Bantamweight Joseph "King Kong" Agbeko celebrates a hard-fought victory over Vic Darchinyan Saturday. Despite what Agbeko and promoter Don King intimated after the fight, referee Tommy Kimmons is not a member of Darchinyan's family nor does he get a monthly stipend from the Armenian.
This week’s mid-summer thoughts from a strawweight brain…
1. King Darchinyan gets Konged
Even the most hardcore boxing fans were unsure of what was coming from Joseph “King Kong” Agbeko prior to his first headlining fight against former flyweight ruler Vic Darchinyan Saturday night. Although his only loss was a disputed one to Wladamir Sidorenko five years ago, half of his fights had been against fighters with less than five total bouts, most in Africa. And this was Vic Darchinyan, who has demolished everyone he’s stepped into the ring with not named Nonito Donaire. While Doniare is a top ten pound-for-pound fighter, Darchinyan was at least top twenty; with all the hype surrounding Agbeko, how would he look? The answer was nothing short of superb, as he took apart the Armenian over twelve tough rounds; Agbeko actually beat up Darchinyan worse than even Donaire, and had Vic looking like he met a plate glass window at 90 m.p.h. by fight’s end. While Darchinyan landed some good shots, they never seemed to hurt the Ghanaian at all. Considering how Darchinyan recently picked apart the excellent Christian Mijares, Agbeko clearly beat a very dangerous fighter. Agbeko will soon find his way into the pound-for-pound rankings with another win like this one.
While the greatest of all apes has shown to be clearly on the upswing, what to make of Darchinyan now? Although Vic is usually a ridiculous loudmouth prior to any fight he’s in, he did own up to his performance afterward and admit that he had not done enough to win. Most boxing people think coming up in weight hurt him, as Agbeko has been a natural bantamweight his whole career, and Darchinyan’s flyweight power didn’t translate so well at the heavier weight. That may be, but Darchinyan has never shown any ability to adjust within a fight; he just tries to get in and eventually land the huge left. While that has worked in the past, bigger, better fighters won’t fall for that so easily. Darchinyan will need a more complete game if he wants to continue to be a factor at bantamweight or above.
2. Don King lives in a reality different from the rest of us
As tough and foul-filled as the fight between Agbeko and Darchinyan was, only Don King could somehow find a conspiracy against his winning fighter. Oh yes, before the scorecards were even so much as tabulated (and they were a little too close), Captain Hairdo was in the corner telling Agbeko how he had to fight two opponents that night: Darchinyan and referee Tommy Kimmons. Now, granted, Kimmons made a horrible knockdown call in the seventh round after Darchinyan pushed Agbeko to the canvas and grazed the back of his head on the way down, but these things happen in boxing, as well as in all sports. To hear King tell it, Kimmons had $100 large on Darchinyan, and was dead set on a vacation in St. Croix after the fight. Agbeko may be King Kong, but it was monkey-see, monkey-do afterwards, too, as Agbeko kept carping about Kimmons to the press until everyone was sick of hearing it. Sure, Don, like all those fifty cuts on Darchinyan’s face were caused only by punches! One thing we learned from the fight is that both guys like to use their heads, so enough of that talk. Besides, Agbeko’s biggest opponent upcoming might well be King’s ability to bury fighters with inactivity. We’ll see who ultimately wins that battle.
3. The heavyweight division gets interesting? Really?
Just when I start groaning and moaning about the lack of anything exciting in the heavyweight division (oh, like in the last Finito Five, perhaps), Eddie Chambers rises up from the ashes and gives us something to talk about! After the entirely too-heavy Chambers showed up in the 220’s against equally fat Sam Peter in March, a slim, trim 208-pound version stepped into a German ring 10 days ago to face the formidable Alexander Dimitrenko. And this lighter version was entirely too fast for the Klitschko-clone Dimitrenko, who at 6’7”, figured to do to Chambers what we’ve seen in so many Klitschko fights, where the bigger man pummels the smaller one. Chambers, however, has hand speed that many middleweights would kill for, and he thoroughly flummoxed his larger opponent, so much so that Dimitrenko was just trying not to get popped by punches he never saw coming. Now, Chambers had has weight and focus problems before, but if he can get his act together, this could be a preview of what he might do to either Klitschko brother (yes, I said it!). Now, no one’s saying Dimitrenko is a Klitschko, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see what Chambers would do against them? My guess is at the very least, it would be no easy night for Wlad or Vitali.
