(Welcome to another edition of Sound & Fury, the boxing column that blackens eyes and skips clich?s. This week read about the challenge Richard Schaefer offered Bob Arum, how Golden Boy continues to skirt regulations, and why Antonio Margarito fighting Manny Pacquiao might not be such a bad thing after all. In addition, S & F offers a roundup of all the televised action from last night, some random notes, another angle on the Paul Briggs debacle, and final thoughts on Vic Ziegel.)
Once again Golden Boy Promotions failed to conform to a simple rule stipulated by the California State Athletic Commission regarding the minimum number of scheduled rounds for a boxing card. According to Boxrec.com, ?Fight Night Club,? aired on ?check your local listings? channels on Thursday, had only 24 maximum rounds scheduled. The Cruelest Sport pointed this out for the last GBP extravaganza at the Nokia Theater: Enjoy Your Slaughter: Golden Boy Promotions & Must-Flee TV.
Here is what the California State Athletic Commission says about minimum rounds for a boxing show:
?Clubs shall not schedule less than 26 rounds of boxing, nor more than 40 rounds, except with the approval of the commission for any one program. A standby bout shall be provided in the event an arranged card breaks down, and if it is necessary to put on another bout in order to meet the minimum requirement.?
The CSAC has long been a hotbed of incompetence (this is proven by the mind-bending fact that Mauricio Pastrana, now 1-8 in his last nine bouts, was allowed to be steamrolled in less than a round in the ?main event?), but now it cannot even be bothered to enforce its own rules. The Cruelest Sport did not receive a response from the CSAC about this issue a month ago.
*****
It was amusing to see that Jonathan Arias was credited with a better record than he in fact possessed on Telefutura, but less amusing to see websites repeat what is almost certainly an innocent mistake?the only kind GBP ever seems to make. Arias is now 10-7 and not 15-6 as reported elsewhere.
*****
In a fight that resembled Hagler-Hearns compared to the trash that normally airs on Telefutura, Craig McEwan squeaked by journeyman Danny Perez over 10 lively rounds before an enthusiastic crowd at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, California. McEwan fights like a man caught in a riptide, but that alone will not disqualify him from having his first name legally changed to ?Prospect.? For the record, Perez gave him an awful lacing, but altruistic judges decided to give this one to Sir Schaefer so that his can continue an amazing streak: Golden Boy Promotions fighters have won every semi and main event on every show aired on Telefutura, Fox Sports, and ESPN2. No doubt Max Kellerman would call this ?fine? matchmaking. Perez fought with zeal (not always the case in his spotty career), landed the harder shots, pressed the action, and hurt McEwan several times over the course of the fight. But the look of resignation on his face after the bizarre decision was announced revealed the reality of boxing in a way the shills, barkers, and hacks who cover this sport regularly cannot?or will not.
*****
Richard Schaefer recently challenged Bob Arum to a lie detector test to see who was telling the truth about the Mayweather-Pacquiao farce. Maybe Schaefer could it air it on ?Fight Night Club? or ?Solo Boxeo.? It would certainly improve the quality of both shows.
*****
Teddy Atlas might be a fine trainer and a good television commentator, but he should never apply for a license as a manager. Pulling Alexander Povetkin out of a fight with Wladimir Klitschko at this stage is absurd. Povetkin is 31 and has been the #1 contender to Klitschko for years. If he is not ready now, he will never be ready. And two million dollars is the kind of money he will never see on ESPN2 or GoFightLive.com. The worst scenario, that Povetkin will lose one of his ?Atlas Tune-up Fights,? would probably send his promoters on a Russian Roulette spree.
*****
The Paul Briggs situation is ugly. But just as ugly are a couple of small-fry side orders on its fringes. Sanctioning bodies are ridiculous and corrupt entities, and The Cruelest Sport almost never bothers mentioning them. But the IBO deserves a special shout out, not only because of its appalling behavior surrounding the Briggs event (as well as its strange love affair with Danny Green in general), but because the IBO is championed by self-regarding BWAA member Lyle Fitzsimmons.
That the IBO would ?sanction? a boxer like Briggs?out of the ring for over three years, well-above his previous weight class, and suffering from a frightening illness that forced him to retire in the first place?to fight for its ?world? title is bad enough, but to have such a farce of an organization lauded again and again by someone who casts Hall of Fame ballots tells you all you need to know about the boxing media.
Of its 12 listed ?world? champions, including folks like Isaac Chilemba, Peter Manfredo Jr., and Lovemore N?Dou, four of them hail from Australia. Now, Australia has a rich history in boxing, one that includes immortals like Young Griffo, Peter Jackson, and Les Darcy, but who knew that ?The Land Down Under? was currently such a dominant force in boxing?
*****
All fighters deserve respect, but watching elemental Beibut Shumenov and inept Viacheslav Uzelkov tangle in a near-empty parking lot in Leemore, California, left The Cruelest Sport searching for re-runs of ?River Monsters.? Uzelkov, 22-1, entered the ring as the favorite last night simply because Shumenov is a limited talent, to put it mildly. Who could have imagined that Uzelkov would actually beat Shumenov, hands down, in the ?limited? department? Incredibly, Uzelkov does not even know what foot to lead with. Half the time, he would step forward with his back foot first and leave it parallel with his left, the gait of a man who might have to walk the line on a roadside for a highway patrolman. The fighters traded knockdowns, which will make this a FOY candidate for some, but the action was desultory at best and an indictment of how thin many weight classes are these days.
*****
You also have to love how the ESPN2 crew routinely slams sanctioning bodies?until a ?championship? bout is aired on Friday Night Fights. Then, all of a sudden, Joe Tessitore cannot stop pronouncing ?WORLD TITLE? as if the word ?world? had three syllables.
*****
On the ESPN2 undercard, Prospect Rico Ramos won a decision over Former Prospect Cuauhtemoc Vargas in a dull eight-rounder notable mainly for Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas playing amateur astronomers at ringside. Apparently, the sun has never shined so brightly during a fight before.
*****
Many sources have indicated that Antonio Margarito, who will go before the Nevada State Athletic Commission once more in an effort to get his license reinstated, will, indeed, be facing Manny Pacquiao in November. What a shame that such an undeserving fighter will be maneuvered into a payday worth millions of dollars. On the other hand?and this is, admittedly, a harsh thing to say?there would be some sort of cruel poetic justice in seeing Margarito get beaten to a pulp again.
*****
Vic Ziegel, who died yesterday at 72, was a fine boxing writer and one of the last of the old guard of newspapermen and authors to bring more than hype to sportswriting. Ziegel was a master of artless prose, compulsively readable writing?produced with traditional tools of the trade like rhythm, pitch, metaphor?that never called attention to itself, remarkable considering how much of it was produced under deadline. Today, much of what is written is not effortless, but without effort, a distinction that should never be forgotten. Of his generation of distinguished writers, Pete Hammill, Gay Talese, and Jimmy Breslin all ceased writing about The Sweet Science over time. What these writers all had in common was, for lack of a better word, sensibility, an interest in the world well beyond the reach of most who cover boxing these days. Ziegel, despite the marginalization of boxing (along with its corporatization), never really stopped writing about boxing because the raw material available in a sport so absurd was too bountiful to ignore for a writer with a sense of humor as pronounced as his was. He never failed to cast a wink at the shenanigans that went on in The Red Light District of Sports, and he never failed to reveal its frail human side as well. He had too much sensibility for that.
