Whatzit with boxers lately and assault charges that aren’t straight up beat downs? It makes those charges harder to react to normally. What you see above is the face of the security guard whom Floyd Mayweather allegedly poked to bring about some of Mayweather’s latest legal woes. The poke “reddened” and “discolored” the guard’s cheek. By that standard, plaintiff Tim Starks will be filing a lawsuit against Mr. John “Jack” Frost for the 35th consecutive winter.
Likewise, heavyweight Derek Chisora was encountering charges related to him allegedly spanking a former girlfriend. On the bottom. What does he think this is, the 1950s, where men “correct” women with a good smack on the rear end? Although, it must be said, he also slapped her in the face, a far more traditional kind of assault.
I’m not arguing that either of these charges shouldn’t amount/shouldn’t have amounted to anything. I wouldn’t like being poked by Mayweather, or spanked by Chisora, and the latter is more serious because a woman is involved and because there was also a slap to the head. Nor am I saying I wish Chisora and Mayweather had hauled off and punched their alleged victims. I’m just saying: Face-poking? Spanking? Really?
This stuff does make it harder to like Chisora, who otherwise is a comical figure. There was the in-ring ear-biting — not cool, but a traditional source of comedy in the boxing world — and there are quotes like this: “When I fight I fight for both Britain and Zimbabwe, but I lost my virginity in this country so I feel more British.”
We won’t see Chisora fight this weekend after Wladimir Klitschko pulled out of Saturday’s bout citing an abdominal injury. What’s that really about, and what’s next for Klitschko and Chisora? That serves as our entryway into the latest edition of Quick Jabs, with a side does of Round and Round, the feature about fights in the works.
Quick Jabs
Above is a video of middleweight Anthony Mundine getting knocked out this week by a significant underdog, Garth Wood, the only kind of opponent Mundine has fought for years. There aren’t many fighters I root against, given my inherent respect for the profession, but Mundine is one of them. You can be a jerk. You can be a loudmouth. You can even be a jerk and loudmouth who loses a lot despite all your big talk, like Edison Miranda. But I’d rather you be funny, at least, and most definitely I need you to fight a live soul every once in a while. Mundine is a jerky loudmouth who only takes safe opponents, and I confess to enjoying seeing that backfire on him…
It’s one of several fights I failed to give you a heads-up about this week. I mean it — I’m running on fumes to close out 2010. For instance, heavyweight Tomasz Adamek knocked out Vinny Maddalone last night, as expected. In another heavyweight bout this week, Oliver McCall decisioned Fres Oquendo; Oquendo only ever seems to lose by close decision to any name heavyweight. I can tell you that there are a couple other decent cards floating around out there this weekend, still. One of them is a welterweight eliminator today between big-punching Randall Bailey and dramatic Said Ouali. Another of them is on Telemundo tonight, featuring Knockout of the Year-caliber knockout producers Antonio Pitalua and Ed Paredes. Azteca is hosting bantamweight Fernando Montiel’s first fight since his motorcycle injury today, too, according to ESPN’s Dan Rafael. On Saturday, Fox Deportes is airing a decent junior bantamweight scrap between Juan Alberto Rosas and Cristian Mijares, for Rosas’ belt. And England is having another one of those gigantic cards where virtually every name British fighter is in action — light heavyweight Nathan Cleverly, middleweight Matthew Macklin, etc. For the rest, go here…
On the television tip: Fox Sports Net is going to be broadcasting some more boxing programming. Steve Kim has the gist here. Has anyone seen any boxing on Fox Sports Net in months, by the way? It’s all been on Fox Deportes lately, right? I wonder if that means they just filled their quota for the year early under their deal with Top Rank, or what. They don’t seem to be giving up on boxing entirely, as the new deal would suggest…
I like all of the Hall of Fame selections this year, with Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez easy calls. I was worried Kostya Tszyu might not go in, so it was good to see him get the deserved recognition. The most controversial call for some fans/writers out there is Sylvester Stallone in the non-participant category. I dig it. The Rocky movies are as much a part of boxing, culturally speaking, as anything else in the world, certainly as much if not often more than many of the other non-participants in the Hall. And Stallone wasn’t just the star of the movies, so it’s not like he’s some empty vessel — he wrote and directed almost all of them…
Some promoter business, mainly Golden Boy. 1. Oscar De La Hoya and Bob Arum had another spitting match this week. At least Oscar apologized afterward, so that’s nice. 2. Golden Boy has joined the Boxing Promoters Association. For that organization to be effective, it needs Golden Boy and Top Rank to play ball. Wanna play ball, Top Rank? C’mon. I know Arum thinks he’s the only quality promoter out there today, but c’mon. 3. Our pal Carlos Acevedo raises some questions about the options Golden Boy reportedly has on junior welterweight Lamont Peterson. I’m guessing they’re in a fair spot or some writer might have gotten to the bottom of it, but maybe that’s overestimating our sport’s stable of writers. Still, worth a look…
Shane Mosley’s divorce order? Ouch. $5,000 in clothes a month? And that’s just for starters? I’m not allowed to espouse political/policy stuff because of my day job, but maybe our divorce laws are a little screwed up when an ex-wife is entitled to $5,000 worth of clothes per month two years after the fact. All I said there was “maybe,” for the record…
Ricardo Mayorga made a guest appearance in the latest Wikileaks release. It’s nothing nice: possible blackmail, alleged rape, etc. Check it out.