4. Winning is just for losers
During any fight, fighters are often criticized for not doing enough to win. Some criticisms are realistic, some are not, but most fighters give it their best to try and win. Then there was Antonio DeMarco’s lightweight victory over Benin’s (that’s in Africa, for those who failed geography) Anges Adjaho, where both fighters decided that winning was secondary to looking like a total idiot. DeMarco, who had previously talked about bringing the fight, punishment, Mexican warrior, this and that, had Adjaho seriously hurt at least twice in the fight (after the Mexican did almost nothing in giving away the early rounds) and inexplicably took his foot off the gas each time. This allowed Adjaho to subsequently win rounds, and actually pull ahead in the fight. If that wasn’t bad enough, the African then decided to throw all of that into the trash; as he was rocked a third time and knocked down by DeMarco in round nine, Adjaho decided he’d been hit illegally while he was on the canvas. I guess it didn’t matter to him that referee Tellis Assemenios correctly ruled the punch was prior to Adjaho’s knee touching and started to count the knockdown, Adjaho then turned face down on the canvas and acted like he’d just come down with botchulism. Umm, Anges, the referee was still counting… So when the confused Assemenios reached ten and the fight was over, Adjaho jumped up (he’s healed – praise the Lord!) in protest. What in the world did he think Assemenios was counting for? The number of ring-card girls he’d like to go home with? If the referee is counting, you better get up, whether you agree with it or not; it’s not like he’ll restart the fight for you after some coffee and discussion. So DeMarco got a win he probably didn’t deserve, but Adjaho certainly deserved it less. Yeesh!
5. Two that were taken from us far too early
While the time in and around July 4th is a great time of celebration here in the States, the two weeks since the beginning of the month have not been very celebratory for boxing fans. On the 1st we lost perhaps the greatest featherweight of a generation, Alexis Arguello, apparently by suicide. As if that wasn’t hard enough to deal with, there was Friday’s tragic death of Arturo Gatti, perhaps the greatest warrior of this or any other generation. It has come out since then that Gatti was perhaps murdered by his Brazilian wife while on vacation in the country, adding even more sting to an already grieving boxing public. The hardest part of all this is that all we want to do is remember the great thrills these two gave us. Arguello fought before my time, but his videos of his legendary fights with Aaron Pryor and Alfredo Escalera still show the greatness of “The Explosive Thin Man”, a man who would dominate so many in the division even today. And Gatti, of course, with a warrior’s heart, was almost never in a bad fight; packed with last-minute power and a desire to win despite the odds, he thrilled any fan that was lucky enough to see him fight. His trilogy with Mickey Ward will forever be part of boxing history. Even though these two fighters had retired, they were both great ambassadors to the sport, albeit with demons that they tried so hard to overcome. That may be what made them so dear to boxing fans. They will be sorely, sorely missed.
While junior welterweight Victor Ortiz has the looks and the style of a champion, does he have the heart? As his fight against Marcos Maidana showed, he's definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Ten days ago, Golden Boy Promotions sent their can’t-miss prospect, junior welterweight Victor Ortiz, into a Los Angeles ring to face Marcos Maidana. Although Maidana is a skilled fighter that gave Andreas Kotelnik all he could handle recently, his tendency to brawl made him the perfect candidate for the first main-event level fight featuring Ortiz. He would get some tough rounds from Maidana for sure, but Ortiz’ boxing skill would tell in the end. HBO cameras were there, complete with Ortiz’ riveting story about overcoming abandonment by both parents and lavish network hype prior to fight time. This would be the fight to showcase the Kansan’s step up to the big time, to possibly make Ortiz the name that carries the PPV torch for Golden Boy into the future. Shane Mosley’s not get any younger, you know.
