That’s DeMarcus Corley wearing a denim suit — repeat, denim suit — in Argentina in advance of his junior welterweight fight this evening with Lucas Matthysse. That man is fantastic. He’ll fight anybody and he’s reliably colorful. (Photo courtesy team Corley via our Corey Erdman, who got some love over at RingTV this week.)
Also, I dunno if you guys saw it, but Scott Kraus made his return yesterday. I told you we might add some more staff writers and he was one of the fellows I had in mind. It’s a real joy to have him back in the fold, as his work makes our team that much better.
Fashion discussions and meta news taken care of, on to a potentially huge development in boxing. Huge times ten. And it’s a moving story, so stay tuned for updates:
Quick Jabs
Dan Rafael and others have been reporting this week that Showtime might carry the Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley pay-per-view in May, which at first appeared to me like more saber-rattling by promoter Bob Arum, who has been extremely critical of Showtime’s much larger rival, HBO. Rick Reeno (and Lem Satterfield) have put more flesh on it — as well as getting some on-the-record remarks from Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz, who it must be said has been known to speak out of school at times — that makes the likelihood of the shift significantly more seismic and realistic. Under the deal, Showtime’s parent CBS would air a 24/7 or Fight Camp 360-style documentary series in advance of the fight, which would return boxing (if not actual fights) to network television in a way it hasn’t been in a long, long time. I’m not kidding. This could be huge. There’s more for us to learn here before getting a sense of how huge — In what time slot would the series air? Is Koncz jumping the gun? How would the public feel about Mosley’s recent poor showings and past steroid use? And would the broad disinterest-to-hostility toward this fight for many hardcore boxing fans bleed over to the general public? — but the potential here is astounding, given CBS’ audience (115 million) and HBO’s (28 million)…
[UPDATE: After I posted this blog entry, Dan Rafael’s take on the CBS situation came up in my Google Reader feed (and used the word seismic — I swear I didn’t rip it off). It adds yet more confirmation — for instance, HBO has been told they’re not a part of the picture, and it’s hard to imagine Arum spiting 24/7 unless he had a better or equivalent cash-generator in line; for another instance, Rafael reports it would air in prime time, which is doubly massive. it would be hard to understate, at this point, what a pivotal moment this could be for the sport of boxing if it all comes to fruition.]
Michael Marley has a somewhat speculative item about Pacquiao getting to meet President Obama as a return favor for his campaigning on behalf of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during the 2010 elections. But I don’t count it out, speculative or no. I also know Pacquiao would like another favor from Congress, thanks to my day job colleague Shawn Zeller, who wrote in CQ Weekly this week that Pacquiao has another goal: “persuading Congress to grant a trade preference to garments made in his native Philippines.” You probably can’t access the link to the item because it’s behind a paywall, but it’s pretty neat…
Trainer Roger Mayweather pled “no contest” to the one of the latest outstanding charges involving a Mayweather beating up a woman, and won’t do jail time. One day, Roger or his boxing nephew Floyd Jr. is going to beat up a female and pay a real price for it, or at least that’s what I’d like…
Some HBO stuff, besides whether it’s out of the loop on Pacquiao-Mosley: 1. Eric Raskin has a thoughtful piece here about some good things the network is doing. It’s good to see a writer who can acknowledge that sometimes, someone or something deserving of criticism also can be deserving of praise. There’s far too much dogma out there rather than open-minded analysis. 2. HBO announced via news release that Roy Jones, Jr. will be returning to the Boxing After Dark team on more than a temporary basis. Jones has been better this latest go-round than in his first stint, although he hasn’t been fantastic, exactly. He is an upgrade over Lennox Lewis, that’s for sure…
Some stuff on the junior welterweight bout next weekend between Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander: 1. The Ring decided not to make the fight for the lineal championship. It’s a defensible decision, given Amir Khan’s body of work in 2010 that got him ranked #2 between Bradley and Alexander. 2. Rafael and Marley differ on how many tickets have been sold for the fight in Pontiac, Mich. Rafael is generally the more reliable of the two, but neither of them give any information about their sources. If you want to know why it’s important for writers to identify the broad outlines of their sources — Are they affiliated with the promotion? A rival promotion? One boxer’s camp or the other? Officials with the facility? — this is precisely why. Any or all of those people could have motives to lie to Rafael or Marley. And readers have no way of knowing who’s right because they have no information about the sources. It’s an important question, given the nature of this fight and its stakes, whether the fight is doing horribly business-wise or just mediocre.
