Having had my mind on trivial but important matters of late, I can tell you that I’m ready to rock…WIRE HAIRED WONDER TALKS OF ALLIGATORS: Sometimes you can try your hardest to track down promoter Don King ad fail. Be it at his Ohio farmhouse, the Las Vegas mansion, his Big Apple confines, the Florida digs near DKP headquarters, or even on the cellular phone, sometimes the man makes himself impossible to find. But this week as the spit was hitting the fan legally for King, we spoke daily. In between his rationalizing (see rant) over the Hasim Rahman-Monte Barrett winner facing WBC guy Vitali Klitschko, and the legal win over the IBF and Wladimir Klitschko, Don wasn’t all that happy. First his positive of the day, his guy and IBF champ Chris Byrd will face DaVaryll Williamson next, also DK’s guy. When I asked him why he’s so upset, he said. “Alligators, there’s alligators in the water,” At that point I asked the Donald why the “King Crocodile” woulld be so concerned about the much smaller species known as the gator? “Because there’s so many of them,”He is of course at war with Shelly Finkel, Vitali’s shot-caller because the anointed WBC champion wants to fight Calvin Brock instead of the winner of a sanctioned WBC “interim” title bout between Rahman and Barrett. The reason why the WBC allowed an “interim” title bout was that Klitschko had signed to fight Rahman, this before undergoing “elective” surgery on his back to remove Arthritic Spurs from his discs. Although I think Calvin Brock showed me a lot of late, I don’t think he should get shoved ahead of Rahman’s chance of being recognized once again as world champion. Now it appears that Vitali & Brock are a go, all the while the Rahman-Barrett match is for the “interim” title. What this all means to a person with common sense is that unless the WBC is going to have two simultaneous heavyweight champions, they will have to strip Klitschko…DISAPOINTING REALITY TOUGH TO SWALLOW..When I said Vitali was a bit better than another equally huge ex-champ in Primo Carnera, I may have been wrong. For Carnera, he didn’t try to duck eventual conqueror Max Baer. Is it because Primo thought he could fight, and Vitali doubts it? JUDD BURSTEIN & SHELLY FINKEL…NYC attorney Judd Burstein is now a major part of Don King’s legal team. At the same time, Don and Shelly Finkel are almost at each others throats, and Burstein is tight with Finkel in that he represents the recently freed from promoter Murad Muhammad, Manny Pacquiao…NON-THREATENING FOE WHAT MANNY NEEDS…Having had fights with Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, Woody Falldown, and Erik Morales in succession, only the Woody Falldown (AKA 3K Battery of Thailand) fight was not a life and death encounter. Now on September 10, Manny Pacquiao returns to the Staples Center ring in Los Angeles to face Tijuana’s Hector Velazquez. Hector has had a Draw in Japan (see win) and three wins to bring the 5?€™7 fighter to 41-10-2, with 30 shorts! Pacquiao is fighting at an unnatural 130 lbs. And Hector has a prior fight Friday night in Chicago against 22-7 fellow countryman Aldo Valtierra…CO-FEATURE HAS MORALES VS RAHEEM..1996 Olympian Zahir Raheem, last seen being handcuffed by referee Bobby Garcia in a July ’04 loss to Rocky Juarez, he has had one fight since silencing a fighter Hardly Breathing in February. He brings a 26-1 record with 16 KO’s into the biggest fight of his life against the 48-2, (34 KO’s) certain Hall of Famer Erik “El Terrible” Morales…EXPECT THINGS IN ARIZONA TO GET HOTTER! Arizona Boxing Director John Montano is saying otherwise, but he’s going to regret the day he decided to go ‘mano y mano’ with 66-year-old trainer Joe Diaz. Having been told by attorney not to say a word, I can’t say much. And like Judith Miller, I would never give up my source. It seems even Arizona Republic writer Norm Frauenheim was stunned to hear that promoter Peter Mc Kinn had an arrest warrant outstanding for his bouncing a $5,000 check to “Yory Boy” Campas. And yet, there was Mc Kinn with an “all-access” badge Saturday night (issued by John Montano?) in Tucson, AZ at the Thunder Promotions card. Speaking of Campas, although he passed all the medical tests needed to be licensed in Arizona, Boxing Director John Montano denied him a license, and he missed out on a $15,000 paycheck Saturday because of this. And was this retliation because Campas walked in a picket line in front of Montano’s office carrying signs asking that Montano do his job and force Peter Mc Kinn, who is a front man for the embattled promotional firm Top Rank, to honor the $5,000 check from May 2004…JERMAIN TAYLOR WEIGHS IN FIVE DAYS EARLY. BUT WHY? At the Nevada Athletic Commission office on Monday, the 23-0 Jermain Taylor, just five days away from a shot at the middleweight title held by Bernard Hopkins, Mr. Taylor scaled an even 163 lbs. This is a WBC rule (one of their best) that says both fighters must be within a few pounds of making the 160 lb. limit about a week in advance. It is not known where and what Hopkins scaled Monday. This prevents situations like Gerald Mc Clellan and Jimmy Garcia, both of whom dropped a tremendous amount of poundage prior to fighting Nigel Benn and Gabriel Ruelas. Garcia died and Gerald’s living in Freeport, IL, blind, in other words, he’s not in good shape.