Just one problem. Ortiz didn’t win.
Not only did he not win, Ortiz somehow got knocked out by the rugged Argentinean after sending him to the deck three times. Worse then that, when faced with Maidana’s unrelenting pressure in the sixth round, Ortiz appeared to quit, shaking his head and walking away from referee Raul Caiz, who, for some reason, didn’t stop the fight then. As Ortiz was cut from a punch, Caiz had the ringside doctor look at the cut, and upon his recommending the fight be stopped, nary a word of protest was heard from Ortiz. While this had to have Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins already disappointed, the postfight interview with Max Kellerman had to make both ex-champions wince.
One of Ortiz’ great charms is his candor, but in speaking to Kellerman, he said things that no one wants to hear from their upcoming fistic stars. While Ortiz started with the usual “it wasn’t my night” and “I just quit while I was ahead”, he then added the curious “I want to be able to speak well when I’m older”. As much as boxing fans berate fighters who sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher due to hanging on too long (Evander Holyfield, anyone?), that statement sounds like a guy who isn’t willing to get hit. Ortiz then shocked everyone by saying, “We’ll see what happens from here on out. I’m young, but I don’t think I deserve to get beat up like this. I have a lot of thinking to do.”
Does that sound like the next Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler or Tommy Hearns? It sounds like someone who is destined for a college classroom, not boxing superstardom.
And here Golden Boy’s situation becomes very tricky. As with Alfredo Angulo a few weeks back, young fighters often hit a bump in the road. The greatest fighter in the world, Manny Pacquiao, took a couple of humbling losses (one a knockout) earlier in his career before hitting superstardom. In most cases, fighters will show a desire to learn from the mistakes, get better, and hunger to get a crack at the next opponent. This is not the realm of journeymen, who often will quit in fights knowing they’ll have to get in the ring several more times that year to make a living. For rising stars like Ortiz, the hunger should be constant. When it’s not, then the huge investment Golden Boy has made in the young man’s career has everyone on high alert.
So going forward, does Golden Boy cut bait with a guy who may not have the desire to become world champion? They can’t run him out there again when there’s a chance he could take a few punches and lose the will to tough it out. Boxing is a rough business, and outings like Miguel Cotto’s nip-and-tuck battle with Joshua Clottey recently are more the usual way a fighter has to win fights at the top level. Without that willingness to sacrifice, fighters who take the easy way out become remembered infamously by the boxing public. De La Hoya knows this, so he’s got to gauge Ortiz and his desire to continue his career. There’s too much six-figure money being doled out to be unsure of anything when fighters walk out to the ring on fight night.
So while Ortiz has a big decision to make, so does Golden Boy.
Ruslan Chagaev takes a seat during Saturday's Ring Magazine Championship fight with Wladamir Klitschko. Chagaev needed more time to sit and think, as he barely dented the Ukranian's armor in any of their ten rounds.
This week’s Finito Five is guaranteed hepatitis-B free!
1. The heavyweight division fails to surprise again
Well, that Wladamir Klitschko – Ruslan Chagaev tilt was a real shocker, wasn’t it? Who would have guessed that this fight would look exactly the same as every other Wlad fight since the Ukrainian fought Sam Peter going on four years ago? Oh, sure, there were some who had touted Chagaev’s undefeated record as somehow being an adequate substitute for the originally scheduled bout with David Haye, but all Chagaev proved is that he and Sultan Ibragimov are the same fighter. For those who didn’t see the fight, here’s the recap: Klitschko jabs, jabs, jabs, falls asleep for awhile, then jabs, jabs, throws a right hand that lands flush; all the while, Chagaev stands around at distance wondering why he’s getting peppered so much. The next punch to either Wladamir or brother Vitali’s body will be the first. It’s hard to say whether Chagaev was too cautious or too inept to do that, but not doing so was a recipe for disaster. By the tenth round, there was really no point in continuing the fight, whether Chagaev was cut or not.
