Their last fight ended on a downer with some spurious judging in Quebec but Ali “Rush Hour” Funeka, the stringbean from South Africa, is going to take a second crack at Joan Guzman for the still vacant IBF lightweight title belt.
Guzman, the more celebrated Dominican Dandy and former world champion at two other weights, did not earn a draw but he got one anyway.
It was a majority deadlock, two arbiters calling it 114-114 with the third favoring Guzman 116-112, in Quebec City on Nov. 28.
Everyone who watched it on television felt Guzman got a pre-Christmas gift.
Now, HBO and the opposing sides have made a deal for the two to hopefully resolve their chronic unresolved differences in a rematch on March 27.
Ced Kushner and Gary Shaw represent Funeka while Golden Boy handles Guzman’s affairs.
“We hear from HBO that this rematch has been greenlighted, everything is a solid go now,” Kushner, a South African native, told Examiner.com and Boxingconfidential Tuesday evening.
The bout will go underneath a Marcos Maidana-Victor Manuel Cayo WBA interim 140 pound title bout at a TBA site on March 27.
Two bouts ago, Argentinian hard man (aren’t they all, these Sons of Monzon and Baldomir?) Maidana stopped Golden Boy’s Golden Boy Victor Ortiz in six rounds. It was a wild and wooly five knockdown affair in which Maidana made Ortiz finally quit.
One would think that, having gone 12 rounds with a gutsy Guzman and taken his best shots, the edge in the rematch would go the younger, bigger fighter.
If Guzman isn’t at a career crossroads in this fight, then he will never be. It is imperative for Guzman to handle his business this time or get consigned to the “opponent” category.
Former Ricky Hatton trainer Lee Beard looks to be replacing Delen “Blimp” Parsley as Guzman’s trainer according to scuttlebutt at Gleason’s Gym in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn.
For you furriners, Dumbo means Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
Let’s see how Guzman plays in “Rush Hour” traffic in his second chance.
