You see those two handsome men at right? They’re taking their podcast to a subscription format, and I’m about to become a subscriber. I’ll let them explain how it all works, but the main thing is that if you’re into boxing, Eric Raskin and William Dettloff are two of the best voices in the sport, even with me disagreeing with Bill so often like I do, and the show is plenty funny besides. For those of you who have kindly and flatteringly suggested that TQBR should do a podcast, Ring Theory can scratch your itch in our absence.
It’s another light week of boxing developments, so this edition of Quick Jabs will be unusually quick. While we wait for the big HBO fight tonight, feast your eyes, or, at least, light brunch your eyes:
- Chris Arreola vs. Joey Abell. The jiggly heavyweight made his return on Friday Night Fights at a slightly-less-jiggly-than-usual weight of below 250 lbs. He put all of his back fat into a massive right hand in the 1st that turned Abell jiggly then followed it up with a combination that forced the ref to end matters. As this sequence ended he kissed Joey, which was either classless or a gesture of compassion, depending on whether you’re ESPN2’s Brian Kenny or Arreola. For all that we (including, obviously, me) make fun of Arreola’s girth, he’ll never not be interesting, be it inside the ring swapping heavy punches or with outside the ring drama about his weight or about him kissing somebody or about him crying and cursing after a win or loss. If Arreola is going to just be a limited TV star rather than a full-fledged contender — and his conditioning suggests that’s all he’ll be, for all his talk after of taking over the world in 2011 — then there are worse things. Arreola vs. most any heavyweight sounds like a good time, no? (Highlights of the show below, if you didn’t catch it.)
- Josesito Lopez vs. Mike Dallas, Jr. Whereas Arreola has more talent than he takes full advantage of, Lopez exceeds his limits. On the FNF undercard, the junior welterweight overcame an opponent with much faster hands and feet via determination, fighting through a nasty cut over his right eye from a head butt to stop the more heralded Dallas in the 7th round. Lopez, like Arreola, is a TV star, but he shows signs of refusing to be confined to that worthy honorific. Dallas was winning the fight on my scorecard, but for some reason he couldn’t get out of the way of Lopez’ left hook. It wobbled him in the 2nd, wobbled him in the 7th and a second left hook in the 7th rendered him helpless, causing the ref to end matters. (Both stoppages, by the way, were warranted.) Dallas has talent and is to be commended for stepping up against a very tough opponent, but he needs to figure out how to fight on the inside — his incessant holding made him a pain to watch — and obviously he needs to figure out how to avoid a left hook. Lopez moves forward. He could be in the running for something bigger than this, and he deserves it.
- The CBS/Showtime deal. I know I said I’d spare you a lecture on journalistic standards, but it turns out that all the anonymous sources that told various journalists that CBS would air an actual documentary series on the Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley welterweight fight along with promises to feature the card’s fighters on their news programs were either A. lying or B. misinformed. Since they were anonymous, they cannot be held accountable. The news release about the deal said that CBS would air one prime-time preview, which is still an awesome breakthrough but less of one than the other version, and Top Rank’s Bob Arum said the reports about CBS’ news division were “premature.” Pacquiao himself was out of the loop on the nature of the deal, which makes you wonder, if he’s not up to speed on something so vital to his boxing career, whether he should ever be in charge of a whole country.
- Michigan shadiness. Carlos Acevedo has an informative, entertaining and damning account of unsavory practices in Michigan as it pertains to boxing. So that’s one more thing to be excited about tonight vis-a-vis the junior welterweight bout between Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander.
- Empire Sports shows. This is official. More boxing on television is a good thing. As with all of these recent developments with boxing spreading across the airwaves, you hope the quality of the programming — James Toney? Really? — doesn’t scare anyone away from doing yet more of it, is all. If they focus on up-and-comers going forward, that’s probably a better approach.
- Saul Alvarez lawsuit. Golden Boy is involved in yet another lawsuit involving them stealing a boxer, in this case the popular Mexican junior middleweight, from another promoter. So what else is new?
