There’s not much to offer with a Quick Jabs column this week — most of the news was related to Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and we covered that yesterday — so we’ll basically just do a Round And Round column this week.
But there were a few other things, some of them related to tonight’s pay-per-view card. I desperately need that card to deliver. I’m sick of being disgusted by the sport I love. (I need a hero.) Anyway, what Quick Jabs there are, I offer here, then we move on to the fights in the works after the jump:
- Oscar De La Hoya said Golden Boy would keep putting on quality undercards no matter how well tonight’s show did. If you’ve been following Oscar lately, you know he’s on a hot streak with the lying. In this case, I hope he isn’t. And, you know — the card should do well. They spent less than $2 million on purses for the PPV portion of the card. I don’t know how much they paid for the octopus prediction, though (which, yes, was a little canned, but hey, I’m all for promotional gimmicks). They’ve suggested that they’d like to get 200,000 buys out of it. That sounds feasible to me. And, lastly, check out this interview with lightweight Jorge Linares, who was on the card. It has some concerning/shocking admissions from Linares that make me worry about his mental state — he said went into his last fight knowing he would lose, he said, but he’s contradicted by his team. Odd.
- Heavyweight David Tua said he had a shoulder injury for his draw with Monte Barrett, but that he didn’t want to “take anything away” from Barrett’s performance. I’m thinking putting out a news release announcing an injury that amounts to an excuse, legitimate or not, necessarily equals Tua taking away from Barrett’s performance.
- Beware Twitter, boxing fans and boxing media. I use it a little, but mostly find it unsatisfactory for communicating thoughts to the degree I prefer. But it’s also a minefield of false identities, as the recent revelation about junior welterweight Timothy Bradley’s fake Twitter feed shows. A few different sites, including this one, made reference to Bradley’s tweets, only for that same account owner to later admit that he wasn’t really Bradley. Some sites issued corrections or clarifications. BoxingScene, irresponsibly, did not. Although, as a commenter notes below, there was at least a later acknowledgment that the account was fake, even if it didn’t correct the original items.
- Here’s something else that’s fake: Mayweather Promtions. Surprise!
- [UPDATE] Completely failed to mention, for those who didn’t see it, my piece at The Sweet Science about the boxing-movie theater marriage. Still annoyed that I can get pay-per-view figures; boxing ticket sales; closed circuit sales; boxing ratings; movie ticket sales; but NCM Fathom, for essentially no reason, won’t give out its numbers. The piece remains modestly informative.
Round And Round
Before long, Top Rank boss Bob Arum is going to run out of excuses for hiding the fighters he promotes from featherweight Celestino Caballero. Caballero offered to take a significantly reduced purse to fight Yuriorkis Gamboa after Elio Rojas pulled out of a Sept. 11 fight; before, Top Rank had acted like Caballero wanted too much money, so that excuse is out the window. In response, Arum said Caballero is too tall and it would take too long to train for him. Uh, Gamboa has six f’ing weeks, dude. That’s plenty. Instead, Gamboa will fight Orlando Salido. Caballero might end up fighting Rocky Martinez at junior lightweight, which sounds like a dynamite scrap.
There’s quite a clog of interrelated potential fights from 147 to as high as 175, so let’s just hit ’em. Miguel Cotto isn’t going to fight Andre Berto at 147, about the best fight for him. There was talk of putting him in with Vanes Martirosyan at 154, but I can’t imagine there being much demand for that. The latest is that Cotto might fight Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. I suppose that could make some cash, but it would be my third choice amongst those being talked about for Cotto.
Martirosyan — he wants Kelly Pavlik at 160, or Felix Sturm, or Paul Williams. Pavlik’s trainer has Chad Dawson and Tavoris Cloud in mind at 175, which would be two disastrous fights for him (one too fast, one too hard-hitting for someone unproven above 160), or Alfredo Angulo at 160, which sounds like fun. Gary Shaw, Angulo’s promoter, is up for putting Angulo in against Pavlik, which is funny since just a week or two ago he was saying Angulo wouldn’t fight above 154 until he was ready — which was his response to the idea of fighting Sergio Martinez at even 155. Deandre Latimore wants Angulo, too, and I think that also would be a fun fight.
Kermit Cintron wants Williams, Angulo, or Martinez, all rematches, or Berto. Something tells me Cintron will be the odd man out in all this. He said he offered to fight Williams at 147, where Williams’ team says he wants to stay, but Williams said no. If true, Williams has suddenly gotten very dodgy after his team hyping him up as willing to fight anyone — Williams hasn’t said “yes” to anyone for a while. Cintron said he did turn down Sturm at 160, because he needed more time to train. Common excuse these days. Sturm was going to fight Ricardo Mayorga, but like all Mayorga fights, that fell through, and now Sturm is set to face Giovanni Lorenzo, which I think is a good scrap for both men.
The Klitschko brothers are narrowing their options. After Alexander Povetkin effectively bailed out of a Sept. 11 fight, heavyweight champion Wladimir, Wladimir quickly signed with Samuel Peter, the next available contender for one of his alphabet belts. As mentioned, at least it’s got the rematch angle going for it — Peter was the last person to give Klitschko any real difficulty, although he’s gotten better then worse since, and Wladimir is all-better. It’ll air on ESPN3.com, then on tape delay on ESPN Deportes and ESPN, in that order. There continues to be talk of Vitali fighting Shannon Briggs, but that hasn’t been finalized, according to Vitali.
Cruiserweight Troy Ross is calling out Danny Green. Good for him. If Green wants to stop fighting “dead men,” to quote Antonio Tarver, and prove he’s serious, Ross would be a perfect choice. It would be a nice power-punching exhibition.
Golden Boy Promotions claims it’s having a tough time finding a Sept. 18 opponent for welterweight/junior middleweight Saul Alvarez. Matthew Hatton said no, according to GBP. Another option, as mentioned last night, is Delvin Rodriguez, a good fight that should in no way be diminished by the robbery Rodriguez suffered last night. The other option is Carlos Baldomir. It’s probably an appropriate test for Alvarez, but as someone who has a soft spot for Baldomir and doesn’t want him fighting anymore, I don’t like it much.
(Round and Round sources: ESPN, BoxingScene, Fightnews, FanHouse, Maxboxing)
