A man could go crazy correcting every lazy reporter who reports the imminent death of boxing, a near-daily journalistic phenomenon mere weeks after a fight in the United States generated 1 million pay-per-view buys the same night a UFC event aired before far fewer viewers, and a few months after a fight in Germany drew a larger crowd than any boxing match in that country had since World War II. I just get so tired. So very, very tired.

So today I’m going to sleep a little instead of thrashing angrily. If Sports Illustrated says the Super Six tournament that begins on Showtime this weekend is a step toward “reviving” boxing, well, at least there’s something nice about that. The first time somebody said something similar, I got all irritable. But with the tournament, so full of promise, about to kick off, I’m thinking happy thoughts. Since Sports Illustrated wants to write a typically loaded “boxing is dying” lede, but they want to follow it up with how great the tournament is going to be for the sport, why put up a fight? The tournament very likely is going to be great for the sport.

I plan to piggyback on these good vibes and explain why. I says to myself, I says, why not take advantage of the upside?  Hey, you! Guy (or gal) who only cares about boxing a little or used to care but stopped! Check out this Super Six tournament! Seriously! It’s probably going to be all awesome and stuff!

(I’m not kidding. I can’t hardly wait.)

So here’s why it’s such a good event for the health of the sport, in no particular order — addressed to both newbies and regular boxing heads:

• Best fighting the best. You may hear it said from time to time that one of the reasons boxing has slumped is because the best aren’t fighting the best. That’s more the exception than the rule since 2007, but the six in this super middleweight tournament certainly are among the six best in their division. Two of them, Mikkel Kessler and Arthur Abraham, are on my list of the 20 finest fighters in the world, regardless of weight. Maybe the tournament left out some people it shouldn’t have — I’d pick Lucian Bute, no worse than the second or third best fighter in the division — but the guy who’s most criticized for being in the tourney, Jermain Taylor, is the most experienced and accomplished fighter in the whole spiel. And they’re all going to have to fight each other, maybe more than once. It’s a strength of schedule so fearsome that some of the critics of the tournament, like middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, have suggested Showtime got carried away with this whole “best fighting the best” thing.
• American Olympians. Remember when the Olympics were a factor of boxing’s next American superstars, be it Sugar Ray Leonard or Oscar De La Hoya? They haven’t turned out a true U.S. superstar since the 1996 team, from whence Floyd Mayweather Jr. emerged. The 2004 Olympic class has moved particularly slowly into American stardom, but this tournament has two of the class’ best: Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell. And Taylor is a 2000 Olympian. So if you’re a patriot, give ‘er a watch. 
• Worldwide appeal. While boxing declined in the United States, it actually got stronger elsewhere, particularly Europe. Think of it like the NBA — once ruled by Americans, boxing has gone global. Kessler is from Denmark, where even his routine fights are the highest-rated shows on television the day of his bout. Abraham and Carl Froch are popular in Germany and the United Kingdom, respectively. Once upon a time, being a foreign fighter meant you’d have a tough time getting on television in the states, no matter how good you were. Showtime is part of the reversal of that trend, which ultimately will be good for boxing in America as our country’s sorry amateur system turns out fewer high-quality fighters; boxing fans here will see the best fighters no matter where they come from.
• Event vs. fight. A common complaint about boxing is that it produces one fight at a time, while the UFC produces fight cards stacked from top to bottom — events. Well, it’s spread out over time, but this tournament definitely is an event.  Each individual fight is excellent, but as a whole, we’re talking a big, big deal in boxing. There hasn’t been a tournament like this in boxing maybe ever, although there was a notable tournament at the start of the 2000s and another in the 1980s. This tournament is more competitive than them both, and its round-robin format is unique.
• Different mentality toward losses. Boxing fans are to blame for some of the woes of their sport. One of the ways in which they’ve contributed toward the best not fighting the best is that they are so harsh toward someone for losing one fight. The round-robin nature of this tournament means that losing one fight won’t result in a boxer not getting another shot at a big fight — he’s guaranteed another shot. Perhaps boxing fans will see one loss as not being so bad should the winner of the tournament suffer a loss at some point on the way. At least five boxers in the tournament, and maybe all six, are going to come out of this with a loss, and they could be bigger stars coming out than going in, losses or no. 
• Storylines. A fighter’s story or personality are a big part of what makes a boxer go from someone hardcore fans have heard of to someone that everyone’s head of. The nature of this tournament is such that those stories get a chance to play out for a while, and Showtime is airing a regular documentary feature on each of the fighters. The first episode is replaying all this week, and it comes highly recommended — I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least nominated for an Emmy. The storylines coming in are endless, both inside the ring and outside it — can Taylor rebound from losses that sent him from the top of American boxing to a much-criticized figure in the sport? What happens when Ward and Dirrell, who are friends from the Olympics, square off? Is Abraham, who’s moving up from middleweight and has only fought once in a super middleweight fight, prepared to deal with bigger opponents? And so on.
• Excellent division featured. There aren’t too many famous super middleweights, historically — Leonard spent some time there, as did Roy Jones, Jr. — and there aren’t any famous super middleweights in America right now. But it is arguably the deepest division in the sport, loaded up with so much talent that just about any combination of fighters would have made a compelling tournament. Think basketball’s ACC.
• Knockouts encouraged. The scoring system of the tournament awards extra points to knockouts. That means a fighter wanting to ensure he gets a spot in the semi-finals is probably going to be gunning harder for the KO then he might otherwise, when he’d be content to score a decision win. Maybe this is a good thing, and maybe it isn’t — lighter-hitting fighters come in at an unfair disadvantage, for instance — but it probably means more exciting fights, with fighters taking greater risks. And who doesn’t like knockouts?
• Imitators await? There’s a chance that if the tournament is successful, others in other divisions will follow. Already, the attention the tournament has gotten has prompted boxers on the outside wishing they were in it. And Pavlik, who once criticized the tournament, has talked about wanting to fight the winner. And even if there aren’t other tournaments, lessons that might be learned from this tourney — like the idea that losing one fight isn’t the end of the world for a fighter, which would encourage them taking more chances in opponent selection — could reverberate nonetheless.

