Weekend Afterthoughts: David Tua Delivers New Zealand Blowout Of The Century; Allan Green Reverts?; Edwin Rodriguez Makes A Statement; More

With haste, happenings from the weekend:

  • I’d had that suspicion that Shane Cameron wasn’t ready, and the heavyweight got demolished in two rounds by David Tua in the New Zealand Fight of the Century. You can watch the fight here, at least until YouTube takes it down. Tua at 237 was in the best shape he’d been in a while, and he clearly still has just a teensy bit of punching power (you think?). I do think Tua should have been at least penalized for twice punching Cameron while he was down, but based on this performance, even with the note that Cameron wasn’t ready, I’d like to see Tua in against just about any heavyweight other than the Klitschkos. But he’s got a messy TV deal, and one prospective next opponent, Hasim Rahman, is looking at Ray Mercer then Evander Holyfield. The heavyweight division, ladies and gentlemen.
  • I missed the ShoBox card, stupidly thinking I could catch it on replay, but super middleweights Allan Green and Marcus Johnson beat Tarvis Simms and Victor Villereal, respectively, by decision, while welterweight Antwone Smith won by corner stoppage over Henry Crawford in the 9th. The headline is what many have called atrocious refereeing in the 6th round when most people think the fight should have been stopped, but nobody pulled the plug for Crawford, and apparently no doctor even ever went to check on him. This is one of my biggest issues, so I wish I’d seen it to judge for myself. The consensus is that Green didn’t look that good, although at least one outlet chalked it up to Green training for Victor Oganov before Simms stepped in, as those two are different kinds of fighters, and to Simms being better than people expected. I’ll chalk it up to Green being maddeningly inconsistent.
  • Middleweight prospect Edwin Rodriguez dominated tough, experienced journeyman Darnell Boone, winning by near shutout despite having his chin tested. That’s impressive. But: Rodriguez weighed in at 165 to Boone’s 160, and one of the things I didn’t get to touch on in my feature on him is that Rodriguez is a middleweight prospect whose fights all have come at super middleweight. At a certain point, he either just needs to be a super middleweight or get down to 160. On the same card, junior middleweight prospect Demetrius Andrade reportedly had a close fight with unheralded Chris Chatman, but got the win. Curious.
  • Other results: Remember that card IR recommended to us all? Well, the sense is that there were some mighty fine performances on it by junior bantamweights Drian Francisco and Michael Domingo as well as strawweight Milan Melindo… Just when you think he’s done, heavyweight Audley aka “Fraudley” Harrison keeps coming back, this time by winning the tourney on the British show “Prizefighter.” Maybe we can throw him in against the winner of Rahman-Mercer or Rahman-Holyfield II… I’m getting curious about Canadian middleweight prospect David Lemieux after his one-round blowout of Donny McCrary… Junior welterweight Paul Spadafora and welterweight Vyacheslav Senchenko won, while junior bantamweight Tomas Rojas, he wasn’t even fighting this weekend, and I don’t know what’s happening at all with flyweight Omar Narvaez — I guess ESPN’s schedule was screwed up.
  • Why’s it so hard to show up for a goddam court date? All it does is invite trouble. And yet, Floyd Mayweather’s trainer uncle Roger did just that, so now there’s a warrant for his arrest. Derrrrrr. Meanwhile, Mayweather clan member Jeff Mayweather got himself a nice gig as the trainer for junior featherweight Celestino Caballero.
  • Want to see Manny Pacquiao’s schlong? Watch the newstands for ESPN the magazine Oct. 9. (OK, I doubt they’ll get the full monty out there, but still.) P.S. How dumb a move was it for Pacquiao to have his training camp in the Philippines? Apparently pretty dumb.
  • Round And Round: Juan Diaz-Paulie Malignaggi II yet lives, but the terms, like weight etc., are still unclear. Joshua Clottey-Carlos Quintana at welterweight now looks like a go for Dec. 5, and it’s a nice fight. So, too, does Edgar Sosa Sosa-Rodel Mayol at junior flyweight look like a go for Nov. 21; I’m getting a little annoyed about Sosa saying he’s going to do this and that and then not doing it. As epic, vulgar trash talk wars go, you could do a lot worse than the spat between junior middleweights Sergio Martinez (why does he sound so desperate lately?) and Vanes Martirosyan.

About Tim Starks

Tim is the founder of The Queensberry Rules and co-founder of The Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (http://www.tbrb.org). He lives in Washington, D.C. He has written for the Guardian, Economist, New Republic, Chicago Tribune and more.

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