With over 60,000 packing Veltins Arena in Germany and a flawless performance by Klitschko, it’s hard to argue Saturday night was anything but a resounding success. However, this is starting to feel like the Julio Ceasar Chavez, Jr. tour; until Wlad steps into the ring with someone that the boxing public views as a legitimate threat (and Chagaev sure wasn’t that), these fights just come off as the Klitschko Saturday Showcase. Maybe it’s just me, but for all the impressive performances against Hasim Rachman, Ray Austin, Sam Peter and Calvin Brock, what I still remember is Corrie Sanders wiping out Klitschko in two rounds. Wlad needs opponents who don’t appear out of their league all the time; otherwise, he’ll just be viewed as the best fighter of a terrible era.
2. ESPN is the Worldwide Leader in aggravation Pt. 1
With all the self-aggrandizement of Floyd Mayweather, ESPN has long been grating enough (they should call the show SelfCenter) to watch. However, there are a few shining stars within the cloud of self-importance in Bristol, and the Friday Night Fights crew is one of them. Joe Tessitore, the play-by-play voice, is top-notch, and while color man Teddy Atlas can get preachy, his knowledge of the fight game is unparalleled. And, with the Klitschko-Chagaev fight being commentated on from the U.S., one would think the “A” crew would get the assignment for ESPN Classic. Oh no. Instead, fans in the States got sometimes-FNF studio host Robert Flores & sometimes-fighting cruiserweight BJ Flores. Are you kidding me? What were Tessitore & Atlas (or even Brian Kenney) doing? Did they have a bar mitzvah to attend or something? No offense to Robert Flores, who’s probably a nice guy, but he’s so bland, he could make a striptease from Angelina Jolie seem unexciting. B.J. Flores is not a bad color man for his young age, but the two Flores’ called the whole fight like they were casually sitting on their living room couch. I could swear I heard BJ snacking on some pretzels during the sixth round! For the heavyweight championship of the world, you really should have the championship broadcast team.
3. The 175-pound division gets a little more interesting
The light heavyweight division is becoming more and more the one to watch. With an already great fight between Carl Froch and Jermain Taylor in the books and a Chad Dawson-Glencoffe Johnson rematch looming, Jean Pascal and Adrian Diaconu added to that list with a scintillating bout Friday in Montreal. Pascal, who had been outpunched by Froch earlier this year, came back strong, punishing the talented, tough Diaconu and proving that he’s got to be taken seriously. And, as good as Pascal was, the Romanian-born Diaconu was coming on at the end of the fight, and some felt that if he had started that earlier, Pascal would have lost. A rematch between these two might be on the horizon, but it’s clear that any combination of fights between any of the above six boxers would be must-watch TV. Pascal may keep his hands too low, but he has some great hand speed for his weight. A matchup between he and Johnson, who throws a ton of punches himself, would be an awesome fight whether Johnson wins or loses against Dawson. Here’s hoping it happens.
4. ESPN is the Worldwide Leader in aggravation Pt. 2
As stated earlier, ESPN already had me bent sideways with the appearance of the Flores brothers. So you can imagine how my blood boiled when I turned on the TiVo Monday to watch Friday Night Fights, only to find that the College World Series (baseball) was on! And, no, the game was not running late, it just was shown and FNF was not. Come to find out, apparently some scheduling difficulty had pushed the college game later, and, with no advance notice, ESPN just decided to move FNF from ESPN2 to ESPN Classic. Nothing like screwing with the boxing fans out there, huh? And ESPN has a history of doing this. Does anyone remember how they famously started their FNF 10th anniversary show (which they had been promoting all summer) an hour earlier than scheduled last fall without announcing anything? If anyone wanted to see who the Fighter of the Decade was (Emmanuel Augustus, rightly chosen), too bad – if you tuned in at the scheduled start time, you had already missed it. With all the 14 channels ESPN has now, you would think they could find some other network with poker reruns on which to move the baseball game. If it wasn’t for ESPN360, I wouldn’t have been able to watch, it period.
