LOS ANGELES – One might say that promoter Bob Arum is leaving no stone unturned. He never wants to go through what he went through last June when his fighter, Jose Luis Castillo, came in way overweight for a scheduled challenge to Diego Corrales and his lightweight championship.
The fight was canceled, and lawsuits abound.
Corrales, of course, lost his title belt on the scales earlier this month when he, too, came in well over the 135-pound limit for what was supposed to be a title defense against Joel Casamayor; the fight took place anyway, and Casamayor won the belt with a split decision at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Arum was an interested obverver of that fiasco, and he took no prisoners when doling out criticism to Corrales and his promoter, Gary Shaw. But Arum has been doing more than gloating – he is taking every precaution to make sure that none of his fighters ever pull those shenanigans again.
Enter into this picture Erik Morales, who a month from now, on Nov. 18, will take on Manny Pacquiao in a rubber match at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Morales has had big trouble making the super featherweight limit of 130 pounds his last few fights.
Moreover, he said he did not want
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——————————————————————————– to fight anymore at 130 after he was stopped in the 10th round by Pacquiao in their second fight last January at Thomas & Mack. When negotiating for this third fight, Morales wanted it to be at 135, but Pacquiao balked, so it will be at 130. Arum promotes Morales.
“As far as I’m concerned, my A-list fighters, when they show any type of problem making weight or (are) burning muscle to make weight, I am bringing in personal velocity trainers and they will supervise that aspect of training,” Arum said.
Personal velocity training is designed to get an athlete into optimum shape by improving muscle and joint strength, as well as speed, stamina, balance, flexibility and power.
“When Mr. Castillo gets back in the ring next January, he will be supervised by the same people,” Arum said. “Mr. (Miguel) Cotto has one of the personal velocity people in training camp with him as we speak.”
Arum promotes Cotto, who will take on Carlos Quintana for the vacant World Boxing Association welterweight belt Dec. 2 in Atlantic City. Before moving up in weight, the longtime junior welterweight champion had trouble making that 140-pound limit.
“So I’m not taking anymore chances with any of these trainers who really aren’t experts on nutrition,” Arum said. “Not that they intentionally do it, but I think that’s why these problems are being caused. I mean, Joe Goossen (Corrales’ trainer) is a great trainer and he’s very diligent, but Joe Goossen is not a professional nutritionist, nor does he claim to be.”
Arum in August held a news conference promoting Morales-Pacquiao III. Morales looked as puffed up as anyone had ever seen.
But Arum told this newspaper Wednesday that everything is under control.
He said Morales was with a personal velocity team in Los Angeles, and two of the trainers went with him recently when he went to camp in the mountains near Mexico City. A news conference will be held in Mexico City on Friday. The WBC will weigh Morales.
“There is absolutely no problem,” Arum said. “He is in such unbelievable shape, you cannot believe. Whatever he is supposed to weigh, it will be considerably under.”
Superfighter
Stephen Duval, a promoter from Australia, on Monday announced that he has put together a pay-per-view event called Superfighter that will feature eight heavyweights squaring off in a one-night tournament Dec. 2 in Melbourne, Australia.
The fights will be four rounds, with the winners of the quarterfinals advancing to the semifinals, then those winners fighting in the final bout of the evening for $5 million. The two fighters going all the way could fight as many as 12 rounds.
The participants will include Calvin Brock, Samuel Peter, Chris Byrd, Jameel McCline, Juan Carlos Gomez, Ty Fields, O’Neil Bell and Oliver McCall.
During a conference call Monday, Duval, along with Superfighter ambassador and former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, talked about this venture that will include an interesting electronic scoring system.
“What we have come up with is a weighted realtime scoring system that rewards constant effective boxing out of the entire four rounds,” Duval said. “One point for a clean hit, three points for a power hit that rocks the fighter but does not knock them down and anywhere between five and 10 points for a knockdown.”
The scoring, which will be an average of the three judges’, will be accumulative and fans in person at Telstra Dome as well as those watching on television will be able to see the scoring as it takes place.
A fourth “intensity judge” can add points for a fighter who shows his willingness to keep up his attack on a constant basis.
“The biggest point that we obviously believe is that what we are bringing is intensity-saturated,” Duval said. “And there is no undercard, which is one of the biggest things. Eight elite fighters up to 28 rounds of boxing. The same guys that you see in the final, you see in the quarterfinals.”
Brock and Peter are elite fighters. Brock will challenge Wladimir Klitschko for his International Boxing Federation championship Nov. 11 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The only way he won’t participate in Superfighter is if he is medically suspended for something that happens against Klitschko.
Peter is ranked No. 1 by the World Boxing Council.
Byrd, the former IBF champion, is past his prime and never was a solid champion. McCline is ranked as high as No. 11 by the World Boxing Organization, but is no longer an elite fighter.
Bell and Gomez have done their best work as cruiserweights, Fields is an unknown with a good record against stiffs, and at 41, McCall’s best years are long behind him.
Duval said he made offers to some of the four recognized champions, but that they all declined.
“You know, these guys have got belts to protect, that they feel they deserve,” Duval said. “If they were defeated in the Superfighter event, you know, they wouldn’t feel too happy about being the heavyweight champion of the world and being defeated in the Superfighter heavyweight event.”
Lewis, besides his ambassador status to Superfighter, will provide commentary on the pay-per-view feed, which will cost $49.95. He believes that once a Superfighter champion has been crowned, the world champions won’t be able to resist doling out a challenge.
“This is the kind of event that will attract them because they’ll look at the prize money and say, `Well, you know, I’m the best heavyweight in the world and that’s the best Superfighter – I need to challenge this guy,” Lewis said.
Lewis, who held at least a piece of the heavyweight championship most of the last 10 years of his 14-year career, sees Superfighter as a sure way to rekindle some of the fire boxing has lost the past 20 years.
“It’s a way to create excitement, more excitement in a shortened form,” Lewis said. “Instead of, you know, watching a fight that goes 12 rounds and, you know, halfway through the fight, it’s kind of dull, you’re really getting a lot of action in a short space of time.
“And I think the fans will clamor for that more and even the boxers will feel that they need to put out a lot more in these rounds.”
There are plenty of other interesting aspects to Superfighter. And this one’s a doozy. There will be instant replay so a referee can, among other things, determine the validity of a questionable knockdown, or if a cut was caused by a punch or a head-butt.
This, Duval said, was implemented so as to make sure the fighter most deserving of winning, does.
Not a bad idea.