YouTube pirates have let me down, as no one has posted the full Fight of the Year candidate from this weekend between junior featherweight Juan Manuel Lopez and Rogers Mtagwa. Nor has anyone put up the featherweight return of Israel Vazquez. So, for this edition of Weekend Afterthoughts, I’m flying semi-blind. I’ve relied on a Lopez-Mtagwa highlight clip, some ringside footage of the ending to Vazquez’ fight above, somebody filming the final moments of Yuriorkis Gamboa’s fight off his television, a few news accounts and — hey! — one full fight viewed, the Jorge Linares upset.

I must say, I didn’t watch the junior featherweight Juan Manuel Lopez-Rogers Mtagwa fight this evening, because I expected a mismatch and because $40 seems too steep a price to pay for a mismatch and a few other mismatches. All accounts are that it was in reality a war, and, like the Jorge Linares knockout loss — with the exception of Lopez pulling out the win — there was some suspicion that Lopez was “exposed.”

Let’s think about this. First off, like the Linares fight, everybody has a night that might be explained as a fluke, and maybe that was Lopez’ night like that. Linares had been in with Oscar Larios, and not much more. Maybe Linares lost a fluky loss, which is my inclination to believe, because he looked like the real deal. And, tonight, maybe Lopez won a fight where a notoriously tough guy was tough enough to really bother such a wonderfully talented fighter. But Lopez had been in against Daniel Ponce De Leon, and not much more.

Is it possible — and that’s all I’m asking, whether it’s possible — is it possible that it was premature to hold both men in so much high esteem until such point they PROVED that they deserved to be held in such high esteem?

Again, as with Linares, I have been a tremendous Lopez booster. I love both fighters. They’re my kind of fighters — skill, speed, power, technique, heart. Boxer-punchers, if you will, but aggressive, and with guts. But Lopez is hanging around the bottom of my top-20 pound-for-pound list. Linares isn’t on the list at all. And the reason is because neither man has beaten much of anybody of note. They look good. But it’s easier to look good against Cesar Figueroa than it is against Celestino Caballero, you know? Maybe it’s crazy to put Lopez in the top-10 pound-for-pound until he beats somebody really good, right? Maybe I saw him as POTENTIAL elite pound-for-pound material, but there’s a difference between pound-for-pound and POTENTIAL pound-for-pound, and the difference is that there are guys who are more than potential, it’s because they’ve DONE it, you dig?

Linares and Lopez very much may be pound-for-pound kings someday. I’m inclined to believe that both their shaky outings aren’t reflections of them being bad fighters. Good fighters have bad outings sometimes. It’s part of the game. Anybody can get hit and find themselves in trouble. It’s one of the things that makes boxing so fantastic a sport. I guess I’m just saying: You people who like to use your imagination alone in determining whether a fighter is a pound-for-pound great, maybe your imagination isn’t what you think it is. Maybe you need to go by reality. It’s a better measure, really.

I’ve been as big a booster of Jorge Linares as anybody. The junior lightweight prospect really looked like the goods — speed, technique, power, heart. I wonder if him getting knocked out in one round in the video above shows everybody who’s been high on him is wrong, or if the unproven Juan Carlos Salgado turned out to be the real deal, or if it’s just a fluke thing. It’s hard to tell which if any of those things are true from the video, which features Salgado landing a nice left hook/overhand left kind of punch that rendered Linares knocked down and blitzed. When Salgado pounced on him after that, he was helpless, and couldn’t defend himself after the second knockdown, so the ref called a halt to it.

This is a massive upset. Massive.

Golden Boy Promotions just signed Linares a few weeks ago, and said he was one of the best pound-for-pound boxers out there. That was premature, but it wasn’t unfeasible to to me to think he might get there some day. And he still might; there’s no way of knowing, like I said. But this is a big setback.

