The beautiful painting above is the work of friend of the site Amanda Kelley. There is but the briefest mentions in this edition of Quick Jabs of its subject, Manny Pacquiao, but I liked it so much that I wanted to show everyone as soon as possible. If you’re interested in interacting with the artist, she’s on Twitter @kelleygirrl.
My own long vacation has ended, and I’m feeling refreshed and ready to write about boxing anew. What’s helping with my spirits is all the contributions we’ve been getting on the site while I’ve been away, about which there will be a related announcement Monday. This week, one of the writers, Corey Erdman, was the first to get dope on a proposed Wladimir Klitschko-Tomasz Adamek heavyweight fight from promoter Kathy Duva (which I retweeted in the side column on the right). It’s just a taste, I think, of what’s ahead here at a revamped site.
But for now, Quick Jabs! It’s a fairly light slate of news over the last week or so. Tomorrow, Round and Round — where we check out all the fights in the works — will have a fuller array of offerings.
Quick Jabs
So light heavyweight Chad Dawson is switching trainers from Eddie Mustafa Muhammad to Emmanuel Steward. Steward is a brilliant trainer, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think he’s the answer to what Dawson did wrong in his last fight against Jean Pascal, where Dawson was a bit overcautious about letting his hands go. Steward talks a big game about being a fan of action fighters and knockouts, and once upon a time, that was his record. But think of the most prominent Steward wards for the past several years: Wladimir Klitschko, Miguel Cotto, Jermain Taylor, Kermit Cintron — of those men, did any of them get more aggressive? Or did they all become more cautious, to a one?…
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is exceeding the recommended daily allowance or legal run-ins. The latest involves a lawsuit by a homeowners association where he lives in Las Vegas, where Mayweather has had a variety of conflicts with security guards….
The aforementioned word on Pacquiao: For his junior middleweight fight against Antonio Margarito, he apparently left Margarito seeing double. Does this mean the “count my fingers” test that referee Laurence Cole did — rather than a ring doctor examination — didn’t work?…
ESPN’s Friday Night Fights is going 3-D! It kicks off Feb. 18 for the middleweight bout between Fernando Guerrero and Saul Roman, per a news release this week. It’s a good first choice. That fight should be a real dust-up…
Promoter Gary Shaw here has some very interesting thoughts here about what’s wrong with boxing. Then he does what almost every other promoter does when they’re talking about what’s wrong with boxing — he does all those things that are wrong with boxing. He can chalk it up to playing by the rules of the game, but if everybody plays by that set of rules, nothing will change…
Cruiserweight Danny Green’s career is in jeopardy because of a large thing that has been removed from his stomach. 1. Sad and unfortunate; I hope he can can get back in the ring because he’s a fun fighter; 2. Gross…
Over at the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Keith Kizer has hopes that his state’s boxing business will bounce back a bit in 2011. I hope it does, too. It’s generally better for the sport if there are regional attractions and fights in more than one market. But it’s also the case that big Vegas fights are pretty awesome, so it’s a nice thing for them to be there on occasion…
The trainer of Paul Williams, George Peterson, said some silly things the other week about the knockout blow Sergio Martinez delivered in their middleweight fight in November being lucky and desperate. Obviously, he’s wrong. I suspect he’s saying this kind of thing out of bravado, and bravado can be destructive (in this case, if it leads to Williams not learning from his mistakes) or contsructive (if it helps build Williams’ confidence). But it’s the kind of thing that should probably be said in private…
Jorge Barrios’ legal troubles are also stacking up. The lightweight is building himself a unhealthy body of work, with the latest incident being allegations that he has abused his son. Barrios was rivals with the deceased Edwin Valero — is there something in the water there that South American boxers are drinking?
