Timothy Bradley-Devon Alexander is headed to the Pontiac Silverdome, and get this: The owners of the Silverdome may have paid a site fee that exceeded the price they paid for the Silverdome itself. Dan Rafael reported that the fee is more than $500,000 for the junior middleweight fight, while the Silverdome was recently sold for $583,000.
Consternation abounds as it pertains to putting a fight between a Californian and a Missourian in Michigan. It is mostly worthwhile consternation. The Detroit area is in terrible shape economically, and a reasonable guess is that it’ll sell one-fifth of the 15,000 seats for which the fight will be configured. Gary Shaw argues that the fight isn’t that far from Alexander’s St. Louis (it is, actually; nine-plus hours drive) and that Andre Dirrell-Arthur Abraham did pretty well in Detroit on short notice (sorta). St. Louis would have been better; the fight would have sold more tickets, even if Alexander would have had a hometown advantage. But if it’s worth it for the fighters — $500,000 is a nice chunk of change — and it’s worth it for the people paying the site fee — and it must be, as they could be thinking, “Hey, we need to start bringing big events/attractions to the Silverdome to revive it, and this is a start toward that” — then it’s not exactly a disaster.
The main thing is, nothing about any of this suggests Bradley-Alexander needed to “marinate” more, as some have suggested. How many more years before Bradley starts selling tickets, if he isn’t doing it by now? Against whom could he sell more tickets than Alexander? Wouldn’t Bradley-Alexander sell about the same number of tickets in St. Louis tomorrow as it would in 2012? And how long would boxing fans and writers who favor “marination” put up with the clear #1 and #2 men in a division not facing each other in the sake of “marination?” Nope, the only way either of these guys gets bigger than they are now is by fighting each other.
Other Jabs, thrown more Quickly than that one:
Quick Jabs
For the second consecutive time, Thomas Hauser hit it out of the park with his latest piece. The Sergio Martinez-Paul Williams II write-up contains all kinds of details, for instance, about the WBC bullying Martinez; for instance, they wanted him to carry only the WBC middleweight belt and not his Ring belt, a demand which Martinez refused. There’s some good stuff about trainer Gabriel Sarmiento hilariously losing his mind over being allowed to wear a Dodgers hat, and Hauser also had a very sensible take on Williams that was more respectful of him than much of the post-fight coverage…
Oscar De La Hoya is on a foot-in-mouth binge, talking about only making the best fights in a bid to make a good fight between Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez III. He does seem to know about his company Golden Boy’s last major pay-per-view, right? The one featuring the terrible, nobody-wanted-it main event between Shane Mosley and Sergio Mora? Bob Arum had a pretty devastatingly accurate line about his promotional rival this week: “It’s very sad with Oscar but unless you program him on what to say, it always comes out wrong.” Ouch…
Wladimir Klitschko and Derek Chisora have been trading quirky remarks in the build-up to their heavyweight bout. Klitschko declared Chisora better than UK countryman David Haye. Uh, no. But I guess he’s trying to get under Haye’s skin. Chisora, for his part, stole Klitschko’s “I’m going to give him a pizza face” insult, and at this point, that phrase stands a strong chance of catching on as something other than an insult against zit-faced teenagers. But then Chisora went all poetic on ‘im, threatening to deliver “inconsolable grief” to Klitschko’s fans. Yes!…
Trainer Uli Wegner called super middleweight Arthur Abraham a “coward” after his loss last weekend to Carl Froch. Something he maybe should have done instead: not trained Abraham to block all punches before throwing his own. I believe it’s called “countering.” I don’t believe it’s that far-fetched a thing to teach someone, especially after he got beat twice in the exact same fashion. And, way to throw your guy under the bus despite your own failings, Uli…
If you don’t love lightweight Michael Katsidis yet, you probably are a big fan of clubbing baby seals. But try this tale on for size anyway of Katsidis seeking out Juan Manuel Marquez to buddy up with him after Marquez defeated him by knockout…
How many more “Mike Anchondo revival” stories can Thomas Gerbasi write, do you think?…
The World Series of Boxing is coming to Versus. Hooray! Perhaps Versus will screw up that boxing program, too. Still, more boxing on TV = better…
Heavyweight Oleg Maskaev has filed a lawsuit against the WBC for not giving him a title fight back in 2008, then later, too. Like most boxing-related lawsuits, it will almost assuredly fall flat on its face. Like all frivolous lawsuits against the sanctioning organizations, I say, “the more the better.”
Round And Round
I’d bet my Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes doll on Pacquiao facing Mosley at welterweight next. Marquez promoter Golden Boy apparently came with an offer aimed at getting their man a lot of money, and Arum acted like this was crazy. Marquez’ team always asks for too much money; if Arum was remotely interested in the fight, he’d make a counteroffer, but instead he’s taking it as an indication Golden Boy doesn’t really want the fight. Nope, Arum wants Mosley because Molsey has disassociated himself from Golden Boy, and for no other reason. Two months ago, Arum said Pacquiao-Mosley wasn’t marketable: What’s changed since then? Mosley has disassociated himself from Golden Boy. As for Golden Boy, bossman Richard Schaefer said Floyd Mayweather isn’t viable next year because they want to show “respect” to the courts and Mayweather’s legal trouble, but as Hauser points out here, that process could be years away from wrapping up. Fighters have fought amid legal charges many times before.
It doesn’t seem like a total coincidence that the week after Martinez defied the WBC, the WBC ordered Martinez to face mandatory opponent Sebastian Zbik. I hope he’ll tell the WBC to shove off, although it’s not like Martinez has many better options. His team is going after Miguel Cotto at 155 pounds, but I don’t like the fight. Martinez is a bigger, stronger version of Manny Pacquiao, and we saw what Pacquiao did to Cotto. Andy Lee doesn’t do it for me as a Martinez opponent, either.
Golden Boy wants featherweight Daniel Ponce De Leon to fight Jhonny Gonzalez, maybe a better fight than Gonzalez-Hozumi Hasegawa, the bout Gonzalez might do next. The ultimate idea is to make De Leon a viable opponent for a rematch with Juan Manuel Lopez. Best of luck on that one. Junior lightweights Takahiro Aoh and Juan Carlos Salgado could meet on a potential Hasegawa-Gonzalez card next year, btw.
Celestino Caballero wants a rematch with junior lightweight Jason Litzau, but he also is conflicted about fighting at 122, 126 and 130. Both he and his trainer acknowledge he slacked off because he thought he had some weight to play with by moving up. D’oh. Arum celebrated that Caballero was “out of my life,” which, hey, at least he admitted that he was scared of the guy, basically. Finally.
(Round and Round sources: BoxingScene, ESPN)