Round And Round
It’s all very unclear whom heavyweight champ Klitschko will fight next; some think the injury isn’t legit and he wants to move on to other opponents. Next still could be Chisora, and there’s some dispute between the respective teams about whether he’s obligated to reschedule that fight. Or he could go straight to David Haye, or Tomasz Adamek. Haye’s in talks with Alexander Povetkin, according to a Twitter report from friend of the site Mike Coppinger on the remarks of Adamek promoter Kathy Duva, perhaps in some kind of World Championship Of Ducking Wladimir Klitschko bout?
A bout between middleweight champion Sergio Martinez and junior middleweight Miguel Cotto was on-again/off-again throughout the week. Apparently the current plan is for Martinez to fight his mandatory Sebastian Zbik, for Cotto to rematch Antonio Margarito and then for Martinez and Cotto to meet in a pay-per-view co-promoted by Martinez’ Lou DiBella and Cotto’s Top Rank. Martinez-Cotto still does nothing for me. Martinez is like a bigger version of Manny Pacquiao in many ways, and we saw what Pacquiao did to Cotto two weight classes ago.
Montiel said he looks forward to fighting Nonito Donaire in February, as long as he doesn’t “back out” again. Ridiculous. Montiel is the one who, for the second half of this year, has been talking about fighting everyone BUT Donaire.
Talks for the featherweight bout between Golden Boy-promoted Chris John and Top Rank-promoted Yuriorkis Gamboa are proceeding, perhaps because John’s side in the talks isn’t being represented by Golden Boy but by adviser Sampson Lewkowicz. What I don’t like is that the fight would take place in the fall, under the current plan, with John and Gamboa taking an interim fight first. Why? What interim fights matter? John wasted all of 2010 delaying and then eventually fighting no-name Fernando Saucedo. Gamboa has been on a more defensible career arc but he’s ready for someone like John now. What in the hell is the point of delaying John-Gamboa until the fall?
There might be some shuffling in the match-ups of the whole lightweight foursome of Humberto Soto, Brandon Rios, Urbano Antillon and Miguel Vazquez. Soto-Rios could still happen next, or it could be Soto-Antillon II. Whatever. I like the way all four of those dudes match up. FYI, Top Rank is looking at a possible replay of Soto-Antillon I on its website soon. I’ll try to keep you posted.
Another potential sequel awaits, should junior welterweight Amir Khan win this weekend: a rematch with Breidis Prescott, possibly back in England. I think Khan wins it easily but if I were him, I’d like the chance.
Selcuk Aydin’s team is insisting on a welterweight title bout against Andre Berto, saying they allowed an interim fight for Berto against Freddy Hernandez. If they don’t get it, they’ll force a purse bid and they’ll have the cash to win it, and they could force the fight to Turkey. This could really mess with Berto, couldn’t it? He’d either have to go fight somewhere else or drop his belt. Berto himself said this week he wants the winner of Khan-Marcos Maidana or Bailey-Ouali, if not Manny Pacquiao.
When middleweight Peter Manfredo fights on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights Jan. 14, it’ll be against Daniel Edouard. Decent FNF fight.
(Round and Round sources: BoxingScene, ESPN, Maxboxing, Twitter)
