Quick Jabs: Drama In Manny Pacquiao’s Camp; Quality In The Super Six Documentary Series; The Invisible Hand Of The Marketplace In Texas; More

IN THE EVENT that TQBR goes haywire, I’ll post anything I feel compelled to at my old blog, Seven Punch Combo, then return to this space ASAP. Wish me luck.

In the meantime, we have Quick Jabs to get to. It’s been a slow news week in terms of actual stuff to Jab Quickly about, but we’ll hit the material in the headline, plus thoughts on the whole Mayweather-Pacquiao-Mosley match-up merry-go-round; the first uttering on this blog of the phrase “Fox Espanol;” some catching up to the controversial ShoBox card from last weekend; and a mite bit more. P.S. Did you know there are waaaaaaay too many pictures of cats praying on the Internets? It’s true.

You know who sucks and who has always sucked? Manny Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz. I’ve been complaining about this guy forever. He’s trying to get the junior welterweight champ to ditch Freddie Roach, the trainer who has helped turn Pacquiao into the top-flight fighter he is. Back when Golden Boy and Top Rank were fighting over Manny, Roach blamed Koncz for steering Manny to Top Rank. That’s worked out pretty well in terms of his stardom, but remember when Floyd Mayweather was badmouthing Pacquiao’s deal with Top Rank’s Bob Arum and I wasn’t sure where he got his numbers? Here’s what Roach himself said a couple years back: “In Arum’s deal, the split on the money from promotions is 50-50. In Golden Boy’s deal, the split is 90-10 in favor of Manny.” And that’s not the worst of what Roach said about Koncz. Anyway, Manny once said he keeps Koncz around because Koncz does what he tells him to. But the guy doesn’t get boxing. In theory, Jose Luis Castillo makes sense as a sparring partner to imitate Miguel Cotto’s body punching and pressure style in advance of their 145-pound fight Nov. 14, but in reality Castillo is shot and how Koncz doesn’t know that and brought Castillo in anyway, it blows my mind…

Boxingtalk had an interesting item the other day: Welterweight Shane Mosley and light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins, despite being Golden Boy principles, are actually promotional free agents? Remember how there was something weird not long ago about how middleweight prospect Danny Jacobs also wasn’t officially signed with GBP? And notice how Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is essentially a GBP fighter who has his own (unlicenced in Nevada) promotional firm? They do things weird over there at GBP…

Mayweather has been making the rounds to heighten his media profile, calling himself boxing’s version of Tiger Woods, visiting the New York Jets, MTV, even Fox Business. It’s clear in most of the interviews he’s trying to come off as a nice guy, even saying how kids look up to him in the Fox interview and playing nice with old nemesis Brian Kenny. Then, well, as is his wont, he went off the reservation again, degenerating into the asshole version of Floyd by saying Mosley probably still is on steroids. This conversion from heel to babyface — every now and then, somebody writes something amazed saying, “Hey, look, Mayweather is transforming himself!” — if it takes, I’ll be surprised. I don’t think Mayweather can help himself, because every previous transformation hasn’t taken, either. He may have a good side, but I think he defaults to dick…

Updating you on the weekend schedule: Fox Sports Espanol (anybody get that channel?) will air Israel Vazquez’s return Saturday at featherweight; heavyweight Odlanier Solis has his third opponent after Kevin Johnson (great match-up) and Fres Oquendo (boring match-up, but not a bad save) dropped out, with Monte Barrett (shot, but fun) stepping in. I’m so desperate for boxing this weekend there’s a chance I’ll buy that hideous Latin Fury card, which just got more hideous because Solis weighed in at TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY ONE POUNDS. Someone please stop me. Someone…

I’ve had this little yin/yang theory about boxing policy stuff for a little while that this may fit into when and if I get around to writing it, but I think it deserves some attention in the short-term: We all still have a sour taste in our mouth about the awful 118-110 scorecard down in Texas for hometown junior welterweight Juan Diaz in his bout against Paulie Malignaggi. It put Texas’ shady boxing junk all in full view. I’ve spent some time thinking about how to handle this situation, because I still think there’s value in building up local fan bases around the country. But it occurred to me that the problem may actually solve itself. HBO’s Max Kellerman took some heat for his “marketplace has spoken” line that apparently justified Malignaggi getting screwed by that scorecard, but the marketplace is speaking again. Look at what has happened with the Diaz-Malignaggi rematch — if it happens, it definitely won’t be in Texas. And it won’t be in Texas because Malignaggi won’t let it be, owing to the highly questionable scoring of that fight. Because of that, Texas will lose out on the revenue it might have otherwise gotten from that rematch. And don’t think that the Malignaggi incident isn’t going to similarly inspire other fighters to stay away from Texas. Now, I ask this: Texas, is it worth it for you to clean up your act so you can host big fights consistently?…

