You think you know all the kinds of boxing, and along comes the chicken variety. A Lousiana state senator, you see, is raising questions about a bill meant to increase restrictions on cockfighting, because he fears it could cut back on the “legitimate” sport of chicken boxing, which, yes, involves chickens with boxing gloves on their feet. And which totally isn’t just a way to get around laws against cockfighting, presumably.
IF there was a comma in the middle of it — “chicken, boxing” — it might refer to light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson. Buuuuuuuurn.
We’ll visit with more of the fallout over Stevenson moving to Showtime and where that leaves Sergey Kovalev in this edition of Quick Jabs, along with other promoter dramas, a meeting between Bill Clinton and Manny Pacquiao, the latest in fighter safety, the topics in the headline and more.
QUICK JABS
You might have heard that Karim Mayfield licked the nipple of Thomas Dulorme twice at the weigh-in last Friday for their junior welterweight bout, prompting a brawl that cost each man 20 percent of their purse, thereby setting the going rate for nipple licking. Mayfield said he didn’t in fact lick the nipple, but was instead sniffing Dulorme and saying, “I smell pussy.” I see no clear evidence of licking from the video footage, although I could see why someone assumed it. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on his story. Still, I’m going to make Mayfield/nipple licker jokes for the rest of his career, probably. It’s unfair, but it’s too funny not to, and anyone who wants to know how I really feel about it can print this out and put it on a cork board for their records…
Mayfield has bigger problems to worry about, anyway, what with a potentially homicidal manager. His reaction upon learning of the murder-for-hire charges was fantastic: “Oh, what the hell?”…
That show last weekend was headlined by the light heavyweight bout between Sergey Kovalev and Cedric Agnew, which registered just over 1 million viewers according to Nielsen. It’s not a great number but it’s also right in line with the HBO Boxing After Dark main event average from last year. Considering that it was going head-to-head with a big NCAA tournament game, was a total mismatch against an unknown, featured a first-time headliner from Russia and the potential big audience drop off due to the disappointment of the Kovalev-Stevenson fight falling apart, it’s better than I might have expected. (P.S., for comparison’s sake, here are the averages from last year for main events of the bigger Championship Boxing shows on HBO and Showtime, respectively: 1.2 million for HBO, 812,000 for Showtime; figures provided in December from HBO, based on Nielsen)…
Kovalev is now eyeing Jean Pascal, a bout that makes sense for Kovalev if not as much for Pascal. But then, with Canadian rival Stevenson busy for his next couple on Showtime, maybe Pascal doesn’t have a better option. Kovalev might also take an off-HBO fight in Russia…
Main Events’ Kathy Duva, who promotes Kovalev, has been blasting Stevenson and it’s hard to blame her. That said, I do now wonder about the wisdom/viability of a lawsuit over the deal they’d reached based on her remarks about being ready to move on without Stevenson, and some other evidence. If it keeps Kovalev on the shelf, especially, it’s probably not worth it. But if it’s just to fuck with Stevenson and Showtime, maybe it’s a just cause, since that seems to have been the main goal of Showtime stealing away Stevenson from HBO…
Nobody in the media has reported this, so take it with a grain of salt, but “boxing insider” Rick Glaser said on Twitter that feuding Golden Boy Promotions executives Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya have hired a couple power attorneys. After both sides had tried to dodge questions about any feud, Schaefer has subsequently acknowledged some friction and said they’re trying work it out. But that was on March 27 and the lawyer scuttlebutt was April 3…
Miss Jackson, ex-fiancee of Floyd Mayweather, reportedly had to sell a favored purse to make rent, and Mayweather reportedly bought it back, and then Mayweather’s female entourage posed for a picture with it. That Mayweather, he’s a real class act. I could see doing this if you were a dumb teenager, but this is a 37-year-old man…
Meanwhile, Manny Pacquiao is rubbing shoulders with former president Bill Clinton. Clinton basically endorsed Pacquiao for higher office, although I’m guessing they have radically different views on topics like reproductive rights and gay marriage, given Clinton’s party and Pacquiao’s past statements on those subjects. I’m going to chalk this up to Clinton just wanting to appear statesmanlike…
It’s gone without comment too long, but add Timothy Bradley’s “my performance against Pacquiao suffered because I wasn’t wearing socks and it made me hurt my foot” to the list of all-time great excuses by a boxer. He’s been trotting it out the last couple weeks, and Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach responded humorously enough by sending him a box of socks. It goes up there with “My dad told me he loved me,” “I wasn’t able to eat enough Big Macs” and others…
Boxing 360 has been stripped of its promoter license by New York. The company has done little but feud with its fighters since coming into existence, and this move frees them up to go about their careers…
Here are a couple longer reads on fighter safety, both well-written and worthy of endorsement. One is focused on mixed martial arts more than boxing, but every word of what he concludes applies just as well to our sport. The other is very boxing-focused, and includes this disturbing passage, about ex-boxer Terry Norris: “Terry Norris still gets offers to fight. Fourteen years after being denied a fight license due to a suspected brain injury, after filing for California disability benefits due to a brain injury, he still gets asked to step back into the ring. In the name of competition, entertainment, a paycheck.” God, there are some sick fucks in boxing. Read every word of both articles…
The Association of Ringside Physicians have put forward some recommendations on the topic of weight management, and they are worth strongly considering. Boxers’ rapid weight loss and gain has been responsible for ring deaths. Notably, a commonly proposed solution for dealing with this issue, a return to same-day weigh-ins, is not explicitly endorsed, only vaguely discussed; weigh-ins should be “24 hours or less”…
And the Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr.-Gennady Golovkin super middleweight fight will have enormous financial penalties — $1 million dollars — for Junior should he fail to make weight. Junior is a poster child for rapid weight loss and gain. Maybe the ARP can live with him for a while to learn even more about the subject?
