BBC Sport
Promoter Frank Warren has spoken of his disappointment at Amir Khan's decision to leave his camp and join American-based Golden Boy Promotions.
Khan, 23, left Warren after five years having been guided by the promoter since turning professional in 2005.
"I do not mind admitting I was gutted at the way Amir Khan and his team brought our partnership to an end," Warren wrote in his column for The Sun.
"These days it seems loyalty is a quality bestowed in few sportsmen."
Under Warren's guidance Khan captured the WBA light-welterweight world title, winning 22 of his 23 fights.
But Khan announced on Sunday that he would be joining promoters Golden Boy, who are led by Oscar De La Hoya, as the Bolton fighter looks to crack the United States, allowing him to increase his global profile.
Khan has been based in Los Angeles since linking up with revered trainer Freddie Roach in 2008, following his humiliating first-round defeat by Breidis Prescott.
Roach also trains five-weight world champion Manny Pacquiao, who is recognised as the world's best pound-for-pound boxer.
The 2004 Athens Olympic silver medallist has a 'tentative agreement' in place to face Argentine Marcos Maidana in Las Vegas on 14 April as looks to make his American debut.
Warren, who guided Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe to world titles, revealed his regret that it was Khan's father Shah who broke the news to the promoter, but only after he had found out from another source.
"I told him (Shah) I was offended he should say Golden Boy Promotions could do a better job than me and annoyed they had chosen to tell me 48 hours after I had heard the news elsewhere," said Warren.
"It is amazing to think that the last time Amir and I were together was in Newcastle - after his demolition of Dmitriy Salita - when he told the Sky TV cameras: 'Me and Frank are going to America'.
"He repeated that statement in the post-fight press conference.
"Yet, just a few weeks later, I was left to hear it 10th-hand that our partnership was over."
Warren added: "Under my promotional banner, Amir became light-welterweight world champion and banked millions of pounds.
"And I do not even hear of the split from the horse's mouth, after all I have done for him.
"Remember, just four fights ago Khan was wiped out in less then 60 seconds by Breidis Prescott.
"Despite the way the Khans have handled this, I did my best for Amir and it is disappointing he has not even picked up the phone.
"But he is very talented, great for boxing and I genuinely hope he does well."
The Khan camp was unavailable for comment.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk
Saturday 23 January 2010
Photos: Brian Viloria-Carlos Tamara fight
Boxing News World
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria, left, of Hawaii receives a punch from Colombian challenger Carlos Tamara during their boxing title bout Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrested the IBF light flyweight crown from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round. Viloria was rush to a hospital. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria, right, of Hawaii and Colombian challenger Carlos Tamara exchange punches during their boxing fight Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrested the crown from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria, right, of Hawaii gets a punch from Colombian challenger Carlos Tamara during their title bout Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrest the crown from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria, left, of Hawaii ducks a punch from Colombian challenger Carlos Tamara during their boxing title bout Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrested the crown from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria, left, of Hawaii hits the canvas after missing a punch to Carlos Tamara of Colombia during title bout Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrested the title from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)
IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria of Hawaii is assisted by referee Bruce McTavish as Colombian challenger Carlos Tamara, back, looks on during their title bout Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrest the crown from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round.(AP Photo/Pat Roque)
New IBF light flyweight champion Carlos Tamara of Colombia raises his hands after he was declared the winner against Brian Viloria of Hawaii Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 in suburban Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines. Tamara wrested the title from the 'Hawaiian Punch' Viloria via a TKO on the 12th round. (AP Photo/Pat Roque)
Source: images.search.yahoo.com
Viloria collapses after losing flyweight title via TKO -- Honolulu Advertiser
The Associated Press
Waipahu boxer Brian Viloria relinquished his International Boxing Federation light flyweight world championship in an upset loss to Colombia's Carlos Tamara tonight in the Philippines.
Tamara defeated Viloria via 12th round TKO.
Media outlets in the Philippines reported that Viloria collapsed in his locker room after the bout, and was rushed to a hospital. GMA News in the Philippines was reporting that Viloria was conscious and in stable condition late last night.
The world championship bout was scheduled for 12 rounds at the Cuneta Astrodome in Manila.
It was the first time in Viloria's nine-year career that he suffered a loss by knockout.
Viloria appeared to be ahead early in the bout but Tamara rallied in the late rounds by using an effective jab.
According to GMA News in the Philippines, an exhausted Viloria absorbed 14 unanswered punches from Tamara in the 12th round, prompting the referee to stop the bout. The official time was 1:45 into the 12th round.
Viloria also left the ring with a cut above his right eye.
Viloria dropped to 26-3, and ended a seven-fight win streak. His last loss was in April 2007.
Tamara improved to 21-4 with the 15th knockout of his career. Tamara was the No. 7-ranked contender in the light flyweight (108 pounds) division of the IBF.
Viloria, 29, won the IBF world title in April of last year, when he defeated Ulises Solis. That was Viloria's first bout in the Philippines, where he is treated like a superstar. Last night was his second bout in the Philippines.
Last night was also his second defense of the IBF title. His previous bout resulted in a unanimous decision over Jesus Iribe in Honolulu.
Viloria is now a two-time former world champion. He was the WBC light flyweight world champion in 2005.
All three of Viloria's professional losses have come in world title bouts.
Prior to last night's bout, there were preliminary talks of a title unification bout between Viloria and WBO light flyweight world champion Ivan Calderon of Puerto Rico.
Source: honoluluadvertiser.com
Waipahu boxer Brian Viloria relinquished his International Boxing Federation light flyweight world championship in an upset loss to Colombia's Carlos Tamara tonight in the Philippines.
Tamara defeated Viloria via 12th round TKO.
Media outlets in the Philippines reported that Viloria collapsed in his locker room after the bout, and was rushed to a hospital. GMA News in the Philippines was reporting that Viloria was conscious and in stable condition late last night.
The world championship bout was scheduled for 12 rounds at the Cuneta Astrodome in Manila.
It was the first time in Viloria's nine-year career that he suffered a loss by knockout.
Viloria appeared to be ahead early in the bout but Tamara rallied in the late rounds by using an effective jab.
According to GMA News in the Philippines, an exhausted Viloria absorbed 14 unanswered punches from Tamara in the 12th round, prompting the referee to stop the bout. The official time was 1:45 into the 12th round.
Viloria also left the ring with a cut above his right eye.
Viloria dropped to 26-3, and ended a seven-fight win streak. His last loss was in April 2007.
Tamara improved to 21-4 with the 15th knockout of his career. Tamara was the No. 7-ranked contender in the light flyweight (108 pounds) division of the IBF.
Viloria, 29, won the IBF world title in April of last year, when he defeated Ulises Solis. That was Viloria's first bout in the Philippines, where he is treated like a superstar. Last night was his second bout in the Philippines.
Last night was also his second defense of the IBF title. His previous bout resulted in a unanimous decision over Jesus Iribe in Honolulu.
Viloria is now a two-time former world champion. He was the WBC light flyweight world champion in 2005.
All three of Viloria's professional losses have come in world title bouts.
Prior to last night's bout, there were preliminary talks of a title unification bout between Viloria and WBO light flyweight world champion Ivan Calderon of Puerto Rico.
Source: honoluluadvertiser.com
Viloria hospitalized after loss to Tamara -- The Washington Post
The Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines -- Hawaiian Brian Viloria was taken to a hospital from apparent exhaustion soon after his TKO defeat by Colombia's Carlos Tamara in Saturday's IBF light flyweight title fight, a boxing official said.
Referee Bruce McTavish stopped the fight 1:45 into the 12th and final round.
Soon after the bout ended, Viloria was taken from his locker room and rushed to a local hospital in an ambulance. His camp did not immediately give details of what happened inside the room after the fight.
Viloria was later transferred to the Makati Medical Center for more tests, including a brain scan, said Nasser Cruz, head of the boxing division chief of the Philippine Games and Amusement Board.
Doctors at the hospital found nothing wrong with Viloria after he underwent neck and chest X-rays and a brain CT scan, Cruz said.
"It appears all the results were favorable," he told The Associated Press. "In my view he was very exhausted. ... He had no knockdowns. He just got really tired."
"Even if you are conscious, as long as you had a difficult fight - he delivered a lot of punches and he also received many hits - it's just a regular thing to undergo a check up," Cruz added.
Neurologist Regina Macalintal of the Makati Medical Center told DZBB radio that Viloria was in a stable condition.
"He is doing good. He just needs to rest in the hospital for one of two days."
She said Viloria did not need any surgery and a minor cut to his brow was sutured.
Boxing analyst Ronnie Nathaniels told DZBB radio he spoke at the emergency room with Viloria, who complained of a "severe headache."
The emergency room doctor who attended to Viloria at the first hospital, Dr. Ernesto Gonzales, said Viloria was taken to the first hospital because he "felt weak" but was conscious when he arrived on a stretcher.
"All I can say is he was stable from the time he arrived until he left," Gonzales said.
Asked by reporters how Viloria was doing, his trainer, Robert Garcia, said, "He's fine."
Viloria was in control early in the fight at the Cuneta Astrodome in suburban Pasay city but he slowed down starting in the seventh round and Tamara took control.
Viloria appeared exhausted and received numerous hits to the face toward the final rounds. He suffered a cut above his left eye.
He fell twice after swinging and missing Tamara and had to be helped up by the referee in the final round.
Viloria wasn't returning punches from Tamara as he staggered against the ropes when McTavish stepped in to stop the fight.
"I was confident about this fight," said Tamara, a veteran of the 2004 Olympics. "My team knew this was my chance to become a world champion. Brian is a tough fighter."
Viloria, a former WBC light flyweight champion nicknamed "The Hawaiian Punch," claimed the IBF belt with a knockout of Ulises Solis in the Philippines in April last year, and defended the title with an unanimous decision over Jesus Iribe in Honolulu in August.
This was Tamara's second tilt at a major belt after losing a bout against Juan Esquer for the WBO flyweight title in June 2008.
Source: washingtonpost.com
MANILA, Philippines -- Hawaiian Brian Viloria was taken to a hospital from apparent exhaustion soon after his TKO defeat by Colombia's Carlos Tamara in Saturday's IBF light flyweight title fight, a boxing official said.
Referee Bruce McTavish stopped the fight 1:45 into the 12th and final round.
Soon after the bout ended, Viloria was taken from his locker room and rushed to a local hospital in an ambulance. His camp did not immediately give details of what happened inside the room after the fight.
Viloria was later transferred to the Makati Medical Center for more tests, including a brain scan, said Nasser Cruz, head of the boxing division chief of the Philippine Games and Amusement Board.
Doctors at the hospital found nothing wrong with Viloria after he underwent neck and chest X-rays and a brain CT scan, Cruz said.
"It appears all the results were favorable," he told The Associated Press. "In my view he was very exhausted. ... He had no knockdowns. He just got really tired."
"Even if you are conscious, as long as you had a difficult fight - he delivered a lot of punches and he also received many hits - it's just a regular thing to undergo a check up," Cruz added.
Neurologist Regina Macalintal of the Makati Medical Center told DZBB radio that Viloria was in a stable condition.
"He is doing good. He just needs to rest in the hospital for one of two days."
She said Viloria did not need any surgery and a minor cut to his brow was sutured.
Boxing analyst Ronnie Nathaniels told DZBB radio he spoke at the emergency room with Viloria, who complained of a "severe headache."
The emergency room doctor who attended to Viloria at the first hospital, Dr. Ernesto Gonzales, said Viloria was taken to the first hospital because he "felt weak" but was conscious when he arrived on a stretcher.
"All I can say is he was stable from the time he arrived until he left," Gonzales said.
