I’m reading the book “More Information Than You Require” right now, which is fitting because that’s what this edition of Quick Jabs is (and every edition, for that matter). That includes the items in the headline, as well as the troublesome noise hinting that Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto may not happen (?); how one of this weekend’s bouts, Devon Alexander-Junior Witter, also may be canceled; the latest on Arturo Gatti; things heating up on the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez undercard; a glimpse at Thursday’s “Fight Night Club;” and much more.
Quick Jabs
So we’re initiating our first Open Thread giveaway contest, and it’s a good one. Here’s the deal: Between now and the end of the day Monday, when I put up an “Open Thread” post, you come up with a design for a t-shirt for our blog — it just needs to say “The Queensberry Rules” on it somewhere, and the rest is up to you. I may or may not use it as the official t-shirt for the site, but whatever one I like best wins the contest. We’re going to give the winner an authentic Manny Pacquiao bobblehead doll; a Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston poster; and a $25 titleboxing.com gift certificate. That’s a value of about $75, in all. See everyone Monday! (big thanks to friend-of-the-site Steve on this one; he footed the bill)…
More meta-stuff: 1. I really heartily recommend anyone who’s a fan of boxing, mixed martial arts or wrestling to check out Fight Game Blog (FGM) Radio. I was on this week, and you can listen to it here — including a section that we didn’t talk about in the live portion of the program. GG is an awesome blogger, but his radio work is truly excellent. He asks great questions, lets conversation flow easily, and explains things in such a clear, understandable fashion that I found myself listening intently to the MMA section of the program that came on after my appearance, and I don’t really care about MMA much. 2. I referenced a William Dettloff column this week, and Bill responded to what I said. I advise you all go check out this updated piece with his reply. 3. We need to talk about whether everyone’s ready for the book club yet. I think we need to delay it a month. Let me know if everyone who’s participating has received/read “Hands of Stone.” I’m still reading, having received a copy from friend-of-the-site JohnPaulFutbol recently, which I can pass along to the next person as necessary…
Back to Pacquiao for a second. It may just be saber-rattling, but a dispute over whether Miguel Cotto’s welterweight belt is on the line Nov. 14 is causing Pacquiao’s people to make gestures that hint they are threatening to pull out of the fight. It must be noted that no contract is signed, though, so the threat has real potential. Everyone here is kind of in the wrong. Cotto doesn’t have to put his belt on the line if he doesn’t want to, but by saying there’s no such thing as a 145-pound belt — the agreed-upon weight for this fight — he’s making a mistake; 145 pounds would make this a welterweight fight. Pacquiao’s team says there’s no need for Cotto if he won’t put his belt on the line, but whether a belt is on the line does not change one iota whether Pacquiao-Cotto is a good fight. I’m pretty confident this will get resolved one way or the other, with the WBO magically inventing a rule to allow the fight to be for the belt against Cotto’s wishes, or with Cotto getting a little extra cash to sweeten the pot, or something. But it’s cause for some slight worry…
Scary news that this weekend’s junior welterweight undercard feature on Showtime — Alexander-Witter — may be off because of a feud about judges. The feud is a little complex, but generally speaking, I favor more neutral judges, not fewer. I’d like to see this resolved by, like, today (Mini-Update: Wish already granted)…
I understand why everyone is wringing their hands over the potential showdown between UFC 103 and Mayweather-Marquez Sept. 19, but it mostly is meaningless. Based on what we know now, neither event has fans of either sport riled up. Mayweather-Marquez might rile people up with a stellar undercard, and that’s actually in the works, which we’ll get to later in this column. And far-fetched though it may seem now, there’s the off chance that UFC will rustle Brock Lesnar-Fedor Emelianenko for UFC 103, which would be probably the biggest MMA event of all time. My inclination is to think that anything just short of that for UFC won’t draw more casual fight fans than would Mayweather-Marquez, and people who like both boxing and MMA are, based on anecdotal evidence, leaning more toward Mayweather-Marquez over any given UFC event that isn’t Brock-Fedor. But it’s my solemn promise that if Mayweather-Marquez outsells UFC 103 in the pay-per-view market, I won’t be gloating. Yes, I might make note of it as yet more evidence that boxing isn’t as dead as people think, but that’s the most I’d say. Mayweather-Marquez outselling a less-than-top UFC event doesn’t mean boxing is more popular than MMA; it doesn’t mean much at all. A less-than-top UFC event outselling Mayweather-Marquez, by the same token, doesn’t prove anything, either, since Mayweather-Marquez is a match-up that doesn’t thrill everyone in boxing. The only meaning to any of this is A. how much the pay-per-view numbers for Mayweather-Marquez affect Mayweather for future fight negotiations with, say, Pacquiao, and B. whatever meaning moronic mainstream sports writers who know nothing of either sport decided to try and imbue it with. Get back to me when both sports put their best foot forward on the same night, then we might have some real meaning in the showdown’s results…
