BOOM. That’s Manny Pacquiao’s latest Nike ad, the first advertisement featuring him in the United States that I know of, and it’s good exposure for both the pound-for-pound king and our sport. Another ad in the “BOOM” series features Rick Ross. So, now, in America, Manny Pacquiao = Rick Ross. Not bad, Pacman.
Who wants some Quick Jabs in their mugs? Maybe you want it in your belly instead? Get your fill. It includes, beyond the headline, examinations of several recent bouts (with video and/or links), an actual nice word about Antonio Margarito, some boxing-in-pop-culture and more.
Quick Jabs
There were some worthy follow-ups to Golden Boy Promotions boss Oscar De La Hoya’s controversial comments this week that deserve passing along. One was this FightHype piece that makes a point I actually originally intended to make in my own take, but I failed to do so. Basically, although I don’t think it’s possible to read the mind of Oscar to see whether he wants to pay boxers less, it’s true that a more centralized power structure almost certainly would result in boxers being paid less. Also, I thought the author of this piece on a mixed martials blog — and the comments from the readers — were really interesting in the degree to which they were very, very supportive of Oscar’s remarks…
Although the live crowd was big for Golden Boy’s September pay-per-view show headlined by junior middleweights Shane Mosley and Sergio Mora, the pay-per-view buys were paltry, reportedly somewhere north of 100,000. I actually thought it would be a bit closer to 200,000, even knowing that it was crap, because I figured Saul Alvarez would produce some decent numbers from Mexican-American fans. It was enough to turn a profit, though, reportedly. I’m not sure if this counts as good news or bad news, but I lean toward the latter, because now maybe everyone will get the idea that the pay-per-view market has rebounded to the point that they can profit off even crappyish cards…
If you’ve ever wanted to see trainer Freddie Roach in Playboy, your chance has arrived. I don’t mean his female or homosexual male fans will be pleased (although I know of at least one girl on Twitter, even if I can’t remember her name, who can’t stop talking about how cute Roach is). It’s just a feature about him. I haven’t checked it out yet. Believe it or not, as a young journalist, I spent a lot of time reading Playboy for the articles. I looked at the naked women, too, of course, but the articles are quite good…
Heavyweight Shannon Briggs has called on Vitali Klitschko to resign from UNESCO over some semi-insensitive comments toward Briggs suffering from asthma. This definitely establishes Briggs as the frontrunner for the 2010 Highest Level of Indignation/Lowest Level of Offense Award. I know asthma can be serious, but it’s not like Klitschko committed a hate crime by suggesting Briggs has used his asthma as an excuse in the past. Hell, even Briggs’ sparring partners have said that — it’s commonly known that Briggs doesn’t train that hard…
Golden Boy has signed junior welterweight Paul Malignaggi and bantamweight Eric Morel, which should help them corner the market on light-punching boxers who occasionally have an attitude problem. Dan Rafael’s completely right in calling out Malignaggi here for dissing former promoter Lou DiBella. That Malignaggi got as much exposure he did had something to do with Malignaggi’s mouth and tendency to fight hard even when overmatched. But it also had a ton to do with DiBella’s dogged pursuit of opportunities for Malignaggi. Malignaggi’s tendency toward prickishness can make him very fun, but it also can make him one of the more unlikable men in the sport…
The new mantle of king of flamboyant, ignorant articles about how great Floyd Mayweather is belongs to Michael K. Ozanian of Forbes. I’m not sure you could come up with a more ill-timed slavish profile of Mayweather’s earning power than the one Ozanian delivered the past week. Mayweather’s troubles with the law and dabbles in racism led sponsors to publicly declare that they are unaffiliated with him, and those incidents warrant about a sentence total in Ozanian’s piece. He also wrote a recent item comparing Mayweather to Muhammad Ali on a very inexact basis — just read the comments of readers for a worthy rebuttal — and sounding very much like he’d enjoy playing the role of Mayweather’s “media pimp” to Ali’s Howard Cosell…
Generally speaking, the antics of the Mayweather family are distasteful to the point that the declarations of Mayweather, Sr. are routinely ignored here, but I did get quite a kick out of pops calling Joe Calzaghe a “white pimp.” Funny…
When in doubt, feuding celebrities are still, thankfully, challenging each other to boxing matches. I’ll get worried about boxing’s profile when they offer to meet in the cage more than in the ring. The latest: Nick Cannon’s offer to Eminem…
Uwe Boll, perhaps the most hated movie director of them all, has debuted his Max Schmeling biopic in Germany. German promoter Sauerland Event claims it was a “big success.” Take it with a grain of salt…
Disgraced junior middleweight Antonio Margarito has paid the way of four U.S. Olympic hopefuls to a boxing tournament. I feel the same way about Margarito and his generosity toward young amateur boxers that I do about Mayweather and his similar generosity: Don’t like Margarito, don’t like Mayweather, don’t know if I see this as much more than P.R., but whatever the reason, it’s a good thing Margarito’s doing and I commend him for it. Also, not that I’m warming up much to Pacquiao-Margarito at all, but there’s one more good thing going for it that I’ve failed to mention, and that’s the anticipated presence of Ines Sainz. I’ve included my favorite picture of her below…
If you haven’t still had a chance to hear me and Corey Erdman talk boxing on Sirius Satellite Radio, here’s another chance, with a show from Friday. Also, if you want to see what myself and a bunch of other boxing heads “poetically debate” a potential bantamweight bout between Nonito Donaire and Fernando Montiel, you can see the crew that the Examiner’s Chris Robinson gathered here…
From here on out we hit some fights from this weekend and the weekend past, all of which I saw with my very own eyes except where noted:
- By far the finest performance of the past two weeks came in the video I’ve attached at the end of the post, with flyweight Luis Concepcion knocking out Denkaosan Kaovichit in one round after three knockdowns in Panama. Concepcion was ranked #4 in the division and Kaovichit #6 coming in. Kaovichit had been knocked out once, by the ultra-dangerous 112-pound version of Eric Morel, but it took Morel 11 rounds to do it, and that was in 2002. Concepcion did it easy as pie Saturday night. It was a wonderful exhibition of sharp shooting, patience and a finisher’s impulse. Concepcion figures as a challenger to Daiki Kameda’s belt at some point, but I’d rather see him skip right to the real division champion, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam.