Asked by reporters how Viloria was doing, his trainer, Robert Garcia, said, "He's fine."
Viloria was in control early in the fight at the Cuneta Astrodome in suburban Pasay city but he slowed down starting in the seventh round and Tamara took control.
Viloria appeared exhausted and received numerous hits to the face toward the final rounds. He suffered a cut above his left eye.
He fell twice after swinging and missing Tamara and had to be helped up by the referee in the final round.
Viloria wasn't returning punches from Tamara as he staggered against the ropes when McTavish stepped in to stop the fight.
"I was confident about this fight," said Tamara, a veteran of the 2004 Olympics. "My team knew this was my chance to become a world champion. Brian is a tough fighter."
Viloria, a former WBC light flyweight champion nicknamed "The Hawaiian Punch," claimed the IBF belt with a knockout of Ulises Solis in the Philippines in April last year, and defended the title with an unanimous decision over Jesus Iribe in Honolulu in August.
This was Tamara's second tilt at a major belt after losing a bout against Juan Esquer for the WBO flyweight title in June 2008.
Source: washingtonpost.com
Pacman just wasting time -- Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
MOST disappointing image of the week was seeing world welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao squaring up to Ghana's Joshua Clottey ahead of their fight 24 hours after Smith-Dodson in Dallas in March.
After getting all worked up and excited about the possible Floyd Mayweather match-up any other opponent was always going to prove an anti climax for fight fans.
Clottey’s a game kid and exactly what we’ve come to love and expect from Ghana’s conveyor belt of champions. But the fact remains he’ll head to the ring after losing to Miguel Cotto last time out.
The same Cotto who Manny stopped in the 12th round in Vegas in November.
Pacquiao insists the Mayweather fight will go ahead, stating on Thursday: “It will happen. I'm still hoping a fight with Mayweather will be pushed through, maybe by summer time.”
But why wait? Why not make the fight now while both are in shape?
For the simple reason that Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach are no fools. They know the night Manny steps into the ring with Mayweather the gravy train comes off the tracks and there will be nowhere for Pacman left to go.
Sure fighting Clottey makes business sense, but to us fight fans it makes absolutely no sense at all.
Manny, to be the best you’ve got to beat the best and that’s why ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd Mayweather remains the pound-for-pound world number one.
Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk
MOST disappointing image of the week was seeing world welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao squaring up to Ghana's Joshua Clottey ahead of their fight 24 hours after Smith-Dodson in Dallas in March.
After getting all worked up and excited about the possible Floyd Mayweather match-up any other opponent was always going to prove an anti climax for fight fans.
Clottey’s a game kid and exactly what we’ve come to love and expect from Ghana’s conveyor belt of champions. But the fact remains he’ll head to the ring after losing to Miguel Cotto last time out.
The same Cotto who Manny stopped in the 12th round in Vegas in November.
Pacquiao insists the Mayweather fight will go ahead, stating on Thursday: “It will happen. I'm still hoping a fight with Mayweather will be pushed through, maybe by summer time.”
But why wait? Why not make the fight now while both are in shape?
For the simple reason that Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach are no fools. They know the night Manny steps into the ring with Mayweather the gravy train comes off the tracks and there will be nowhere for Pacman left to go.
Sure fighting Clottey makes business sense, but to us fight fans it makes absolutely no sense at all.
Manny, to be the best you’ve got to beat the best and that’s why ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd Mayweather remains the pound-for-pound world number one.
Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk
Roach exclusive: Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather most important fight for 30 years and must happen -- Telegraph
By Gareth A Davies, Telegraph.co.uk
Freddie Roach has spoken to Telegraph Sport in depth about his exasperation in dealings behind the scenes in getting the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight to come to fruition. Roach told me: “The bottom line is that we don’t really need him, many could have two more fights, in between go to the election in the Philippines, make another 20 million US dollars, and retire. We really don’t need Mayweather. There are easier fights out there for Manny.”
But in reality, Roach, and Pacquiao, insisted to me that they want this fight because the Filipino wants the ultimate test, which Mayweather would provide. “Look, this is a fight the world wants to see, I want to see, Manny wants to see, and it would be a real shame for boxing fans, and casual sports fans, all over the world, if it does not happen. I have been through this before – and I hope we come out the other end with a positive from both sides.”
Roach also revealed that Pacquiao and he had planned to train exclusively in LA for the Mayweather fight, originally planned for March 13, having decided to forego the portion of the training camp in The Philippines. “There are so many pressures on him when he trains there, because of the demands on him from all quarters. We had put together the idea of training exclusively here at the Wild Card.”
“Manny got the green light over his busted eardrum [sustained in his victory over Miguel Cotto last November], and we had planned an early January press conference and then we were going straight into training camp.”
Roach also told Telegraph Sport that the insinuations over PEDs levelled at Pacquiao were hurtful – and believes they were a systematic ploy from Mayweather and his adviser Leonard Ellerbe: “It’s kind of a shame in today’s society that people are always looking for a negative. Why can’t Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather just say Manny’s a good fighter, because that’s all he is…he’s a good fighter. He’s the most honest guy I’ve known, he doesn’t like taking anything. He has never taken drugs. I know him really well. I’ve been with him and around him since 2001. I have problems getting him to take vitamins, and he doesn’t like needles. I know it’s out there, and people are saying ‘why wouldn’t he take a blood test, and they think we’re hiding something. He does not react well to having blood taken. He’s weak for three days, afterwards. Some people pass out after blood being taken. Maybe it’s not physical, but it bothers him mentally. We can’t have that five days or three days out from the fight. [With calls for random blood tests from Mayweather right up to the day before the fight]. I don’t want to send my fighter in there feeling weak mentally or physically, so we would not agree to that.”
“Ellerbe says he wants a level playing fields. Ok, we’ll tie one of Manny’s hands behind his back,” joked Roach, now preparing Pacquiao to face Ghanaian Joshua Clottey instead on March 13, in Arlington, Texas, at the NFL home of the Cowboys.
“I think that was their ploy all along, to get under our skin. Who is Mayweather ? He’s just the opponent, not the champion. If this fight doesn’t happen, these two guys will be known as the fighters who avoided each other, and did not make it happen. In my view, it has to happen for the sake of boxing. It simply has to happen.”
Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Freddie Roach has spoken to Telegraph Sport in depth about his exasperation in dealings behind the scenes in getting the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight to come to fruition. Roach told me: “The bottom line is that we don’t really need him, many could have two more fights, in between go to the election in the Philippines, make another 20 million US dollars, and retire. We really don’t need Mayweather. There are easier fights out there for Manny.”
But in reality, Roach, and Pacquiao, insisted to me that they want this fight because the Filipino wants the ultimate test, which Mayweather would provide. “Look, this is a fight the world wants to see, I want to see, Manny wants to see, and it would be a real shame for boxing fans, and casual sports fans, all over the world, if it does not happen. I have been through this before – and I hope we come out the other end with a positive from both sides.”
Roach also revealed that Pacquiao and he had planned to train exclusively in LA for the Mayweather fight, originally planned for March 13, having decided to forego the portion of the training camp in The Philippines. “There are so many pressures on him when he trains there, because of the demands on him from all quarters. We had put together the idea of training exclusively here at the Wild Card.”
“Manny got the green light over his busted eardrum [sustained in his victory over Miguel Cotto last November], and we had planned an early January press conference and then we were going straight into training camp.”
Roach also told Telegraph Sport that the insinuations over PEDs levelled at Pacquiao were hurtful – and believes they were a systematic ploy from Mayweather and his adviser Leonard Ellerbe: “It’s kind of a shame in today’s society that people are always looking for a negative. Why can’t Paulie Malignaggi and Floyd Mayweather just say Manny’s a good fighter, because that’s all he is…he’s a good fighter. He’s the most honest guy I’ve known, he doesn’t like taking anything. He has never taken drugs. I know him really well. I’ve been with him and around him since 2001. I have problems getting him to take vitamins, and he doesn’t like needles. I know it’s out there, and people are saying ‘why wouldn’t he take a blood test, and they think we’re hiding something. He does not react well to having blood taken. He’s weak for three days, afterwards. Some people pass out after blood being taken. Maybe it’s not physical, but it bothers him mentally. We can’t have that five days or three days out from the fight. [With calls for random blood tests from Mayweather right up to the day before the fight]. I don’t want to send my fighter in there feeling weak mentally or physically, so we would not agree to that.”
“Ellerbe says he wants a level playing fields. Ok, we’ll tie one of Manny’s hands behind his back,” joked Roach, now preparing Pacquiao to face Ghanaian Joshua Clottey instead on March 13, in Arlington, Texas, at the NFL home of the Cowboys.
“I think that was their ploy all along, to get under our skin. Who is Mayweather ? He’s just the opponent, not the champion. If this fight doesn’t happen, these two guys will be known as the fighters who avoided each other, and did not make it happen. In my view, it has to happen for the sake of boxing. It simply has to happen.”
Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
Antonio Margarito Should Explain Himself Before Return to Ring -- FanHouse
By Kevin Blackistone, FanHouse
Before the conclusion of Eric Drath's documentary, Assault in the Ring, a revisiting of what is arguably boxing's most-heinous plot -- which unfolded in the Luis Resto-Billy Collins Jr. bout in June 1983 -- there was a stunning revelation. Resto admitted that he knew the padding was stripped from his gloves, allowing him with knuckles sheathed mostly in leather to pummel Collins into a bloody mess and eventually a depression that Collins' family and friends said precipitated Collins' early death.
Until then, however, or for the more than a quarter-century that passed since that infamous felonious fight, Resto claimed he was merely an innocent bystander who had no idea that his despicable trainer Panama Lewis had committed such a dastardly deed.
Antonio Margarito and his handlers, most notably promoter Bob Arum, would like us to believe the same thing of Margarito's involvement in a fight with Shane Mosley almost a year ago that cost Margarito a year's suspension from the ring. Margarito's time served is just about up and, when it is, Arum would like Margarito licensed to fight again and put on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight in March at Jerry Jones' Cowboys Stadium just outside of Dallas.
But before Margarito is allowed to fight again, he should be made to tell the rest of us exactly what happened and show some remorse for his role. I'm hard-pressed to believe that in his 43rd fight as a pro he didn't know the wrapping on his fists included some sort of plaster that turned them into human sledgehammers. That claim stretches credulity just as much as Resto's long-held tale.
Fortunately for Margarito's last opponent, Mosley, the dangerous ruse was caught before the fighters touched gloves, and Margarito was forced to get taped again. Mosley didn't get his face turned to fresh ground meat like Collins. He lived to fight another day and beat the cheating Margarito when Margarito was made to fight fair.
But that shouldn't diminish what Margarito and his corner tried to pull off, which shared something else in common with Resto and Lewis, according to Drath's film. Resto and Lewis used some sort of plaster on Resto's fists' wraps, too.
Resto and Lewis wound up thrown in jail for their sadistic conspiracy. Margarito and his trainer in the Mosley fight, Javier Capetillo, escaped such prosecution only because they were found out before being able to exact such punishment. Then again, it is difficult for me to look at Margarito's last fight before meeting Mosley -- when he handed the rugged Miguel Cotto his first defeat by ripping apart his face -- and not wonder whether Margarito got away with what he didn't against Mosley. Cotto hasn't been the same fighter since.
As such, it shouldn't be so easy as signing application papers at the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation that oversees boxing in Texas for Margarito to get back into the game. That is what Arum is banking on, however.
Texas' head boxing commissioner, Dick Cole, told me Thursday night from his home, where he is recovering from a recent hospital stay, that he would review all the evidence before granting a new license to Margarito. But his office shouldn't be the only one to do so, or the first.