As WF noted today, it’s been a bad year to be a GBP phenom, and as JPF said in reply, GBP must have built their HQ on some Indian burial grounds. Some of their prospects have already rebounded somewhat from rocky shoals in their career. I’d like to see Linares do the same, but this is the most shocking of all of the bad moments for young GBP products in 2009.

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)

Coming on the heels of the scathing HBO piece from last week by SecondsOut.com’s Thomas Hauser and its eye-popping news about deep budget cuts in the network’s boxing future — which ESPN’s Dan Rafael subsequently questioned (back to that in a minute) — Iole takes his own look at what’s ahead for HBO in 2010.

There’s a lot in there, but as with the Hauser piece and its $15 million budget cut news, the thing that jumped out at me, again, were the numbers. Big numbers, according to HBO’s Ross Greenburg. Numbers that would, if accurate, suggest what I’ve argued all along — that the sport of boxing, far from dead, is in fact on an upward trend — have some truth to them.

This, too, as well as other aspects of the piece, requires some rumination.

Make of the numbers, then, what you will.

If they’re accurate, as I said, it’s really good news. It means not only what I said it meant about the sport’s upward arc, but it probably also means that there are tangible results to show for what some think — a camp I’m in — has been improved HBO programming decisions in 2009. Not perfect programming decisions, mind you. Not good enough. But improved.

Another subject Iole’s piece addresses is the accuracy of Hauser’s piece. According to Top Rank’s Bob Arum (again, everybody has a motive here, and Arum basically loathes Greenburg), Hauser’s piece is “100-percent accurate, totally accurate.” Rafael, as I mentioned, had said the $15 million/20 percent cut figure in Hauser’s piece wasn’t true according to his sources. I e-mailed Rafael to ask him about the correct figures, and he answered that he wasn’t going to say “at this point.” I hope he does say at some point. Whatever’s happening to HBO’s budget, it’s a big story for the boxing world. If some other reporters got on this story, it’d be a good thing. For his part, Greenburg “denied his budget had been slashed,” according to Iole, but note that’s past tense. I wasn’t sure if it means his 2009 budget was not slashed, which isn’t what Hauser’s piece was about, or his 2010 budget hasn’t been slashed as of now, which would be true since Hauser’s story said a decision wouldn’t be made until this month or next. I asked Iole and he told me on Twitter, “He denied his 2010 budget had been slashed,” but as of this writing — and I’ll update it when and if he answers — he hasn’t answered my question as precisely as I’d like, vis-a-vis whether the budget would be slashed in the future. So, murky murky.

There’s some other good stuff in the piece, stuff that we’ve covered a bunch at this blog such as the proper balance between HBO flexing its muscle for the good of the sport versus flexing its muscle too much. But here’s the last thing I want to touch on personally: Greenburg’s explanation of overpaying for the light heavyweight rematch between Chad Dawson and Antonio Tarver. It’s fairly weak. He acknowledges he shouldn’t have paid quite as high a fee as he did. If the reason for paying such a high fee is that he was trying to lure Dawson away from Showtime — which I think he could have done after Dawson-Tarver II happened, by the way — then why pay any more than you have to in order to outbid Showtime? Greenburg’s answer suggests he paid more than he had to, since he could have at all paid less. When people wonder about Greenburg, it’s stuff like this, where only Greenburg thought some course of action made sense.

I thought Greenburg might be on some kind of publicity tour, but Iole told me on Twitter that the interview came about in a way that was “Kind of mutual. Was talking with an HBO pr person and it came from discussion there. he said, Ross’ door is always open to you.” I’m not sure how Fanhouse came to score this softballish, elementary interview with HBO’s Mark Taffet, where he talked about the “hunger to go younger” in boxing.

I’d like to make my own offer of door openness to HBO folk. I know they’ve heard of this blogging stuff. Maybe they’ve heard that a lot of young people like to get their information from blogs. Mine’s got a decent audience. HBO people: Seriously, if you want to do an interview, I have a lot more questions for you. Drop me a line at tstarks2@gmail.com. I’ve been in touch in the past, but unlike Showtime and most other major figures in the sport of boxing, I haven’t heard back from you. It’s kinda strange.

In the meantime, because this is the kind of thing young people who like blogs and boxing might enjoy, I’m attaching images of the three boxing writers discussed here, Iole, Rafael and Hauser. I encourage you to print out this blog entry. Cut out the pictures. Put the pictures through a laminator. If this proves popular, I’ll do more limited edition trading cards of boxing writers in the future. Collect them all!

As with Manny Pacquiao’s fanatics, responding to some of the more rabid members of the Mayweather cult has become a rather repetitive task on this blog. When I wrote the blog entry “20 Ready-Made Replies To Fans Of Manny Pacquiao,” originally 19 items long like this one, I ended up saving myself a lot of time by making it so I could post a link to that entry in the comments section of future entries on Pacquiao and say, “read #2 on the list.” And so I seek to save myself time with this new list.

