Quick Jabs, Babes And Would-Be Babes Edition: Roger Mayweather’s Respect; A Three-Year-Old’s Punch; Andre Berto’s Bicep; More

So many babes, attempted and certified, this week in the boxing world. Which to start with? That was my dilemma. I went with Caroline Wozniacki, who will be supporting fellow Dane Mikkel Kessler ringside in his super middleweight fight on Showtime next weekend against Carl Froch, per a Sauerland Event news release. You don’t have to do too many image searches for the tennis star to know that she is worshipped in the sports sphere for her hotness. Every conceivable picture of her bosom in every conceivable state is widely available on the Internets. Something weird about how sports babes are treated by the blogs. But then I suppose I’m participating a bit.

There is serious business afoot in boxing, of course. There’s this weekend’s boxing schedule beyond that already previewed. There’s some news on drugs used by boxers, allegedly, accidentally or otherwise. There are only a handful of fights in the works or under discussion, but they’re worth mentioning too. We’ll get to as much of it as is humanly possible this evening. Interspersed will be the babes and attempted babes, for those who have a stomach for such things. P.S. I’m totally scared of Wozniacki’s backhand, but with that fist she’s making I don’t know if she would be much of a boxer… unlike another of the babes to be featured.

Quick Jabs

The highlights of this weekend’s boxing schedule outside the HBO double-header are an ESPN2 card, a Showtime card, Mayweather-Mosley 24/7, and the webcast of the undercard of one of the HBO fights. The Showtime card is the best of the lot. On ShoBox tonight, exciting middleweight prospect Fernando Guerrero takes on tough trial horse Michael Walker, who gave Daniel Jacobs about his toughest fight. Junior middleweight prospect Shawn Porter takes on Raul Pinzon on the undercard; Pinzon has been in with some good prospects, like Saul Alvarez, but usually gets knocked out at some point. On ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, top-10 heavyweight Tony Thompson headlines against a replacement opponent, Owen Beck, which should be easy work but I always like Tony. Doug Fischer likes the undercard bout between lightweights Hank Lundy and Tyres Hendricks. Top Rank is jumping into the webcast game, which is most welcome, as Saturday it will air some undercard fights from Atlantic City on its website, which hopefully will include talented and explosive middleweight prospect Matt Korobov. Lastly, there are three other fights involving alphabet trinkets Saturday: Robert Stieglitz against Eduard Gutknecht for Siteglitz’ super middleweight strap; Sebastian Zbik puts his interim middleweight title on the line against Domenico Spada in a rematch; and Ricardo Nunez and Drian Francisco are in a junior bantamweight eliminator…

alg_boxing_1Babe #2: junior middleweight Yuri Foreman’s wife, a model and boxer named Leyla Leidecker. The New York Daily News has a feature on her here. That’s the couple at left…

HBO’s Real Sports aired a show devoted to the deaths of Arturo Gatti, Alexis Arguello and Vernon Forrest, and it’s worth checking out on replay if you get a chance. As a fan of Gatti, I was disturbed by the photos of his corpse; as a journalist, I don’t think I would have aired them, because they offered little news value. But the show overall is good, makes a little news (the “independent” investigator hired by Gatti’s family is leaning toward declaring the cause of his death “undetermined”) and is touching, especially the Forrest segment…

Roger Mayweather’s respect for Shane Mosley may come as a surprise, but it’s wise…

In boxer-drug news, lightweight Ali Funeka’s positive test for a diuretic was an accident, according to his team (per BoxingScene). I have no reason to doubt them or not doubt them, but the fact remains that you have to know what’s illegal to use and what’s not. Also, Floyd Mayweather’s team says he doesn’t take Xylocaine, a drug banned in many states, to numb his hands. I don’t have a ton of problems with numbed hands, but Mayweather has reportedly used some numbing drugs before. Distinction without much of a difference, if you ask me…

Golden Boy Promotions’ Richard Schaefer has clarified (per BS) that he doesn’t want Bernard Hopkins to retire; only that he should consider it. The 150,000 pay-per-view buys Hopkins did in his last fight (and similarly poor numbers in the pat) makes you wonder why Golden Boy is bothering, because those numbers will be yet smaller next time out, too. But so be it…

Former boxer Wayne McCullough is this week’s “attempted babe.” He lost a bet, and as you can see in this video, now he’s prancing around to “Single Ladies” by Beyonce in an unsettling outfit….

The Kameda family’s pa is banned anew. The guy’s clearly asking for it — he gets banned once, then the first chance he gets to return to the ring, he gets banned again…

Welterweight Andre Berto did suffer a bicep tear last weekend, but it wasn’t a bad one. It shouldn’t affect his comeback schedule. In other news, HBO keeps overpaying for Berto. It’s not crazy to throw money at someone if you think he’s going to become a star, but it’s crazy to bid against one’s self….

Happy tax week, boxing!…

This three-year-old is scary. I bet he could take Roy Jones, Jr. right now.

Round And Round

Reportedly, welterweight Manny Pacquiao’s return depends on the results of the election. If he wins, he fights in November; if he loses, he fights in September. There’s been some chatter about a rematch with Miguel Cotto, which doesn’t enthuse me no matter how much new trainer Emmanuel Steward thinks it would be different, should Cotto beat Foreman and take his junior middleweight belt. I’ve already spoken out against Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito, but middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik may fight Margarito instead. Should Pavlik survive the weekend, I think he would demolish Margarito. I guess I could get into that, compared to any other Margarito fight. (Again, I root for no permanent harm done to any fighter. But more than almost anyone, I wouldn’t mind seeing the glove-loading Margarito take a ferocious beating.)

Mr. Greisman and I also already touched on the Wladimir Klitschko-David Haye circling yesterday, but there’s been a bit of it involving Wlad and Alexander Povetkin, too. Wlad’s side thinks Povetkin never will want the fight. Povetkin’s trainer, Teddy Atlas, says he does want it, but his team doesn’t want it for him quite yet.

Marcos Maidana is injured, which means his mouth-watering junior middleweight fight with Timothy Bradley will be rescheduled to July, likely. Maidana’s pulling out of a fight in the works with Devon Alexander left him without an opponent, and the talk is about Andriy Kotelnik, who once beat Maidana. It’s not as good as Bradley-Alexander, Bradley-Maidana or Alexander-Maidana, in that order, but it’s not a bad substitute, even though Kotelnik got outboxed badly by Amir Khan. Also in the division, on May 14, Julio Diaz and Herman Ngoudjo fight each other in a must-win bout fight, given all their setbacks.

The rematch between junior bantamweights Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan is in trouble, reportedly. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Apparently there’s some dispute over broadcast rights to the fight in the Philippines. Sigh.

The Mayweather-Mosley televised undercard is set. It’s not good enough. Alvarez fights Jose Cotto; featherweight Daniel Ponce De Leon fights Cornelius Lock; and welterweight Hector David Saldivia takes on Said Ouali. Sigh.

(Round and Round sources: ESPN; BoxingScene; Boxingtalk; news releases)

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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