This is one of the problems with boxing regulation. Margarito and his trainer were suspended by the California State Athletic Commission because their shenanigans were discovered at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Margarito should have to ask that board, which voted 7-0 to revoke his license, for his right to earn a living again in the sport he disgraced.
That was what Mike Tyson did in the summer of 1998 after the Nevada Athletic Commission, a year earlier, took away his boxing license after he took a bite out of Evander Holyfield's ear in Las Vegas. That was the proper way to handle it. Margarito's case is not.
The new senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, would argue otherwise probably. He believes in states' rights superseding others when it comes to the healthcare debate. But if this was a driver's license that was at question, Margarito would have to do just what Tyson did before he could legally get a license in any other state. Texas shouldn't be able to bail him out now. Nevada, Connecticut, New York or any other big-fight state shouldn't be able to, either.
This happens far too often in boxing, though. Tyson's case was an exception that should be a rule. Instead, when a boxer can't get a license in one state for some reason, he too easily is handed a license in another no matter.
In 2006, Holyfield wanted to fight in New York but the New York State Athletic Commission denied him due to his physical condition. He'd lost five of his last eight fights. No problem, though. Holyfield turned to Texas. It OK'd him. He punched some guy named Jeremy Bates for two rounds. The only other places Holyfield has fought since are Russia and Switzerland.
Arum decried the ruling against Margarito almost a year ago. He threatened to sue. He said he was going to take Margarito to Mexico, where Margarito lives in Tijuana, to fight, U.S. fight commissions be damned.
Arum is our modern-day P.T. Barnum. He's about the show. He carried through with none of his threats.
It could be that his conscience got the better of him. After all, Arum promoted Collins 27 years ago when Resto and his lout of a trainer, Lewis, beat him to a pulp by turning a professional fight into a crime scene.
Arum pointed out the other day that because he wound up respecting Margarito's suspension, the Texas commission should take that into account. He shouldn't be telling that to the California commission, though, while his meal ticket in question, Margarito, owns up like those who have cheated other sports and hoped to be taken back by them in good graces.
Ignorance isn't bliss in this case; it's incredible.
Source: kevin-blackistone.fanhouse.com
Before the conclusion of Eric Drath's documentary, Assault in the Ring, a revisiting of what is arguably boxing's most-heinous plot -- which unfolded in the Luis Resto-Billy Collins Jr. bout in June 1983 -- there was a stunning revelation. Resto admitted that he knew the padding was stripped from his gloves, allowing him with knuckles sheathed mostly in leather to pummel Collins into a bloody mess and eventually a depression that Collins' family and friends said precipitated Collins' early death.
Until then, however, or for the more than a quarter-century that passed since that infamous felonious fight, Resto claimed he was merely an innocent bystander who had no idea that his despicable trainer Panama Lewis had committed such a dastardly deed.
Antonio Margarito and his handlers, most notably promoter Bob Arum, would like us to believe the same thing of Margarito's involvement in a fight with Shane Mosley almost a year ago that cost Margarito a year's suspension from the ring. Margarito's time served is just about up and, when it is, Arum would like Margarito licensed to fight again and put on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight in March at Jerry Jones' Cowboys Stadium just outside of Dallas.
But before Margarito is allowed to fight again, he should be made to tell the rest of us exactly what happened and show some remorse for his role. I'm hard-pressed to believe that in his 43rd fight as a pro he didn't know the wrapping on his fists included some sort of plaster that turned them into human sledgehammers. That claim stretches credulity just as much as Resto's long-held tale.
Fortunately for Margarito's last opponent, Mosley, the dangerous ruse was caught before the fighters touched gloves, and Margarito was forced to get taped again. Mosley didn't get his face turned to fresh ground meat like Collins. He lived to fight another day and beat the cheating Margarito when Margarito was made to fight fair.
But that shouldn't diminish what Margarito and his corner tried to pull off, which shared something else in common with Resto and Lewis, according to Drath's film. Resto and Lewis used some sort of plaster on Resto's fists' wraps, too.
Resto and Lewis wound up thrown in jail for their sadistic conspiracy. Margarito and his trainer in the Mosley fight, Javier Capetillo, escaped such prosecution only because they were found out before being able to exact such punishment. Then again, it is difficult for me to look at Margarito's last fight before meeting Mosley -- when he handed the rugged Miguel Cotto his first defeat by ripping apart his face -- and not wonder whether Margarito got away with what he didn't against Mosley. Cotto hasn't been the same fighter since.
As such, it shouldn't be so easy as signing application papers at the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation that oversees boxing in Texas for Margarito to get back into the game. That is what Arum is banking on, however.
Texas' head boxing commissioner, Dick Cole, told me Thursday night from his home, where he is recovering from a recent hospital stay, that he would review all the evidence before granting a new license to Margarito. But his office shouldn't be the only one to do so, or the first.
This is one of the problems with boxing regulation. Margarito and his trainer were suspended by the California State Athletic Commission because their shenanigans were discovered at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Margarito should have to ask that board, which voted 7-0 to revoke his license, for his right to earn a living again in the sport he disgraced.
That was what Mike Tyson did in the summer of 1998 after the Nevada Athletic Commission, a year earlier, took away his boxing license after he took a bite out of Evander Holyfield's ear in Las Vegas. That was the proper way to handle it. Margarito's case is not.
The new senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, would argue otherwise probably. He believes in states' rights superseding others when it comes to the healthcare debate. But if this was a driver's license that was at question, Margarito would have to do just what Tyson did before he could legally get a license in any other state. Texas shouldn't be able to bail him out now. Nevada, Connecticut, New York or any other big-fight state shouldn't be able to, either.
This happens far too often in boxing, though. Tyson's case was an exception that should be a rule. Instead, when a boxer can't get a license in one state for some reason, he too easily is handed a license in another no matter.
In 2006, Holyfield wanted to fight in New York but the New York State Athletic Commission denied him due to his physical condition. He'd lost five of his last eight fights. No problem, though. Holyfield turned to Texas. It OK'd him. He punched some guy named Jeremy Bates for two rounds. The only other places Holyfield has fought since are Russia and Switzerland.
Arum decried the ruling against Margarito almost a year ago. He threatened to sue. He said he was going to take Margarito to Mexico, where Margarito lives in Tijuana, to fight, U.S. fight commissions be damned.
Arum is our modern-day P.T. Barnum. He's about the show. He carried through with none of his threats.
It could be that his conscience got the better of him. After all, Arum promoted Collins 27 years ago when Resto and his lout of a trainer, Lewis, beat him to a pulp by turning a professional fight into a crime scene.
Arum pointed out the other day that because he wound up respecting Margarito's suspension, the Texas commission should take that into account. He shouldn't be telling that to the California commission, though, while his meal ticket in question, Margarito, owns up like those who have cheated other sports and hoped to be taken back by them in good graces.
Ignorance isn't bliss in this case; it's incredible.
Source: kevin-blackistone.fanhouse.com
Can fight that might happen make up for one that won't? -- Orange County Register
By MARK WHICKER, The Orange County Register
There was one logical sporting event in 2010. That's before the sport of boxing got into the ring with logic. That bout was over quicker than Ali-Liston II.
Now, from the ashes of Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s defunct showdown with Manny Pacquiao, comes a new and maybe more interesting possibility, from a Big Bear snowbank.
Mayweather needs a big occasion and Mosley is the best box-office athlete available, with Pacquiao already headed for a March 13 fight with replacement Joshua Clottey.
Mosley is part of Golden Boy Promotions. Mayweather has been represented by Golden Boy in his past few fights.
Mosley is a comfortable welterweight. Mayweather has grown into that class and looked comparatively massive when he dominated Juan Manuel Marquez.
The word has filtered up to Big Bear, where Mosley was training for Shane Berto, who backed out of their Jan. 30 fight because of his personal anguish over the Haiti earthquake.
Naazim Richardson, who masterminded Bernard Hopkins' big victories and trained Mosley for the destruction of Antonio Margarito a year ago, is restraining his enthusiasm.
"All of our preparations have been for Berto," he said by phone the other day. "We haven't thought about anybody else. You hear a lot of talk about who's going to fight who. I don't pay any attention to it until somebody signs the contract. And maybe not even then.
"I guess you can say it's exciting. Floyd Mayweather, I've known him since he was a kid in the amateurs. I've seen him lose (Mayweather is unbeaten as a pro). He has mastered the art of being a winner. You can't say anything bad about him. If it does happen, we'll have a lot to prepare for."
As good as Mayweather-Mosley might be, it won't make anyone forget the perplexing crash of Mayweather-Pacquiao.
Mayweather's camp insisted that Pacquiao go through tests for performance-enhancing drugs, including HGH, which requires a blood test. Pacquiao replied that he has an aversion to needles (which some thought odd, since he bears tattoos) but that he would cooperate, even submitting to a post-fight test.
The two could never agree on how many tests or when, but it did inflame Pacquiao. Ultimately the fight collapsed, which made people wonder how much Mayweather wanted Manny.
If he signs with Mosley, that question will be answered. Mayweather might or might not want Pacquiao, but he definitely doesn't want Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter now and Mayweather's promoter once upon a time.
Mayweather will want testing for this fight, because Mosley has admitted he used performance enhancers he received from BALCO. But one has the feeling Mosley might agree to blood tests between rounds, if it meant a shot at Mayweather.
"Where I come from, you don't need $40 million to have a fight with somebody," said Richardson, who is from Philadelphia. "That is, if you really want to fight him.
"I don't question Floyd's motives. It's like being at a dance. You go to a pretty girl, you ask her to dance. If she says no, you go to the next one. And then the next one. Floyd wanted Pacquiao to dance and it didn't work out. Now he had to ask somebody else.
"The thing is, Shane Mosley has been standing there by the punchbowl all along."
Mosley has been standing outside the ring since Jan. 24 of last year, when his victory over Margarito broke Staples Center's all-events attendance record. That's a lot of idle time for a 38-year-old. Mosley has been understandably itchy to fight someone, to keep some semblance of momentum. At one point he told Richardson he wanted Clottey, a tough piece of leather who bloodied and nearly beat Miguel Cotto.
"I said, who the hell wants to fight Clottey if you don't have to?" Richardson said. "But now Pacquiao is in a different place. He has to fight Clottey because that's the only fight for him. I think he'll win. It's like Mayweather. Manny has proved he has mastered the art of winning. Clottey has proved he has mastered the art of competing. There's a difference.
"I really don't think Manny wants Shane. I don't think anybody really does. If Shane fights Floyd, there are a lot of elements to it. But Shane, when he goes into the ring, everybody knows he wants to finish the other guy. He wants to take him out. Floyd wants to win but he doesn't necessarily want to finish, because he isn't always able to. I think that's the difference."
In truth, HBO wasn't terribly excited about a March 13 boxing date involving anyone, because of various advertising and marketing factors. Mayweather-Mosley would be in early May. By then Big Bear will be fully thawed. Mayweather, having dodged Pac-Man, might still find himself within the reach of an abominable snowman.
mwhicker@ocregister.com
Source: ocregister.com
There was one logical sporting event in 2010. That's before the sport of boxing got into the ring with logic. That bout was over quicker than Ali-Liston II.
Now, from the ashes of Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s defunct showdown with Manny Pacquiao, comes a new and maybe more interesting possibility, from a Big Bear snowbank.
Mayweather needs a big occasion and Mosley is the best box-office athlete available, with Pacquiao already headed for a March 13 fight with replacement Joshua Clottey.
Mosley is part of Golden Boy Promotions. Mayweather has been represented by Golden Boy in his past few fights.
