| 20 October 2008
In the meantime, here's your inaugural edition of "Quick Jabs" at the new site, the feature where I run tons of boxing news through the old typewriter. This will be the quickest version of "Quick Jabs," because I have ambitions to do more frequent, but shorter, posts with the advent of the new site. Wish me luck, for your sake and mine...
Bernard Hopkins-Kelly Pavlik this past weekend kicked off a series of year-end bouts that are more interesting for their storylines than for the action they may or may not provide, but there are a few opportunities here and there before 2009 for fights that offer more action than storylines, and one of them is this weekend. On Showtime
There's been a lot of speculation about whether ESPN would cancel its Wednesday Night Fights program, and whether any savings would in turn go to Friday Night Fights. Dan Rafael's latest notebook says "yes" to the cancellation, "no" to the money saved boosting ESPN's other boxing program. That's highly disappointing. Sure, ESPN cards are sometimes loaded up with mismatches for young fighters or bouts of questionable quality. But there are also plenty of gems on the show, and young fighters have to get exposure somewhere. There were also more upsets than ever on ESPN this year, and it was nice to get a little mid-week boxing -- now we'll get less of the former and none of the latter. And we don't even get a little cash injection to make FNF better in return...
Golden Boy Promotions is picking off tons of boxing free agents these days, litigation threat from their former promoters be damned. Nate Campbell, owner of three lightweight (135 lbs.) belts, is in talks with Golden Boy, despite lawsuit threats from previous, recently-ditched promoter Don King. If GBP gets 'em, we could see Campbell in against other GBP stablemates Juan Diaz, or better yet, Juan Manuel Marquez for all the lightweight marbles, since Marquez holds the Ring magazine belt. As good a pickup as that would be for GBP, they've also shored themselves up in an area where they had been in their weakest by making plays for young potential superstars in James Kirkland (junior middleweight, 154 lbs.) -- complete with a litigation threat from Gary Shaw Promotions -- and Yuriorkis Gamboa (featherweight), to go along with recent acquisition Victor Ortiz (junior welterweight, 140 lbs), who looks like he'll get a deserved and coveted slot on the Dec. 6 Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao undercard Dec. 6. I confess this all makes me skittish. On one hand too many prominent promoters is a recipe for fights not getting made, but then, a virtual monopoly wouldn't be ideal either...
The constantly mutating plans for welterweights Margarito and Miguel Cotto are getting a little old. Margarito was going to fight Joshua Clottey in the fall, then he wasn't; then Cotto and Margarito were going to have interim bouts to set up their rematch in early 2009; then Margarito was looking at Shane Mosley, now that probably won't happen for monetary reasons, according to the boss at promoter Top Rank, Bob Arum. The current status is that Margarito-Cotto II may go straight to February, but if it doesn't, Cotto could fight Kermit Cintron or Jesus Soto-Karass and Margarito could fight, well, someone. Mosley may end up with Paul Williams or Andre Berto out of the deal, especially because all of Williams' opponents keep falling through, like Delvin Rodriguez, who plans to fight Isaac Hlatswayo in a title eliminator instead of Williams to set up a bout for Clottey's belt, so now Verno Phillips is back in the picture as a Williams opponent for November. If all of that bores the piss out of you, join my club...
Welterweight is still pretty stocked, no matter what happens with all of the above, and lightweight and junior bantamweight (115 lbs.) round out the top three divisions in the sport. But Pacquiao's apparent complete abandonment of lightweight really sucks some of the life out of the division, because that happens any time you lose the best pound-for-pound fighter in the game -- the same thing that happened at welterweight when Floyd Mayweather retired. And junior bantamweight looks like it's about to lose both Cristian Mijares and Fernando Montiel, the top two men in the division who say they are are bailing for 118 pounds, so it's about to drop off substantially. I really do wish that once a division really starts to get spicy, people would hang around for a little while...
Speaking of Mijares, his next opponent, Vic Darchinyan, is going around claiming that Nonito Donaire got lucky when he knocked him out last year, and that up to that point, Darchinyan says he was just toying with Donaire. I've always had a strange soft spot for Darchinyan's arrogance, and maybe a fighter has to tell himself something like that when he's on the receiving end of the consensus Knockout of the Year. But if Darchinyan is even remotely interested in the truth, he should check the tape again. Donaire did indeed land a helluva knockout punch, but he also was owning Darchinyan up to that point...
Vitali Klitschko, surprisingly, may not hang around that long after a scintillating comeback last weekend. Unless he can lure Lennox Lewis back to the ring for a rematch, or maybe get a hold of Nicolay Valuev, it might be back to retirement for Vitali. As disappointing as it is that Vitali's presence means we probably won't get a true heavyweight champ -- Vitali'd have to fight little brother Wladimir for the vacant Ring belt, and that won't happen -- Vitali looked so good bashing Sam Peter that I confess I'd like him to stay and play. I deeply doubt Klitschko-Lewis II happens, even if Don King somehow can deliver on his proposed $50 million offer to Lewis, which I also find dubious. Lewis is on the ballot for Hall of Fame consideration in 2009 because he's been retired for five years, and he could have made $50 mil fighting over that span if he put his mind to it...
Maybe Ricardo Torres is simply the biggest-money fight out there for Kendall Holt, given the twin bizarre wars the two junior welterweights have waged against one another. But I really think Holt deserves some credit for giving Torres a rubber match in December, after berating Torres into the initial rematch, where Holt avenged his loss. Torres has knocked Holt down numerous times, so it's not like Holt isn't taking a risk here. It's also just the honorable thing to do -- Torres won controversially the first time, Holt won controversially the second time. The winner moves on, per a deal with Showtime, to a fight with Timothy Bradley, a nice clash no matter who comes out of Torres-Holt III...
As for little brother, Wladimir Klitschko is in talks for a fight against David Haye as soon as next June. It's dependent on Haye looking good against Monte Barrett next month in his heavyweight re-debut. It should be. If Haye can't handle Barrett sensationally, then Klitschko will ruin him. Repeat: Ruin him...
On one hand, you have to give it up for Gerry Penalosa being one of the bravest little fellas in the sport. He said he wanted to fight Juan Manuel Lopez at 122 lbs. on the De La Hoya-Pacquiao undercard, and Penalosa once again demonstrated he is game to fight anyone, even guys others would prefer not to fight. On the other hand, there are allegations from Lopez' camp that he wanted too much money, more even than Lopez. I don't know which is true. Lopez is hyping ambitious plans to move all the way up to lightweight someday. But as obvious a superstar-in-waiting as he is, he'll need to pick off someone like Israel Vazquez on his way up, or he may find himself in a "fight a bunch of nobodies" pattern that isn't helpful. Vazquez says he's happy to fight Lopez one day, but wants Lopez to become more of an
established star first. From the sound of things, Lopez may be in a difficult "need experience to get a job, can't get experience without a job" nook...
If you were wondering what the hell was going on with Peter against Vitali, I commend you to this rather plausible explanation from his trainer, courtesy the ultra-diligent and fair-minded Michael Woods. The reason he looked bad, summed up: It was a little bit of everything, including some mysteries...
Another Winky Wright fight has fallen through, this one his proposed middleweight bout with Arthur Abraham in January. There are differing accounts of who's to blame, but I ask you this: Are you surprised?
(Sources: ESPN; Boxingtalk.com; Maxboxing.com; TheSweetScience.com; BoxingScene.com; The London Daily Telegraph)
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