Perhaps ‘Fireworks’ was doomed from the start. The pay-per-view show – which was to have taken place this Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas – originally had Juan Manuel Marquez defending his WBC 130-pound title against Jorge Barrios before the Argentinean would be medically scratched.
In his place would be Rocky Juarez, who was to have faced Robert Guerrero on the undercard. ‘The Ghost’ would instead face Martin Honorio.
But on Friday, just eight days before the event, the rumor – which was soon confirmed as fact – spread quickly. Marquez, training in Mexico, would suffer an infection to his right hand, causing a postponement of the whole card.
That means not just two fighters would be affected, but eight, as Steve Forbes-Francisco Bojado, Sergio Mora-Kassim Ouma and Guerrero-Honorio would also need to be rescheduled – if at all.
Juarez found out the bad news around 7:30 at night on Friday night via a phone call from his manager Shelly Finkel while at the gym of his former trainer, Ray Ontiveros (who still works his corner), going over their itinerary from Houston to Las Vegas for the upcoming week.
“It was very depressing; it was just a big shock at the time,” he would tell Maxboxing. “I’m just staying in the gym. Hopefully they reschedule and we’re able to do it soon.”
After weeks and months of hard work in the gym, making sacrifices regular civilians would not understand, not being able to perform at all might be worse than losing. At the very least, when you drop a fight, you still get your purse.
“I can’t say it’s worse than losing,” Juarez says. “I think that’s probably the worst, losing. The thing is, I didn’t lose and hopefully things happen for a reason. That’s just the way I look at things. Like I said, hopefully they can reschedule this fight and it’s just postponed for another date.”
Mora says: “The worst thing is not being able to perform. Secondly, it’s taking a beating for two months to get your body to give a beating and nothing happens. And then third, the money. You don’t get paid.”
Others are philosophical about the recent turn of events and look to a higher power.
“We’re very big believers in Jesus Christ and I’ve always said, ‘Man has plans, God’s the master planner,'” says the co-manager of Guerrero, Bob Santos, of the cancellation. “So maybe it just wasn’t the right timing for us. I’ve always been positive something else will be around the corner. So we can’t totally be disappointed about it.”
Guerrero had spent the past few months up in Big Bear.
“We got great work with ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley. How many times do you get to be in a camp where you get to spar with him just about every day? Had that fight not come up, that would not have happened for us. From that standpoint, I’m glad at least the thought was there. So we got all that good work in.”
According to Santos, Guerrero took the news in stride.
“At first, definitely there was disappointment. You train so hard. But he put it in perspective and I think he took it pretty well. We all know this is professional prizefighting. It’s not like football, where the first string quarterback goes out and you bring in the second string quarterback. Hey, De La Hoya gets out or Mosley gets out, whoever you’re fighting goes out with an injury or whatever, hey, that’s pretty much part of the business.”
And Santos is spot-on, but what makes this especially frustrating for the fighters who were not involved in the main event is that it wasn’t them or their opponents who came up lame. But unlike club shows, where late replacements are brought in routinely, at the highest levels of boxing, when one of the main event participants is scratched, most likely, every other domino falls right in line.
In another era, when there were many more cards, it was much easier to reschedule bouts of this nature. Nowadays, with everything being dictated by television slots – which are often filled in four-to-five months in advance – once a fight gets the kibosh, it’s much more difficult to re-insert a fight into the rotation. With world-class boxers now performing no more than three or four times a year, missing an assignment can be costly.
Especially for fighters like Mora, who is promoted by the Contender outfit that is seemingly more a fight broker than actual promoter. Mora, who has not fought since last August, is itching to get in there. There is talk of him appearing on ESPN in mid-October underneath Alfonso Gomez’s outing against Ben Tackie in Carson, California.
“I’m not sure if that’s going to work out,” he would say. “They might do a Contender special on their own and I would love to do that. And they also offered something on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather in December. I don’t think that’s going to happen. So I’m not sure. I mean, I’m just waiting. Actually, we suggested to fight this Sunday on the (Jorge) Arce card against some tomato can or whatever. Just to wail off on somebody. So that might still happen but it’s not looking good. So right now, I’m just waiting. I’m frustrated. Really, really frustrated.”
He had put in a hard camp in Montebello, sparring with the likes of James Kirkland. He said he had been on weight for about three weeks. He continues to stay in the gym.
“I’m very anxious, I’m very frustrated, eager and I’m in good shape,” Mora would state. “I’m like a great singer with no venue. I just want to sing somewhere. I’m very disappointed and upset. Every negative feeling and emotion you can feel – I felt it as soon as they told me this card was cancelled.”
While the fighters await anxiously, it’s the brass at Golden Boy Promotions that has to clean up this mess. On Monday afternoon they were in Hollywood at the House of Blues for the ‘Fast and Furious’ press conference promoting their November 10th bout at Madison Square Garden featuring Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto.
But other business was on their mind.