Mosley is a comfortable welterweight. Mayweather has grown into that class and looked comparatively massive when he dominated Juan Manuel Marquez.
The word has filtered up to Big Bear, where Mosley was training for Shane Berto, who backed out of their Jan. 30 fight because of his personal anguish over the Haiti earthquake.
Naazim Richardson, who masterminded Bernard Hopkins' big victories and trained Mosley for the destruction of Antonio Margarito a year ago, is restraining his enthusiasm.
"All of our preparations have been for Berto," he said by phone the other day. "We haven't thought about anybody else. You hear a lot of talk about who's going to fight who. I don't pay any attention to it until somebody signs the contract. And maybe not even then.
"I guess you can say it's exciting. Floyd Mayweather, I've known him since he was a kid in the amateurs. I've seen him lose (Mayweather is unbeaten as a pro). He has mastered the art of being a winner. You can't say anything bad about him. If it does happen, we'll have a lot to prepare for."
As good as Mayweather-Mosley might be, it won't make anyone forget the perplexing crash of Mayweather-Pacquiao.
Mayweather's camp insisted that Pacquiao go through tests for performance-enhancing drugs, including HGH, which requires a blood test. Pacquiao replied that he has an aversion to needles (which some thought odd, since he bears tattoos) but that he would cooperate, even submitting to a post-fight test.
The two could never agree on how many tests or when, but it did inflame Pacquiao. Ultimately the fight collapsed, which made people wonder how much Mayweather wanted Manny.
If he signs with Mosley, that question will be answered. Mayweather might or might not want Pacquiao, but he definitely doesn't want Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter now and Mayweather's promoter once upon a time.
Mayweather will want testing for this fight, because Mosley has admitted he used performance enhancers he received from BALCO. But one has the feeling Mosley might agree to blood tests between rounds, if it meant a shot at Mayweather.
"Where I come from, you don't need $40 million to have a fight with somebody," said Richardson, who is from Philadelphia. "That is, if you really want to fight him.
"I don't question Floyd's motives. It's like being at a dance. You go to a pretty girl, you ask her to dance. If she says no, you go to the next one. And then the next one. Floyd wanted Pacquiao to dance and it didn't work out. Now he had to ask somebody else.
"The thing is, Shane Mosley has been standing there by the punchbowl all along."
Mosley has been standing outside the ring since Jan. 24 of last year, when his victory over Margarito broke Staples Center's all-events attendance record. That's a lot of idle time for a 38-year-old. Mosley has been understandably itchy to fight someone, to keep some semblance of momentum. At one point he told Richardson he wanted Clottey, a tough piece of leather who bloodied and nearly beat Miguel Cotto.
"I said, who the hell wants to fight Clottey if you don't have to?" Richardson said. "But now Pacquiao is in a different place. He has to fight Clottey because that's the only fight for him. I think he'll win. It's like Mayweather. Manny has proved he has mastered the art of winning. Clottey has proved he has mastered the art of competing. There's a difference.
"I really don't think Manny wants Shane. I don't think anybody really does. If Shane fights Floyd, there are a lot of elements to it. But Shane, when he goes into the ring, everybody knows he wants to finish the other guy. He wants to take him out. Floyd wants to win but he doesn't necessarily want to finish, because he isn't always able to. I think that's the difference."
In truth, HBO wasn't terribly excited about a March 13 boxing date involving anyone, because of various advertising and marketing factors. Mayweather-Mosley would be in early May. By then Big Bear will be fully thawed. Mayweather, having dodged Pac-Man, might still find himself within the reach of an abominable snowman.
mwhicker@ocregister.com
Source: ocregister.com
Top Rank Donates to Haitian Relief -- FanHouse
By Lem Satterfield, FanHouse
NEW YORK -- Starting with Saturday night's HBO-televised featherweight championship double-header at Madison Square Garden, Top Rank Promoter Bob Arum told FanHouse that "one dollar for every ticket we sell to our boxing matches for the rest of the year will go to Haitian relief, starting with Jan. 23."
On Saturday night at MSG's WaMu Theater, Arum is promoting WBA champ Yuriorkis Gamboa (16-0, 14 knockouts) and southpaw WBO king Steven Luevano (37-1-1, 15 KOs) against Rogers Mtagwa (26-13-2, 18 KOs) and Juan Manuel Lopez (27-0, 24 KOs), respectively, in title bouts.
Luevano is pictured above, at far right, with Lopez on the near left.
The proceeds will come from events that are included in Top Rank Promotions' 36-show "Top Rank Live" series with Fox Sports and Fox Sports en Español, as well as the March 13 defense of his WBO welterweight (147 pounds) belt by seven-division champion Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KOs) against Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KOs).
"Pacquiao and Clottey should have around 60,000 people, so by the end of the year, this is going to mount up to a significant amount of money," said Arum. "All Americans should do their part to help the Haitians in their hour of need. We're doing a little bit ourselves."
Arum also said "we're definitely doing" a fight between WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, eight KOs) and former two-time welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KOs) on June 12 at Madison Square Garden.
Felix Sturm vs. Ricardo Mayora?
Former world champion, Ricardo Mayora (28-7-1, 22 KOs), could be in line for a title shot against Germany's middleweight (160 pounds) champion, Felix Sturm (33-2-1, 14 KOs), "sometime in the middle of this year," said Mayorga's attorney, Tony Gonzalez, adding that the bout could take place in June or July.
"Ricardo has been in Florida, just taking a sabbatical at this point. He's there, and he's going to be back in the gym shortly," said Gonzalez of the 36-year-old Mayorga. "We'll see if he can pull that off, he'll be back in the mix. It will be interesting."
Mayorga dethroned Andrew Lewis for the WBA welterweight (147 pounds) crown by fifth-round knockout in May 2002, then twice defeated the late Vernon Forrest, adding the WBC welterweight title.
Mayorga lost both belts to then-IBF king Cory Spinks by decision in December 2003, then earned the vacant WBC junior middleweight crown via decision over Michele Piccirillo in August 2005 before being dethroned in May 2006 with a fifth-round knockout loss to Oscar De La Hoya.
Mayorga has not been in the ring since September 2008, when he was stopped in the 12th round by Shane Mosley in a junior middleweight bout for the vacant WBA inter-continental belt.
Arvin returns vs. Wolak
Baltimore's 34-year-old Ishmael Arvin (15-1-4, seven KOs) will end a 17-month layoff when he enters the ring for his Madison Square Garden debut on Saturday night opposite Polish-born, 28-year-old Pawel Wolek (25-1, 17 KOs) of Mount Arlington, N.J.
"I feel great. I'm ready to fight. No butterflies yet. I know that they'll probably come, but you can't control that. But I'm ready to fight," said Arvin, who is 1-1-2 in his past four bouts, including a sixth-round knockout of Anthony Thompson in his last fight in August 2008.
"I've known about the fight for two months, and I've probably sparred 80 rounds. I know I've been picked as 'the opponent, but I'm in great shape and I'm ready," said Arvin. "Come on, this is Madison Square Garden, so you know, I feel like Sugar Ray Robinson."
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
NEW YORK -- Starting with Saturday night's HBO-televised featherweight championship double-header at Madison Square Garden, Top Rank Promoter Bob Arum told FanHouse that "one dollar for every ticket we sell to our boxing matches for the rest of the year will go to Haitian relief, starting with Jan. 23."
On Saturday night at MSG's WaMu Theater, Arum is promoting WBA champ Yuriorkis Gamboa (16-0, 14 knockouts) and southpaw WBO king Steven Luevano (37-1-1, 15 KOs) against Rogers Mtagwa (26-13-2, 18 KOs) and Juan Manuel Lopez (27-0, 24 KOs), respectively, in title bouts.
Luevano is pictured above, at far right, with Lopez on the near left.
The proceeds will come from events that are included in Top Rank Promotions' 36-show "Top Rank Live" series with Fox Sports and Fox Sports en Español, as well as the March 13 defense of his WBO welterweight (147 pounds) belt by seven-division champion Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KOs) against Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KOs).
"Pacquiao and Clottey should have around 60,000 people, so by the end of the year, this is going to mount up to a significant amount of money," said Arum. "All Americans should do their part to help the Haitians in their hour of need. We're doing a little bit ourselves."
Arum also said "we're definitely doing" a fight between WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) champion Yuri Foreman (28-0, eight KOs) and former two-time welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2, 27 KOs) on June 12 at Madison Square Garden.
Felix Sturm vs. Ricardo Mayora?
Former world champion, Ricardo Mayora (28-7-1, 22 KOs), could be in line for a title shot against Germany's middleweight (160 pounds) champion, Felix Sturm (33-2-1, 14 KOs), "sometime in the middle of this year," said Mayorga's attorney, Tony Gonzalez, adding that the bout could take place in June or July.
"Ricardo has been in Florida, just taking a sabbatical at this point. He's there, and he's going to be back in the gym shortly," said Gonzalez of the 36-year-old Mayorga. "We'll see if he can pull that off, he'll be back in the mix. It will be interesting."
Mayorga dethroned Andrew Lewis for the WBA welterweight (147 pounds) crown by fifth-round knockout in May 2002, then twice defeated the late Vernon Forrest, adding the WBC welterweight title.
Mayorga lost both belts to then-IBF king Cory Spinks by decision in December 2003, then earned the vacant WBC junior middleweight crown via decision over Michele Piccirillo in August 2005 before being dethroned in May 2006 with a fifth-round knockout loss to Oscar De La Hoya.
Mayorga has not been in the ring since September 2008, when he was stopped in the 12th round by Shane Mosley in a junior middleweight bout for the vacant WBA inter-continental belt.
Arvin returns vs. Wolak
Baltimore's 34-year-old Ishmael Arvin (15-1-4, seven KOs) will end a 17-month layoff when he enters the ring for his Madison Square Garden debut on Saturday night opposite Polish-born, 28-year-old Pawel Wolek (25-1, 17 KOs) of Mount Arlington, N.J.
"I feel great. I'm ready to fight. No butterflies yet. I know that they'll probably come, but you can't control that. But I'm ready to fight," said Arvin, who is 1-1-2 in his past four bouts, including a sixth-round knockout of Anthony Thompson in his last fight in August 2008.
"I've known about the fight for two months, and I've probably sparred 80 rounds. I know I've been picked as 'the opponent, but I'm in great shape and I'm ready," said Arvin. "Come on, this is Madison Square Garden, so you know, I feel like Sugar Ray Robinson."
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
Pacquiao-Mayweather debacle beginning of change in boxing's drug culture? -- The Ring
By Mark Zeigler, The Ring
Usually, when athletes came to Victor Conte and his BALCO empire for help taking performance-enhancing drugs and evading detection, Conte would carefully research their sport’s anti-doping program first -- scrutinize its banned substance list, examine when and where and how often urine or blood samples would be collected, determine which laboratories would test them using what type of equipment -- and devise a detailed plan to beat it.
When boxer Shane Mosley and his handlers approached him in the summer of 2003, Conte didn’t waste his time.
They told him Mosley might be tested the day before the September fight in Las Vegas and immediately after it. That’s all Conte needed to know, all he needed to hear. No reason to sift through pages and pages of drug protocols, or sleuth out the calibration levels of a lab’s high resolution mass spectrometer, or calculate clearance times of detectable substances in case of an unannounced test during pre-fight training.
“That’s announced testing,” the doping guru says. “That’s IQ testing. If that’s all they do, why do I need to find out what’s on the banned list? And I never did bother.
“Boxing’s testing program is beyond a joke. It’s worthless.”