(One note in advance: I also don’t care if you think this blog entry is too long. It’s not meant to be short. But it will save me countless hours of my life.)

1. Floyd Mayweather is not the greatest fighter of all time. Make no mistake, Mayweather is a sublimely talented boxer, arguably the best boxer of his generation, who has accomplished a great deal in his career. It’s my personal opinion that he would give a lot of all-time greats a very difficult time in the ring.

But there is no boxing historian at all who would utter the phrase “Floyd Mayweather is the greatest fighter ever.” Bert Sugar, the most famous living boxing historian, doesn’t even put Mayweather in the top 100, but I’d disagree with that. I’d say top-50 — where this ESPN list from a few years ago put him, although he’s surely climbed a few spots since — is a better ballpark. The thing about being the best fighter of all time is that there’s a lot of competition from fighters who fought and beat more good opponents, and better opponents, than Mayweather has. Mayweather can climb the list by fighting and beating more good opponents.

Ex.: Here’s just one fighter who’s better than Mayweather: Sugar Ray Robinson. Robinson beat 10 Hall of Famers (Henry Armstrong, Jake LaMotta, Carmen Basilio, Kid Gavilan, Gene Fullmer, Rocky Graziano, Fritzie Zivic, Randy Turpin, Sammy Angott, Carl Olson) in a career that included 175 wins. Mayweather has beaten two sure-fire future Hall of Famers (Oscar De La Hoya, Juan Manuel Marquez), perhaps more (Ricky Hatton, Arturo Gatti, Jose Luis Castillo, Diego Corrales, Gernaro Hernandez are all possible HOF material, although not all of them are likely to win entry) in a career that includes 40 wins. The two fighters Robinson beat that rank highest on the ESPN all-time list are Jake LaMotta (#28) and Henry Armstrong (#3). Mayweather has beaten only one fighter who was on the ESPN all-time list, Oscar De La Hoya (#39) although Marquez probably has cracked the top 50 himself since the ESPN list was produced, albeit no better than the high 30s.

2. While Mayweather has some good wins since 2002, he has not once fought anyone who might be feasibly considered the best opponent in his division since then, and he often has fought lesser opponents even than that. This point, really, is central to the complaint a large segment of boxing fandom has about Mayweather. As such, it deserves some lengthy attention.

It is not that Mayweather doesn’t have some quality wins since 2002: He beat a version of Oscar De La Hoya that wasn’t at his prime but still was top-20 pound-for-pound to many, and at a higher weight than Mayweather had ever fought; Ricky Hatton may have been severely degraded at welterweight, but he still was a top-10 pound-for-pound fighter one division south; etc.

But not a single time since Mayweather beat Jose Luis Castillo in a rematch in 2002 has Mayweather fought an opponent who might be considered by anyone to the best opponent in his division. The list of people at junior welterweight, welterweight and junior middleweight since 2003 that might include: Kostya Tsyzu; Ricky Hatton (at junior welterweight); Antonio Margarito; Miguel Cotto; Shane Mosley; Paul Williams.

In some years, he hasn’t even gotten close. For instance, in 2003, as a lightweight, he fought Victoriano Sosa and Philip Ndou as opposed to Acelino Freitas, Stevie Johnston, Leonard Dorin and a good many others were more highly regarded.

Despite what some Mayweather fans say, there are a great many of his critics who would be appeased if he fought, say, Mosley. It is our recognition of Mayweather’s incredible capabilities that frustrates us so, watching him take opponents who aren’t at all as legitimate as other available opponents. The moment I went from “Mayweather fan, with some reservations” to full-fledged Mayweather critic is when Cotto, Margarito, Mosley and Williams were available to him as opponents in 2008 but Mayweather was talking about wanting rematches with Hatton and De La Hoya, opponents he’d already beaten (in my mind) handily, and who would only fare worse in second bouts. (Even in May of this year, in his return, Mayweather was talking about wanting a rematch with a retired De La Hoya, despite criticizing Manny Pacquiao for taking his “leftovers.”)

Perhaps you enjoy watching Mayweather fighting just about anyone; just don’t pretend that he’s fought the best opposition since 2002.

3. Although Mayweather’s record of fighting the best men in his division in 2002 and before is very good, his record does have some minor but noteworthy gaps there, too. There is much less to criticize in Mayweather’s record in 2002 and before than there is after. Fighting Jose Luis Castillo twice at lightweight and Diego Corrales at junior lightweight, in particular, stand out as the highest-possible-risk, most-dangerous fights he could take at the time, and are among the areas where Mayweather deserves the greatest praise.

Not fighting Joel Casamayor and Freitas, though, are his two biggest omissions from that era. Wins over those two would have enhanced his legacy greatly. This is a minor quibble, as I said; but when you add them to the list of other tremendous fighters Mayweather has not fought in his weight class as an active boxer, the missed opportunities become more painful to those who have wanted to see Mayweather fulfill his potential.

