Every year I get to the point where I reflect on the happenings in boxing and feel compelled to post my musings on the current state of matters pertaining to the sport and those involved in it, both in the ring and behind the curtain. I know that some of you will no doubt see things differently than me and in many cases perhaps you’ll outright disagree, but at the same time I’m fairly certain that there is some degree of middle ground. Like it is so often said, boxing at its best is high art but as I have learned over time, it is often pure theater, or often akin to a bad soap opera. So with that, I’ve decided this week to post my thoughts and opinions on an array of issues currently affecting the pulse of our sport. Hopefully you’ll catch my drift on many of them but at the very least, you’ll come away with a different perspective.
The Super Six Super Middleweight Tournament
When this tournament was first announced I was astounded. Showtime managed to somehow ensure alignment of the stars above us, bringing together a plethora of egos and diametrically opposed agendas to give the sport and hardcore fans around the globe perhaps the biggest shot in the arm in decades. Six current top contenders and world champions facing each other, openly taking part in matchups that we would otherwise be lucky to see once every two or three years. A good as that seems the plan is not without a few glaring chinks. The concept itself is great, but I have a problem with the seemingly pre-ordained second round of bouts. Getting right to the point here, there’s no way a fighter that was brutally knocked-out in a Stage 1 contest should be getting an immediate title shot in Stage 2, especially considering he was knocked unconscious in the bout previous to his participation in the tourney. It cheapens the titles and I won’t even go into the dangers it could pose to a damaged fighter in both the short and long term. The schedule for Stage 2 should be written based upon the outcome of bouts in Stage 1 – and not a moment sooner.
The WBC/WBO Middleweight Champion
Ok, let’s get something out of the way here before I start laying into a guy I once bought into off of the excitement generated by one dramatic title win. I am not a hater of Kelly Pavlik. I have over the last eighteen months gone from being disappointed to suspicious, but I always drank the Kool-Aid they handed me, even if less and less ice came with each successive glass. I could live with the ridiculous over the weight cartoon rematch he had with the man he won the title from. I accepted Gary Lockett as the cost of doing business with the sanctioning bodies, and I could even live with his taking a once in a lifetime opportunity with an aging all-timer in Bernard “Second to None” Hopkins. What I can no longer accept is what I now consider to be the transparent agenda behind those bouts. Since dispatching an in-decline Marco Antonio Rubio almost a year ago, Pavlik has done more rearranging than a Sears catalogue photographer falling behind deadline.
First it was a bout with Sergio Mora, then “The Ghost” switched seats on that idea. Then it was Paul Williams. Several pullouts later, one of which they used the excuse of a life-threatening battle with a staph infection, and suddenly Pavlik signs for a title defense against a virtual no-hoper in Miguel Espino, a much smaller non-puncher, citing misleading semantics in defense of their increasingly transparent decisions. Face it, something is and probably always has been wrong in Camp Pavlik. Taylor looked very vulnerable in Sept 2007. Then it was a virtual no-hoper in Lockett, then an “old-man” they underestimated, then a conveniently vulnerable and in-decline Rubio. Now to end off 2009 its Miguel Espino, an off the rack opponent perfect for a champ that seems to have need the assurances that all the advantages lie in his corner. John Duddy and Peter Manfredo, JR., almost certainly MUST figure in there somewhere now based my time-formed “understanding” on the preferred type of foe Team Pavlik look for.
Semantics and excuses only work for so long.
Not Feeling Sorry for Hard-Luck WBA Welterweight Champion
Sorry, I’m the wrong guy when it comes to feeling “bad” for the current plight of one of our sports greatest and most talented practitioners of the sweet science. The truth is Team Mosley has been crying foul for about ten months now. They feel that Shane Mosley’s dramatic spectacular win over Antonio Margarito should have put him to the forefront of big fight opportunities. Maybe it should have and maybe it shouldn’t. But the hard and fast reality was that it didn’t, and at age 38 and counting, Mosley should be handling the disappointment the old school way by taking a couple of stay busy tune-ups. Such would have kept him sharp and in the public eye. He would have even made a buck or two doing it. Instead, we got to see him pout an awful lot and make like Kanye West on September 19th when he should have been carrying himself like he was the best. Rust and greatness don’t mix, and I haven’t forgotten how stale Shane looked off of an extended layoff when he fought made to order Ricardo Mayorga just a few short months before the Margarito triumph. Somebody in Shane’s crew hasn’t been doing there job very well. “Contingency” can often make all of the difference.
Manny Pacquiao Doesn’t Need Anybody
That’s right, Manny Pacquiao doesn’t need anybody. He is the biggest in our sport today. He is the consummate competitor having done more over the last eighteen months than what any of us have seen from anybody in the sport over the last sixty years. No question a mega showdown with Floyd Mayweather JR is the biggest and most preferred fight today, but I am not one who wants to watch of it drag-out over the next ten months so that “Money” can manage the situation. Manny need not cool his jets. I say if Floyd does not step-up now for a bout in March, Manny should gun for an 8th world title – and he should do it at a weight that suits him, not the division. If Floyd wants to cry and duck, let him do it all he wants while he tries to pawn Matthew Hatton as a legit challenge. Manny Pacquiao can win a light middleweight title right now at 145 pounds without batting an eye. History is his for the taking, and somewhere up there, Henry Armstrong will be cheering him all the way.