5. Lamps hits that time of the month
OK, Jim Lampley has been doing boxing so well for so long, many times boxing fans give him a free pass when he starts to get a little emotional during broadcasts. But even then, there are times when Lamps passes into creepy territory that makes you feel like the first time your parents gave you the birds & bees discussion. Prior to Miguel Cotto’s fight with Emmanuel Clottey, Lampley described how Cotto, who has been through a lot with his family recently, was crying while talking about his father to reporters. Cotto’s dad then came over and hugged him, which was surely a touching moment. However, Lampley started describing this as a “graphic demonstration of true, honest man-love”. Ewww. Fathers and sons can love each other, but a graphic demonstration of man-love is what you find in airport bathrooms, isn’t it? Just tap your foot, right? As if that wasn’t weird enough, Lampley started to well up at the end of the broadcast merely describing Cotto’s gutsy effort to come back and win the fight. It’s one thing for him to mist up after the death of a fighter or some tragedy, but now he can’t seem to keep it together just doing his closing monologue. Lamps better make sure Harold Lederman (who is a pharmacist in his spare time) brings the Midol for the next HBO telecast!
Ring canvasses like this have become all too common in boxing. How many logos do we need to be reminded that the New York Daily News is sponsoring the event?
It was an event that every boxing fan dreams of. A packed Madison Square Garden teeming with thousands of fight fans on Puerto Rican Day in New York City. HBO and major press coverage buzz all week. A fight card featuring Matt Korobov & Ivan Calderon, headlined by the much-anticipated welterweight showdown between Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey. And, to top it off, a great nip and tuck fight going all twelve rounds with Cotto squeaking out the win despite a bad cut that he bravely fought through. The stands packed full of Cotto’s Puerto Rican brethren made for an electric atmosphere. The best of boxing, right?
Well, thanks to something that is symptomatic of the worst in boxing, we almost never got to see it.
In round five, Clottey tried to clinch with Cotto near one corner of the ring. Although it has been described as a tackle, Cotto more or less pushed Clottey off of him. This move sent Clottey airborne, then spinning down to the canvas; it was immediately apparent that the Ghanian had injured his knee. Unfortunately, referee Arthur Mercante, Jr. didn’t get a clear look at the situation, as he had tripped on a ring photographer’s camera a couple of seconds before Clottey hit the canvas. Mercante allowed Clottey to take a few minutes to recover, but for the next few rounds, Clottey was a one-legged fighter. Cotto regained control of the fight at that point. Luckily, as the rounds wore on, Clottey was able to shake off the injury and continue (even winning rounds in the process), so the injury was not serious enough to warrant a stoppage of the action.
Further replays showed, however, that the injury was actually caused by Clottey slipping on a Tecate logo as he landed. This caused a subsequent WWE-like flop to the canvas. On that one bad leg, Clottey would continue to slip on the ring logos several times the rest of the way, sometimes on that same bad knee. Although Cotto didn’t have as much trouble, he did lose his footing a couple of times during the fight as well.
Which begs the obvious question: Why are these ridiculous canvas designs allowed to continue?
On the ring itself, there were four Tecate logos in each corner, with a fifth logo taking about a third of the entire canvas in the middle. There was an AT&T logo above that, plus a Madison Square Garden logo below. So out of the whole ring canvas, only each side of the large center logo could be found any free space. Making matters worse, the paint obviously had no grip to it, as many times as both fighters slipped during the bout. Although neither fighter complained about the canvas afterward (they were both far more worked up about the judge’s decisions), it was brought up by the HBO announce team during the telecast.
The question is, then, why does boxing continue to allow this to happen? With all the medical precautions that are taken with boxers, from the examinations and weigh-ins before fights to the ringside doctor, paramedic team and ambulance during, it seems crazy that these unsafe canvases are largely ignored. If I can buy a resin additive to put in paint at my local hardware store, explain to me how Top Rank is unable to do the same, especially with their million-dollar promotion at stake? I’ve seen fights where the canvas was so slippery, a referee took a Coke from ringside and poured it on the canvas logo. How utterly minor league does that sound? Just imagine the NHL not using a Zamboni between periods of hockey, and having the officials pouring water from a cup to clean up ruts in the ice. It never would happen, would it? Worth billions of dollars, the NHL has standards that all arenas need to follow to protect their players.
