New Year’s Eve for many is a traditional night of disappointment. A party that was not quite as good as hoped, a exorbitant cab fare home, the inability to get in to the local pub, or, if you give up on going out, there is always the possibility of watching the TV, where people are celebrating the new year in a show recorded last month, while the commercial breaks include adverts by the Samaritans. Well, I hope your New Year is/was better than that.
Boxing, of course, for anyone who follows it over long periods, goes hand in hand with disappointment. At the start of this season (September) we were looking forward to Matthew Macklin v Darren Barker and Vitali Klitschko v David Haye on successive weekends, two bouts that have now disappeared look into the distance. Big fights, hoped for match-ups, often fail to happen, even when fans have fight tickets in hand and flights booked, as was the case with last June’s Haye v Wladimir Klitscho fight.
Manny Pacquiao’s decision to sue Floyd Mayweather Jr, Floyd Mayweather Sr, Golden Boy Promotions, Mayweather Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaefer for making false and defamatory statements in the Nevada Federal Court is about the most depressing news imaginable for any fight fan. It seems to pretty much put the kibosh on the richest fight of all time, it damages the sport and will end up damaging Pacquiao’s legacy much more than if he had simply taken a blood test as requested.
This is a real step back into a dark era when more things seemed to be settled in the courtroom than the boxing ring. Pacquiao has retained a Los Angeles lawyer named Daniel Petrocelli for the case (presumably nothing to do with the lawyer called Petrocelli in the old US TV series, who I seem to remember was married to Donna Krebbs from Dallas and seemed to spent the entire series waiting for his house to be built.)
All the talk has been predictably about how much money Pacquiao could hope to make in court. I doubt it will be anything like as much as he would have made boxing Mayweather and it is hard to imagine than any court action, should it come to that, will happen any time soon.
The fight everyone wants to see seems farther away than ever and instead of Mayweather, Pacquiao could end up boxing Paulie Malignaggi or Yuri Foreman, the latter prospect well described by my colleague Tim Meston as Pacquiao’s Don LaLonde fight (a reference to the average Canadian who lost the WBC light-heavyweight title to Sugar Ray Leonard). Excuse me while I burn my “Pacman Knows” T-shirt.
A court case could drag the reputations of all involved through the mire and the sport will be the loser.
Still, there’s more than that to look forward to in the new year. How about Carl Froch, who will be facing Mikkel Kessler on April 17 in a mouth-watering second bout in the super-middleweight Super Six?
Great fight, but fans hoping to watch in person, might be in for a shock. Rumours abound that the bout might not be in Copenhagen, as expected, but in Herning, some three-and-a hours’ drive from the Danish capital, where Kessler beat Gusmyr Perdomo in September.
While Copenhagen is one of Europe’s most vibrant and picturesque cities, Herning boasts Scandinavia’s largest exhibition space (famous for its trade fairs apparently), has no direct flights to the UK and the panorama on its wikipedia page suggests it’s a city short on glamour. Oh, and Denmark is Europe’s most expensive country.
Froch deserves to have as many of his fans as possible follow him, so one can only hope that the fight ends up in Copenhagen, where the flights will be cheap, if not the beer.
If Herning seems remote, there were stories around last week that suggest that Haye could box in Libreville in the west African country of Gabon at some point. That might all seem a bit fanciful and would certainly not be in his next bout, which will be against John Ruiz. Rumours suggest this could take place on April 3, which is Easter Saturday, in either Manchester or London.
Happy New Year!