Conte had that thought in the summer of 2003, when he loaded up the 32-year-old Mosley with endurance-boosting erythropoietin (EPO) and a cocktail of other verboten substances for what would be a landmark 12-round decision over Oscar De La Hoya. The difference now is that more and more people are questioning boxing’s commitment to anti-doping as well.
For that, thank the demise of the March 13 superfight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. presumably because the former refused to meet the latter’s demands about pre-fight drug testing. Mayweather wanted regular urine and blood testing in the months, weeks, even days leading up the fight, similar to the anti-doping protocols most Olympic athletes face; Pacquiao agreed to some provisions and refused others. No fight.
So the public doesn’t get the epic clash it has been clamoring for. The sport doesn’t get a much-needed infusion of mainstream attention. The two boxers and their promoters don’t get preposterously rich, and Las Vegas doesn’t get a respite from the recession. But doping and boxing suddenly find themselves in the same sentence and that alone, Conte and others say, may be the greatest legacy of Pacquiao-Mayweather, regardless if they ever meet inside the ropes.
“Whether he meant to or not, Floyd has shown that the process is tainted and it’s going to be hard to overlook now,” says Margaret Goodman, the former chief ringside physician for Nevada and an outspoken critic of the sport’s anti-doping policies. “You just can’t ignore it any longer. There just is no rationale.”
Adds Conte: “I see this potentially as an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of drug testing. And here’s why I think this is so important for boxing and MMA: When you increase speed and power, you’re also increasing potential damage to the opponent. Crushing a baseball is one thing. Crushing a guy’s brain is another.”
* * *
Keith Kizer is the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which oversees professional boxing, Mixed Martial Arts and other forms of “unarmed combat” in the state. He is talking about the commission’s drug testing program.
“You have to be vigilant,” Kizer says. “And I think we are.”
Are they?
It depends on your perspective, depends where in the realm of relativity you sit. Pro boxing has no national or international governing body that mandates drug testing, leaving it to individual states in this country. And compared to most states, Nevada indeed is vigilant.
Texas , for instance. Instead of Mayweather in Las Vegas , Pacquiao will fight March 13 against Joshua Clottey at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium outside Dallas . The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation will oversee it.
Its anti-doping program?
Essentially there isn’t one. The state has the authority to demand urine testing for certain performance-enhancing substances “with probable cause,” according to TDLR spokesperson Susan Stanford. Without probable cause to suspect Pacquiao or Clottey are juiced up (neither has failed a past drug test), no drug testing is required to license the fight.
Nevada has upgraded its drug testing program several times over the past decade, ramping up its stimulant testing, then adopting the World Anti-Doping Agency banned substance list, then adding in 2008 the ability to demand random, out-of-competition urine tests at the commission’s discretion for any boxers licensed by the state.
Sounds good, until you consider:
• Under Nevada ’s program, you get 48 hours’ notice to report to the closest accredited lab for a random test, plenty of time for many banned substances to clear your urine. “That’s random testing?” Goodman asks. “That’s random announced testing. They might as well shoot up a flare to tell them a test is coming.”
• In many labs, no one is following you into the bathroom and making sure the urine sample is indeed yours (as doping control officers do in Olympic-style testing), or closely checking identification so someone who looks like you isn’t showing up, or running DNA tests on the urine to rule out imposters.
• Even if the sample is yours, Nevada doesn’t routinely test for erythropoietin (EPO) and several other potent substances that can be detected in urine using more sophisticated, more expensive, more time consuming methods.
• While the Nevada commissioners can demand blood testing, which can find human growth hormone or identify endurance-boosting blood doping not detectable in urine, Kizer concedes they never have.
• While Nevada has the authority to target-test prior offenders or suspicious athletes based on “cause,” it rarely does. Otherwise, Mosley would be subjected to numerous unannounced, out-of-competition tests based on his admission under oath to using EPO and other illicit substances before the De La Hoya fight. “And if you’re not going to do it on him,” Goodman says, “then who are you doing it on?”
• Nevada doesn’t keep a log of previous urine and blood test results to track the longitudinal chemical profiles of athletes, in case certain markers indicative of performance-enhancing drug use appear.
How easy is it to beat a testing program like Nevada’s?
“As simple as walking across the street,” says Travis Tygart. “It’s good for PR, to give the appearance that you’re testing, but nothing more.”
Who is Tygart ?
He is the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which handles drug testing for Olympic athletes in this country using regulations created by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He’s also the person whom members of the Mayweather camp contacted during negotiations for the Pacquiao fight to learn about the so-called “gold standard” of performance-enhancing drug vigilance.
“It’s a fundamentally different approach,” Tygart says when asked to compare his agency’s program to others in U.S. professional sports. “The WADA approach is to use best practices and policies and procedures to truly protect the rights of clean athletes. Other programs are simply there for PR purposes. … Anybody with a heartbeat can find ways around them.”
Pacquiao initially agreed to three blood tests in the run-up to a March 13 fight -- once at the introductory news conference in January, again 30 days out and in the locker room immediately after the fight. The Mayweather camp shook its head. The next proposal was 24 days out. Another no.
USADA would never agree to such provisions because it amounts to announced testing and because of the wide variety of banned substances an athlete could take in the period between tests. If it is administering the drug program, it chooses when and where to test, and how often. There is no fudge factor. No compromise. No preferential treatment for boxers who stand to make $40 million each from a single fight.
Under USADA rules, athletes must file quarterly calendars of where they’ll be and when, making themselves available for urine and blood testing between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., seven days a week, 365 days a year, anywhere on the planet. Suspicious athletes or past offenders regularly are target tested, sometimes two, three, four days in a row. The urine and blood results are recorded over the years to create a biological profile, so even the slightest change will hoist a red flag.
A comprehensive program, yes. Impervious? Hardly.
Athletes can miss two tests every 12 months without repercussion. Sprinter Marion Jones passed an estimated 160 drug tests in her career before admitting she took steroids. Conte’s stable of BALCO athletes were caught only after USADA obtained a used syringe containing “the clear’’ -- an previously undetectable designer steroid -- and reverse-engineered a test for it.
There are other problems. The blood test for human growth hormone has been around since 2004, and an athlete has yet to be caught with it, perhaps because it can detect HGH going back only two days, if that. There still is no known test for autologous blood doping, where an athlete removes his own blood, stores it and re-infuses it to boost endurance by increasing his levels of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Even the urine test for EPO, Conte insists, goes back only 19 hours if the drug is administered intravenously. And who knows what new-fangled designer steroids are out there.
“You could test every athlete every day, and even then you might miss something,” Kizer says. “You do what you can.”
* * *
The big question is: Can they do more? Should they?
The true extent of doping in boxing is unknown, certainly. No one is checking off a box on a survey saying they regularly ‘roid up before fights. But the anecdotal evidence is growing, and doping experts say substances like anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and EPO have a bigger impact on boxing than most sports because of their recuperative benefits during heavy training and because of their strength and endurance boost during the actual fight.
There’s also the argument that if doping is so prevalent in pro sports such as baseball and football, why wouldn’t elite boxers be using them as well with so much at stake?
"I looked around and, from what I saw, everybody was doing the same (stuff),” heavyweight Tommy Morrison, an admitted steroid user, said in 2005. “It wasn’t something that was talked about openly. But when you looked around, you could tell.”
Kizer isn’t convinced his program needs radical overhaul to catch the drug cheats.
“I’ve still never had a drug testing expert come to this commission and say, ‘You’re behind the curve, you need to be blood testing, you need to be EPO testing,’” he says. “Mr. Mayweather has every right to demand it. But that’s a private negotiation and not something we’re involved in.”
It is that very demand which is so encouraging to people like USADA’s Tygart , less for its subject than its origin.
“What’s most important here is you have athletes who say we want this,” Tygart says. “We’ve long encouraged athletes to take ownership of their sport. It’s too easy for those who are running a sport and profiting from it to just want to have the best athletes on the field or in the ring, even if they’re all doped up. That shows real progress from the athlete standpoint, that they’re aware of these issues. Hopefully that momentum continues.
“That’s what ultimately happened in the Olympic movement. The athletes brought change. The athletes have to want clean sport. They have to say, ‘We’re not going to fight big fights if there isn’t drug testing in them.’ You don’t want to hijack big fights, but it might take a couple big fights that don’t happen.”
It’s not that easy, of course. If Nevada suddenly instituted USADA-style testing, promoters might take lucrative fights to places with less stringent anti-doping regimens. Nevada also runs into jurisdictional issues by sending someone across state borders in search of a boxer to urinate in a cup. And who’s paying for it? Currently, the Nevada commission foots the bill, which might explain why it isn’t routinely subjecting urine samples to the $400 EPO test.
“Nobody wants this,” Goodman says. “Can you imagine if both fighters agree to testing before the fight, which is what you should do if you want to do it right, and someone came up positive and you’d have to cancel the fight? Can you imagine? Everyone is worried about the money aspect and not the safety aspect.”
Conte is hopeful, just not overly optimistic. Call him cynical, but understand he once had a window into the dark side of doping. He knows how effective these drugs are, how rampant they are, how easy they are to use without fear of detection.
“Here’s the real question: Do they want to know?” Conte says. “Do they really want to know what people are using -- how much and how often and by whom? That’s the question for boxing.”
His answer?
“I’m not sure they do.”
Mark Zeigler is a staff writer at the San Diego Union-Tribune
Source: ringtv.com
Usually, when athletes came to Victor Conte and his BALCO empire for help taking performance-enhancing drugs and evading detection, Conte would carefully research their sport’s anti-doping program first -- scrutinize its banned substance list, examine when and where and how often urine or blood samples would be collected, determine which laboratories would test them using what type of equipment -- and devise a detailed plan to beat it.
When boxer Shane Mosley and his handlers approached him in the summer of 2003, Conte didn’t waste his time.
They told him Mosley might be tested the day before the September fight in Las Vegas and immediately after it. That’s all Conte needed to know, all he needed to hear. No reason to sift through pages and pages of drug protocols, or sleuth out the calibration levels of a lab’s high resolution mass spectrometer, or calculate clearance times of detectable substances in case of an unannounced test during pre-fight training.
“That’s announced testing,” the doping guru says. “That’s IQ testing. If that’s all they do, why do I need to find out what’s on the banned list? And I never did bother.
“Boxing’s testing program is beyond a joke. It’s worthless.”
Conte had that thought in the summer of 2003, when he loaded up the 32-year-old Mosley with endurance-boosting erythropoietin (EPO) and a cocktail of other verboten substances for what would be a landmark 12-round decision over Oscar De La Hoya. The difference now is that more and more people are questioning boxing’s commitment to anti-doping as well.
For that, thank the demise of the March 13 superfight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. presumably because the former refused to meet the latter’s demands about pre-fight drug testing. Mayweather wanted regular urine and blood testing in the months, weeks, even days leading up the fight, similar to the anti-doping protocols most Olympic athletes face; Pacquiao agreed to some provisions and refused others. No fight.
So the public doesn’t get the epic clash it has been clamoring for. The sport doesn’t get a much-needed infusion of mainstream attention. The two boxers and their promoters don’t get preposterously rich, and Las Vegas doesn’t get a respite from the recession. But doping and boxing suddenly find themselves in the same sentence and that alone, Conte and others say, may be the greatest legacy of Pacquiao-Mayweather, regardless if they ever meet inside the ropes.
“Whether he meant to or not, Floyd has shown that the process is tainted and it’s going to be hard to overlook now,” says Margaret Goodman, the former chief ringside physician for Nevada and an outspoken critic of the sport’s anti-doping policies. “You just can’t ignore it any longer. There just is no rationale.”
