In a year where there are very, very few Fight of the Year candidates so far, fights that are even borderline candidates have a real chance of ending up as the default FOTY. There’s Kazuto Ioka-Akira Yaegashi (strawweight) from this week. Me, friend of the site Adam Abramowitz and some others were recently discussing the FOTY candidates, which, again, by default, includes: Mike Alvarado-Mauricio Herrera (junior middleweight); Orlando Salido-Juan Manuel Lopez II (featherweight); Alexander Povetkin-Marco Huck (heavyweight); and Floyd Mayweather-Miguel Cotto (welterweight). Any others out there, please, please let us know.
In this shortish edition of Quick Jabs, besides videos of good fights — what, that’s not enough? — we give you thoughts on the items in the headline, the latest boxer to fail a drug test, some networks doing some innovative promoting online and some fights in the works, plus a touch more. Don’t forget to “like” on Facebook, by the way, if all these reminders aren’t yet taking hold.
Quick Jabs
Some folk thought it was some kind of big news that the WBO “investigation” that lead to five of their judges scoring Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley for Pacquiao. But they aren’t doing anything about the fight result — nor should they — and they’re just some goofy belt outfit anyway. Some other people have liked this video about Pacquiao-Bradley, which shows instances where HBO thought Pacquiao landed punches but didn’t, which happens all the time, but the video makes no case for Bradley actually winning. Moving along…
Showtime Extreme sometimes doesn’t announce its plans sometimes until our Alex McClintock completes his weekly schedule, but the channel is airing some extra undercard fights starting at 7 p.m. ET Saturday. It’s highlighted by Jermell Charlo vs. Denis Doughlin at junior middleweight…
Speaking of Showtime, cruiserweight/boxing commentator Antonio Tarver is the latest boxer to test positive for a banned substance, which calls into question the effectiveness of performance enhancing drugs, based on his performance against Lateef Kayode. Or maybe Tarver wouldn’t have even been that sucky without PEDs. Anyway, the usual caveat applies: Maybe it’s all a big mistake, maybe it ain’t. In this case, we don’t have the “B” test back, so there’s even more call to reserve judgment…
YURIORKIS GAMBOA! is free to continue his boxing career after reaching a deal to sever his promotional deal with Top Rank. It probably cost him a pretty penny. Whatever. I’m glad the dynamic featherweight is set to continue his career, presumably with Golden Boy/Mayweather Promotions…
Congrats to old friend of TQBR Tor Hamer winning the heavyweight Prizefighter tournament this week. Here’s an interview we did with him a whiles back — he’s not your usual boxer in interviews, to say the least…
More Showtime: They’ve launched a scoring app called “Split Decision” where you can win a trip to an upcoming Showtime card. Learn more here…
And under the category of “marketing efforts by networks” — which I’m fine with highlighting when it’s innovative — here’s a knockout prediction game from Azteca Sports.
Round And Round
Pacquiao is reportedly leaning toward a welterweight rematch with Timothy Bradley in November, over a rematch with old rival Juan Manuel Marquez. Either works for me, even if I slightly prefer the Marquez rematch.
In the never-ending quest by various super middleweights to avoid Adonis Stevenson, the latest candidate is Sakio Bika, whose head is so hard that he might be the only person not to fear Stevenson’s power.
Vitali Klitschko’s planned opponent for the last fight of his career, heavyweight Manuel Charr, has been balking at the money he’s been offered for that fight, so Klitschko doubled it. If Charr turns down the September bout, it’ll be clear that he doesn’t feel like getting knocked out for a career high payday, if nothing else.
Also at heavyweight, Tomasz Adamek is chasing Alexander Povetkin, a nice match-up of smallish heavyweights. There’s apparently little chance it’ll happen until next year, if at all, though.
Possible for the September undercard of Sergio Martinez-Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. (middleweight) is Hernan Marquez vs. Brian Viloria. That’s a highly appetizing flyweight battle.
(Round And Round sources: BoxingScene)
