Your weekly random thoughts …
• This is becoming the year that will be known more for the big fights that aren't happening than the ones that are, which is depressing.
Obviously, we can start with the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. mess. It is ridiculous that the fight is not happening this year after all the water already under the bridge. Instead, it appears as though Mayweather will sit out (and hopefully use his time off to take care of his tax bills) while Pacquiao will fight Nov. 13. Unfortunately, it looks like he will be in a fight few really want to see, against Antonio Margarito or a rematch with Miguel Cotto. How can Pacquiao even get up for either of those fights? How can trainer Freddie Roach? How can fight fans? How can the media? Whichever side you blame, it's a travesty that Pacquiao-Mayweather has not been made yet.
But beyond that there are other fights fans and media want to see that aren't being made.
Where is Wladimir Klitschko-Ducker David Haye? Klitschko is ready, willing and able, but Haye, after two years of calling him out, is probably off watching his favorite movie: "The Invisible Man
," of course. He is simply avoiding Klitschko and his brother, Vitali Klitschko, at all costs. Andre Berto and Shane Mosley agreed to fight in January, but it was called off at the last minute because of Berto's family tragedy. Ultimately, Mosley fought Mayweather and lost, but a lot of folks would still like to see Berto tested against him. Yet when the fight got close again for the fall, it fell apart over greed. What do we get in its place? Berto has nothing locked in for the fall, or anything even close, and Mosley is fighting Sergio Mora, on pay-per-view no less, in a fight there is zero public demand for.
I'm still hopeful that we'll see Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez II, but the Williams side isn't making it easy, even though HBO is pressing as hard as it can. The Williams camp keeps insisting Williams will go down to welterweight for some phantom big fight that doesn't exist. From what I'm told, the only way Williams will consider Martinez is if he gets more than 50 percent of the money, which he doesn't deserve. It sounds more like his side just doesn't want the fight.
Top Rank's Bob Arum and Gary Shaw can't work out the Nonito Donaire-Vic Darchinyan rematch either.
Sure, we'll probably eventually get major fights between Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander at junior welterweight and the featherweight summit meeting between Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa as long as they all continue to win, but neither of those bouts will happen this year.
At least we have Showtime's Super Six tournament to provide us with the high-quality Andre Ward-Andre Dirrell matchup on Sept. 25 and the Aug. 14 HBO fight between light heavyweight titlist Jean Pascal and Chad Dawson, which is a very underrated matchup. But there are simply too many important fights that the fans to see that are not being made.
• While we aren't getting Donaire-Darchinyan II, at least we may get Fernando Montiel against Donaire in the fall. The prelims are over. Donaire smashed Hernan Marquez two weeks ago. Last week, Montiel retained his bantamweight belts with a crushing knockout of Rafael Concepcion. Now I want to see them fight each other and I hope Top Rank isn't just playing games when it says it's trying to make the fight. It's a darn good one.
• You know what I look forward to? Sunday, May 8, 2011, say about noon PT. That hopefully is when I'll be settling into my seat for the flight home from Las Vegas (with the upgrade) after the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight the night before. And then all this madness will finally be over.
• I was sent a hilarious email that contained a post from the ESPN.com boxing message board in which the writer listed the top 5 people who didn't know about the Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations. I'm still cracking up. Drum roll please •
1. Amish people
2. The Taliban forces
3. Buddhist monks
4. Nuns
5. Leonard Ellerbe
• I watched the video of cruiserweight contender Danny Green's 29-second knockout of Paul Briggs from Wednesday in Perth, Australia, and it was the worst tank job I've seen since Bruce Seldon laid down against Mike Tyson without getting hit by a legitimate punch in 1996. Briggs, who went the distance in two brutal wars with Tomasz Adamek, literally did not get hit with a punch, yet went to his knees and stayed down for 10 after being grazed by a lazy jab. It was absolutely pathetic. According to Australia media reports, Briggs checked out fine at the hospital afterward. Australian media reports said there was an unusual amount of betting action on a Green winning by first-round knockout. If you're going to throw a fight wouldn't you at least at make look decent?
