I don’t intend to detract from Scott’s marvelous entry just below this one, so make sure you read what he wrote before clicking through here, wherein the topics in the headline are discussed, as well as the rest of the weekend boxing schedule; some thoughts on journalistic standards; the return of Mike Tyson and Solo Boxeo to the airwaves; and a couple other things. We’ll go “Round and Round,” examining some fights in the works, Saturday.
Let’s examine the pretty good rest-of-the-weekend schedule, besides Wladimir Klitschko-Eddie Chambers Saturday, already previewed. We’ll do the big televised main events, then the rest. On Friday Night Fights, there’s a junior middleweight rematch of what was a pretty decent scrap the first time around between Deandre Latimore and Sechew Powell. I don’t know what would make it different this time around; Latimore upset Powell in the first fight, and there were rumors that Powell was slacking off in training then, so maybe he’s more focused now? It’s an eliminator for Cory Spinks’ belt, which could set up a rematch of Latimore-Spinks II, a surprisingly good battle of St. Louis standouts that went the way of Spinks. In the main event Saturday on Fox Sports Net — which, I’m not even sure what the point of having good bouts on FSN is if nobody can count on them actually airing on the channel they’re supposed to — heavyweight Odlanier Solis vs. Carl Drumond. Solis is talented if fat, and Drumond lost his last fight, but he’s still probably the best foe of Solis’ young pro career, so it’s a legit fight. Solis might be in the Klitschko sweepstakes one of these days…
There are two other title eliminators this weekend, besides Latimore-Powell II. Jhonny Gonzalez once more is on the road to a title shot — this time for no apparent reason — as he fights Saturday in a featherweight eliminator against Antonio Davis. Elio Rojas’ strap is somewhere on the other side. Heavy-hitting Randall Bailey today explored the welterweight waters in a titleweight eliminator against Jackson Bonsu Friday, who somehow cracked the division’s top 10 in Ring mag before a series of setbacks. Bailey — despite winning in 90 seconds — undeservedly is in line for a shot at the belt held by Jan Zaveck. If I were the IBF, I’d find somebody better to contend for its 147-pound belts. On the FNF undercard, super middleweight prospect Edwin Rodriguez fights another blown-up (but respectable) journeyman, George Armenta; I don’t have a problem with Rodriguez fighting someone of Armenta’s caliber at this point in his career, but at some point I’d like to see him regularly fight people his own size.The chief supporting bout on Saturday’s webcast heavyweight bout’s undercard is another heavyweight bout. Johnathon Banks-Travis Walker. I’m not sure this Banks-as-heavyweight experiment will work, but they’re testing him appropriately, with Walker having been dangerous at times, although last year he had a loss that probably ended his career as a viable contender. Thus, he’s here. It should be a good fight. There’s also a Telefutura Telemundo card….
Per a news release about the weigh-in for Klitschko-Chambers, Chambers weighed in at an appropriate 209 pounds, even if he wasn’t all cut up, and Klitschko weighed 244 and looked like he always does, which is like a god walking this planet. Kevin Iole makes the case that Klitschko should be a bigger star here, and we’ve been round and round on that lately, so I’ll skip the substance of it and agree on one part: Klitschko should have made himself available for interviews here, at least once. It could help him sell some of those $15 webcast shows that I don’t know will be in such high demand for Klitschko-Chambers…
I’m not so worried about what Andre Ward’s injury postponement of the Allan Green fight means for Showtime’s “Super Six” tournament, and I find it preposterous that Green thinks it’s all made up and Ward hopes never to fight him. Don’t think it’s in Ward’s character, and I’m not sure what Green’s trying to accomplish by alleging it other than looking like a jackass — not that he always needs an excuse. And yes, there have been some setbacks on the super middleweight tournament, but none of them make me much less excited about the format. What really worries me is that Ward’s career was derailed too long because of the knee injury that he’s said to have tweaked. If there’s one thing that could really keep Ward from being the kind of star he can become, it’s injury. The rescheduled fight is likely to happen June 19, my birthday…
Don King’s nice card on ESPN2 next weekend has collapsed amid great hubbub, with BoxingScene leading the pack with its reporting (a series of links to the site, which has given many readers more spyware than they wanted, is to follow). It was to feature cruiserweights Steve Cunningham and Matt Godfrey in a title eliminator, and the sucky-but-meaningful Spinks title defense against Cornelius Bundrage. (Fortunately, Cunningham-Godfrey stands a chance of being rescheduled, per ESPN, with Cunningham’s contract with King about to run out March 28 — which is good for Cunningham, since all King does is sit around not making fights very often for his fighters.) Most accounts point to King being to blame for not wanting to sign a standard deal…
