THE NOV. 14 MEGAFIGHT between WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-1, 27 KOs) and Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KOs) is November's must-see event, but there is a wide variety of options for discerning fight fans to choose from this Saturday.
Let's start with the HBO Championship Boxing doubleheader from Hartford, Conn., the main event of which pits Chad Dawson (28-0, 17 KOs) against veteran Glen Johnson (49-12-2, 33 KOs) for the WBC interim light-heavyweight championship.
As appealing as that matchup is, devoted supporters of Bridgeport, Pa., junior middleweight Harry Joe Yorgey (22-0-1, 10 KOs) will focus more on his lead-in bout with Mexico's Alfredo Angulo (16-1, 13 KOs), probably the sternest test the former Upper Merion High running back has faced.
Yorgey for years was a strictly-local attraction, filling small rooms in and around his hometown for small purses against lower-echelon opponents. But the married father of four dared to believe he was a big fish in a small pond who, if given the chance, could swim with bigger fish with sharper teeth.
Thanks to his ShoBox-televised ninth-round knockout of Ronald Hearns, son of the legendary Thomas Hearns, on March 28 in Miami, Okla., Yorgey gets a crack at Angulo, whose meteoric rise to the top of the rankings was slowed on May 30 when he dropped a 12-round unanimous decision to Kermit Cintron. Angulo has since taken out Gabriel Rosado in two rounds.
Yorgey is ranked No. 4 by the WBC and No. 5 by the WBO; Angulo's highest ratings are from the same organizations, only reversed. Much more is on the line for each fighter than the vacant WBO Inter-Continental junior middleweight title belt.
"This is a potentially life-changing fight for me and my family," said Yorgey, 31, a former construction worker who quit his day job a couple of years ago to concentrate on boxing. "I'm going to grab this opportunity by the throat and take care of business."
Another local favorite on his way to wider recognition is North Philadelphia welterweight Mike Jones (18-0, 15 KOs), who is rated seventh by the WBA. Jones puts his NABA 147-pound title on the line Saturday against Colombia's Raul Pinzon (16-3-0, 15 KOs) at Bally's Atlantic City.
Jones-Pinzon won't be televised, but you can catch the action via the Internet on gofightlive.tv.
If you're looking for something more exotic than homeboys Yorgey and Jones, some pay-per-view outlets are making available Saturday's heavyweight title bout in Nuremberg, Germany, between Russian giant Nicolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KOs), the WBA champion, and London's David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs).
At 6-3 and 215 or so pounds, Haye is the David who is giving away nearly a foot in height and 110 pounds to Valuev's hulking Goliath.
But the combat-sport attraction guaranteed to draw Saturday's biggest audience is the return of mixed martial arts to over-the-air free television (CBS), in which heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko (32-1), considered by many to be the world's best MMA fighter, throws down against Brett Rogers (10-0) in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
This is the first fight for Emelianenko since his promotional company, M-1 Global, signed an agreement with Strikeforce, much to the chagrin of UFC president Dana White. Emelianenko is the biggest of the big fish not under UFC control.
Hines checked out Hilton
Tomorrow marks the 21th anniversary of Robert "Bam Bam" Hines' upset of IBF junior middleweight champion Matthew Hilton at the Las Vegas Hilton.
OK, so the North Philadelphia southpaw's title reign was regrettably brief. He was a unanimous-decision loser to Darrin Van Horn in his first defense, on Feb. 5, 1989, a fight for which Hines had to lose 27 pounds to make the 154-pound limit and was unable to spar during training because of a chronically sore right shoulder.
But Hines, 48, who was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame earlier this year, scaled Himalayan heights in dispatching Hilton, one of the more feared body punchers of his or any era.
Hilton floored Hines in both the second and third rounds, but the challenger was not easily dissuaded and outworked the Canadian the rest of the way, landing 305 of 932 punches, according to CompuBox statistics, to only 162 of 424 for Hilton.
"Matthew Hilton didn't show me nothing new," Hines, who finished with a record of 25-3-1 with 17 KOs, crowed after his defining victory. "I get this in sparring all the time. Hey, I'm from Philadelphia."
This Price was right
Congratulations to 11-year-old Philadelphian Dylan Price, who won the 65-pound title in the junior division at the recently concluded National Police Athletic League Championships in San Antonio. Price is trained by Philly's Mitchell Allen Sr., but his corner team at the PAL tournament included Floyd Mayweather Sr., whose son you may have heard of. Also doing Philly proud in San Antonio was 201-plus-pounder Bryant Jennings, who made it to the final in the open division before losing to Lenroy Thompson. *
Send e-mail to fernanb@phillynews.com
Source: philly.com
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