How many Quick Jabs is too many Quick Jabs? The answer: None many. None many Quick Jabs is too many Quick Jabs.
So, a few days after my last such news round-up (complete with flippant and/or trenchant analysis) here’s another one. The big news of the week has to be Shane Mosley-Joshua Clottey, but it didn’t quite warrant its own post, so it gets thrown in with the likes of the other stuff in the headline, plus Lennox Lewis’ managerial escapades; Edison Miranda’s mystery bottle; fights in the works such as Marcos Maidana-Kendall Holt; and more. But not as much as usual, since we just did this thing.
Quick Jabs
Here’s where I might usually do a weekend preview, but when Daniel Ponce De Leon vs. Roinet Caballero is the second-best fight of the weekend, there’s not much needed. Aside from those featherweights, there is an actually interesting bout up in Canada when junior bantamweight prospect Marvin Sonsona takes on veteran Jose Lopez. Sonsona’s a very green Filipino prospect — only 13 fights — and Lopez is a solid vet. I’m not sure what the rush is with some of these Filipino prospects; they should be stepped up, sure, but they shouldn’t go from fighting nobody to fighting serious contenders so quickly…
Remember that mystery, suspect brown bottle that was found in the corner of super middleweight Edison Miranda for his fight with Andre Ward back in May? Well, California still has no clue what was in it. I don’t know if Cali can afford any more lab workers right now, but this is a rather persisent problem…
A few months back, the retired Joe Calzaghe said: “If you ever see me on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here or anything like that, you can track me down and shoot me in the head.” Now, he’s agreed to appear on a celebrity-themed reality show in the U.K. called “Strictly Come Dancing.” I’ve heard of dancing with death before, but this really takes the cake. (Just so you know, I’m wiggling my eyebrows like Groucho Marx right now)…
Hostilities have ceased between Top Rank and ESPN2, so now Top Rank might do some shows for Friday Night Fights. It’s good to see Top Rank boss Bob Arum acknowledge here that his deal with Versus was a disaster. Is it possible that you can teach an old dog new tricks, or is this his way of heading off any potential deal-undermining gripes about being given dates where he’d be able to select the fights?…
If there’s a place where promoting fights and being classy meet, then heavyweight Vitali Klitschko has hit the sweet spot. He’s donating tickets for his Sept. 26 bout with Chris Arreola to the firefighters battling the Cali wildfires, and I don’t care much if it’s for publicity or because he really means it. I should say, the Klitschko brothers have always been about good causes, so I don’t doubt he means it. I’m just thinking that if anyone wants to be a mensch while simultaneously hyping their bottom line, well, I’m not going to complain much…
Gee, I’m so surprised another boxer is suing Don King because of inactivity. Junior middleweight Ricardo Mayorga is the latest, although it must be said that Mayorga rather prickishly pulled out of a fight with Alfredo Angulo, so at least part of this is his own damn fault. P.S. I’m not sure who to root for in a pissing match between King and Mayorga. It’d be like if Destro fought Cobra Commander…
Oh, the silly WBO. I confess I’ve never heard of their rule on this: They’ve put together a purse split for the junior welterweight Timothy Bradley-Lamont Peterson fight that screws up Bradley’s pot split if the fight is in California, or 50-50 if it’s outside of Cali. I get what they’re trying to do here, but I thought the “champion” was entitled to more the purse usually, no? There’s no scenario where Peterson should get 60 percent of the pot…
That illness that hospitalized junior bantamweight Nonito Donaire? It was dengue fever. Whoa. Scary. But word is Donaire is recovering. Wish him nothing but good health…
The Arturo Gatti murder or suicide saga, which long ago turned into an ugly soap opera, shows no signs of ending soon. The latest developments — a lawsuit by Gatti’s wife against Brazilian authorities for false imprisonment, an attempt by Gatti’s blood to overturn the will that would give his wife so much money, etc. Gross…
Former boxer Lennox Lewis has become a manager of fighters. For junior middleweight client Kermit Cintron’s case, Lewis had better be a better manager than an HBO commentator or Twitterer.
Round And Round
Obviously, THE fight that got made this week — assuming the reporting is not premature, as some outlets have only described it as in the works — is Shane Mosley-Joshua Clottey on Dec. 26. Don’t let the headline of this post fool you. I realize Mosley didn’t have many other options if he wanted to fight at all. All the people he wanted most were busy. But some fighters, faced with the choice between a smallish paycheck against a dangerous fighter the day after Christmas or just sitting out, would sit this one out. Mosley isn’t like “some fighters.” I like this fight. Clottey’s defense is like Winky Wright’s, which could give Mosley some trouble, but Mosley does match up better against Clottey than Miguel Cotto did. The question as always is whether badass Mosley shows up, as he did against Antonio Margarito in his last fight, or old-looking Mosley shows up, as he did in the previous bout against Mayorga.
The latest word on the infected hand of middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik is that he’ll be ready to fight Paul Williams by Dec. 5, but this information comes from Pavlik’s promoter. Nonetheless, I cheer this news, such as it is. Pavlik-Williams’ collapse disappointed me deeply, and I’d love to have it back on the winter calendar.
HBO, to its credit, wants to do Juan Diaz-Paulie Malignaggi II. The 138.5 pound fight (still laugh at that) has problems with its site, however. If HBO means it, it should be able to bankroll a rematch in a neutral location though, right?
Here’s how you spice up a main event that might or might not deliver the goods: Put Marcos Maidana-Kendall Holt on the undercard. The junior welterweight bout between big punchers could air Nov. 28 as the supporting bout for the super middleweight rematch between Lucian Bute and Librado Andrade. Much as Showtime deserves some love for sticking with bantamweight Joseph Agbeko after he defeated Showtime favorite Vic Darchinyan, so does HBO deserve some love after sticking with Maidana after he defeated HBO favorite Victor Ortiz. But not too much love, since has Maidana has joined the Golden Boy Promotions fold… an HBO favorite. In other news, I think the photo that Ring magazine uses of Holt in its weekly ratings is hilarious. What’s that face he’s making? Did he just ingest an insect? Did he just detect, or was he actually in the middle of, a crude bodily function?
Lightweight Edwin Valero’s bleedin’ brain was already a potential impediment to him fighting Humberto Soto on the Nov. 14 pay-per-view Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto (145 lbs.) fight, but now a DUI he got in the United States is giving him visa problems. Stupid laws! Health regulations, driver safety measures, immigration standards and everything else just keep telling Valero, “Maybe you weren’t meant to fight in the States, bro.”
A nice prospect-vs-prospect match-up will hit ShoBox Sept. 18 when Henry Crawford fights Antwone Smith at welterweight. We’ll find out whether this Crawford kid can handle a real opponent, and this bout gives Smith another chance at the spotlight after repeatedly impressing on Friday Night Fights.
Joke-fight time! Heavyweight “rivals” David Tua and Hasim Rahman might have a third fight. I’m going to go set up a Google News alert for instantaneous updates of the words “David Tua,” “Hasim Rahman” and “tickets,” because I don’t want to miss out on two ancient and irrelevant heavyweights settling their “grudge!”
Joke-fight time II! Fernando Vargas may unretire to fight Hector Camacho Jr. at 175 pounds in 2010. One thing you have to respect about boxing is that it always gives the people what they ask for. Like, just the other day, I was thinking, “If only some fat retired boxer would end his burrito-dumpster retirement so that he can fight at 20 pounds above his prime weight against someone who has close to no talent but a famous last name!” I must have thrown the right penny in the right wishing well that day, friends.
(Round And Round sources: ESPN; BoxingScene; Maxboxing; The Sweet Science; news releases)
