The return of your random thoughts …
• Let what happened on Wednesday be a lesson to Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and all of their handlers.
When a fight is ripe, you make it. You don’t wait. You don’t screw around, especially when the public demands the fight and demands it now.
On Wednesday, Roy Jones got knocked out in one round by Danny Green, destroying the already-signed rematch with Bernard Hopkins that had taken them more than a decade to put together.
Hopkins won his fight later that day when he pounded out a lopsided decision against Enrique Ornelas, but it was too late to salvage the Jones rematch because he had gotten drilled, and the contract was contingent upon both men winning.
Not to kick dirt on the grave, but Jones and Hopkins sort of got what they deserved.
For years, Jones and Hopkins have been among boxing’s biggest stars and the public had hoped to see a rematch of their 1993 bout (which, for those who actually remember, stunk out loud with Jones winning a boring decision).
But Jones and Hopkins would never give the public what it wanted, instead stringing fans along forever by teasing us with the prospect of the fight. They had so many chances to make it and so many times it was close. One time, it fell apart because they were bickering over the terms of a rematch clause.
Hopkins and Jones, great fighters both, were too stubborn, too greedy and too egotistical to get the deal done. And finally, even when they did agree in September for a rematch in early 2010 — a fight many critics thought had come too late — Hopkins and Jones, both in their 40s, elected to take interim bouts.
And then Jones got whacked out in one round and the big-money fight with Hopkins went down the drain.
Just another tease, but this time the joke was on them.
Mayweather and Pacquiao are on the verge of a deal for the biggest fight in the sport. Let’s hope they don’t screw it up. Let’s hope they understand what can happen if they do.
• Hopkins likely won’t ever face Jones again, but he’ll still get a significant fight off his win the other night. There are some interesting possibilities, including Lucian Bute for a title at super middleweight, Chad Dawson at light heavyweight and Tomasz Adamek for the lineal cruiserweight title. If I had my choice, I’d like to see him fight Adamek. It’s easily the most crowd-pleasing fight of the three and it’s a fight that will draw a big crowd in New Jersey, although admittedly not as big of a crowd as a fight with Bute in Canada. But Hopkins isn’t anxious to leave the United States, so he could stay here, fight Adamek and go for the real title at cruiserweight. All three are worthy opponents for Hopkins, so he can’t really go wrong with whomever he picks.
• As for Jones, let this be the end. He was finished after he got punished and destroyed by Glen Johnson in 2004. He continued to fight and milked a 2008 win over a totally shot and blown up Felix Trinidad into a title shot with Joe Calzaghe later in the year. Calzaghe, of course, hammered Jones in a near-shutout decision. But Jones kept going, banking two more easy wins over meaningless opponents before going to Australia, where Green put what should be the final nail in his career coffin.
• What makes Pacquiao’s 1.25 million pay-per-view buys for his fight with Miguel Cotto even more impressive than Mayweather’s 1.05 million buys for his September fight with Juan Manuel Marquez is that Pacquiao-Cotto didn’t feature an American fighter and sold for $54.95 — $5 more than Mayweather-Marquez.
• How about this for a scenario: If the proposed Ricky Hatton-Marquez fight comes off next year and Hatton wins, I can see Oscar De La Hoya coming out of retirement to face Hatton. If you can’t see that as a possibility, you’re blind.
• I thought Pacquiao had a legitimate case to be named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year. But as a lifelong Yankees fan I was delighted to see Derek Jeter receive the honor, but Pacquiao would have been a great pick. Jeter, who I covered when he was a minor leaguer, is one of the classiest athletes you’ll ever meet.
• A fight I hear being tossed around for HBO next year is a welterweight bout between former titlist Joshua Clottey, whom the network owes a fight to after unceremoniously canceling his fight with Carlos Quintana, and hot rising prospect Mike Jones. That would be a huge step up for Jones and a very intriguing fight.
• For those conspiracy theorists among us, food for thought: Judges Alan Davis and Benoit Roussel, the two blind mice who pathetically scored last week’s Ali Funeka-Joan Guzman bout a 114-114 draw, scored each round identically. Hmmmm.
• It was not a great five days for brothers Librado Andrade and Ornelas. Andrade got knocked out by Bute and Ornelas got drubbed by Hopkins. But forget the losses. You won’t meet two nicer, more likable fighters in the business. If you don’t like these guys, you probably don’t like apple pie either.
• Gotta give props to HBO for not looking the other way during its telecast of the Bute-Andrade super middleweight title fight last week. The network could have easily ignored the Super Six World Boxing Classic going on over at rival Showtime. Even though broadcasters Bob Papa, Max Kellerman and Lennox Lewis did not mention it by name or mention Showtime, they were honest enough with the audience to recognize that the tournament was going on and address its significance as it related to the main event HBO was televising. Honesty is always the best policy.
• Paging Luis Collazo.
• I thought junior welterweight prospect Danny Garcia’s second-round knockout of Enrique Colin on Wednesday night, his most experienced opponent yet, was sensational.
• So the Winky Wright-Grady Brewer pay-per-view got canceled when the local promoter in Puerto Rico pulled out of the deal because he was going to lose a ton of money. There’s a shock. It was a bad idea to begin with.
• For those excited that Versus aired live boxing cards on Wednesday and Thursday, don’t be. Wednesday’s Hopkins show was a one-off card and Thursday’s card was the network’s final obligation under its old “Contender” contract. The network has no plans for regularly televised boxing now that its contracts are complete, although hopefully there will be a change of heart, even if that means just cherry picking a worthy fight here or there.
• Organizers of the recent pay-per-view card featuring Zab Judah and Joel Casamayor in separate bouts announced that it did 100,000 buys. I almost fell down laughing when I heard that. The card stunk and had terrible publicity, and the little publicity it did receive barely even mentioned it was available on PPV. Somebody I know in the pay-per-view business told me that the fight did only about 1,000 buys on DirecTV and that based on that number, even when you add in whatever it did on Dish Network and cable systems, “they will be lucky to do 5,000 buys.” There is no chance whatsoever that it did 100,000. Promoters are known for stretching the truth, but this whopper takes the cake.
• DVD pick of the week: With news that a fourth fight between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez is likely to happen in May, it got me in the mood to relive their sensational rivalry. So out came the DVD of their epic third fight from May 1, 2008, in Carson, Calif. Their first two fights were special, but the third, which was the fight of the year, was even more extraordinary than the first two junior featherweight championship bouts, which they had split. This fight had all the drama and blood of the first two, not to mention Vazquez rallying from a knockdown in the classic fourth round to drop Marquez in the 12th for the victory-sealing margin in a rousing split-decision victory. It is truly one of the greatest fights ever. It will be almost impossible for the fourth fight, which will be at featherweight, to live up to the incredible first three fights, but you know Vazquez and Marquez will try.