4. Mayweather expressing his desire to fight someone and then not fighting that person is no evidence that that person ducked him; usually, the people Mayweather has said ducked him also had expressed a desire or willingness to fight Mayweather. At various points, Mayweather has said he wants to fight virtually every man I’ve mentioned him not fighting.

But then, they’ve often also said they’d be willing to fight Mayweather. They haven’t, however, always said it at the same time as Mayweather has. Let’s just take one of the oldest and move to one of the newest: Freitas said he was willing to fight Mayweather. In 2009, Mosley has made it quite clear he wants to fight Mayweather.

How can one ascertain who’s truly to blame for a fight not being made? It’s often difficult to determine, since both sides say they want the fight and say the other side is responsible for it not happening. In other words, don’t assume that just because Mayweather has said he wanted to fight someone means he actually did. But it does feed into the next point.

5. Almost every top fighter or big-name fighter active since 2002 has somehow found opportunities to fight the top available opponent in his division. From 2003 to 2009, here’s a list of elite fighters around Mayweather’s weight classes who have managed to fight  a man who warrants consideration as the #1 opponent in his division, often more than once (excluding Mayweather as a potential opponent): Oscar De La Hoya; Antonio Margarito; Miguel Cotto; Shane Mosley; Paul Williams; Kostya Tszyu; Jose Luis Castillo; Ricky Hatton.

From 2003 to 2009, here’s an almost-complete list of even borderline-elite fighters outside Mayweather’s divisions — from heavyweight to junior featherweight only — who have managed to find a way to fight a man who warrants consideration as the #1 opponent in his weight class, often more than once: Wladimir Klitschko; Jean Marc-Mormeck; O’Neil Bell; Tomasz Adamek; Steve Cunningham; Bernard Hopkins; Antonio Tarver; Roy Jones, Jr.; Glen Johnson; Joe Calzaghe; Jermain Taylor; Kelly Pavlik; Mikkel Kessler; Winky Wright; Diego Corrales; Manny Pacquiao; Juan Manuel Marquez; Marco Antonio Barrera; Erik Morales; Rafael Marquez; Israel Vazquez.

Many of those fighters are people who have claimed to be
ducked and avoided — Hopkins, Wright and Williams for starters — the way Mayweather often does. And yet, all of them have found a way to do what Mayweather has not, usually without even a fraction of the financial incentive Mayweather brings. Doesn’t it beg the question whether the common link between Mayweather and everyone he hasn’t fought is… Mayweather?

6. Although Mayweather has won six title belts in five divisions, and his ability to win bouts at higher weights is commendable, in some cases — in one case even by his own admission — those belts are diminished by how he obtained them. Set aside the feud over whether the alphabet title belts should be recognized or the lineal Ring championship belt should be recognized, for the purposes of this point.

Assuming alphabet title belts matter at all, what value was there in taking a belt from a man even Mayweather called a “paper champion,” Gatti? Gatti got his junior welterweight belt when the WBC stripped Tzsyu, prompting Mayweather to say: “I’ve never in my life won a vacant belt. Any belt I won, I honestly beat a champion to get it. That’s why I call Arturo Gatti a paper champion.” But what value is there in beating a champion who, according to Mayweather, got his belt dishonestly?

Mayweather celebrated his “championship” win over Zab Judah, but Zab Judah had lost a fight just before Mayweather beat him, and was only able to retain his IBF belt because his opponent, Carlos Baldomir, did not pay sanctioning fees and the IBF decided not to vacate Judah’s title. There hardly exists a soul in the boxing world that doesn’t consider that decision a terrible, laughable one.

7. There is no correlation between how much money Mayweather makes and how good a fighter he is, nor are some fight fans impressed by Mayweather making money. One of the common responses to any criticism of Mayweather is, “So what, he’s making millions and that’s all that matters, so he must be doing something right.”

People who say that kind of “so what” aren’t going to win over people who don’t agree with it. There’s a fundamental divide here between boxing fans who like the sport because they enjoy watching exciting bouts pitting top opponents against one another and a strain of Mayweather fan who admires Mayweather’s money-making abilities. Fans of the former aren’t suddenly going to enjoy the latter just because you say that’s what matters to you.

So don’t even bother saying it. You’re wasting your breath. Boxing isn’t even what you should watch on television, really. If you enjoy businessman competitions, the show for you is “The Apprentice.”

8. Mayweather has been knocked down, and he has lost rounds, not that it should matter all that much. To me, it doesn’t matter how many times a boxer gets knocked down or loses a round. Even the best boxers of all time, when fighting other great boxers, have lost rounds or been knocked down. What matters, in terms of their accomplishments, is whether they fought the best and won more often than they lost.