“Everything just happened this Friday, and we made the decision to cancel the entire card. We still don’t know (about rescheduling),” said Eric Gomez, GBP’s matchmaker. “We actually have a staff meeting later on today to go over the fights. The one fight I can tell you we’re going to reschedule and it’s doable, underneath Pacquiao-Barrera (October 6th) is going to be the Bojado fight with Forbes. We’re going to do that fight there.
“As far as the other fights, we’re still not sure. There’s different possibilities. As of now, we don’t have any answers.”
When asked if some bouts would be scrapped completely, Gomez would answer: “I hope not. That might be the case. When something like this happens it’s a problem for everyone.”
One thing going for Golden Boy is that they have three big pay-per-view shows scheduled for the fall. On October 6th is Pacquiao-Barrera II, November 10th is Mosley-Cotto and December 8th is Floyd Mayweather-Ricky Hatton. Some of these aforementioned bouts could end up on one of these undercards.
“That’s the hope,” said Gomez. “But where we run into a problem is that the fight cards were already considering other fighters. So that’s where it becomes a problem. November 10th, we already have Joel Casamayor scheduled; he’s going to fight Jose Armando Santa Cruz, which will be a very exciting fight. October 6th, we’re going to do Bojado, but the other TV fight is going to be Librado Andrade, he’s fighting Yusaf Mack. So that’s where we run into a problem.”
Also, other slots on the undercard belong to Top Rank, who is co-promoting the October and November shows with Golden Boy.
Muddling the situation is that there may be no HBO dates left on the calendar.
“There are no more dates on HBO,” confirmed Gomez, “so that’s one of the problems as well. And you can’t saturate the market and we don’t want to do that with pay-per-views. The rest of the year is already set with pay-per-views.”
Last year, Marquez was scheduled for a small pay-per-view show from Texas in October, in which he had to pull out. He would instead face Jimrex Jaca on a ‘Boxing After Dark’ show in November before facing Barrera in March.
There is some talk that the Marquez-Juarez bout, along with Guerrero’s defense of his IBF featherweight belt against Honorio could be rescheduled for sometime in November. Or perhaps, maybe not wanting to risk anything, he waits for the winner in early October.
“That’s a possibility, that’s one of the options,” says Gomez. “But obviously he would like to fight, he wants to get another in before the end of the year. So we’re going to look at what our options are. There are a couple of ideas, but nothing set in stone.”
Meanwhile, Juarez waits for something, anything, to come to fruition.
“We’re hoping to reschedule the fight against Marquez or hopefully we have a fight by the end of the year.” Juarez, like Marquez, is promoted by Golden Boy. “So regardless of the situation, me getting a fight by the end of the year is what I’m really looking for. If I get the opportunity against Marquez, even better. But in this profession we know nothing is a sure thing.”
As usual, when a fight card is cancelled, the Oliver Stones come out of the woodwork and all the conspiracy theories involving tepid ticket sales and such are bandied about. But Juarez is mystified how a small cut on the finger could knockout a whole show.
“It makes me think, how can a hand get that bad? I mean, let’s say two weeks before the fight, they could’ve said, ‘OK, the cut’s pretty bad, let it heal. Let’s stay off the bag, let’s stay off the hand, lets stay off the sparring for two weeks because we need to perform on this one night. On this one night we need to fight and we need our hand the best it can be, rather than hitting on it and letting it get more infected.
“They should’ve just stayed off of it, I think.”
So does everybody else.
DEATH AND TAXES
So was anyone else shocked and stunned when Vitali Klitschko’s return to the ring on September 22nd versus Jameel McCline was also scrapped because of another training injury?
Didn’t think so.
This guy makes Grant Hill’s stay with the Orlando Magic look like the model of durability. The warranty had long ago expired on this Klitschko.
At this point, I’m not sure any network, opponent, or venue would ever sign on to be a part of a scheduled promotion involving ‘Brittle-ly’.
THE ART OF BOXING
Another local So Cal prizefighter is making the jump into promoting. Former NABO jr. bantamweight champion Kahren Harutyunyan has started ‘Art of Boxing Promotions’ and his first show will take place on November 2nd. ‘The Warner Center War’ will take place at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills, California.
For more info, log onto www.ArtofBoxingPromotions.com.
MID-WEEK FLURRIES
I hear that there is a very good possibility that Joel Casamayor could be reuniting with trainer Joe Goossen….I’ve also been told that Juan ‘El Pollo’ Valenzuela has been medically cleared for his detached retina and is ready to fight again. Has it been that long since he defeated Ricardo Williams and Julio Diaz?…..Nate Campbell will most likely be facing Humberto Toledo on the Diaz vs. Diaz undercard in Chicago on October 13th….Don’t want to say my Canes took a beating from the Oklahoma Sooners, but by the middle of the fourth quarter I was hoping Richard Steele was the referee…..Sam Bradford just connected with Malcolm Kelly for another touchdown…..