- The best fight of the past two weeks probably was the junior flyweight scrap on Fox Sports en Espanol between Ramon Garcia and Manuel Vargas. It was a good smash-up, but with a boxer/puncher dynamic, too. The sad thing is that the results were announced incorrectly by ring announcer Lupe Contreras, with Vargas thinking he got the win (I had him taking it by a nose) only for Contreras to declare Garcia instead was the winner. This appears to be more a bit of an unfortunate, rare screw-up by Contreras than part of Mexico’s trend of reversing fight outcomes due to bad scorecards. It does nonetheless end up being part of a trend in Mexico of six different reversals from the announced outcome where there’s no way any fighter can know with any confidence whether he won or lost a fight. If I’m a Mexican boxer who gets announced as the loser, I say to myself, “Well, tonight I lost the fight, but tomorrow I might win the same fight.”
- The other contender for best fight of the past couple weeks apparently belongs to cruiserweights Krzysztof Wlodarczyk and Jason Robinson from last weekend, but I haven’t had a chance to check out the tape of the Wlodarczyk decision win yet. If you want to get started, it’s here.
- ShoBox hosted two good fights Friday evening. Junior welterweight Tim Coleman, who’d never exhibited much power, decided to slug it out with Patrick Lopez, and it paid off, with him scoring a 3rd round knockout. Maybe being trained by Roger Mayweather has made a difference. I don’t know what Coleman’s ceiling is, but it looked a bit higher after this bout than it did in a win against Michael Arnaoutis last year that Coleman deserved to lose. I think lightweight Archie Ray Marquez’ ceiling is lower still than Coleman’s, but he puts on good fights, as he did in a 3rd round knockout over Juan Santiago where he got rocked early but came back to stop Santiago.
- The other meaningful cruiserweight fight of this stretch came Saturday night in Panama as well, when a somewhat plump-looking but effective Guillermo Jones stopped Valery Brudov after 11 one-sided rounds and with Brudov sporting a nasty cut over his left eye. I left this out of last week’s critique of the WBA’s rankings, because it’s more about who their beltholders are: Any chance Jones got to hold on to his belt for two years without a mandatory challenge because he’s from Panama and that’s where the WBA is HQed?
- I liked what I saw of Irish lightweight Paul McCloskey on Saturday. I’d just been mocking the Irish for not having any defense, and here McCloskey flashed plenty. Against decent competition, which is what the game Barry Morrison amounted to Saturday, he has increasingly been stopping his foes — five knockouts in a row, in fact. McCloskey looks to me like he has a chance to be the best Irish boxer in a minute, not that the competition is all that hot right now.
- Big upset of junior featherweight Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym by Ryol Li Lee Saturday.
- Kudos to both Kassim Ouma and Joey Gilbert for their middleweight bout last weekend, albeit for slightly different reasons. Ouma is a guy I love to root for, so him getting a win is a good thing. Gilbert reportedly put up a game effort, and really, it was a tougher fight than he could’ve gotten away with. I hope his fans recognize that a loss like this — assuming Gilbert’s double vision was a temporary problem, not related to a permanent condition — shouldn’t hurt Gilbert too much. He stepped up, it didn’t pay off, he still should be popular with those fans who follow him. Nice work by Let’s Get It On Promotions.
- Fight Night Club didn’t offer much information this week. Junior welterweight prospect Jesse Vargas scored an easy 1st round knockout over faded Pedro Sarmiento, whose imitation of sparring partner Sergio Martinez obviously wasn’t up to snuff. Welterweight prospect Anthony Martinez scored his own 1st round knockout over green Ronnie Peterson. I prefer competitive bouts, but I don’t mind watching fighters in developmental bouts when there’s nothing else on, because I like getting a look at young boxers; these didn’t develop anything, and neither were around long enough to give us a look, and both were predictable on paper in that regard. I guess I learned that Irish junior welterweight Jamie Kavanagh is fun and has a cool nickname — “The Nuisance” — but needs power or defense or both.
- Light heavyweight Joe Spina is tone deaf. If, as Spina did in an untelevised bout Saturday, you knock out a guy in Antwun Echols who has been knocked out so many times most people think he’s risking his life by continuing to box, don’t offer statements like this afterward: “I was a little disappointed by the stoppage because I really wanted to knock him out. If it went a little longer I think I would have hurt him.” It really sounds like what you want is to badly hurt someone who doesn’t even belong in the ring, and that’s not commendable ferocity — that’s simply gross.
