 OK, Floyd, First Zab, then Margarito, Right?
By Steve Kim (April 5, 2006) Photo © German Villasenor
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Just minutes after WBO welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito blew out Manuel Gomez in mid-February, his promoter Bob Arum would state that he had reserved July 29th at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas for a showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr. - should he get past Zab Judah this Saturday night.
But 'the Pretty Boy' only has his sights set on his next opponent.
"Right now," he would tell a group of reporters a few weeks back in Los Angeles, "the only thing I'm focused on is Osc...I mean, uh... the only person I'm focused on is Zab Judah and we don't know what the future holds," he stammered as he seemed to forget momentarily who he was slated to face on April 8th. As the cadre of reporters laughed at his faux pas, you got the feeling this was more than just a Freudian slip. "Like I said before," he continued, "I leave it in my team's hands and what happens, happens."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a Margarito-Mayweather showdown. So is 'The Golden Boy' his number priority should he get past Judah?
"All I'm saying is I'll leave it in my team's hands. Right now all I'm focused on is Zab Judah, that's my focus, April 8th," said Mayweather, which seems to be another way of saying he doesn't want to hear Margarito's name. "Once I dust him off, at the press conference after the fight, then talk to me and then I'll tell you who's next."
Sergio Diaz, who manages Margarito, seems to be on the same wavelength as Mayweather.
"He's still thinking about Oscar. What did he say, 'Pretty Boy' vs Golden Boy'? And I know Mayweather's guy, Al Haymon, they have a real good relationship with Golden Boy, in fact he has a couple of his fighters signed with them," Diaz pointed out to Maxboxing. "So I think that's the fight they're looking for. I don't think he wants to fight Antonio."
So then what's Plan B?
"There's no Plan B," insisted Arum, "that's what I'm concentrating on. I hope to have it happen. We'll have to see."
And the veteran promoter, who represents both Margarito and Mayweather, says the chances of a Mayweather-De La Hoya bout coming to fruition in 2006 are: "Very, very dim. If it happens, it happens next year. But it's hard for me to see it happening."
Outside the fact that Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions detest each other, Arum says that another factor will keep this bout from becoming a reality.
"I think the money," he said. "They're going to look to get Mayweather cheap and all that sorta stuff."
There's no doubt though that a 'Pretty Boy vs. Golden Boy' promotion would be a blockbuster. Not only do you have a match-up of two of the biggest names in the sport, but the storylines involving Arum and his former protégé and Floyd and his father, would grab headlines and column inches all over the media.
Who knows though - if the petulant and moody Mayweather insists on this particular bout, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to see Mayweather and Arum on the outs (again).
But as of now, everything is rosy between the two. It seems that as of now, Mayweather and Arum are in accord with his career's path.
"You can see his attitude and we are working together in tandem. We play off each other well," Arum said. "And there's no conflict anymore. I mean, he knows that I'm doing whatever is possible to make the most money on these cards because he gets the lion's share and he is extremely cooperative and smart enough to know that by being cooperative he's going to maximize the revenue."
Arum recently inked Mayweather to a two-year contract extension and he says he doesn't want to waste it on meaningless events.
"He's in the same position that we were with Oscar when we went for the big, big fight all the time. It is my hope that this year we'll be able to do three blockbuster pay-per-view fights with Floyd: Judah, Margarito and then maybe Mosley."
Of those names - and fighters like Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton - Margarito represents perhaps the most risk for the least reward. Perhaps he sees a bigger
version of Jose Luis Castillo. But Mayweather was dismissive when asked about the native of Tijuana.
"Margarito's biggest fight is Kermit Cintron and who has Kermit Cintron beat? 27 fights, 27 knockouts, who has Kermit Cintron beat?" he asked rhetorically. "He beat a bunch of cab drivers. Not saying that Antonio Margarito's not a good fighter, he's a good fighter, I like him, I respect him. I can't say I respect his fight game because I've never been in there with him."
And perhaps, he never will be.
Meanwhile, Margarito's representatives have begun mentally searching out other options.
"We have," confirmed Diaz, "we just don't know who we're going to fight, though. We have been thinking about the other guys; I know Mosley's already on board to fight Vargas again. So we're thinking that we'll probably end up fighting someone else. We just don't know who."
As for conversing with their promoter, Diaz said on Friday afternoon, "We haven't spoken to Bob. In fact, we're still waiting to get information on next week, to see if they want us in Vegas. Bob did mention he does want us in Vegas but I haven't received a phone call. I guess I have to call them to see if they want us there or not."
(For the record, Diaz would call Top Rank, who did in fact, make arrangements for Margarito and his team to be in town for this weekend's bout.)
"But we're just sitting and waiting, everybody is asking, 'What's next?' We don't know what's next. We're hoping for Mayweather, that's what we want. But the truth is we don't know what's next."
Meanwhile, Diaz has an impatient fighter to deal with.
"He's very impatient, he still believes in Bob's word. He still believes that this is going to be his year. It's a big year and he really believes that it's going to be like that," said Diaz. "He doesn't want to think of anything else. But I tell him, 'Just in case, we've been told we're going to get it, get this fight, and they don't come through or they don't happen because of the money the opponents want or the opponents just don't want to fight us.' So that's all we can do is sit and wait and cross our fingers.
"If the fighter does not want to get in the ring with us, what can we do?"
How 'bout losing to nine-loss journeymen? That seems to do the trick.
MAX JUDAH
OK, so Zab wasn't speaking to the media, huh? No problem, I got the next best person to speak on his behalf, Max Kellerman, speaker of the house for Team
Judah.
Does Kellerman, who had hyped Judah to un-Godly levels in the late '90's, believe that he has lived up to his high expectations?
" No," he admitted, "but my expectations were based on his obvious physical potential. The thing you always have to find out with a guy like that is - how well does he take a punch? How does he respond to adversity? Is he able to adapt in a tough fight? And so the answer to those questions were not always good so far in Zab's career. And that sort of limited the ceiling of his potential but you can't take those things for granted as though they exist when you first see a prospect."
As he was watching Judah get upset by Baldomir, one thing flashed across Kellerman's mind: "Rafael Pineda. Even to an extent 'Chop Chop' Corley and Omar Weis and several others where early in the fight Zab is clearly better than the other guy and Teddy Atlas says, 'The other guy doesn't cooperate with him and gets out of there', Zab gets frustrated and seems to lose focus.'"
But a win over Mayweather and all of a sudden, the perception of Judah as a disappointment begins to change. Kellerman believes that Judah needs to pull the upset to change how people view him as a fighter.
"I do, because Zab is in a way this era's Thomas Hearns or Lennox Lewis, in a sense that he can win or lose to any given fighter on any given night," he explained. "And that sounds like a very broad category but it's not. It's a very specific category, it's guys who don't take great punches and have a fatal flaw or two that can be exposed even by a fighter who's not very good."
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E-Mail Steve Kim at k9kim@maxboxing.com
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