Boxing needs this as well. It is understandable that promotions need all the advertising revenue possible, but there should be a limit as to how much ring space can be used for advertising, uniform throughout the sport. Also, these commissions need to test the canvas prior to fight time with water, sweat or any other elements that a fight would have to make sure there’s no threat of injury. If a commission was to declare a ring unfit for fighting, you can well bet promoters would respond with some alacrity. With all that commissions do already, this doesn’t seem like a lot more to ask. The last thing anyone in boxing needs is for a great career to be cut short due to a torn ACL caused by something as stupid as slippery canvas.
Boxing is a dangerous sport by its nature, and those who step into the ring already risk so much to ply their trade. With all the steps made over the years that have made the sport safer, it’s time to make that first step on the canvas a safe one, too.
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.
"Sugar" Shane Mosley took it to Antonio Margarito in January, apparently taking Margarito's aura of invincibility in the process. As of June, he still can not get a big-time welterweight dance partner.
It may seem like a lifetime ago, but it has been only four months since “Sugar” Shane Mosley forcibly removed the aura of the Most Feared Fighter On the Planet from Antonio Margarito. In that January 24 bout, Mosley seemingly turned back the clock on his 37 years; where most had thought his best days were behind him, his dismantling of the Mexican warrior (sans the loaded gloves, of course) put him right back in the welterweight discussion.
Or so it was thought at the time. If one was to check the Ring magazine’s rankings in and around the 147-pound division, you see many of the top fighters matched against each other this summer. Miguel Cotto – Joshua Clottey. Andre Berto, who just fought, against Luis Collazo. Floyd Mayweather coming back to face Juan Manuel Marquez, with the winner getting Manny Pacquiao. Ricky Hatton just fought Pac Man, and his brother Matthew is fighting Zab Judah on July 18. Looks like the only one without a potentially significant fight is the #1 ranked fighter, Mosley, who is the division’s forgotten man at this point.
The problem is not that other fighters have bouts already, it’s that no one is even mentioning Mosley as a fight they’d like down the road. It has gotten so bad, that after ESPN’s Brian Kenney had his well-publicized tête-à-tête with Pretty Boy Floyd last week, Mosley had sink to making remarks about Mayweather’s financial troubles in hopes of getting him in the ring. And even lately, Mosley’s camp has taken to saying they’ve got a fight lined up with Pacquiao for October 18, even though Top Rank says they’ve had no discussions about that at all. It’s well known that the uber-popular Filipino’s shooting a movie all summer in his home country, and that date would seem a bit too soon. And, besides, no one’s heard Mosley’s name coming from anyone’s mouth but his.
Now, one could argue that this is karma for his admission that he used steroids in 2003 prior to his second fight with Oscar De La Hoya, and they might be right. Still, though, a fight between Mosley and Mayweather, Pacquiao, or even a rematch with Miguel Cotto would be worth paying attention to. At the very least, after the Margarito performance, he shouldn’t be relegated to fighting the Sergio Mora’s & Carlos Quintana’s of the world. He’s 37, and Mosley knows he doesn’t have unlimited time left. For the boxing fan, it would be much better to see him in action now against one of the top dogs rather than having him tread water for 18 months, perhaps looking old or rusty the next time he steps into the ring. Not everyone is Bernard Hopkins, you know.
For now, Mosley will have to bide his time, and if he’s smart, will take a stay-busy fight later this summer while the whole welterweight picture plays out. After all that is done, though, someone needs to step up to the plate and take on the #1 guy in the division. While Mosley isn’t De La Hoya when it comes to being a license to print money, he’s someone boxing fans will pay to see when matched appropriately. Sugar has earned his place at the table; someone now needs to give him a slice of that pie.
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.
Bantamweight Joseph "King Kong" Agbeko celebrates a hard-fought victory over Vic Darchinyan Saturday. Despite what Agbeko and promoter Don King intimated after the fight, referee Tommy Kimmons is not a member of Darchinyan's family nor does he get a monthly stipend from the Armenian.