Arturo Gatti’s death has been ruled a suicide, and I think there’s reason to be skeptical of ANY conclusion the Brazilian authorities might have come to. This latest report explains some of the contradictions I’d raised on Twitter, but I can’t say it’s wholly satisfactory. Gatti’s family has initiated its own “investigation,” and Main Events, Gatti’s old promoter, isn’t buying the suicide story, either. I strongly doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom of what really happened in the death of Gatti. It’s sad but there’s not much anyone can do…
Disgraced and de-licensed welterweight Antonio Margarito was spotted last week in the corner of junior flyweight Giovanni Segura, alongside disgraced and unlicensed trainer Javier Capetillo, who tried to take the fall for Margarito’s loaded gloves scandal. Some have said this raises questions about Segura’s judgment, and I agree. But ESPN’s Dan Rafael pointed out something that I think is even MORE worrisome. Mr. Rafael:
If Margarito truly didn’t know that Capetillo had loaded his hand
wraps, as he claims, wouldn’t he be angry at Capetillo? Don’t you think he’d be keeping his distance? Don’t you think he would have dumped him by now for trying to cheat, causing his license to be revoked and severely damaging his career? Instead, Margarito is still with Capetillo, making it even more difficult to believe his weak story that he didn’t know what the trainer was doing. If I’m on the California commission and responsible for deciding whether Margarito gets his license back, the scene of him being so chummy with Capetillo certainly disappoints me, erodes any shred of credibility his story has and makes it difficult for me to vote in favor of relicensing him.
There’s loyalty, and there’s loyalty to someone who allegedly ruined your career, which is just foolish. I think it’s transparent that this is real loyalty from someone who was in cahoots with his trainer all along…
Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and his trainer have been cleared of any wrongdoing in a bar tussle. Pavlik’s personal life has been raked over the coals, and it all comes across as really unfair to me — I’ve had problems with how he’s behaved professionally of late, but every time some rumor comes up that Pavlik did thus-and-such, it turns out to be false or at least extremely unlikely. Everyone just needs to take any Pavlik personal life news with a grain of salt from here on out…
Caught two of the bouts last night on Fight Night Club. Lightweight prospect Luis Ramos continues to impress me — he really does fight like Juan Manuel Marquez, stylistically, although I’m not saying he’s anywhere near as good or ever will be. Can’t say I was terribly surprised to see featherweight prospect Charles Huerta get knocked out. I’m not saying he can’t fix what’s wrong with him, but he’s fairly sloppy in there, and being sloppy will get a homie knocked out. Still, you can’t say these Fight Night Club cats are being matched soft. Golden Boy Promotions wants to build these youngsters up, and they recognize they have to match them tough to do so. I hope they don’t take their foot off the gas, because it makes for a good program…
Other bits of Golden Boy news: 1. Heavyweight David Haye, co-promoted by GBP, is really mismanaging his career. He didn’t inform GBP about his fight switcheroo from Vitali Klitschko to Nicolay Valuev, and with GBP being his pipeline to HBO, that’s just kooky. HBO doesn’t want a thing to do with Haye-Valuev, and maybe they wouldn’t have if Haye had handled it right, but it sure hurt his chances. 2. Per a news release, Golden Boy has formed a bond with Universum, another promotional company. I’m not sure what the ramifications of that will be, but it’s worth nothing. 3. Another career mismanager, lightweight Joan Guzman, signed with GBP, per a separate news release. I hope he can get his career back on track because he’s a good talent, but I don’t know if signing with GBP alone is good enough. He’s got a weird head on his shoulders and this may not change that…
Didja see how the WBA dropped Ruslan Chagaev as its heavyweight “champion in recess?” Sanity!…
Didja see how retired lightweight Joe Calzaghe said he could beat Wladimir Klitschko? Insanity! (Or, as someone else put it…)…
Sultan Ibragimov: Retired!…
Former junior welterweight champ Ricky Hatton thinks he overtrained against Pacquiao. Interesting theory. Is that why he looked drained as if he couldn’t make weight the day before the fight? Hatton can think whatever he wants about what went wrong against Pacquiao, I suppose, but this strikes me as the strangest of his explanations…
Evander Holyfield vs. a horse, Onion-style. (h/t BoxingWatchers.com)
Evander Holyfield To Box Horse For Heavyweight Title
Round And Round
There do seem to be genuine efforts afoot to make a badass undercard for the guessweight Mayweather-Marquez fight. The featherweight rematch between Chris John and Rocky Juarez, who put on one of the better fights of the year already, looks more and more like a lock. There remains interest in putting on an attractive bout between lightweights Michael Katsidis and Vicente Escobedo. And the newest entrant is an attractive super middleweight fight between big-punching Alan Green and iron-chinned Sakio Bika. If any two of those bouts happen, it will be amazing. If all three happen, it will be jaw-dropping. It would be the most stacked big fight card that I’ve ever witnessed, that’s for sure. And while Mayweather Promotions would deserve real credit, Golden Boy does seem to be doing some lifting on some of these bouts, too. This kind of effort is exactly what boxing needs, so let’s hope it doesn’t all crumble.
