Those are the appendages of Michael Constantino, who’s making his pro boxing debut Oct. 27 in New York on a Sadam Ali card you can watch via pay-per-view, per a news release. How will a boxer with one fist box? I honestly don’t know — none of the stories I can find explain if he does a number like Danny Williams, or if one of his gloves has a prosthetic fist, or what, exactly. He recently fought in the New York City Golden Gloves, and he made headlines after the TSA turned him down for a gig, so it’s not like he hasn’t been around for someone to ask the question. This is the closest you get in terms of a story on the logistics. [UPDATED: Ace boxing PR man Bob Trieger informs me that, according to Constantino, he sticks his arm into a small glove and laces it up and it fits. No prosthetic involved. He also switches stances on occasion.]
It is cool, though, either way. Can’t have anything but admiration for someone saying, “I need fists to box. I only have one. Screw it, let’s do this.”
We’ll consider that specific subject no further in this edition of Quick Jabs, but will instead discuss others, such as the subjects in the headline and whether Arturo Gatti belongs in the Hall of Fame; promotional tugs of war involving Golden Boy, Lou DiBella, Don King and Barry Hunter (?); and the latest news on Manny Pacquiao and his fourth fight against Juan Manuel Marquez, among other subjects. Read up. What else are you doing while you wait for the card of the year next weekend, Nonito Donaire-Toshiaki Nishioka and Brandon Rios-Mike Alvarado?
Quick Jabs
Deceased action legend Arturo Gatti is up for a Hall of Fame vote this year, and he’s the candidate getting the most debate so far. There was a similar debate last year with Mike Tyson, actually — both had resumes that were a little light, but both had outsized impact on the fabric of the sport, with Tyson the world’s most popular athlete for a time and Gatti one of the most exciting men ever to punch other men for a living, with five of seven Fights of the Year at one point. As the criteria given to voters is non-specific, i.e. whether they should vote based purely on resume or what (the exact standard is “achievement in the ring,” which could be defined a lot of ways to a lot of people), it’s not a debate that can just be settled by people arguing that resume. On resume, he probably doesn’t belong, although fighters with light-ish resumes like Matthew Saad Muhammad and Barry McGuigan have gotten enshrined. On accomplishing things inside the ring that were almost unfathomable, win or lose, he achieved an awful, awful lot. If I had a vote, and I don’t nor have I sought one, I’d say yes. I wonder why Diego Corrales wasn’t on the slate for a vote, though. He was likewise but somewhat less super-exciting — anyone who has an argument for being one half of the best fight ever seems deserving to me — and his resume was better…
Man has middleweight superstar Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. hit a rough patch after his first loss. He’s having to explain marijuana in his system, the WBC’s president and his godfather Jose Sulaiman is saying he’s got a gambling addiction, he’s searching for blame about how he lost and not exactly coming off so great. I like Chavez as a fighter, but he always seemed a strange folk hero, given his non-hardscrabble upbringing, his laziness, his petulence, how protected he was by the WBC — usually, it’s the scrappy no-excuses types who win over the hardcore masses. Whatever happens to him, whether he ends up in rehab or boots his father from his training camp or whatever, I want to see him get his act together, because he’s too fun to be sidelined by a bunch of outside the ring nonsense…
Marquez will not get his wish for non-Nevada judges for his fourth bout with Manny Pacquiao, but it’s not clear to me how much that would’ve helped him anyway. Seems to me that where judges are a problem for Marquez, it’s fans cheering Pacquiao’s work harder and Marquez’s more subtle work going a bit under the radar, and outside judges are not going to be any more attuned to that phenomenon. I do think it’s interesting that tickets are selling so well, reportedly. A bunch of hardcore fans have talked about how tired they are of Pacquiao fighting Marquez, but a bunch of them are probably buying tickets anyway, some of us like the bout more than others, and Pacquiao is still as big a mainstream crossover as boxing has. But there’s already talk of his next fight in the spring, and he’s formalized his congressional reelection plans, so you gotta wonder if this talk of renewed focus and really, really wanting to knock out Marquez this time means all that much…
What a year super-adviser Al Haymon is having. By my count, he’s added at least 16 fighters to his stable in 2012, although the exact date on some of these signings is a bit murky: Austin Trout; Devon Alexander; Erislandy Lara; Fernando Guerrero; Josesito Lopez; Omar Figeruoa; Peter Quillin; Shawn Porter; J’Leon Love; Leo Santa Cruz; and, most recently, six 2012 U.S. Olympians. Not sure when Keith Thurman and Daquan Arnett signed up with Haymon. That, combined with Showtime’s decision to air a lot more fights and in particular fights featuring Haymon fighters, has put him well ahead of the pack of other manager-types in terms of quantity…
The aforementioned Tyson is just having a devil of a time with the kiwis, as they have been very skittish about allowing someone with a rape conviction into their country for a charity event. Tyson didn’t help himself by cursing on New Zealand television when asked about aforementioned rape, and as of now his visa is revoked. I find it fascinating that for all the shit that Tyson has confessed to in all of his almost disturbingly candid interviews and such, he keeps insisting that he didn’t do what he was accused of in that case. I’m not sure what it means, just a fascinating trend…
It’s long since passed, but the death of Corrie Sanders was such a bigger story than I ever expected. It was on television news a ton, particularly BBC, and I suppose it makes sense: The circumstances of his death, gunned down while trying to protect his daughter from gunfire, are extraordinary. Besides being a heroic guy in his daily life, he put on a couple fights I’ll fondly remember, one naturally his defeat of current heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko. But people probably underrate how good his fight with Vitali was…
If the idea is to improve Victor Ortiz’s defense, then the welterweight could do worse than Floyd Mayweather, Sr. as his new trainer, as is being discussed. If the idea is to see how crazypants a personality combination can be packed into a fighter/trainer team, then you absolutely can do no better than Ortiz-Mayweather…
After some back and forth, it turns out that welterweight Andre Berto has DiBella as his promoter but that he’ll step aside so that Golden Boy can put him in against junior middleweight Cornelius Bundrage. Berto is advised by Haymon. Haymon moves in mysterious ways. Meanwhile, for no apparent reason other than he has a big pile of money and is bored and running out of ways ot spend it, Don King bid $1.1 million for the Chris Arreola-Bermane Stiverne heavyweight fight, which, don’t get me wrong, helluva fight, but why outbid the next highest party by approximately double? By contrast, Barry Hunter, who handles Lamont Peterson’s career, won a bid for a Peterson’s junior welterweight fight against Zab Judah for a bargain basement $50,000. I think somebody there knew that fight wasn’t gonna happen. Peterson’s also in talks for a Timothy Bradley rematch at 147 pounds.
