It’s quirky fame week at TQBR. First up was the cameo on Showtime’s Fight Camp 360 Saturday. Then, earlier this week, friend-of-the-site the legend dropped a new album with his band, Escape The Fate, which is a wildly popular rock outfit — and thanked this site in their liner notes. If one million of the 23 million people who have watched this clip of one of their songs visits the site, I will be a rich man, or, at least, Internet-rich. If you aren’t afraid of being rocked, support the legend and buy the album even though he trash-talks you during TQBR Prediction Game. And a big “thank you” back to the legend. (A mild disagreement, though: He also thanks “Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather.” I do not thank that fight. I curse it for not happening. CURSE IT.)
Less quirky fame also was to be had. ABS-CBN News in the Philippines this week wrote a piece on my interview with Pacquiao biographer Gary Andrew Poole. TQBR contributor Carlos Acevedo, who makes his home at The Cruelest Sport, penned two pieces for the latest issue of Boxing World, about Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito and Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather, and he quoted me in both. Carlos provides directions here on how to obtain the magazine. We won runner-up for a Bloguin Award. And lastly, TQBR contributor Alex McClintock had pieces at both RingTV and The Sweet Science.
This kind of thing always walks a fine line between bragging and brimming with pride and wanting to share it with my pals, i.e. the people who visit the site. Forgive me if it too much resembles the former. The good news is that from here on out for the rest of Quick Jabs, it’ll all be about the boxing. Besides the headline, we’ve got a bit of info on this weekend’s schedule, the Manny Pacquiao distraction conflictinator, a confusing case of one boxer impersonating another and more still.
Quick Jabs
The schedule goes like this: Tonight on Showtime is a ShoBox card, typically excellent, headlined by talented, exciting super middleweight prospect Edwin Rodriguez against James McGirt, Jr. McGirt figures as the toughest challenge of Rodriguez’ career. Over on TeleFutura’s Solo Boxeo, Jose Miguel Cotto fights at welterweight against an easy mark and late replacement. Off TV, Brian Viloria returns to flyweight and Kwanthai Sithmorseng and Pigmy Kokietgym do battle for a vacant strawweight strap. On Saturday, aside from the HBO and Showtime cards, there’s a new episode of HBO’s Pacquiao/Margarito 24/7; rte.ie offers a free show from Ireland, and they are typically entertaining; Omar Nino Romero makes a soft defense of his junior flyweight belt; junior middleweight Jimmy Lange returns to Virginia, and I expect we’ll have a new contributor filing an account; and various prospects, like welterweight Sadam Ali, are in action. Sunday brings the 60 Minutes feature on Pacquiao. On Monday, ESPN2 returns to airing fights very briefly for its Veterans Day special to broadcast junior featherweight prospect Rico Ramos in a step up against Heriberto Ruiz…
Pacquiao has claimed credit for helping Democrats win in the California governor’s race and in the Nevada Senate race featuring Majority Leader Harry Reid. He might be right — he very well could have helped, given his appeal with Filipino voters, although in neither state did they figure as decisive, numerically, or even close. Mainly, it’d be great if he had been focused entirely on helping himself during training camp. Things have settled down, apparently, and trainer Freddie Roach, who fed some of the worry about this camp with his own quotes, now is irritated and says everything is OK. There’ve been all kinds of stories about whether Pacquiao was too heavy or too light, but he says he’s better at a lower number. (Incidentally, the reported catchweight for the fight is now 151 pounds, not 150 as had widely been reported, the second November fight where every journalist had been reporting a catchweight incorrectly; only recently did we discover that Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez II is at 158, not 157). Also, some have correctly pointed out that Pacquiao has looked a little looser in his musculature for this fight, but the latest picture I’ve seen out of camp is quite encouraging. Due to the wonders of blogging technology, you, too, can now see this picture.
