(Hillary Rodham Clinton and Amir Khan)
Long-theorized, unproven for lack of (nearly) decades of evidence, Washington, D.C. will get a chance to prove itself as a hungry, untapped boxing market when a significant fight between British super-talent Amir Khan and local product/junior welterweight contender Lamont Peterson comes to the nation’s capital on Dec. 10. It will be the first fight to be televised on HBO from the DMV in 18 years, and it’ll also feature local heavyweight — a contender for “best American heavyweight,” in fact — Seth Mitchell.
What’s the evidence of D.C.’s interest in boxing being untapped? Well, junior middleweight Jimmy Lange — a fun boxer, but not a mega-talent or anything like it — regularly sells thousands of tickets for shows in the region. When the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Shane Mosley press tour rolled through town, D.C. residents turned up in droves, and were quite rowdy. And junior middleweight Paul Williams, who trains in the area, has said he’s regularly beseeched by fans to have a fight in D.C., where he says he gets a lot of love.
I will attend, of course. Will other locals? Peterson and Mitchell being from the area gives us a regional angle, although it’s not exactly like they’re household names. Peterson and Mitchell being black dudes in a region that is heavily black helps. Khan isn’t a huge ticket seller in the United States yet, so I’m not sure what, if anything, that does, although Khan recently was a guest at the White House at an event hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A decent contingent of boxing media living in the D.C. area or near it, including ESPN’s Dan Rafael, RingTV’s Lem Satterfield, BoxingScene’s David P. Greisman and Cliff Rold, TQBR’s Tim Starks and Gautham Nagesh, etc., can’t hurt. There are some politicians with boxing backgrounds or love of the sport, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y. and even President Barack Obama, who recently met with pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao — although the notion of getting Obama to the fight, as Golden Boy Promotions suggested might happen, sounds like a bridge too far.
Let’s see how D.C. reps itself. The first test is at 2 p.m. today for a news conference at The W hotel. I wish I could attend, but the day job calls.
In other news discussed in this edition of Quick Jabs, besides the headline: a bunch of boxers struggling with depression; steroid suspicions from the pot, which is black, about the kettle, which has been labeled black by aforementioned pot; some boxing love from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia;” and more.
Quick Jabs
Timothy Bradley has signed with Top Rank, but I wonder if everyone isn’t getting prematurely excited about this. He is in the middle of a lawsuit with the promoters he was trying to flee, Gary Shaw and Thompson Boxing, and we’ve seen cases before where a boxer and his manager (in this case, Cameron Dunkin manages Bradley as well as Nonito Donaire, who recently had his own premature promotional switcheroo) thought they were good to switch but weren’t. Anyway, assuming it’s valid, the plan is to get Bradley on the undercard of Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez III in November, which could help set up a Bradley-Pacquiao bout. That’s a good move, of course; it’ll get a lot of eyes on Bradley and start a discussion about the fight. And Bradley remains one of the most deserving possible opponents for Pacquiao, from the standpoint of what few qualified opponents remain for him outside of Mayweather. But having Bradley in a junior welterweight fight with Joel Casamayor? That is puzzling. Bradley is a head butt-happy, oft-ugly fighter. Casamayor is an octogenerian in boxing years, so not only is he the kind of opponent who will enthuse no one for competitive reasons, he’s also a head butt-happy, oft-ugly fighter. It doesn’t seem like the kind of fight that could make people go, “Yeah, I’d love to see Pacquiao fight this Bradley person!” Also: How long will Bradley be built as a Pacquiao opponent? Before Top Rank’s Bob Arum had Bradley in his stable, he talked about how Bradley was being rushed into big fights before they could sell, including his most recent fight against Devon Alexander. Does that logic disappear because any Pacquiao fight sells? Dunno…
Might as well continue with Arum: It occurs to me that a great many have bought the Arum line on middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, unthinkingly. Yes, it’s true that he’s not a draw and could be promoted better. But Arum’s campaign has been very sustained, and Kevin Iole found contradictions in it: Arum himself would have angrily rejected his own suggestions for who Martinez should fight if Martinez was in his stable. My suspicion is that this is about Arum trying to kill Martinez as a potential opponent for three men at Top Rank: Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. Not only has Arum been badmouthing Martinez something awful, but he’s been counterprogramming him, too, first with Cotto-Ricardo Mayorga on pay-per-view and then with last weekend’s junior featherweight clash between Toshiaki Nishioka and Rafael Marquez on Top Rank Live. Just a thought…