Everyone must tune in to the Super Six Tourney documentary show, Fight Camp 360, debuting this weekend; I posted the schedule on my Twitter feed (and since the cat has already been let out of the bag elsewhere, you can see it here too if you want). It’s really, incredibly well-done. It certainly rivals HBO’s 24/7, and it even has a leg up in a few ways: All the characters are much newer to us, and, so far, totally likable and hard to root against, even though they aren’t sugar-coated; and they actually put you in the room with the promoters of the event, where you get to see them haggling entertainingly over fight terms. It’s easily as well-shot as HBO’s 24/7 series, and the fact that there are six guys means it’ll be harder to get sick of the seeing same two fighters over and over again. Also, the camera loves Carl Froch’s girlfriend, as it totally obviously should (as you can see below, even if I’m not crazy about the boob job). Also, there are lots of dogs in the show for some reason. Either way, check it out. The first episode starts a little slow, but it’s really fun thereafter, plus it does its job of making you want to see the tournament, like, yesterday…

More boxing programming: Mike Tyson hits the Oprah Winfrey Show Monday. Oh boy. (I’m not talking about Arthur Abraham’s dog, btw.)…

I finally caught last weekend’s ShoBox tripleheader on replay. My first reaction to the most controversial elements of it is that most definitely the referee should have stopped the fight during the 6th round so that welterweight Antwone Smith wouldn’t keep smashing the semi-conscious Henry Crawford around the ring. Definitely the referee should have checked on Crawford between rounds rather than warning him for holding. Definitely a doctor sho
uld have checked on Crawford between rounds. Definitely his corner should have stopped the fight between rounds. Crawford rallied in the 7th and 8th, but frankly his legs and eyes never looked good to me. As terrible as the 6th was, I actually thought the referee did his worst work in the 9th. After Crawford went down again, the ref asked him to walk to him, and he stumbled forward with his hands down, but the ref still let the fight continue. That was shockingly disgusting. Between rounds, Crawford’s level of bravery as he slurred his demands that he wanted to continue fighting — it was frightening, yet strangely uplifting, stuff. Finally, someone stopped it, and good for them. Crawford showed early in this fight he was better than some protected prospect, and I can only say how much I’d like it if this beating didn’t end his career…

As for the fights themselves, rather than the controversy: Crawford found out what the next level of competition was like, and stamina-wise, he wasn’t ready; maybe it’s because he’s not a full-time fighter, or maybe Smith’s pressure had a lot to do with it. Smith was very good, but as much as Crawford’s heart had something to do with him not going down in the 6th a second time, Smith’s lack of power did, too. I still like him very much as a fighter. Super middleweight Marcus Johnson was good in his win, but I wasn’t as impressed as the Showtime crew. And fellow super middleweight Allan Green’s lackluster but performance in his win struck me as a combo of Tarvis Simms’ craftiness and Green’s inconsistency…

Junior welterweight Nate Campbell is going to sit out his entire contract with Don King until next May. It’s too bad it’s come to that. King should just let Nate go, really, because his gripes about King being lazy with him (he’s lazy with nearly everyone these days) are totally fair and who’s it help to force Campbell to sit on the shelf? It sure won’t help Campbell, if, as some suspect, he’s begun his age-induced career decline, but it goes to show just how much people regret signing with King most of the time that he’d risk that…

I’m very worried about my boy Paul Williams’ cockiness going into his fight with middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, but I do believe he’s getting funnier. From a FightHype interview, I especially enjoyed this line: “I can serve it to them however they want me to serve it.” As if someone would say, “Yes, please, I’ll have helping of 6’3″ 82″-reach southpaw who throws 100 punches a round, thank you.” Also, a simple one line answer to the fact that nobody calls Williams out after winning a fight: “You ain’t going to hear that”…

I’d said the other day I thought Ring mag was doing a good job of separating itself editorially from its owner GBP, but Kevin Iole raises a valid point here, when pointing out that in Oscar De La Hoya’s blog on the website, he kept talking about how Juan Manuel Marquez was going to beat Mayweather, the prospects of which were vital to that fight selling as well as it could: “My problem is that he’s using his editorial site to promote his events and not labeling them as promotion. I have no problem with how the writers employed by Ring, such as Michael Rosenthal and Doug Fischer, cover the fights. But Oscar’s clearly got an agenda and he’s using the magazine and the website as a promotional tool.” I haven’t seen that in the pages of the mag so much as in Oscar’s blog, but still. Take a step back, Oscar. You don’t want to tarnish the reputation of Ring with that stuff…

Boxing: not dead. Boxing musicals: also not dead.