But because it matters to so many Mayweather fans whether he’s been knocked down or lost a round, it must be said that both have happened. Mayweather suffered an official knockdown against Carlos Hernandez, even if it was only the result of him hurting his hand and touching it to the canvas in pain. Mayweather was knocked off balance by a Judah punch and his glove clearly touched the canvas — the definition of a knockdown including instances where a boxer’s glove touches the canvas as the result of a punch — but it wasn’t ruled an official knockdown.

Mayweather has lost rounds in many, many fights. Most notably, he pulled out two narrow decisions over Castillo, fights in which the scorecards officially had Mayweather losing as many as five rounds according to three of the six judges; unofficially, there are very few people who think Mayweather won enough rounds to win the first Castillo fight, and most scored it approximately eight rounds to four for Castillo.

9. An undefeated record in and of itself means very little. “40-0″ does not, as some Mayweather fans assert, “say it all.”

There is very little value in never losing, if one doesn’t fight the top competition. Sven Ottke, a popular super middleweight in Germany, retired in 2004 with a record of 34-0, but he is considered a great by virtually no one. It’s because he didn’t fight top competition.

I’m not saying Mayweather’s record isn’t impressive; that he is unbeaten against some of the quality opponents he fought is noteworthy. But it’s easier to go 40-0 when you don’t fight the top opponents in your division for a six-year stretch. I’d actually be more impressed to see Mayweather at 38-2 having fought Mosley, Cotto, Tszyu and Casamayor instead of Bruseles, Sosa, Ndou and Mitchell. “40-0,” I’d amend, “says something, but far from everything.”

10. Just because Mayweather started his career at 130 pounds does not mean that him fighting a smaller man now is somehow a fight on even terms. This issue has come up a lot lately because some Mayweather fans felt it was unfair to say he had a weight advantage over Marquez.

But size does matter. When Mayweather left the junior lightweight division in 2001, it was because he said he no longer could squeeze his frame into 130 pounds. He since has fought capably as high as junior middleweight, although he was pushing his upper limits of how far up he could go in that division. Mayweather has shown no diminishing of his abilities at welterweight. It’s a remarkable feat.

When Marquez moved up to junior lightweight in 2007, it wasn’t because he couldn’t make featherweight anymore — it was because there were fights he wanted at that weight. At junior lightweight, Marquez showed signs of diminished abilities because of weight, although he fought capably there and at lightweight.

So when Marquez moved up to welterweight to fight Mayweather, he was fighting four full weight classes above a division where his body was ideally suited. Ask yourself: Would Marquez beat even a top-20 welterweight? What’s more, Mayweather almost certainly weighed in on fight night at junior middleweight, although Mayweather wouldn’t let HBO weigh him. I wonder: If Mayweather were to fight an opponent five full weight classes above the welterweight division to which he is ideally suited, similar in number to the weight class leap Marquez was making beyond a comfortable weight, would anyone believe a loss Mayweather suffered to an elite cruiserweight had nothing to do with size?

Mayweather fans often bring up the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight as an example of why weight doesn’t matter. But De La Hoya was heavily criticized — including by yours truly — for wanting to fight a lightweight, same as Mayweather. And when Pacquiao defeated De La Hoya, the achievement was so unusual that Pacquiao was drawing comparisons to one of the finest boxers of all time, Armstrong. Clearly, Pacquiao’s body has proven capable of moving up in weight over and over again, much as Mayweather’s has – but someday, Pacquiao, like Mayweather has, will find a weight that is too high for him.

My big question here is this: If size doesn’t matter, why didn’t Mayweather move down to lightweight to fight Marquez? Answer: Because he probably couldn’t have made the weight if he wanted to, which indicates he’s naturally bigger than Marquez at this point in their lives, and because even if Mayweather could make the weight, he surely knew he’d have a size advantage over Marquez at welterweight and didn’t want to give that up.

11. A small weight difference in a fight can be a very real advantage. It may seem ridiculous on its face to argue that the two pounds of difference between the Mayweather-Marquez contracted weight (144) and the weight Mayweather weighed in at (146) can make any difference in the fight at all, but it can.

Again, consider whether so much effort would be expended by both sides over those two pounds if it wasn’t meaningful. Before the fight could be made at all, the two sides spent some time arguing whether the limit should be 144 or 145. That’s a mere pound.

Additionally, if those two pounds didn’t matter, why didn’t Mayweather just lose them? He sought to alter his contract with Marquez days before so he didn’t have to even try to get below 146. Boxers know that losing weight below their natural weights — or even trying to do so — can result in them being drained, easier to knock out, with lower stamina. Boxers know that gaining weight above their natural weights can lead to them suffering a power disadvantage and being hurt more easily by a naturally bigger fighter.

I’m on the record as saying that I doubt Marquez would have beaten Mayweather even if they were the same age and size, but the size gap — the one in list #10 and this one — made the prospect even more distant.

12. No one can be considered the pound-for-pound king indefinitely without fighting. Even though Mayweather’s retirement was most likely a charade from moment one, he did retire. And he didn’t fight for almost two years, either way.