A hoped-for Pacquiao-Cotto undercard fight has already come and gone, with Edwin Valero and Humberto Soto not likely to square off at lightweight. The replacements being discussed by Top Rank pale in comparison — Valero-Soto is an HBO main event-worthy bout, so that’s not saying much — but aren’t bad at all, either. Valero might fight his mandatory title challenger, Antonio DeMarco, in what figures to be a mismatch in practice but is not a terrible fight for an undercard. Soto would fight David Diaz, which might be a closer fight given that it would be Soto’s move up to lightweight and Diaz is a tough hombre; if not Diaz, Soto might fight Joel Casamayor, another pretty good match-up. The one fight that looks like it definitely will be on is Jesus Soto-Karass vs. Alfonso Gomez at welterweight, and that one figures to be less meaningful but certainly action-packed. I’ve always thought it would be quite easy for promoters to put on a good pay-per-view main event; one fight of relatively high stature to help set up future events; and one bout that figures to be a slugfest between lower-level dudes, so fans are guaranteed at least one action fight. If I got a fight card like that on each pay-per-view, I bet I
‘d mostly feel like I got my money’s worth.
Vitali Klitscko-Chris Arreola looks like a go for Sept. 26 in Arreola’s backyard of L.A., and it has the makings of one of the best handful of heavyweight fights that can be made right now. No, I don’t think Arreola will beat Klitschko, but there are basically two courses one can try in attacking him, which is go for broke and get knocked out early or play it safe and get knocked out late. Sometimes fighters even try a mix of both approaches. I would expect Arreola to go for broke, which at least means we’ll get more action that we usually do in a Klitschko bout.
Pavlik-Paul Williams just keeps going round and round (this the subtitle of this column — always seems like “fights in the works” go “round and round” for a while before they happen). Williams, it looks like, is gonna fight Oct. 3 no matter what, be it against Williams or Sergei Dzinziruk. HBO is catching a little hell for backing Williams in this, since Williams is managed by Al Haymon, who’s very “in” with the network. But however it’s happening, it must be said that if HBO wasn’t pushing this fight, it wouldn’t happen at all, and what more interesting fight is the for either man, really? I do think Williams needs to make a ton of concessions despite this apparent upper hand, because he just isn’t the draw of the two. Back down, Williams, or you will risk great ridicule next time you try to claim people are ducking you.
Light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins, whose plans are in perpetual flux, is now saying he’d like to fight the winner of Chad Dawson-Glen Johnson II or cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek around Jan. 15, his 45th birthday. Either fight would be most welcome, although I might lean toward Hopkins-Dawson/Johnson, because the winner would leave no doubt about who’s the best light heavyweight in the world. Adamek’s team says that rumors of moving to heavyweight to fight Andrew Golota for a “Polish Fight of the Century” are bunk, and that they’re still focused on a rematch with Steve Cunningham. Would that someone at HBO or Showtime bankroll that fight.
The bankroll doesn’t look good for Israel Vaquez-Rafael Marquez IV at featherweight, at least not for now, and I’m kind of relieved. GBP is saying it can’t put the fight on pay-per-view without taking a substantial risk, and that, really, was the last available course for the fight to get made. I like both men too much to see them risk their lives in another rematch without being almost certain that both men could handle another such war.
Vic Darchinyan is going back to junior bantamweight and it looks like he’ll fight the non-elite Tomas Rojas at some date to be named. This guy has had one of the best “strength of schedule” rankings in years, and I can’t blame him for taking on an opponent who’s less dangerous on paper for one fight.
Hatton says he won’t fight Amir Khan unless Khan promoter and former Hatton promoter Frank Warren isn’t involved. Could be a stunt to screw over Warren. Khan, meanwhile, is negotiating to fight mandatory challenger Dimitriy Salita.
Andre Ward will have his own tune-up Sept. 12 on Showtime on the undercard of Mikkel Kessler’s mandatory title defense in advance of their eventual super middleweight showdown as part of the Showtime tournament. Sounds unnecessary to me, but as long as nobody gets injured, I guess it’s fine.
How is Daniel Santos-Yuri Foreman going to purse bid? Didn’t Foreman just have a “no contest” in a junior middleweight title eliminator?
Next week, the long-discussed, thrice-canceled Mike Jones-Larry Mosley welterweight bout is off again, and do you know why? POISON ON THE FACE. That’s what Mosley has. I’m not kidding. Jones will fight sturdy-but-worn-down Ben Tackie instead Aug. 8 on gofightlive.tv. I leave you with the best poison/face image of recent years, the weird case of Viktor Yushchenko:
(Round and Round sources: ESPN; RingTV; news releases; BoxingScene; London Daily Telegraph)
