Is it really true that the Finito is a year old now?

A: Yes, believe it or not, somehow I have managed to keep my heavyweight musings from a strawweight brain going since Feb. 24 of 2009! From my initial ramblings about how Bob Arum was doing Miguel Cotto no favors by defending Antonio Margarito and his loaded gloves, the last year just flew by. I guess that means there was a lot to talk about in the fight game, which is always great thing. Good and bad, this is still a lot of fun. Blogs have given the fan a voice, and that can never be discounted. It is our passion as fans that keeps boxing going.

Q: Well, it certainly doesn’t seem that the boxing establishment helps itself out much in that regard. Is it accurate that the Wlad Klitschko-Eddie Chambers fight isn’t on American TV?

A: As of right now, that is unfortunately true. As much as I think the TV networks here are fairly stupid for not grabbing what I think will be a pretty good fight, the Klitschko camp is equally as clueless. The heavyweight champion defending his championship against the number three ranked man in his division on a webcast feed? Really? If nothing else, you would think someone would have set up some kind of terrestrial Pay-Per-View or something. All this does is make the heavyweight championship even more devalued. Klitschko may not care as long as he packs arenas in Europe, but this really shafts Chambers, who is American and deserves better exposure than this.

Q: Speaking of TV problems, wasn’t the Fight Night Club show with Victor Ortiz supposed to be on Thursday on FSN in the States? I couldn’t find it anywhere.

A: That’s because it wasn’t on [I]anywhere[/I], at least that night. I get the massive DirecTV package with about 50 FSN affiliates, and it wasn’t on a single one of those. It wasn’t until Friday night (when I already was at work), did I happen to stumble across it - right in the middle of the show, of course! I eventually caught it on replay, but this was another shoddy promotional job by Golden Boy and FSN. Most of the FSN affiliates were locked into showing some college hoops Thursday night, anyway, so Fight Night Club was never going to be shown then. You would think at least someone would have mentioned that fact somewhere. At least when ESPN maddeningly changes their starting times for Friday Night Fights, it’s still on Friday night! Oh, the trials and tribulations of being a boxing fan…

Q: Provided that anyone did get to see it, then, was Victor’s tenth-round KO of Hector Alatorre anything to suggest Ortiz is back?

A: It sure didn’t look like it, and Alatorre was a clear step down from Antonio Diaz, Ortiz’ last opponent. Alatorre wasn’t even in that good a shape, and while the uppercut from Ortiz that ended it was impressive, you would think that could have happened six rounds earlier. During the telecast, commentator Doug Fischer said that Golden Boy wanted Ortiz fighting Timothy Bradley by year’s end. Anyone see that as a competitive fight right now? It’s really hard to bang on a guy for a win, but Ortiz just doesn’t look like he did prior to his knockout at the hands of Marcos Maidana. He used to steamroll whoever was put in front of him; he still wins now, but it feels like a cautious performance rather than pure killer instinct.

Q: Going back a week or so, what did you think of Giovani Segura’s awesome KO of Walter Tello? Is Segura for real?

A: He’s as real as it gets at 108 pounds, which normally has a dearth of huge stars. He’s exciting, gives a great effort, a good interview, and seems to be an all-around cool guy. However, he finds himself channeling Arturo Gatti too much, and gets hit a lot. While that is fun for everyone except his family, he’ll have to clean that up if he wants to beat Ivan Calderon, who is likely his next opponent. If Segura can’t knock Calderon out, he’ll get hit with more punches than there are Saw movies. And let’s not talk about a fight against Roman Gonzalez, which also has been rumored. Someone’s headed for Queer Street for sure in that one, and it might be Segura.

Q: OK, onto the PPV from this weekend. Is Rodel Mayol destined to have a bizarre ending to every fight he’s involved in now?