There’s an epidemic going around of people dropping Emanuel Steward as their trainer. First was light heavyweight Chad Dawson, who dropped him for the wrong reasons — among them, he says he wants to go back to the “old me,” the kind who gets knockouts, but he’s deluded if he thinks that had anything to do with the “old me” as opposed to him fighting the typically weak competition of a prospect — but I always thought Dawson-Steward was a bad fit. Now, though, Cotto has dropped Steward, too. I think this is a mistake primarily because with Cotto and Steward, it was a good fit. It’s not like Steward was working miracles with Cotto, but he was tightening up his game slightly, and Cotto at this stage in his career needs that. He’s also good at leading his fighters through rematches. Cotto said it’s about how much time Steward would be available to him in camp; others have speculated that it’s about money. Either way, I think it’s a bad idea for fit reasons and also for one of the same reasons it was bad for Dawson to drop Steward when he did: going into a big, big fight, as Cotto is for his rematch with Antonio Margarito, is usually the wrong time to make a trainer switch…
For this weekend’s junior flyweight fight between Ramon Garcia Hirales and Donnie Nietes, referee Joe Cortez has been given the boot. Good. Nothing against Cortez for the span of his career, but anything that keeps Cortez out of the ring at this phase of his career — i.e., the last several years, when he has totally sucked at being a referee — is good for boxing…
We’ve had Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya both recently declare that they flirted with suicide, and I just read that junior middleweight Joe Greene struggled with depression before returning to the ring this past weekend. It either is sad to be a boxer lately, or else boxers are just like regular folk and are being a bit more open about their struggles with depression, which obviously afflicts a lot of non-boxers…
Basically, Victor Conte annoys me, if it isn’t obvious. I realize that some look at him as a “Catch Me If You Can” figure who is good for cleaning up boxing because he knows how to cheat, but the idea of a confirmed performance enhancing drug supplier suspecting anyone of using steroids without any direct evidence makes me snort with derision. His latest suspicions have been lobbed at both Mayweather and Pacquiao. It’s true as he says that both could be juicing, under even the so-called Olympics style testing Mayweather demands. But unless you have some proof of this, shut up, dude…
Are you surprised that Mayweather’s charity has given out a mere few thousand dollars? You should not be. And you can say, “Hey, that’s more than othes are doing,” but with the amount going to people he’s paying to administer the charity, it’s more a charity program for his independent contractors than anyone who needs the money. Also, Jeff Mayweather says boxing historian Bert Sugar is on Pacquiao’s “dick.” C’mon, Jeff. Why you standing up for Floyd, Jr.? By his formulation, you aren’t even one of the only Mayweathers who matter. And I would advise against getting into a war of words with Sugar. That won’t work out so hot for you, because at least by boxing standards, Sugar has got some Oscar Wilde-level shit…
I only recently learned that Glenn Howerton, who plays Dennis on “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” is something of a boxing fan. This is a ringing endorsement of the sport. Maybe someone could hire him and the Sunny crew to do a ring walk as “The Birds Of War?”…
You know the whole thing where featherweight Matt Remillard disappeared from a boxing card because of some legal trouble? And it turned out there was an assault case he was involved in? Well he just pleaded no contest to smashing up somebody with a baseball bat. Whoa there, Matt. That’s a bit much, buddy…
Paying $9 million to guarantee a couple boxing gold medals (allegedly)? Whoa, Azerbaijan. That’s a bit much, buddy. That’s a really high going rate per gold medal! All joking aside: Let’s hope there’s no truth to this. Boxing hasn’t had any proven instances of fixed outcomes lately, yet it’s still thought of as a sport where that kind of thing happens. Actual, proven instances would not do wonders for the sport’s image…
Friend of the site JDrimmer5000 provided the below video that we’ll close on. It’s a pretty awesome way to spend 15 minutes.