• HBO has been heavily criticized in some quarters -- including by me -- for paying Golden Boy $750,000 for the Victor Ortiz-Nate Campbell fight on May 15. To me, it was akin to the Pentagon spending $5,000 for a toilet seat, especially since Golden Boy paid less than half of the total to the fighters. But HBO, which is not responsible for negotiating purses with the fighters -- that's between the fighters, their managers and promoters -- believes it was money well spent. Going into the fight, HBO expected the combination of a high-quality main event between Amir Khan and Paulie Malignaggi in New York with an undercard featuring Ortiz, who has a following on the West Coast, against a name opponent such as Campbell, to translate into a big night for the network. Based on the outcome, HBO was right, because Ortiz-Campbell delivered the third-highest rating for a bout this year (so far) on HBO. I was told that it generated a 2.9 rating, ranking it a sliver higher than the 2.8 generated by the much more expensive Martinez-Kelly Pavlik fight in April. The only fights to beat Ortiz-Campbell so far this year? The Khan-Malignaggi main event, which did a 3.0 and Cotto-Yuri Foreman from Yankee Stadium, which did slightly higher.
• Keepin' it real: As thrilled as I was when Golden Boy brought boxing back to Telefutura in April with the unyielding support of Tecate, the most important sponsor in boxing, the fights have routinely been weak so far. Week after week, it's a prospect wiping out an opponent with almost no chance to win. It's getting old and boring. Can I get some competitive fights please?
• Does Celestino Caballero have a fall date yet?
• Alfredo "Perro" Angulo might not be the most refined fighter who ever lived, but he's one of the top 5 or so most exciting fighters on the planet to watch. His destruction of Joachim Alcine was most impressive. I thought it was a dangerous fight, although I figured Angulo would stop him in the mid-rounds. I never expected a first-round devastation. I would absolutely love to see him challenge Cotto.
• Swing and a miss by HBO during Saturday's Bradley-Luis Carlos Abregu telecast, during which several of the top junior welterweights were mentioned prominently. However, Zab Judah wasn't one of them, which was stunning. Judah, the former undisputed welterweight champion and two-time junior welterweight titlist, had scored a highlight-reel knockout of Jose Armando Santa Cruz the previous night on ESPN2 in his return to the junior welterweight division. To not even mention Judah while discussing the division in detail was a terrible oversight.
• David Tua is done after that woeful performance in a lucky draw against Monte Barrett. I don't want to hear about any more "comebacks" from Tua. It's over.
• Chris John might as well start walking under ladders and crossing the paths of black cats. His luck can't get any worse after having a third significant medical issue -- dengue fever, shoulder injury, broken rib -- since late last year, two of which forced him to call of a fight. Maybe he should invest some of his purse money in a plastic bubble?
• Condolences to British promoter Frank Warren on the sudden death of his younger brother Mark Warren, 42, who died this week when he fell from a fourth-floor window and died from head injuries.
• Happy birthday to promoter Artie Pelullo, who celebrates the big day July 28. Undoubtedly, he'll do so with a cigar and a martini.
• DVD pick of the week:Believe it or not, I had never seen this fight in its entirety until this week, when a friend sent it along with some other goodies. So I settled in and watched the HBO replay of Sugar Ray Leonard's controversial draw with Thomas Hearns from June 12, 1989, outdoors at Las Vegas' famed Caesars Palace, the same site of their epic first welterweight unification showdown won by Leonard almost eight years earlier. This time, they were fighting for Leonard's super middleweight belt and Leonard was a 3-1 favorite against his rival. But Hearns, who was 30, dropped the 33-year-old Leonard in the third and 11th rounds and seemed to be on his way to a decision win in an excellent fight until Leonard, with a big surge in the final round, pulled out a split draw that is debatable to this day. You don't hear a lot about this fight when folks talk about the great 1980's matchups between Leonard, Hearns, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran, but it was a helluva fight.
Source: espn.go.com
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