A: You’d have to consult some boxing oracle about fistic destiny, but there’s no denying that the last four fights Mayol has had ended pretty strangely. First, there were the two premature head-butt endings with Ivan Calderon. Then, there was his butt-then-knockout combination that worked against Edgar Sosa. Now, his 108-pound title tilt with Omar Nino Romero goes to a no-contest. In case you missed it, Nino hit Mayo low in the third round. While Mayol was complaining about the hit and referee Vic Drakulich was halting the action, Nino walked up and cranked the Filipino with a left that knocked him almost cold. Drakulich even had his hands on Nino to restrain him when the last punch was fired. Nino initially thought he won, but Drakulich correctly ruled the fight a no-contest, or technical draw in Mexico. Very strange stuff.

Q: But the PPV commentators Col. Bob Sheridan and Benny Ricardo seemed to think that Mayol should have been protecting himself at all times and Nino deserved the knockout win despite the foul. Is there an argument for that?

A: Not a strong one, and this is from Sheridan, who once said the Laila Ali-Jacqui Frazier-Lyde fight was the best fight in the history of boxing (he’ll never live that one down in my book). Ricardo also contended that Nino probably didn’t understand Drakulich when he said, “stop” because it wasn’t the Spanish “alto”. Nino is a veteran of 34 fights and has fought in the U.S. before, so I don’t buy that for a minute. Nino probably knew he had hit Mayol low, so he shouldn’t be too surprised his subsequent divebomb attack was ruled illegal. It’s standard refereeing, based on advantage/disadvantage. You can’t gain an advantage with a low blow and then use that to knock a guy out. Drakulich did the right thing in some tough circumstances (in front of a Mexican crowd rooting like hell for Nino), which is a plus in this case for boxing.

Q: What was up with those Arroyo brothers on the undercard, McJoe and McWilliams? Are those names real?

A: Yeah, and both their names make me want to go to McDonalds for a Big Mac. Isn’t a McJoe what they call coffee now at Mickey D’s? Now granted, the brothers are from Puerto Rico, but last time I checked, you can hit the Golden Arches there, too. Maybe the Arroyos figured if their sons got famous, it was an endorsement deal waiting to happen. Still, these two will have to be placed alongside Los Angeles Angels’ outfielder Vladamir Guerrero in the pantheon of confusing mixed nationalities between first and last name. The best? Carlos Elliott, a Japanese cruiserweight from the 90’s. I still haven’t figured that one out.

Q: Did you see that judge Pierre Benoist weighed in with another questionable scorecard in the Gabriel Rosado-Saul Roman fight on Saturday’s Top Rank card? How does he keep getting fights?

A: My guess is he has pictures of someone at Top Rank doing something with somebody’s wife (or husband or both) that they’d rather not have made public. If you remember, Benoist was the guy that submitted a near-shutout scorecard for Paul Williams in his fight with Sergio Martinez, which was a very close fight. Even after the hue and cry surrounding that fiasco, Benoist was at it again, giving Roman a 97-93 edge when both judges had it for Rosado 96-94. It was a fairly close fight, but not seven rounds to three in Roman’s favor kind of close. Rosado had at least four rounds where he stunned Roman, so where Benoist found only three rounds to give to the Philly fighter is anyone’s guess. Let’s hope someone sends him back to Canada to judge figure skating and get him out of boxing’s hair once and for all.

Q: Word has it that Floyd Mayweather hasn’t said anything crazy this week. Is something wrong?

A: Maybe “Money” has been feeling under the weather this week, I don’t know. After comparing himself to Martin Luther King and Malcom X, I was sure that he’d find other allusions to his greatness. His stance against steroids was revolutionary like George Washington. He’s looking to reform boxing a la the original Martin Luther. He’s standing against boxing tyranny like Winston Churchill stood against the Third Reich. He has more kids than John & Kate Plus Eight. Whatever. I’m sure Floyd will be back with something totally nonsensical soon, and if he doesn’t, his old man or uncle Roger will do the honors. It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?