Don’t take that video’s appearance here as an endorsement of Maroon 5. Their catchy early Stevie Wonder impersonations have their merits, and that guest vocal on Kanye West’s “Heard ‘Em Say” is unreservedly good, but there’s a lot of mediocrity in there, too. Main thing is, a popular song by a popular act has a video with a boxing theme, which speaks well of Maroon 5. These things need to be spoken, and, for those who didn’t realize music videos were still being made, presented for possible consumption.
You know the drill: Quick Jabs rounds up what’s going on in the boxing world in easily consumable bite sizes, like a Maroon 5 pop song… wait, I’m not sure I like that comparison. Like bite-sized Frosted Mini-Wheats. Yeah, like that. Besides the headline, we’ve not got much — some discussion of fights in some locations and how they’re doing/did, some promising developments involving multiple Mexican pugs, some promoter/fighter/trainer switches, and more.
Quick Jabs
It’s official: James Kirkland is trying to ruin his career. The junior middleweight action star has had destructive jail stints and trainer switches, and now he’s trying to free himself again of trainer Ann Wolfe, along with his managers and promoter, Golden Boy. Fine, so maybe he wants to sign with TMT Promotions. It’s a bit on the ungrateful side, after GBP went to bat for him to shorten his jail stay and get him a big money fight with Canelo Alvarez, a fight he accepted then turned down. But we know what happened last time Kirkland left Wolfe: He sucked. He knew it, too, and went back to her, and he said she made all the difference, and the win over Alfredo Angulo suggests she did just that. If the lawsuit to sever his contract with GBP, Wolfe and his managers isn’t just a ploy to rid himself of only GBP, and if he doesn’t go back to Wolfe immediately thereafter, Kirkland is almost certainly done as a top fighter. And it’s not like his ceiling was very high, as it is…
Super middleweight Andre Dirrell discussed his experience with TMT here, and what sticks out about it is that TMT and adviser Al Haymon are looking like an either/or proposition, which makes you wonder (and it’s made a lot of people wonder for a while, so I’m just marking my own wonderment) when Haymon and TMT flirt Floyd Mayweather might part ways, and what Haymon parting with the welterweight superstar would mean for Haymon’s future power base. Dirrell could be part of the first TMT show, possibly on TV, to be headlined in November by featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa, who reportedly might face Juan Carlos Delgado, a respectable opponent; Dirrell might face Brian Magee, unless Magee fights Mikkel Kessler instead…
Dirrell’s old pal Andre Ward said there were never any negotiations for a catchweight against light heavyweight champ Chad Dawson, but Dawson and his promoter Gary Shaw said they tried to get one. I like Ward more than most, but is it a coincidence that Ward keeps saying totally different things about what’s happened in negotiating sessions than his opponents and would-be opponents? People are talking about Ward-Dawson a little bit because of Nick Cannon of “America’s Got Talent” doing ring announcing for the fight (via news release Monday), mostly to crack wise about that, but whatever — a promotional gimmick that gets people talking is usually a promotional gimmick that’s working…
Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. is on track, weight-wise, for his fight next month against middleweight champ Sergio Martinez, or at least that’s what the WBC says, and the WBC is not historically unbiased in matters Chavez. But I trust ’em this time — Chavez and his team have to know that Martinez is a serious threat, and hopefully they’re treating him as such…
Speaking of Angulo, he’s sprung. His ring return can’t come soon enough…
Cornelius Bundrage, frequently mentioned as an opponent for the likes of Kirkland and other junior middleweights, has parted ways with manager/trainer Emanuel Steward for what amounts to “no good reason.” Don’t get your hopes up for a Kirkland-Bundrage bout or the like, though (not that anyone had hopes for it at all). Bundrage is still chasing the big money bouts against Miguel Cotto or Mayweather, aimlessly enough. I could see him getting Cotto, maybe, perhaps, with Cotto looking to fight in December against somebody, and Bundrage was on “The Contender” TV show so so long ago…
Devon Alexander-Randall Bailey is going to be in Las Vegas next month, which isn’t at all the place a welterweight fight where a boxer from St. Louis is the biggest draw ought to be, especially with everybody probably saving money to go to one of the big fights in Vegas that very next weekend. That Showtime card is also going head-to-head with an HBO card. This might be the least-watched “significant” fight of 2012, live and on TV. Neatest thing about the fight? Bailey has to wear 16 ounce gloves in sparring, or no one will get in the ring with him…
Top Rank, a promoter that inspires fierce allegiance and dogma about greatness among a swath of boxing fans and writers for being so swell at promoting and generating grassroots support, recently had two cards back-to-back that sold 1,232 tickets, total. The usual suspects would never report that, because it doesn’t fit the thesis. And for what it’s worth, I don’t blame Top Rank much. It’s hard for anybody to sell tickets to boxing shows in America, no matter how many things you do right. But Top Rank has an awful lot of low-selling shows, with its share of giveaways, that go unmentioned…
Oscar De La Hoya, owner of GBP, recently remarked on Twitter how odd it was that The Ring left him off a list of Olympians who had great amateur and, what with GBP owning Ring Magazine. I guess some people thought it was a funny thing to say. It wasn’t much funnier than anything Oscar has said before, I guess, and it’s weird that he bothered to say it. The list shouldn’t have included Oscar, so far as I’m concerned. I’ve not been happy with a lot of what Ring has done since GBP purchased them, but it’s not like every single thing they write is pro-GBP, so neither Oscar nor anyone else should be surprised by where he was or wasn’t o nthe list…
Manny Pacquiao vs. many people: UFC boss Dana White said Nike dumped Pacquiao; Pacquiao’s people said that isn’t true. Timothy Bradley thinks Pacquiao’s team is scared of a rematch, which probably isn’t true; they probably just can make money fighting other people. Bradley also said Mayweather would “flatten” Pacquiao, which is probably not precisely true; rather, I think Mayweather would beat him, but not stop him…
Adrien Broner and Robert Guerrero have been beefing on Twitter in the last week. I could get into that fight, at lightweight, if Guerrero can make it back down there from his stop at welterweight.