Adds Conte: “I see this potentially as an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of drug testing. And here’s why I think this is so important for boxing and MMA: When you increase speed and power, you’re also increasing potential damage to the opponent. Crushing a baseball is one thing. Crushing a guy’s brain is another.”
* * *
Keith Kizer is the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which oversees professional boxing, Mixed Martial Arts and other forms of “unarmed combat” in the state. He is talking about the commission’s drug testing program.
“You have to be vigilant,” Kizer says. “And I think we are.”
Are they?
It depends on your perspective, depends where in the realm of relativity you sit. Pro boxing has no national or international governing body that mandates drug testing, leaving it to individual states in this country. And compared to most states, Nevada indeed is vigilant.
Texas , for instance. Instead of Mayweather in Las Vegas , Pacquiao will fight March 13 against Joshua Clottey at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium outside Dallas . The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation will oversee it.
Its anti-doping program?
Essentially there isn’t one. The state has the authority to demand urine testing for certain performance-enhancing substances “with probable cause,” according to TDLR spokesperson Susan Stanford. Without probable cause to suspect Pacquiao or Clottey are juiced up (neither has failed a past drug test), no drug testing is required to license the fight.
Nevada has upgraded its drug testing program several times over the past decade, ramping up its stimulant testing, then adopting the World Anti-Doping Agency banned substance list, then adding in 2008 the ability to demand random, out-of-competition urine tests at the commission’s discretion for any boxers licensed by the state.
Sounds good, until you consider:
• Under Nevada ’s program, you get 48 hours’ notice to report to the closest accredited lab for a random test, plenty of time for many banned substances to clear your urine. “That’s random testing?” Goodman asks. “That’s random announced testing. They might as well shoot up a flare to tell them a test is coming.”
• In many labs, no one is following you into the bathroom and making sure the urine sample is indeed yours (as doping control officers do in Olympic-style testing), or closely checking identification so someone who looks like you isn’t showing up, or running DNA tests on the urine to rule out imposters.
• Even if the sample is yours, Nevada doesn’t routinely test for erythropoietin (EPO) and several other potent substances that can be detected in urine using more sophisticated, more expensive, more time consuming methods.
• While the Nevada commissioners can demand blood testing, which can find human growth hormone or identify endurance-boosting blood doping not detectable in urine, Kizer concedes they never have.
• While Nevada has the authority to target-test prior offenders or suspicious athletes based on “cause,” it rarely does. Otherwise, Mosley would be subjected to numerous unannounced, out-of-competition tests based on his admission under oath to using EPO and other illicit substances before the De La Hoya fight. “And if you’re not going to do it on him,” Goodman says, “then who are you doing it on?”
• Nevada doesn’t keep a log of previous urine and blood test results to track the longitudinal chemical profiles of athletes, in case certain markers indicative of performance-enhancing drug use appear.
How easy is it to beat a testing program like Nevada’s?
“As simple as walking across the street,” says Travis Tygart. “It’s good for PR, to give the appearance that you’re testing, but nothing more.”
Who is Tygart ?
He is the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which handles drug testing for Olympic athletes in this country using regulations created by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He’s also the person whom members of the Mayweather camp contacted during negotiations for the Pacquiao fight to learn about the so-called “gold standard” of performance-enhancing drug vigilance.
“It’s a fundamentally different approach,” Tygart says when asked to compare his agency’s program to others in U.S. professional sports. “The WADA approach is to use best practices and policies and procedures to truly protect the rights of clean athletes. Other programs are simply there for PR purposes. … Anybody with a heartbeat can find ways around them.”
Pacquiao initially agreed to three blood tests in the run-up to a March 13 fight -- once at the introductory news conference in January, again 30 days out and in the locker room immediately after the fight. The Mayweather camp shook its head. The next proposal was 24 days out. Another no.
USADA would never agree to such provisions because it amounts to announced testing and because of the wide variety of banned substances an athlete could take in the period between tests. If it is administering the drug program, it chooses when and where to test, and how often. There is no fudge factor. No compromise. No preferential treatment for boxers who stand to make $40 million each from a single fight.
Under USADA rules, athletes must file quarterly calendars of where they’ll be and when, making themselves available for urine and blood testing between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., seven days a week, 365 days a year, anywhere on the planet. Suspicious athletes or past offenders regularly are target tested, sometimes two, three, four days in a row. The urine and blood results are recorded over the years to create a biological profile, so even the slightest change will hoist a red flag.
A comprehensive program, yes. Impervious? Hardly.
Athletes can miss two tests every 12 months without repercussion. Sprinter Marion Jones passed an estimated 160 drug tests in her career before admitting she took steroids. Conte’s stable of BALCO athletes were caught only after USADA obtained a used syringe containing “the clear’’ -- an previously undetectable designer steroid -- and reverse-engineered a test for it.
There are other problems. The blood test for human growth hormone has been around since 2004, and an athlete has yet to be caught with it, perhaps because it can detect HGH going back only two days, if that. There still is no known test for autologous blood doping, where an athlete removes his own blood, stores it and re-infuses it to boost endurance by increasing his levels of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Even the urine test for EPO, Conte insists, goes back only 19 hours if the drug is administered intravenously. And who knows what new-fangled designer steroids are out there.
“You could test every athlete every day, and even then you might miss something,” Kizer says. “You do what you can.”
* * *
The big question is: Can they do more? Should they?
The true extent of doping in boxing is unknown, certainly. No one is checking off a box on a survey saying they regularly ‘roid up before fights. But the anecdotal evidence is growing, and doping experts say substances like anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and EPO have a bigger impact on boxing than most sports because of their recuperative benefits during heavy training and because of their strength and endurance boost during the actual fight.
There’s also the argument that if doping is so prevalent in pro sports such as baseball and football, why wouldn’t elite boxers be using them as well with so much at stake?
"I looked around and, from what I saw, everybody was doing the same (stuff),” heavyweight Tommy Morrison, an admitted steroid user, said in 2005. “It wasn’t something that was talked about openly. But when you looked around, you could tell.”
Kizer isn’t convinced his program needs radical overhaul to catch the drug cheats.
“I’ve still never had a drug testing expert come to this commission and say, ‘You’re behind the curve, you need to be blood testing, you need to be EPO testing,’” he says. “Mr. Mayweather has every right to demand it. But that’s a private negotiation and not something we’re involved in.”
It is that very demand which is so encouraging to people like USADA’s Tygart , less for its subject than its origin.
“What’s most important here is you have athletes who say we want this,” Tygart says. “We’ve long encouraged athletes to take ownership of their sport. It’s too easy for those who are running a sport and profiting from it to just want to have the best athletes on the field or in the ring, even if they’re all doped up. That shows real progress from the athlete standpoint, that they’re aware of these issues. Hopefully that momentum continues.
“That’s what ultimately happened in the Olympic movement. The athletes brought change. The athletes have to want clean sport. They have to say, ‘We’re not going to fight big fights if there isn’t drug testing in them.’ You don’t want to hijack big fights, but it might take a couple big fights that don’t happen.”
It’s not that easy, of course. If Nevada suddenly instituted USADA-style testing, promoters might take lucrative fights to places with less stringent anti-doping regimens. Nevada also runs into jurisdictional issues by sending someone across state borders in search of a boxer to urinate in a cup. And who’s paying for it? Currently, the Nevada commission foots the bill, which might explain why it isn’t routinely subjecting urine samples to the $400 EPO test.
“Nobody wants this,” Goodman says. “Can you imagine if both fighters agree to testing before the fight, which is what you should do if you want to do it right, and someone came up positive and you’d have to cancel the fight? Can you imagine? Everyone is worried about the money aspect and not the safety aspect.”
Conte is hopeful, just not overly optimistic. Call him cynical, but understand he once had a window into the dark side of doping. He knows how effective these drugs are, how rampant they are, how easy they are to use without fear of detection.
“Here’s the real question: Do they want to know?” Conte says. “Do they really want to know what people are using -- how much and how often and by whom? That’s the question for boxing.”
His answer?
“I’m not sure they do.”
Mark Zeigler is a staff writer at the San Diego Union-Tribune
Source: ringtv.com
Antonio Margarito seeks Texas license, has Pacquiao in sights [Updated] -- Los Angeles Times
By Lance Pugmire, Los Angeles Times
Antonio Margarito, the former world welterweight champion under discipline for nearly taking gloves loaded with plaster-hardened inserts into the ring last year against Shane Mosley, will seek a boxing license in Texas next month and plans to fight on the undercard to Manny Pacquiao's March 13 fight at Dallas Cowboys Stadium, Margarito's promoter said.
Promoter Bob Arum said Margarito is free to regain his license after his current California disciplinary period ends Feb. 11, and he's scheduled to fight Carson Jones in a junior-middleweight fight.
"If he looks good on the Texas card, a major match at the same stadium later would be Pacquiao-Margarito," Arum said. Pacquiao will fight Joshua Clottey in a welterweight bout expected to attract 40,000.
Arum said "we've received no assurances from Texas, but we hope there's no reason to deny [Margarito] the license."
Karen Chappelle, the supervising deputy attorney general in California who argued to have the license of Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo, revoked last year, said she "wouldn't recommend that the [California] commission" attempt to block Margarito's license. "Texas might consult California, but they'll apply their own standards ... consider their own criteria."
[Updated at 1:45 p.m. A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Licensing said the agency will "review his application" when it's received "and handle it under all applicable laws and regulations." It's unknown at this point if a special hearing will be required to allow Margarito to return to the ring, said public information officer Susan Stanford.]
Margarito entered the Mosley fight on the heels of an impressive beating over the previously unbeaten welterweight champion Miguel Cotto. The Cotto team has said there's "overwhelming" evidence to believe Margarito had loaded gloves in that fight too.
At the California commission hearing last year, Margarito explained that he was unaware of any deceptive practices before he was to step into the Staples Center ring against Mosley. Mosley trainer Nazim Richardson first noticed the hardened material in Margarito's hand wraps, and a California inspector confiscated the inserts from both hands.
Capetillo urged California not to punish "the kid" for the trainer "accidentally" allowing discarded inserts used on the heavy bag at his San Gabriel Valley gym to end up atop Margarito's knuckles. The commission ruled Margarito sholuld've known what was inside his hand wraps.
"He'll have to sever ties with Capetillo," said Arum, something Margarito's manager said the boxer already did last year. "[Margarito] said he didn't know anything about it. I'm sure you press guys will keep asking him about it. Ask him whatever you want, it's a free country."
A possible replacement trainer is San Diego's Abel Sanchez, Arum said.
For now, Margarito is doing light training in Tijuana, Arum said, and he'll increase his regimen should Texas allow him to return to the ring.
Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com
Antonio Margarito, the former world welterweight champion under discipline for nearly taking gloves loaded with plaster-hardened inserts into the ring last year against Shane Mosley, will seek a boxing license in Texas next month and plans to fight on the undercard to Manny Pacquiao's March 13 fight at Dallas Cowboys Stadium, Margarito's promoter said.
Promoter Bob Arum said Margarito is free to regain his license after his current California disciplinary period ends Feb. 11, and he's scheduled to fight Carson Jones in a junior-middleweight fight.
"If he looks good on the Texas card, a major match at the same stadium later would be Pacquiao-Margarito," Arum said. Pacquiao will fight Joshua Clottey in a welterweight bout expected to attract 40,000.
Arum said "we've received no assurances from Texas, but we hope there's no reason to deny [Margarito] the license."
Karen Chappelle, the supervising deputy attorney general in California who argued to have the license of Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo, revoked last year, said she "wouldn't recommend that the [California] commission" attempt to block Margarito's license. "Texas might consult California, but they'll apply their own standards ... consider their own criteria."