If you were expecting to see Mayweather in next with Mosley or the winner of Pacquiao-Cotto, don’t hold your breath. The AP reported, after an interview with Mayweather: “He’s not waiting around for the winner of Manny Pacquiao’s highly anticipated fight against Miguel Cotto next month, which most people consider the natural opponent, and he isn’t ready to jump into the ring with Shane Mosley, regardless of how often the welterweight champion calls him out.” Arum said that should Pacquiao beat Cotto, he’ll begin negotiating for a Mayweather fight for March, but he clearly prefers not to have to deal with Mayweather, as he’s said he looks forward to Mayweather making absurd purse demands so he can go make a different fight for Pacquiao. Arum’s also talked about Cotto-Antonio Margarito II. Ugh. Margarito must never box again, that banned cheating mofo.

There are two fights that are quite close to happening, but really, everyone needs to stop jumping the gun on fights that are in the works and declaring them done until both sides say they’re done. One is Mosley-Andre Berto for Jan. 30. The other is Diaz-Malignaggi II for Dec. 12, in Las Vegas, Chicago or Atlantic City. But both fights were reported as done well before both sides signed off on the fights. Stop doing this, people. Mainstream media, blogs, everybody.

The Pavlik-Williams card got a lot better this week with the finalizing of Joshua Clottey-Carlos Quintana for the Dec. 5 event. It’ll be at 149, and I like the bout because Quintana’s movement could give the flat-footed Clottey some problems. It’s certainly the most competitive fight that Clottey could have landed short of Kermit Cintron.

Vitali Klitschko-Kevin Johnson at heavyweight is almost certainly a go for Dec. 12, which should be a very busy weekend in boxing, between the Showtime card, Diaz-Malignaggi II and now this. It’ll be picked up by German television, but there’s no word about U.S. television.

Dec. 5 got even busier with the finalizing of Amir Khan-Dmitriy Salita for that night in Newcastle. If these two can punch each other peacefully as Muslim and Jew, then Middle East peace won’t be just a dream any longer.

And then Dec. 2 Hopkins will do a tune-up on Versus against middleweight Enrique Ornelas. I get that he needs a tune-up going into the Roy Jones Jr. rematch, but it should be one-sided as all get-out; I wish Hopkins hadn’t spent all but one fight of his light heavyweight career since 2006 fighting middleweights and super middleweights. I think he should be ejected from the light heavy Ring rankings to make way for the winner of Chad Dawson-Glen Johnson II to be crowned the lineal champion, but Ring said in its pages this month that they wouldn’t evict him from their rankings if he had a fight signed by the time Dawson-Johnson II happened. I think one year of inactivity really should be the hard and fast rule, and besides I think Dawson should be ranked #1 at light heavy, but that’s just me.

Lightweights Jorge Barrios and Edwin Valero clearly don’t like one another and clearly should be fighting one another, but they both want it very much on their own terms. Valero offered to fight Barrios in Venezuela, where Valero lives, in December. But Barrios has a fight in in his native Argentina coming up, and is saying he’ll only fight Valero in America (where Valero is unlicenced everywhere but Texas and has visa/legal problems) or if Valero wants to replace his current opponent in Argentina. Expect the meaningless, nasty trash talk to continue.

Lightweight David Diaz wants a piece of Michael Katsidis. That’s a good fight, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon because Katsidis is awaiting a shot at one of Marquez’ alphabet title belts.

Some damn fool of an alphabet sanctioning organization thinks Roman Karmazin and Dionisio Miranda ought to fight for some v
acant middleweight title or the other. Um, OK.

Junior welterweights Lovemore Ndou and Matthew Hatton are going to fight Nov. 13 or they’re going to fight in December. I don’t think I’ve ever dedicated so many words to so useless a fight.

Oh, wait, “Zab Judah-anyone” is more useless, cuz it ain’t going to happen, because Judah’s pulled out of three fights in the past year and a half. But Zab Judah-Roman Montano, that’s supposed to happen Nov. 6, and Joel Casamayor is supposed to fight someone at junior welterweight on that same card, and then Judah wants to fight Juan Urango which I can’t see why Urango would want to risk fighting a guy who pulls out of fights but man I’d love to watch Urango stalk down Judah’s ass and make him do the chicken dance.

(Round And Round sources: L.A. Times; Associated Press; FightHype; Philboxing; ESPN; Fightnews; BoxingScene; news releases)