Victory for Freck Billionaire! He won $6,000 from Floyd Mayweather in a court dispute over a record contract. The rapper has the freckles, obviously, per the stills in the video above where he disses Mayweather, and now he’s almost to billionaire status. If you dislike cussing, do not watch the video. If you dislike Mayweather, do. Mr. Billionaire (or Mr. Sixthousandthaire) gets off some decent lines.
Other Quick Jabs, besides that one and the others in the headline: Oscar De La Hoya being “misquoted;” various junior welterweight goings-on; a series of dominoes from welterweight to middleweight; and more.
Quick Jabs
Top boxing writer Thomas Hauser has been on a hot streak. First he delved into the numbers behind the recent HBO doubleheader spotlighting junior welterweights Amir Khan and Victor Ortiz — read that here. More recently, he delivered this powerfully-written piece on referee Arthur Mercante, Jr.’s actions during the junior middleweight bout between Miguel Cotto and Yuri Foreman. He didn’t make many new points — for example, I’d talked about the bad example Mercante set for other referees; David P. Greisman talked about the weird mouthpiece incident; The New York Daily News brought up Mercante’s role in the death of a fighter aboard the Intrepid (which Hauser delves deeper into) — but he put it all together well. And the criticism from Emmanuel Steward and Freddie Roach he collected, along with the remarks of others, added depth to it. Combine all that with the fact that Hauser’s track record is such that when he talks, people listen, and you had a pretty convincing work…
Buried in this story was something I found simultaneously hilarious and offensive. You may recall that Shane Mosley paid the sanctioning fee to fight for his WBA belt against Mayweather, but Mayweather didn’t. When Mayweather beat Mosley, he couldn’t get the belt; usually, in situations like that, the losing fighter is stripped. But according to Mosley attorney Judd Berstein, Mosley had an alternative:
“Shane could have kept the title if he had paid more money,” said Burstein. “But we weren’t prepared to do that.”
Get that? Mosley lost the fight, but he could have kept his belt if he just GAVE MORE MONEY TO THE WBA. Isn’t that how “champions” are made? You simply pay for it, win or lose! It may seem like beating a dead horse to hammer away at the greed of the sanctioning organizations and the illegitimacy of the “championships” they offer, yet, there is still a big portion of the boxing world that acts like these sanctioning organizations’ belts mean something. Until that’s corrected, there’s no reason to quit hammering…
You know how every single time a public figure says something he shouldn’t, he claims he was misquoted or that his remarks were taken out of context? Golden Boy’s Richard Schaefer recently offered that defense on behalf of company namesake Oscar De La Hoya, who’d recently said the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao welterweight megafight was almost finalized. One problem with that defense: The remarks were on video, and have been translated by many, many people…
Good: Middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. is working hard in camp with Freddie Roach, so maybe he’s not so lazy. Bad: Chavez came in way out of shape, so maybe he is. Somewhere in between: He’s not picking up Roach’s training too well, which might suggest he was not much of a prospect or contender, except Roach said the stuff he’s trying to teach Chavez takes longer than he’s had to work on it…
Gary Shaw wants junior welterweight Marcos Maidana to be punished for his false “I had a back injury” excuse when pulling out of a fight with Timothy Bradley. Yes, that’s not a good thing for Maidana to have done. But what punishment should he face? And under what regulatory/justice framework? Without that, Shaw’s is a meaningless desire…
Speaking of Greisman: Check out his column on some boxing rules that should be changed. All of them are good, but especially give me the one where they put the trays under the boxers in the corners so the canvas doesn’t get too wet…
Junior welterweight prospect Mike Alvarado must get his jollies off probation violations. The kid’s very much on the “senseless career self-implosion” track…
While reading up on some stuff related to Cotto-Foreman, I happened across this video, I believe in a Maxboxing forum. I hadn’t seen it before. That Foreman continued with an injury was pretty brave. So is this similar feat from heavyweight Danny Williams — but it has a very different ending.
Round And Round
All right, here’s the series of dominoes at welter, junior middle and middle. Everyone at welterweight wants Mayweather or Pacquiao; exempt them from all of this for a moment. Mosley wants to fight Andre Berto, Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito. Berto wants Cotto or Mosley. Paul Williams wants Mosley. Cotto/his team are open to Margarito or Berto. HBO wants Williams-Sergio Martinez II. But with Williams wanting to fight at welterweight and Martinez wanting to keep his middleweight championship plus thinking middleweight is a good fit for his body at this point, that is unlikely in the near term from the standpoint. So Martinez might fight Sebastian Zbik, the mandatory to his alphabet belt. Shaw wants Sergiy Dzinziruk to fight whomever’s available if Williams-Martinez II doesn’t happen; Shaw doesn’t want Dzinziruk-Alfredo Angulo, even though Angulo — also promoted by Shaw — would be Dzinziruk’s mandatory for his junior middleweight belt. Another junior middleweight belt opened up by Martinez dropping that title might instead be decided by a trilogy fight between Margarito and Kermit Cintron.
Here’s what I want to happen, domino-wise. Mayweather-Pacquiao, obviously. Williams-Martinez II. Cotto-Mosley II, or Mosley-Berto/Cotto-Angulo. Dzinziruk-Cintron, with the winner facing the winner of Williams-Martinez II. Margarito left out in the cold. Zbik — nothing comes to mind.
Shaw said he proposed a junior welterweight tournament to HBO and HBO was interested, but Golden Boy said no. Since they have Maidana and Khan, not to mention lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez, that means no tournament. I get the idea that Khan can make more money fighting Marquez than Bradley, Maidana or Devon Alexander, but every fan knows that Bradley, Alexander, Maidana and Khan are the top four men in the division, and it’s a shame fights between those four are going to wait.
Don King claimed this week that heavyweight Nicolay Valuev accepted $2.5 million to fight Vitali Klitschko. Except the offer was very old — at the time, Valuev co-promoter Sauerland reportedly wanted Valuev to take it, but King differed — and the only offer on the table is $1.5 million. Plus, Valuev apparently let his rematch clause with David Haye lapse. Take the $1.5 million, Valuev and King. Now it’s all you’ve got.
Celstino Caballero says he’s willing to move up to 130 to fight Jorge Solis if he can’t get a fight at featherweight. He might have to do that, and then there’s no guarantee Solis wants any. The other Solis — Ulises — might be the next opponent for a junior flyweight rematch between Luis Lazarte Carlos Tamara.
You can get away with a lot of bad deeds in boxing. You’d think cruiserweight Matt Godfrey would be the kind of fighter rival promoters would try not to work with, since he refused to agree to a revived bout with Steve Cunningham very recently. Instead, Godfrey will get a shot at what is probably a more lucrative fight against Marco Huck Aug. 21.
Bantamweight A.J. Banal, still rebuilding from his loss to Rafael Concepcion in 2008, is headed toward a bout with Luis Perez Aug. 28, who looked over the hill against Agbeko in 2007 and has lost three of his last four. If Perez insists on fighting and is healthy, I don’t have a problem with this level of opponent for Banal — he’s only 21, and Perez is very experienced, the kind of opponent he needs for seasoning.
Heavyweight Chris Arreola might be headed for Friday Night Fights in August, against, perhaps, Friday Ahunanya.
The July 26 HBO doubleheader between featherweights Yuriorkis Gamboa and Orlando Salido and lightweights Anthony Peterson and Brandon Rios is postponed because Salido is still healing from a cut in his last fight, but money’s settled.
(Round and Round sources: Boxing Fanhouse; BoxingScene; ESPN; Fightnews; news releases)