There are some who have said Mayweather never should have lost his pound-for-pound status because no one beat him in the ring. But that’s just one factor people take into account when considering who’s the pound-for-pound king. It’s perfectly valid should someone’s pound-for-pound list eject an incumbent from the throne for being inactive or for fighting and beating lesser competition than another fighter. If Mayweather retires for 10 years, or dies in a plane crash, he’s not the permanent pound-for-pound king simply because nobody beat him in the ring. But pound-for-pound lists are totally subjective, ultimately.

13. Don’t assume everyone who dislikes Mayweather is racist. Mayweather himself often plays the race card, saying that he is disliked because he is black. And surely there is a part of boxing’s fan base that is racist, be it toward blacks, Asians, Hispanics, whatever.

But if it were true that the only reason Mayweather is disliked is because of his skin color, then it would also be true that every other black fighter would be disliked, too. Yet Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, just to pick two big names, were wildly popular with people who weren’t the same race as they were. Perhaps, though, it’s Mayweather representing, somehow, some kind of “dangerous blackness” because of his association with hip-hop and brushes with the law? If that were the case, then Mike Tyson, who always emanated danger and had plenty of brushes with the law, would never have been the most popular athlete on the planet.

Hell, even racists in America have at times liked black fighters. Joe Louis fought in a period far less racially enlightened than this one, and when he fought Max Schmeling, all of America, be they black fans or white racists, united behind Louis. This point relates to the next.

14. Generally speaking, name-calling, unfounded allegations against people who disagree with you and other such tactics hurt your arguments more than they help you. Maybe you get some kind of cathartic release out of attacking people personally when they argue with you.

But it is sure to only deepen the divide between you and the person with whom you disagree. Furthermore, it makes you look bad, like you’re not intelligent enough to come up with a real rebuttal. Next time you want to call someone racist even though they use no racial epithet in their remarks, next time you want to call someone “gay” because you disagree with them, give a moment’s thought to what, really, you’re proving.

15. Not everyone who dislikes a fighter’s personality therefore dislikes the fighter, although if someone chooses to root against Mayweather because of his personality that’s their prerogative. Lots of boxers are jerks. Many people happen to think Mayweather is one. And some people root against him because of that. There’s nothing wrong with them doing so if that’s what matters to them.

But don’t jump to the conclusion that anyone criticizing Mayweather is doing so just because they find his personality to be sour. There are a number of fighters I quite like in the ring but quite dislike outside it. I think Vic Darchinyan, for example, is a total jackass. But I don’t question whether he’s a good fighter. Furthermore, there are fighters whose personalities I really enjoy, but whom I’ve been critical of inside the ring. In other words, the allegation “You’re just saying [something critical about Mayweather] because you don’t like him” isn’t necessarily true. Judge a criticism by its validity, not by its motive.

16. Not everyone who dislikes Mayweather dislikes him because he’s “on top.” This is related to the point about Mayweather and his money, but it’s slightly different.

The thinking in some quarters is that Mayweather is only a target for criticism because he’s so talented and famous. Maybe that bothers some people, who knows. But how much criticism does LeBron James get, by way of disproving that? James is as talented and famous as a basketball player gets, but he receives a mere fraction of the criticism Mayweather does. Certainly, not everyone who criticizes Mayweather has any problem with him being famous or talented. I know I don’t. I like the idea of boxers being famous and talented. I want boxing to succeed, and when individual boxers succeed, they can help lift the sport as a whole.

17. Some people don’t like to watch defensive-minded fighters, even if they appreciate skilful defense. I’ve always thought that Mayweather, when he focuses on offense, is a really wonderful fighter to behold.

But Mayweather rarely focuses on offense. His first priority is not to be hit. Mayweather’s defense is breathtaking; I actually really enjoy watching him practice it. However, I wish he’d spend more time on O than D. And a lot of other boxing fans feel the same way, not only about him, but about other defensive-minded fighters, like the Klitschko brothers.

If you enjoy watching Mayweather, that’s totally fine. It’s your prerogative to do so. But it’s also my prerogative, and the prerogative of others, to call it boring. It doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate boxing technique or the sweet science, because I like the brand practiced by Chad Dawson, Shane Mosley and other fighters who are adept defensively and skilled technically but also aggressive offensively. It’s just a matter of taste.

18. You don’t have to be a boxer to have an understanding of boxing.

I’ve covered this extensively here. The short version: Consider applying this standard to any other profession. Can an anthropologist study then write a paper about a native tribe if he or she isn’t a member of that tribe? The answer is, “Of course.”

19. If you say you don’t care what someone else thinks about Mayweather, then defending him against someone else makes no sense. One of the most common responses I get when I say something negative about Mayweather is, “I don’t care what you think.”

