It’s funny how boxing works sometimes. For months I have been claiming that the super featherweight division is red hot. Well, now it appears that no one is going to fight each other. Manny Pacquiao wants to fight Barrera, but Barrera has said that it does not make sense for him to fight someone who is coming off of a loss. Marco Antonio Barrera wants yet another bout with Erik Morales, but Morales is sick of Barrera and said he never wants to fight him again. He is through with his hated rival. Barrera also stated recently that he would not mind a match against new WBO title holder Jorge Barrios. Well, Barrios has said that although boxing the top guys is a goal, he would like to get a few more fights to gain experience before he tries his luck as the pound for pound elite that reside in his division. Are you seeing the trend here? This is like a love triangle from a bad romance movie; nobody gets what they want. Just please, nobody fight Mzonke Fana on Pay per View again.
The young, exciting super middleweight belt holder Jeff Lacy had a fight against England’s Robin Reid that was on, off, and is now is back on again. The recently re-announced fight is scheduled to take place on August 6th. From the international feedback I have been getting, some fans are greatly anticipating this match up. Reid acts as a gatekeeper over in Europe, meaning that he is a good fighter, but falls short when he faces the best. He beats the pretenders, Hassine Cherifi and Brian Magee, but loses to the contenders, Joe Calzaghe and Silvio Branco. He is probably most famous for being one of many boxers to be on the wrong side of a bogus hometown decision against Sven Ottke. Reid is approximately on the level of past Lacy foes like Syd Vanderpool and Omar Sheika, so Jeff should be the favorite. What makes this fight intriguing is that Robin is very durable, having never been stopped in his 12 year, 43 fight professional career. Lacy will likely fight his normal fight of going all out until he knocks his opponent out. If Reid refuses to get put out and sticks around the full distance things could get interesting; especially if Lacy gets winded from loading up on so many hard shots.
Kingsley Ikeke took his first major step up in class when he faced Antwun Echols on Friday. Echols corner stopped the fight because his eyes were badly swollen and the fight was out of reach. Antwun had his moments and won a few rounds, but Ikeke was well ahead on points at the time of the stoppage. Ikeke’s stock rose tremendously in my eyes because of this fight. Not necessarily because he awed me with his performance, but because he showed off a very solid set of whiskers. Echols had a reputation as being one of the hardest hitters of his generation and he landed more than a few flush power punches on Ikeke.
Kingsley barely flinched and was never in trouble. At the championship level, technique alone does not cut it. A boxer needs certain physical tools to be a champion, and a sturdy chin is one of those. Ikeke is on the short list of young middleweights that has a good shot at becoming champion after Bernard Hopkins retires.
Long time WBO Super Middleweight Champion Joe Calzaghe has a title defense lined up against Mario Veit coming up in a few weeks. Veit is slightly better than the average Calzaghe opponent, but this match up is nothing to get excited about. Joe already beat Mario, by first round knockout in 2001. But to Veit’s credit that is the only loss on his record so far. Brian Magee was supposed to be title defense number 16 for the Welsh boxer, but due to WBO rules, Calzaghe’s belt would not have been on the line because Veit was his mandatory opponent. Hearing this news caused Calzaghe to pull out of the contest about one week before fight night. You would think the WBO would have informed their champion of his situation a little bit sooner.
Calzaghe has made a career of ducking and pulling out of fights. He said that after he gets rid of Mario Veit, he would like to unify against the IBF champ from America that was mentioned earlier, Jeff Lacy. Sure you do Joe (Please note the heavy sarcasm). I will believe a Lacy vs. Calzaghe fight when I see it. If this scenario plays out anything like the rest of his career has, this fight will never come to fruition. Remember when Joe was going to fight Bernard Hopkins at a catch weight? What about the time he was going to move up to light heavyweight and take on IBF champion Glen Johnson? Time after time Joe has ducked and weaseled his way out of significant fights. That is why it is so difficult to believe what he is saying now. My guess is that for some unforeseen reason, a very imaginative one since Joe and his promoter Frank Warren have used just about every excuse in the book already; Calzaghe will be forced to pull out of the fight.
But no worries boxing fans, Joe will return to defend his title against even better challengers like Rudy Markussen or maybe even a rematch with Tocker Pudwill! How exciting! (Again, note the sarcasm. I hope you have caught on to the sarcasm by now because I am laying it on pretty thick). Calzaghe has gone his whole reign without attempting to unify the titles, so why start now? Maybe he realizes that he is not getting any younger. At 32 years old there have been reports that he may be starting to slip. If he doesn’t take a chance and fight a name opponent soon Calzaghe could end up like Sven Ottke. Another long reigning Super Middleweight Champion who retired undefeated, but nobody outside of Ottke’s home country cared the slightest. Ottke refused to fight outside of Germany and took on more than his fare share of hand picked no hopers. After a while the boxing community stopped caring about his biannual insignificant fights. This story parallels Calzaghe’s almost exactly and it may already be too late to do anything about it.
A Lacy fight is not even as big as some of the others that Calzaghe passed up in his career. Jeff is young and is still trying to establish himself as a big name in boxing. He joins a long list of fighters around the middleweight division who are calling out pound for pound number one Bernard Hopkins. When the Hopkins vs. Taylor negotiations started to get rocky, Lacy was one of the first to offer to step in and replace Jermain Taylor. Kassim Ouma and Ike Quartey have joined in as well, among others. Hopkins is a hot commodity right now. I bet he wishes he had more than just a couple fights left in his 40 year old body. Even as far back as a couple years ago, the top guys avoided Bernard like the plague. “The Executioner” had to settle and take on whoever was available; which is why his record is filled with names like Robert Allen, Andrew Council, Carl Daniels, and Morrade Hakkar. Now, right as he is about to retire, Hopkins is bombarded with high profile fight opportunities and he doesn’t have the youth to accommodate them all.
The mainstream media is mentioning boxing in their news reports once again. But like usual, for all the wrong reasons. This time Mike Tyson’s comeback is the topic of interest. Tyson is almost two decades removed from his prime and his upcoming match with Kevin McBride is light years away from being a significant match in the sport. He is over, done, washed up. In my opinion it’s time to move on and focus on relevant fighters and fights instead of dragging on a career that has been dead for a long time.