[Updated at 1:45 p.m. A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Licensing said the agency will "review his application" when it's received "and handle it under all applicable laws and regulations." It's unknown at this point if a special hearing will be required to allow Margarito to return to the ring, said public information officer Susan Stanford.]
Margarito entered the Mosley fight on the heels of an impressive beating over the previously unbeaten welterweight champion Miguel Cotto. The Cotto team has said there's "overwhelming" evidence to believe Margarito had loaded gloves in that fight too.
At the California commission hearing last year, Margarito explained that he was unaware of any deceptive practices before he was to step into the Staples Center ring against Mosley. Mosley trainer Nazim Richardson first noticed the hardened material in Margarito's hand wraps, and a California inspector confiscated the inserts from both hands.
Capetillo urged California not to punish "the kid" for the trainer "accidentally" allowing discarded inserts used on the heavy bag at his San Gabriel Valley gym to end up atop Margarito's knuckles. The commission ruled Margarito sholuld've known what was inside his hand wraps.
"He'll have to sever ties with Capetillo," said Arum, something Margarito's manager said the boxer already did last year. "[Margarito] said he didn't know anything about it. I'm sure you press guys will keep asking him about it. Ask him whatever you want, it's a free country."
A possible replacement trainer is San Diego's Abel Sanchez, Arum said.
For now, Margarito is doing light training in Tijuana, Arum said, and he'll increase his regimen should Texas allow him to return to the ring.
Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com
There's No Sudden Infusion Of Power Or Punch Resistance In Pacquiao -- The Sweet Science
By Frank Lotierzo, The Sweet Science
With former Oakland Athletics/St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire recently admitting he used PEDs during the 1998 MLB season in which he hit a record setting 70 home-runs, steroids and HGH have dominated sports pages and the Internet. Three years after McGwire hit 70 home-runs San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds broke his record and hit 73 home-runs, a record that still stands in 2010. Bonds has never admitted to taking PED's - but due to his body seemingly transforming from Matthew Saad Muhammad to Mike Weaver overnight, Bond's has been under the suspicion that he like McGwire was aided by HGH/PEDs.
The year before Bonds hit 73 home-runs he hit 49, then hit 46, 45 and 45 in the three subsequent years after hitting 73. Obviously something good happened to Bonds in 2001. Which is sort of what Floyd Mayweather Jr. has insinuated with his accusations that Manny Pacquiao is boxings' version of Barry Bonds. However, if you believe Pacquiao has been aided by PEDs, his performances circa 2004-09 don't bear that out.
The Mayweather faction insinuates that Pacquiao's durability/punch-resistance and punching power have been magnified due to his use of some form of steroids or PEDs. The problem is the evidence pointing to him taking an illegal substance is devoid when placing his record under the microscope.
The thought that any form of HGH/PED gives a fighter more punch resistance is only believed by those who've never been exposed to fighters in the gym and associated with them during their day to day lives. Some reading this will know exactly what I'm talking about and others will make their determination based moreso on what they want to believe or what fits their agenda. I know it's a touchy subject and the so-called experts and sports medicine scholars differ on PEDs depending on who you talk to. I'm coming from an actuality vantage-point.
Maybe steroids help athletes in other sports but there's not one known case where a professional fighter benefited by taking them, especially a non-heavyweight. I know fighters who I will never name that experimented with many different types of supplements and steroids looking to gain an edge in the ring. In most cases they were hoping to gain some power. And every one of them regressed as a fighter. If they gained anything it was mental - but even at that they lost something else as a result of it.
Pacquiao's chin and ability to take a punch:
Pacquiao was stopped early in his career by Rustico Torrecampo in the third round in 1996, when he was 17 years old and still not even a young man. Three years after that he was stopped for the second and last time in the third round by Medgoen Singsurat and lost his flyweight title. Five months later in his next fight he weighed in at 122, ten pounds more than he did for Singsurat. So it's not a reach to believe that he was weakened by making the flyweight limit as a 20 year old. Forget about Pacquiao's chin being suspect and aided by some type of PED/HGH. He's filled out and matured over the last 10 years since Singsurat and his chin has never betrayed him or been an issue of concern.
In March of 1963 Henry Cooper would've knocked out the just turned 21 year old Cassius Clay had his left-hook landed early in the fourth round instead of right at the bell ending it. What would've happened if Joe Frazier's massive left hook from his first fight with Ali in 1971 hit the young Clay of 1963? Clay would've gone to sleep and had been counted out! Only Clay filled out and matured physically in between 1963-71. And no one has ever questioned Ali's chin or accused him of injecting steroids at any point during his 20 plus year career.
Bottom line is Pacquiao's chin and punch resistance get the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
Pacquiao's Power:
In regards to Manny Pacquiao's punching power, if it's been aided by any type of supplements or HGH, perhaps he may want to find a new supplier and get his money back. Sure Pacquiao can really hit, but it's not like he's on the level of a Thomas Hearns, Julian Jackson, Alexis Arguello or even Michael Spinks, who not only scored more one-punch knockouts than Manny, but did so with both hands. Pacman's finishing punch is his left-cross exclusively.
In 2004 fighting as a featherweight he had Juan Manuel Marquez down three times in under two minutes and couldn't keep him down. Ten months later fighting as a super-featherweight/junior lightweight he hit Erik Morales for 12-rounds and didn't stop him and lost the fight. When they fought a rematch 10 months later at the same weight he had to work him over for 10-rounds before the fight was stopped. They met in a rubber match again ten months later and Pacquiao stopped a washed up Morales in three rounds, but it wasn't a one punch blitz and it still required him to hit Morales countless times before the fight was halted.
In April of 2007 Jorge Solis made it to the eighth round before he was stopped. Six months later a glove shy Marco Antonio Barrera went the distance with Pacquiao after making it to the 11th round with him the first time they met. In Pacquiao's next fight Marquez went the distance with Pacquiao again - and despite being down once went on to lose a controversial decision.
In his next bout Pacquiao fought lightweight David Diaz and stopped him in the ninth round, which is one more round than it took Kendall Holt to do it. Six months later Pacquiao met a drained 145 pound corpse named Oscar De La Hoya. Finally after giving Oscar a ceaseless pummeling for eight rounds and hitting him at will but never staggering or putting him down, De La Hoya didn't come out for the ninth round.
Pacquio's upset of De La Hoya set up his next fight against Ricky Hatton who was viewed as perhaps the top junior welterweight in boxing at the time. Pacquiao's speed and unorthodox angles made Hatton a sitting duck for Manny's right hook. Pacquiao dropped Hatton twice in the first round and in the second round Pacquiao put Hatton away for good with one massive hybrid left to the chin.
Six months later Pacquiao had target practice on 145 pound welterweight Miguel Cotto for the better part of 12-rounds. Despite having Cotto down twice early in the fight, Miguel took the Pacman's Sunday best but never went down again. Finally in the 12th-round, in which the determined Cotto probably would've finished the fight on his feet, the fight was stopped.
Hatton and Cotto both suffered devastating knockouts before fighting Pacquiao at the hands of Mayweather and Margarito. So it's not a reach to assume both Ricky and Miguel had a little taken out of them before facing Manny. And the reality is Hatton is Pacquiao's only one punch knockout victim in a big fight.
Like Pacquiao, everyone talks about Rocky Marciano's one-punch knockout power. But the reality is Jersey Joe Walcott was the only big time heavyweight Rocky iced with one punch. The other stoppage wins he scored as champ came from an accumulation of punches. Maybe it's a fair question to ask whether or not Pacquiao and Marciano were truly one punch life-takers like a Thomas Hearns or Max Baer?
After viewing Pacquiao's record against elite opposition, Ricky Hatton is the only upper-tier fighter that he's stretched with one punch. Not to mention Hatton is a face first attacker who was coming in and got caught as flush and clean on the chin as you'll ever see one fighter catch another.
It also can be said that Floyd Mayweather--certainly not known for being a big puncher, and it may have taken him longer but-- Floyd did knock Hatton loopy with a single left-hook. An overwhelming majority of Pacquiao's knockouts have come as a result of his fast hands that land from undetectable angles coupled with his accuracy. Pacquiao is now an excellent two handed puncher - but not a life-taker who ices his opponents with a single blow.
A lot of fighters try to shrink themselves down to the lowest weight they can in order to maintain their strength and power. They fear they'll leave their punch down in the lower division and often times that's been the case when they move up. But sometimes getting down so low weakens their body and they'd be better off moving up to the next division to where their body isn't drained. In the case of Pacquiao - it's looks as if his body has benefited due to him not cutting so much weight along with him becoming a more well rounded fighter and two handed puncher.
I'd also suggest going back and looking at what Pacquiao weighed in at for his fights with Barrera and Morales, and then see how much heavier he was on the night of the fight. He entered the ring as a welterweight a day after making the junior lightweight limit. It's very plausible he was draining himself to make weight moreso than it is that he's on HGH or any type of steroid or PED.
Pacquiao's Stamina:
Pacquiao has always been a high volume puncher who fought at an extremely fast pace. He's never looked tired or as if he was hanging on because he was tiring down the stretch of his title fights going back to his tenure as a featherweight. And no one questioned his stamina or suggested he was being aided by any form of HGH/PED back then. At this time it's quite a reach to suggest his terrific stamina and energy are the result of anything other than his incredible work in the gym during his preparation for his bouts. His stamina has always key asset and weapon for him.
If Manny Pacquiao is injecting or swallowing anything illegal, I don't see the evidence where its aided his power and/or chin in an unnatural way nor his stamina. It's just not there!
Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com
Source: thesweetscience.com
With former Oakland Athletics/St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire recently admitting he used PEDs during the 1998 MLB season in which he hit a record setting 70 home-runs, steroids and HGH have dominated sports pages and the Internet. Three years after McGwire hit 70 home-runs San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds broke his record and hit 73 home-runs, a record that still stands in 2010. Bonds has never admitted to taking PED's - but due to his body seemingly transforming from Matthew Saad Muhammad to Mike Weaver overnight, Bond's has been under the suspicion that he like McGwire was aided by HGH/PEDs.
The year before Bonds hit 73 home-runs he hit 49, then hit 46, 45 and 45 in the three subsequent years after hitting 73. Obviously something good happened to Bonds in 2001. Which is sort of what Floyd Mayweather Jr. has insinuated with his accusations that Manny Pacquiao is boxings' version of Barry Bonds. However, if you believe Pacquiao has been aided by PEDs, his performances circa 2004-09 don't bear that out.
The Mayweather faction insinuates that Pacquiao's durability/punch-resistance and punching power have been magnified due to his use of some form of steroids or PEDs. The problem is the evidence pointing to him taking an illegal substance is devoid when placing his record under the microscope.
The thought that any form of HGH/PED gives a fighter more punch resistance is only believed by those who've never been exposed to fighters in the gym and associated with them during their day to day lives. Some reading this will know exactly what I'm talking about and others will make their determination based moreso on what they want to believe or what fits their agenda. I know it's a touchy subject and the so-called experts and sports medicine scholars differ on PEDs depending on who you talk to. I'm coming from an actuality vantage-point.
Maybe steroids help athletes in other sports but there's not one known case where a professional fighter benefited by taking them, especially a non-heavyweight. I know fighters who I will never name that experimented with many different types of supplements and steroids looking to gain an edge in the ring. In most cases they were hoping to gain some power. And every one of them regressed as a fighter. If they gained anything it was mental - but even at that they lost something else as a result of it.
