Moe Bandy is the champ! From looking at the photo, he either punched out everyone or outdrank them or both, or one then the other. Via, with a tip o’ the pen to friend of the site Porch Dog.
A shortish Quick Jabs today. Besides the headline, we have (allegedly) poisonous boxing gloves, some thoughts on when boxers should hang ’em up and thoughts on injury-related boxers.
Quick Jabs
Showtime is gonna make it so people can watch light heavyweight Jean Pascal fight Bernard Hopkins in December without paying per view. This is a good move. I probably would have bought this fight because I buy most everything, seeing as how I feel like I ought to since I write about boxing. Others would not have been so eager. Now that it’s on Showtime regular-style, I might almost watch it with glee. It’ll be the last major boxing match of the year, and it’s an intriguing match-up in the sense that Pascal thinks he’s Roy Jones, Jr. Jr. and Jones has history with Hopkins. Wait, neither Jones-Hopkins I nor Hopkins-Jones II were anything but terrible, and with Hopkins being older still, this should suck. Never mind the glee. But, hey. Free boxing between some of the top men in a division. If you have Showtime, anyway…
Recommended reading: Steve Kim breaks down how boxing compares to other sports when, say, an athlete breaks himself by riding a motorbike, as bantamweight Fernando Montiel almost did, thereby putting some risk into whether he’d fight Nonito Donaire on schedule. Also recommended: this Sweet Science piece on super middleweight Andre Ward, regarding his attitude about the fight with Andre Dirrell falling apart and his expectation that the fight always would happen, so he stayed in (moderate) training…
When should a boxer hang ’em up? That’s the subject of two related pieces, one via Slate and one via Ring. It’s true that for many athletes, there’s no real reason to NOT call it quits if they dont’ want to, as Jack Shafer says — yet sportswriters are pretty quick to call for sports figures to step away. The only real risk is to their reputation at the time; there’s something sad about seeing once-great athletes become merely very good ones as they age, but in the long-run, we remember their body of work. With boxing, more than any other sport (although football’s head injury rate maybe makes it comparable), there is a good reason some of us call for athletes to step away, and that’s the risk of grave health problems. In the list of people Shafer said sportswriters asked to call it quits, which he uses to cite a kind of epidemic, is Muhammad Ali. But Ali SHOUD have stepped away sooner; that’s just obvious to anyone who sees him now, and as we’ve learned recently from “Muhammad and Larry,” MORE sportswriters should have told him to step away sooner than did. The Ring piece comes from William Dettloff, whose work I often enjoy — as I do Shafer’s — but he has this unsavory habit of championing the rights of boxers to continue their trade beyond all reason, then in the same column making cavalier jokes about boxers’ brains being turned into mush or having to be fed through a feeding tube, as though it’s a good idea AND a funny one. Anyway, he more or less implies Ray Oliveira should have been allowed to fight in Connecticut a couple weeks back, while ignorning probably the most disturbing aspects of his comeback, namely that it was 35 pounds heavier than where he fought almost his entire career and 23 pounds higher than he ever had. It’s not as much that his career ended in a fight that raised worrisome questions about his health, or that he was old, or that he was coming off a five-year layoff, although all of those were concerning, too. It’s the combination of all those things, with the weight gain being a huge problem independent of that. If a current, young, active junior welterweight decided to move to light heavyweight against a top-10ish talent, best believe I’d say he shouldn’t. As for Oliveira reportedly doing well in sparring? We’ll get to that in a minute…
The rest of this post is a buncha items about the junior middleweight fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, you should know. For example: So Wal-Mart might have poisonous boxing gloves for sale? As friend of the site Unsilent said, “Antonio Margarito just bought them out”…
Is Margarito a faded fighter? The most recent in-ring exhibits aren’t encouraging. He got knocked out by Shane Mosley, but he was indeed struggling with weight; he didn’t look so hot against Roberto Garcia, although depending on who you believe from his team it’s either because he was rusty (Bob Arum) or because he was holding back (manager Frank Espinoza). Doug Fischer offers an inside look from Margarito’s training camp, and he comes away bullish. This is inconclusive for a few reasons. Fischer is a long-time Margarito backer. He also is a bit of an optimist when it comes to boxers’ chances in the ring. And sparring is sometimes fool’s gold — a guy can look good in sparring, as many a scribe/sparring partner/trainer has reported from up-close experience, and then look flat done when he steps into the ring (Thus, the caution about Oliveira)…
As for Pacquiao, he’s trying to buy at least one team member into getting his favorite tattoo, but it’s not working, with his wife more interested in her husband being un-inked than in getting $20,000. Also, friend of the site Irvin Ryan, responding to Alex McClintock’s hilarious boxing paraphernalia post this week, directed us to Pacquiao’s own cologne. How’s it smell?: “Citrusy on top, woody with hints of lavender and nutmeg, sage for spiciness in the middle, and sweet, rich, and musky with a touch of vanilla, amber and cedar at the base.” Not as manly-sounding as I would expect…
A bizarre news release from Top Rank this week declared it had signed reporter Ines Sainz to cover Pacquiao-Margarito. It explains:
“Inés will be a valuable addition in providing sports fans unique stories on the fighters and the event during fight week and the fight broadcast itself that we have never had before,” said Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank, which is promoting Pacquiao vs. Margarito, in association with MP Promotions, Cowboys Stadium and Tecate. “Inasmuch as she is bilingual and has the experience of covering major sporting events worldwide and has interviewed the top athletes in those events, she will help enhance our coverage of Pacquiao vs. Margarito and attract a wider audience to the sport of boxing. Top Rank feels very fortunate to have her for this event.”
Really fascinating: a news release about a REPORTER covering a fight? Nobody’s ever done that for me. As for Sainz’ case, I know there are other bilingual reporters, but I guess none of them are mega-beautiful celebrities. Ines’ merely being there brings publicity to a fight. In that way, I suppose, this is a creative move by Top Rank. In another way, it damages whatever credibility Sainz had left after the whole New York Jets blow-up. She has been “signed” by a promoter to “cover” a fight, like a free agent acquisition. I know there are tons of conflicts of interest in boxing journalism, like journalists working in the broadcasting booth on a promoter’s dime, but this expands that conflict to other, new areas. Mainly I’m just using this as an excuse to run another picture of her.