]]> http://queensberryrules.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/19_ready-made_replies_to_fans_of_floyd_mayweather_jr/feed/ 107 Deshawn Zombie http://queensberryrules.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/the_week_in_boxing_featuring_the_return_of_israel_vazquez_the_combination_of_juan_manuel_lopez_and_y/ http://queensberryrules.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/the_week_in_boxing_featuring_the_return_of_israel_vazquez_the_combination_of_juan_manuel_lopez_and_y/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:25:00 +0000 Deshawn Zombie http://queensberryrules.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/the_week_in_boxing_featuring_the_return_of_israel_vazquez_the_combination_of_juan_manuel_lopez_and_y/ ]]>

It’s good to see Izzy again, ain’t it? His return to the ring this week is naturally the highlight of the boxing schedule, thus his giant photo highlighting a blog entry about the week’s schedule. We get started early this week because there’s a meaningful fight Tuesday. But for reasons I’ll explain momentarily, I might have updates on the televised/webcast schedule in the Twitter feed at right and/or in Friday’s Quick Jabs column.

• I’d had that suspicion that Shane Cameron wasn’t ready, and the heavyweight got demolished in two rounds by David Tua in the New Zealand Fight of the Century. You can watch the fight here, at least until YouTube takes it down. Tua at 237 was in the best shape he’d been in a while, and he clearly still has just a teensy bit of punching power (you think?). I do think Tua should have been at least penalized for twice punching Cameron while he was down, but based on this performance, even with the note that Cameron wasn’t ready, I’d like to see Tua in against just about any heavyweight other than the Klitschkos. But he’s got a messy TV deal, and one prospective next opponent, Hasim Rahman, is looking at Ray Mercer then Evander Holyfield. The heavyweight division, ladies and gentlemen.
• I missed the ShoBox card, stupidly thinking I could catch it on replay, but super middleweights Allan Green and Marcus Johnson beat Tarvis Simms and Victor Villereal, respectively, by decision, while welterweight Antwone Smith won by corner stoppage over Henry Crawford in the 9th. The headline is what many have called atrocious refereeing in the 6th round when most people think the fight should have been stopped, but nobody pulled the plug for Crawford, and apparently no doctor even ever went to check on him. This is one of my biggest issues, so I wish I’d seen it to judge for myself. The consensus is that Green didn’t look that good, although at least one outlet chalked it up to Green training for Victor Oganov before Simms stepped in, as those two are different kinds of fighters, and to Simms being better than people expected. I’ll chalk it up to Green being maddeningly inconsistent.
• Middleweight prospect Edwin Rodriguez dominated tough, experienced journeyman Darnell Boone, winning by near shutout despite having his chin tested. That’s impressive. But: Rodriguez weighed in at 165 to Boone’s 160, and one of the things I didn’t get to touch on in my feature on him is that Rodriguez is a middleweight prospect whose fights all have come at super middleweight. At a certain point, he either just needs to be a super middleweight or get down to 160. On the same card, junior middleweight prospect Demetrius Andrade reportedly had a close fight with unheralded Chris Chatman, but got the win. Curious.
• Other results: Remember that card IR recommended to us all? Well, the sense is that there were some mighty fine performances on it by junior bantamweights Drian Francisco and Michael Domingo as well as strawweight Milan Melindo… Just when you think he’s done, heavyweight Audley aka “Fraudley” Harrison keeps coming back, this time by winning the tourney on the British show “Prizefighter.” Maybe we can throw him in against the winner of Rahman-Mercer or Rahman-Holyfield II… I’m getting curious about Canadian middleweight prospect David Lemieux after his one-round blowout of Donny McCrary… Junior welterweight Paul Spadafora and welterweight Vyacheslav Senchenko won, while junior bantamweight Tomas Rojas, he wasn’t even fighting this weekend, and I don’t know what’s happening at all with flyweight Omar Narvaez — I guess ESPN’s schedule was screwed up.
• Why’s it so hard to show up for a goddam court date? All it does is invite trouble. And yet, Floyd Mayweather’s trainer uncle Roger did just that, so now there’s a warrant for his arrest. Derrrrrr. Meanwhile, Mayweather clan member Jeff Mayweather got himself a nice gig as the trainer for junior featherweight Celestino Caballero.
• Want to see Manny Pacquiao’s schlong? Watch the newstands for ESPN the magazine Oct. 9. (OK, I doubt they’ll get the full monty out there, but still.) P.S. How dumb a move was it for Pacquiao to have his training camp in the Philippines? Apparently pretty dumb.
• Round And Round: Juan Diaz-Paulie Malignaggi II yet lives, but the terms, like weight etc., are still unclear. Joshua Clottey-Carlos Quintana at welterweight now looks like a go for Dec. 5, and it’s a nice fight. So, too, does Edgar Sosa Sosa-Rodel Mayol at junior flyweight look like a go for Nov. 21; I’m getting a little annoyed about Sosa saying he’s going to do this and that and then not doing it. As epic, vulgar trash talk wars go, you could do a lot worse than the spat between junior middleweights Sergio Martinez (why does he sound so desperate lately?) and Vanes Martirosyan.