Laurence Cole, the best referee in the world — only in opposite land! — will be the zebra for Pacquiao-Margarito. Anyone want to bet me $500 that he doesn’t find some moment to blow a major call? I’m completely serious…
Super middleweight Lucian Bute has been lured away from HBO back to Showtime for a multi-fight deal. Why couldn’t this have happened when they were making the Super Six? (Unsatisfactory answer, per a news release: Showtime wasn’t familiar with Interbox yet, but is now.) And how often do you hear about someone going from giant HBO to smaller Showtime? Why does Showtime want to make a multi-fight deal with a fighter who has no opponents of any note available in his division, and who has shown no interest in moving up to light heavyweight anytime soon? (Unsatisfactory answer: To fight the winner of the Super Six, but that won’t wrap up until the middle of next year at the absolute earliest.) And why is it doing multi-fight deals at all? There’s not much I get about this…
Junior middleweight Jimmy Kirkland is addicted to parole violations. This one won’t cost him much time in jail, and sure, it was a very minor infraction. But why wouldn’t Kirkland be tiptoeing around, doing his best to avoid minor infractions? It’s maddening. This guy is going to be back in jail someday, maybe for good. I can almost promise you…
There was some comedy this week involving WBC president Jose Sulaiman having a temper tantrum, quitting and then changing his mind. Also this week, his organization agreed to give a diamond belt — created for catchweight fights — to the winner of the not-catchweight Jean Pascal-Bernard Hopkins light heavyweight bout. And now this guy’s in the Guinness Book of World Records, but not for “petulance” or “inanity” or some other such thing you might expect…
Promoter Lou DiBella says in this article about his minor league baseball troupe that he’s wants to de-emphasize boxing in favor of baseball, which is sad. The reason, he said, is because of all the “negative energy” in boxing. It’s true — there’s a lot of it, and it’s disheartening. But DiBella has the same disease every other promoter has, which is not recognizing his role in the very things he decries; it’s not like DiBella ever lacks for “negative energy”…
For some reason, welterweight Shane Mosley has added James Prince as his adviser. Somebody somewhere please tell me one thing Prince has done that’s positive for a fighter. Maybe his reported bankrolling of light heavyweight Chad Dawson early in his career, which came back to haunt Dawson, by the way. Does Mosley need to be bankrolled?…
The World Series of Boxing, which Alex wrote about in one of the links above, will be televised in the United States via Spanish-language Vme, per a news release. This is good news for those of us who are, at minimum, intrigued by the idea. Coverage kicks off Nov. 20. Also, if you want to enjoy the full range of boxing offerings in the United States, at this point, you simply have to have some kind of Spanish-language package via your cable or satellite provider. You’ve got Fox Sports Deportes airing Top Rank Live; TeleFutura airing Solo Boxeo; Vme airing the WSB; Telemundo airing the occasional card; and even HBO Latino airing the occasional bit of exclusive content…
You know that badass chick from the “Girl Who/Girl That” series of Swedish-language movies-based-on-books? Well, the actress who plays her, Noomi Rapace, is working on a boxing movie about Swedish boxer Boss Hogberg (not to be confused with Boss Hogg)…
MMA blog Bloody Elbow had a terrible piece on boxing the other week, but this week had a good one about the rise of boxing within mixed martial arts. What it said at the end was the best thing about it: “…Boxing writers should realize that MMA is more like the decathlon. No one watches a decathlon and comes away going, ‘that’s B.S., that guy is a shitty hurdler.’ It’s clear that decathletes are the pre-eminent jack of all trades in track and field. MMA fighters are the decathletes of combat sports. If you want to see the best BJJ, go to the Mundials. If you want to see the best boxing, watch boxing. If you want the best kickboxers, watch K-1. Want to see the world’s best wrestlers or judokas, stick to the Olympics. MMA is the place fighters come to test their ability to blend skills from different disciplines. Period.” That’s cool. I can dig that metaphor. I don’t like the decathalon very much. I like people who are really, really good at what they do, not kinda good at everything. But if you like the decathalon, that’s all right by me…
Yet another boxer has filed a protest about a boxing result, Avtandil Khurtsidze for his close, disputed loss to middleweight Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam, where a drug test apparently didn’t happen, either. These protests never, ever work. I suppose you have to try, though. Also, someone put this fight on YouTube please, already. You got people describing it as a “classic” and “Fight of the Year candidate” whatnot…
Paul Briggs has been fined $75,000 for his weird knockout loss to cruiserweight Danny Green. Something about withholding info from doctors, although it’s a little confusing (to me, and to Briggs). Briggs is threatening to sue. This ugly saga has no end in its ugly sight…
If you can make heads or tails of this story of a boxer impersonating another boxer over in Thailand, you have more brainpower than me. But it sounds neat. I pass it along to you for decoding…
Don’t fight each other after horse races, jockeys! Switch sports to do it. The strawweight division of boxing could use a few good men.
