One day, maybe, Gary Russell, Jr. will stop talking about facing top featherweights like Daniel Ponce De Leon, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Chris John, and actually fight them. Until then, we have to live with teases like the latest sensational Russell knockout of a lesser opponent, like that one from the past weekend.
As we head into the next weekend of action, you ought to know if you don't already that the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board has its latest ratings out. Peruse them here.
And then, peruse these thoughts on various boxing news developments in the past week, week and a half. You know what will keep an intelligence/Congress reporter so busy in his day job he can't sleep? Oh, just your garden variety CIA director resignation scandal and Congress coming back right after the election.
Good on Gary Shaw getting his lightweight Antonio DeMarco a deal whereby he'll double his purse if Adrien Broner misses weight Friday, like he did the last time. As much as I'm looking forward to Broner-DeMarco and would be bitter about traveling to Atlantic City and spending money on hotels and stuff if the fight got canceled for some reason, I'd still love to see somebody in a big fight one of these days just straight pull out of a fight if the other guy misses weight. Eventually, the other guy's promoter and the networks and everyone who depends on the fight happening for cash would, ideally, shun the weight-missing fighter to the point that the stigma of missing weight would simply become too great. Ideally. But it is nice that some of the proceeds of this particular card are going the Boys and Girls Club. Kinda softens Broner's image a little that he visited this week. It would feel strange to root for knockouts so as to up the contributions, if it wasn't already a little weird to root for anyone to be knocked out at all…
50 Cent has a boxing promoter license in Nevada now! And his feud with Floyd Mayweather was phony… UNLESS IT WASN'T (I say it wasn't). And one of his fighters got booted off Showtime because he said nasty things about Golden Boy, the promoter of the card… UNLESS IT WAS JUST BECAUSE HIS FIGHTER WAS BORING. Let's grade Fitty as a promoter so far: Spending more money than he should and not actually getting his fighters on enough boxing cards, minus; drawing attention to himself, plus; engaging in counterproductive feuds with other promoters, minus. Yup, sounds like he's right on track to be like all the other promoters…
Time permitting, we'd write more about important boxing figures passing on. As it is, I just make a point of talking about the ones who meant something more to me, and Carmen Basilio, whose funeral was this week, was one of them. Catching his fights on ESPN Classic, watching him out-tough the best fighter ever (Sugar Ray Robinson) or slugging it out with Tony DeMarco, and listening to him talk about those fights in short bursts of clipped, oft-comedic insight as an ancient, ancient old man in studio — it isn't a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon…
Two of the top Asian fighters of their generation, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam and Toshiaki Nishioka, are retiring, although offering final words on a boxing career is often premature, given all of boxing's unretirements. Still, Pong does have an argument for the Hall of Fame. I'm most convinced by his claim to be one of the best flyweights ever than I am about his record of winning a ton of fights overall; he would have three or four fights a year against guys who had a total of one career bout and the like. I'm on the fence, but more open to it than before…
One slight schedule update for this coming weekend Omar Henry is off the Showtime card, as he has gallstones. Even when he gets his act together, the middleweight can't manage the requisite luck…
British promoter Frank Maloney stepped in it last weekend with his deeply uncool comments about deceased boxing trainer Emanuel Steward and how his trainee Wladimir Klitschko was glad he didn't have to pay him for his most recent fights. Here's what's even more shocking: I can't find any evidence that he apologized anywhere; he said something about it in some forum, the topic since deleted, and has acknowledged the remarks were, at least, a mistake…
So Andre Berto's move to Golden Boy Promotions could be permanent after all. The merger of Al Haymon (who advises Berto along with so many others) and GBP is getting more and more complete.