But let’s speak a bit on journalistic standards, as it pertains to the King/ESPN2 story and more broadly. There’s this chronic problem in boxing media where “sources said” something, but no information is given about who those sources are. I’m not saying you need to name them, but you need to provide some information about them. The initial report on BoxingScene about King’s card falling through sounded very much like it relied on sources that came from King’s camp, especially since it included a bit of mockery of ESPN’s boxing honcho. Later, the same publication and reporter — Rick Reeno, whom it must be said gets a lot of great scoops — included details that were attributed to King, and they were about the same details as those provided by the unnamed sources. Now, maybe they didn’t come from King, but they sure sounded that way; and if they came from someone else, it was clearly someone sympathetic to King. Why is this a problem? The reader must know if one of the sources who’s saying something negative about one side of an argument comes from the other side of the argument. Otherwise, they might get the impression that those sources are telling the honest-to-god truth. It’s not always wrong to quote unnamed sources in that situation, but it is wrong not to identify what their interests are. This happens all the time with otherwise good boxing journalists. This happened with Tim Smith and the “sources” who cited the infamous Manny Pacquiao e-mails during the Floyd Mayweather negotiations; it happened when Teddy Atlas made reference to the same “sources;” it happens every time Thomas Hauser publishes a piece about HBO. It is the journalist’s duty to give readers the information they think is relevant. But if there is any doubt about whether the “sources” who provided that information are heavily vested parties, then that must be mentioned. Look at how Michael Woods handled the same ESPN2 card cancelation story that BoxingScene put out: He quoted “a King source.” That’s far better. The only time when it should be acceptable to use a vague “sources said” is if all sides agree on a set of claims; if there’s a claim and counter-claim, then both must be aired, and if no name is attached, some information should be shared about who these “sources” are…
While we’re on the subject of journalistic standards, I also have to point out that while I love Steve Kim’s work, I can’t imagine who would want to read his two–part, multi-thousand word essay about his trip to Dallas wherein details of his friend’s brother’s breakfast and lunch habits are recounted ad infinitum. If there’s some useful information in there, and you saw it, please cut and paste it below so I can know what it was…
I need to dial back my recent praise of the fan-relation skills of junior welterweight Paulie Malignaggi. You may recall he visited this site and left some comments after a few people on Twitter (including myself) teased him into. A couple days later, he noticed that I was following someone pretending to be him on Twitter and got upset at me. I stopped following the “fake” — even though I follow all kinds of zany, ridiculous people on Twitter — and told him so. He never replied to me, despite repeated entreaties. Then, out of nowhere, he got all testy with friend-of-the-site IR for daring question one of the things he said. Basically, Malignaggi made the tired old argument that you couldn’t criticize a boxer unless you were a boxer. IR made the valid counterpoint that Malignaggi therefore according to his own stance couldn’t criticize all kinds of people — presidents, waiters, clowns — unless he’d been one himself. Malignaggi then said he could say whatever he wanted (even though he had plenty of things to say to every non-boxer about what THEY were allowed to say; even though he constantly retweets the GOOD things non-boxers say about him) and threatened to block IR. Maybe it’s just been a bad couple weeks for Malignaggi, but I think he needs to realize that if he is going to interact with fans — and I’m glad he does — that he may not agree with everything they say or do…
Mike Tyson, as everyone now knows, is going to have a show on Animal Planet racing pigeons. I’m glad to see it on one level, but not another. Tyson truly loves that hobby, and gainful employment will be good for keeping him out of trouble, and I bet it’ll be pretty good television and get itself a nice little audience. On the other hand, I do worry about what the pigeons are compelled to do against their wishes, unlike boxers…
In one of several falling outs this week, trainer Ronnie Shields split from junior middleweight prospect Omar Henry because of a dispute with Henry’s manager Cameron Dunkin, who didn’t want Henry to spar with Erislandy Lara. I don’t know if the alleged backstory — some dispute between some managers — is true, and Dunkin says it isn’t. But I don’t think fighters should be kept from sparring for the official reason given either, i.e. that people might gossip about it. So what?…
Now comes the official return of “Solo Boxeo” via a contract with Golden Boy Promotions. It’ll air Friday nights, and all new boxing on television is always a good thing, but I really would like it if Solo Boxeo has higher standards than Golden Boy’s Fight Night Club. Some of the fighters they’re talking about putting on in their news release, like junior welterweight Danny Garcia, are a notch above Fight Night Club, but some of the others, like featherweight Charles Huerta, are the same cast of characters…
You can buy Evander Holyfield-Francois Botha via Integrated Sports pay-per-view for $29.95 April 10, per a news release. Here’s how much I would pay for it: $0.00.
