It’s been a while since we began a new year by anticipating some good fights in the heavyweight division, the kind that can provide sustenance to what is supposed to be boxing’s bread-and-butter division.
We have that here in 2009. At this moment negotiations are taking place for a fight between Wladimir Klitschko and hard-hitting and trash-talking British sensation David “Hayemaker” Haye.
“There would be some bombs flying,” said Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions.
Haye is co-promoted by Golden Boy and his Hayemaker Promotions. Schaefer said both parties are working hard to get a deal finalized for the fight, which would likely take place in April in England.
Klitschko holds two of the four major title belts. Haye is the former cruiserweight world champion who recently moved up to heavyweight. Among his 22victories are 21 knockouts. He has a big punch and a big mouth.
The fight would likely sell out wherever it is held; it would also do well on pay-per-view.
Enter Chris Arreola, the Riverside resident who is trying to become the first heavyweight world champion of Mexican heritage. Arreola, a consensus top-10 fighter, would conceivably be in line to fight the winner of Klitschko-Haye.
Arreola’s promoter, Dan Goossen, is hopeful it is Klitschko. As good as Haye is, Klitschko is the bigger name and the established champion.
“Yes,” Goossen said, when asked if Arreola is ready for someone of Klitschko’s stature. “And that is the fight we would like to get.”
Actually, Goossen would like Klitschko to fight Arreola next, not Haye. He said he even had some early negotiations in that regard prior to the holidays. But up came a road block.
Wladimir Klitschko’s older brother, Vitali, wanted to fight Haye first this year. But Vitali Klitschko, who holds one of the championship belts, is going to have to fight mandatory challenger Juan Carlos Gomez or face being stripped of the belt he regained when he stopped Sam Peter after nine rounds in October. Klitschko had not fought in nearly four years because of injuries.
That made Wladimir Klitschko turn his attention toward Haye. And to Larry Merchant, longtime HBO analyst, that was the best thing that could have happened for Arreola.
Merchant believes that if Wladimir Klitschko can get by Haye, and Arreola in the meantime can beat someone like Peter, that would make an Arreola-Waldimir Klitschko fight all that it can be.
Merchant said Wednesday that Arreola fighting the younger Klitschko later this year would give him time to get into optimum shape – something he has shown he is not keen on doing. Merchant added that even though Arreola – a vicious, attacking fighter – is 26-0 with 23 knockouts, he’s still not a widely known commodity.
“Right now it is not a big fight,” Merchant said. “Right now there are too many people who don’t know him and too many people in the boxing world, including the media, who don’t think he is ready to fight Wladimir.
“So in my mind he would be best served by fighting once or twice before fighting Wladimir for those two reasons.”
That doesn’t mean Merchant is not high on Arreola. Quite the contrary. In Arreola’s Nov. 29 fight against Travis Walker at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, Arreola took serious punishment in the first two rounds and was decked in the second round. But he got off the canvas and floored Walker twice in the second, then once early in the third, stopping Walker 13 seconds into the round.
That comeback made a big impression on Merchant.
“He showed that he can pull himself together and still impose his will on an opponent, and that’s rare,” Merchant said. “You don’t find that in many guys, who can take that kind of punishment and keep coming.
“It’s what American heavyweights – particularly crowd-pleasing, powerful American heavyweights – have often been about, the ability to impose their will and keep coming through whatever the fire is.”
However, Merchant said that when Arreola steps into the ring with someone like Wladimir Klitschko, he will need to get off to a quicker start. He recalled that after stopping Walker, Arreola said that he wanted to see what Walker had brought to the dance.
“As he put it, `I wanted to see what the other guy had,”‘ Merchant said. “Which is fine, except when seeing what the other guy has means that you are just going to stand there and get hit.
“By the time you find out what the other guy has, it may be too late. … It doesn’t have to be that you have to take a beating to get awakened, because you may be asleep before you get awakened.”
MARQUEZ-DIAZ A HIGHLIGHT OF EARLY BOUTS: There are several good fights on the horizon. The first is the welterweight title fight between champion Antonio Margarito of Tijuana and “Sugar” Shane Mosley of Pomona on Jan. 24 at Staples Center.
Then there is the Feb. 7 super flyweight title fight between champion Vic Darchinyan of Armenia and Jorge Arce of Mexico at Honda Center in Anaheim.
Those are intriguing fights and figure to be action-packed. But Margarito and Darchinyan will be consensus favorites to win their respective bouts.
What makes anticipation for the Feb. 28 lightweight fight between Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico and Juan Diaz of Houston even greater is that not only will it likely be a thriller, it’s difficult to predict a winner.
“The mark of a great fight is when you ask 20 people who will win this fight and you have 10 people who say one guy will win and 10 who say the other will win,” said David Itskowitch, chief operating officer of Golden Boy Promotions, which promotes both fighters.
“That’s what we’ve got here.”
The concerned parties were on hand at a news conference Thursday at Toyota Center in Houston, the site of the fight. HBO will televise. It will be the second consecutive fight for Diaz in his hometown.
After he lost his three lightweight belts in his eighth title defense to Nate Campbell via split-decision last March in Mexico, Diaz came back and won a minor title with a split decision over Michael Katsidis in September at Toyota Center.
“(It) was a bad year at the beginning,” Diaz said of 2008, “but it finished up being a great year.”
Diaz (34-1, 17 KOs) said he is stoked about getting a shot at Marquez, one of Mexico’s star fighters over the past decade.
“I needed someone like Juan Manuel Marquez to put me back to the top, so I can say to everyone that I am the best lightweight in the world,” said Diaz, 25.
Marquez, 35, is 49-4-1 with 36 knockouts. He lost his super featherweight title to Manny Pacquiao via split-decision in March in Las Vegas, then moved up to lightweight and stopped Joel Casamayor in the 11thround in September in Las Vegas.
“On Feb. 28 I will put my Mexican heart and blood on the line,” Marquez said.