Pacquiao's chin and ability to take a punch:
Pacquiao was stopped early in his career by Rustico Torrecampo in the third round in 1996, when he was 17 years old and still not even a young man. Three years after that he was stopped for the second and last time in the third round by Medgoen Singsurat and lost his flyweight title. Five months later in his next fight he weighed in at 122, ten pounds more than he did for Singsurat. So it's not a reach to believe that he was weakened by making the flyweight limit as a 20 year old. Forget about Pacquiao's chin being suspect and aided by some type of PED/HGH. He's filled out and matured over the last 10 years since Singsurat and his chin has never betrayed him or been an issue of concern.
In March of 1963 Henry Cooper would've knocked out the just turned 21 year old Cassius Clay had his left-hook landed early in the fourth round instead of right at the bell ending it. What would've happened if Joe Frazier's massive left hook from his first fight with Ali in 1971 hit the young Clay of 1963? Clay would've gone to sleep and had been counted out! Only Clay filled out and matured physically in between 1963-71. And no one has ever questioned Ali's chin or accused him of injecting steroids at any point during his 20 plus year career.
Bottom line is Pacquiao's chin and punch resistance get the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
Pacquiao's Power:
In regards to Manny Pacquiao's punching power, if it's been aided by any type of supplements or HGH, perhaps he may want to find a new supplier and get his money back. Sure Pacquiao can really hit, but it's not like he's on the level of a Thomas Hearns, Julian Jackson, Alexis Arguello or even Michael Spinks, who not only scored more one-punch knockouts than Manny, but did so with both hands. Pacman's finishing punch is his left-cross exclusively.
In 2004 fighting as a featherweight he had Juan Manuel Marquez down three times in under two minutes and couldn't keep him down. Ten months later fighting as a super-featherweight/junior lightweight he hit Erik Morales for 12-rounds and didn't stop him and lost the fight. When they fought a rematch 10 months later at the same weight he had to work him over for 10-rounds before the fight was stopped. They met in a rubber match again ten months later and Pacquiao stopped a washed up Morales in three rounds, but it wasn't a one punch blitz and it still required him to hit Morales countless times before the fight was halted.
In April of 2007 Jorge Solis made it to the eighth round before he was stopped. Six months later a glove shy Marco Antonio Barrera went the distance with Pacquiao after making it to the 11th round with him the first time they met. In Pacquiao's next fight Marquez went the distance with Pacquiao again - and despite being down once went on to lose a controversial decision.
In his next bout Pacquiao fought lightweight David Diaz and stopped him in the ninth round, which is one more round than it took Kendall Holt to do it. Six months later Pacquiao met a drained 145 pound corpse named Oscar De La Hoya. Finally after giving Oscar a ceaseless pummeling for eight rounds and hitting him at will but never staggering or putting him down, De La Hoya didn't come out for the ninth round.
Pacquio's upset of De La Hoya set up his next fight against Ricky Hatton who was viewed as perhaps the top junior welterweight in boxing at the time. Pacquiao's speed and unorthodox angles made Hatton a sitting duck for Manny's right hook. Pacquiao dropped Hatton twice in the first round and in the second round Pacquiao put Hatton away for good with one massive hybrid left to the chin.
Six months later Pacquiao had target practice on 145 pound welterweight Miguel Cotto for the better part of 12-rounds. Despite having Cotto down twice early in the fight, Miguel took the Pacman's Sunday best but never went down again. Finally in the 12th-round, in which the determined Cotto probably would've finished the fight on his feet, the fight was stopped.
Hatton and Cotto both suffered devastating knockouts before fighting Pacquiao at the hands of Mayweather and Margarito. So it's not a reach to assume both Ricky and Miguel had a little taken out of them before facing Manny. And the reality is Hatton is Pacquiao's only one punch knockout victim in a big fight.
Like Pacquiao, everyone talks about Rocky Marciano's one-punch knockout power. But the reality is Jersey Joe Walcott was the only big time heavyweight Rocky iced with one punch. The other stoppage wins he scored as champ came from an accumulation of punches. Maybe it's a fair question to ask whether or not Pacquiao and Marciano were truly one punch life-takers like a Thomas Hearns or Max Baer?
After viewing Pacquiao's record against elite opposition, Ricky Hatton is the only upper-tier fighter that he's stretched with one punch. Not to mention Hatton is a face first attacker who was coming in and got caught as flush and clean on the chin as you'll ever see one fighter catch another.
It also can be said that Floyd Mayweather--certainly not known for being a big puncher, and it may have taken him longer but-- Floyd did knock Hatton loopy with a single left-hook. An overwhelming majority of Pacquiao's knockouts have come as a result of his fast hands that land from undetectable angles coupled with his accuracy. Pacquiao is now an excellent two handed puncher - but not a life-taker who ices his opponents with a single blow.
A lot of fighters try to shrink themselves down to the lowest weight they can in order to maintain their strength and power. They fear they'll leave their punch down in the lower division and often times that's been the case when they move up. But sometimes getting down so low weakens their body and they'd be better off moving up to the next division to where their body isn't drained. In the case of Pacquiao - it's looks as if his body has benefited due to him not cutting so much weight along with him becoming a more well rounded fighter and two handed puncher.
I'd also suggest going back and looking at what Pacquiao weighed in at for his fights with Barrera and Morales, and then see how much heavier he was on the night of the fight. He entered the ring as a welterweight a day after making the junior lightweight limit. It's very plausible he was draining himself to make weight moreso than it is that he's on HGH or any type of steroid or PED.
Pacquiao's Stamina:
Pacquiao has always been a high volume puncher who fought at an extremely fast pace. He's never looked tired or as if he was hanging on because he was tiring down the stretch of his title fights going back to his tenure as a featherweight. And no one questioned his stamina or suggested he was being aided by any form of HGH/PED back then. At this time it's quite a reach to suggest his terrific stamina and energy are the result of anything other than his incredible work in the gym during his preparation for his bouts. His stamina has always key asset and weapon for him.
If Manny Pacquiao is injecting or swallowing anything illegal, I don't see the evidence where its aided his power and/or chin in an unnatural way nor his stamina. It's just not there!
Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com
Source: thesweetscience.com
Boxing insiders say 'no' to Margarito licensing -- ESPN
By Dan Rafael, ESPN.com
Since reporting Wednesday night that Top Rank was planning a fight for disgraced former welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito and that it believes he will be licensed by the Texas commission, the reaction to the story from people inside the boxing industry has been swift and strong.
Several industry insiders called or e-mailed me on Thursday to vent their disgust at the notion after reading the story, and I can't say I blame them. I was a little ill just reporting the facts, which are that Margacheato is likely to receive a license in Texas to fight Carson Jones on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey welterweight title fight at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington on March 13 (HBO PPV).
We all know the story by now, about how Margacheato and trainer Javier Capetillo had their licenses revoked in February '09 by the California State Athletic Commission a few weeks after it was discovered that before Margacheato fought (and got drilled by) Shane Mosley that his gloves had been loaded with illegal pads coated with a plaster-like substance.
Few buy Margacheato's plea of ignorance, and many question the legitimacy of his other victories, including his knockout win against Miguel Cotto in the fight before he faced Mosley. Boxing fans around the world were disgusted by the blatant attempt to cheat and the thought of the potential damage he could have done to Mosley in an unfair fight.
If you want to see what happens in that kind of situation, just watch the recent HBO documentary "Assault in the Ring" (just out on DVD) which chronicles the story of the scandalous 1983 fight at Madison Square Garden in which junior middleweight Luis Resto and evil trainer Panama Lewis removed the padding from his gloves before Resto disfigured Billy Collins Jr. over 10 rounds.
Resto and Lewis were banned from boxing for life and served prison time, as they deserved. Margacheato, now that a year since the license revocation is just about up, will be eligible to be licensed by commissions around the country. However, Texas is considering giving Margacheato a license without him having to go before the California commission again to ask for one. It's technically within the rules, but it will be a horrible decision if Texas gives the cheater a license.
It's also a bit disturbing that Top Rank and its chairman, Bob Arum, would support it, especially since Arum promoted the Resto-Collins fight and knows as well as anyone what might have happened had Margacheato entered the ring with loaded gloves.
Main Events chief Kathy Duva described the possibility of Margacheato being licensed as "sooo wrong!" in an e-mail to me.
Even Jones' manager, Bobby Dobbs, expressed mixed feelings.
"If my fighter wasn't being given the opportunity of a lifetime and a huge payday, I am not sure if I would think he should fight either," he wrote me.
The most scathing e-mail came from promoter Jeff Wald from "The Contender."
"Of all the many disgusting things I have seen in boxing, this ranks near the worst," Wald wrote to me. "There is no way he didn't know what was in his gloves. I can't believe Arum would support this guy and have him fight after he was responsible for almost destroying Cotto, who is also handled by Arum. … The rest of the U.S. should never give him a license and California should now bar him for life with no appeal. Texas obviously does not care about fighters or their health. Panama Lewis was barred for life and so should Magarito."
Source: sports.espn.go.com
Since reporting Wednesday night that Top Rank was planning a fight for disgraced former welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito and that it believes he will be licensed by the Texas commission, the reaction to the story from people inside the boxing industry has been swift and strong.
Several industry insiders called or e-mailed me on Thursday to vent their disgust at the notion after reading the story, and I can't say I blame them. I was a little ill just reporting the facts, which are that Margacheato is likely to receive a license in Texas to fight Carson Jones on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey welterweight title fight at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington on March 13 (HBO PPV).
We all know the story by now, about how Margacheato and trainer Javier Capetillo had their licenses revoked in February '09 by the California State Athletic Commission a few weeks after it was discovered that before Margacheato fought (and got drilled by) Shane Mosley that his gloves had been loaded with illegal pads coated with a plaster-like substance.
Few buy Margacheato's plea of ignorance, and many question the legitimacy of his other victories, including his knockout win against Miguel Cotto in the fight before he faced Mosley. Boxing fans around the world were disgusted by the blatant attempt to cheat and the thought of the potential damage he could have done to Mosley in an unfair fight.
If you want to see what happens in that kind of situation, just watch the recent HBO documentary "Assault in the Ring" (just out on DVD) which chronicles the story of the scandalous 1983 fight at Madison Square Garden in which junior middleweight Luis Resto and evil trainer Panama Lewis removed the padding from his gloves before Resto disfigured Billy Collins Jr. over 10 rounds.
Resto and Lewis were banned from boxing for life and served prison time, as they deserved. Margacheato, now that a year since the license revocation is just about up, will be eligible to be licensed by commissions around the country. However, Texas is considering giving Margacheato a license without him having to go before the California commission again to ask for one. It's technically within the rules, but it will be a horrible decision if Texas gives the cheater a license.
It's also a bit disturbing that Top Rank and its chairman, Bob Arum, would support it, especially since Arum promoted the Resto-Collins fight and knows as well as anyone what might have happened had Margacheato entered the ring with loaded gloves.
Main Events chief Kathy Duva described the possibility of Margacheato being licensed as "sooo wrong!" in an e-mail to me.
Even Jones' manager, Bobby Dobbs, expressed mixed feelings.
"If my fighter wasn't being given the opportunity of a lifetime and a huge payday, I am not sure if I would think he should fight either," he wrote me.
The most scathing e-mail came from promoter Jeff Wald from "The Contender."
"Of all the many disgusting things I have seen in boxing, this ranks near the worst," Wald wrote to me. "There is no way he didn't know what was in his gloves. I can't believe Arum would support this guy and have him fight after he was responsible for almost destroying Cotto, who is also handled by Arum. … The rest of the U.S. should never give him a license and California should now bar him for life with no appeal. Texas obviously does not care about fighters or their health. Panama Lewis was barred for life and so should Magarito."
Source: sports.espn.go.com
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