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 Boxing From An Odd Angle
by Marty Mulcahey (February 11, 2003)
Photo © HoganPhotos.com
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Yesterday, I got to see the Pay Per View commercial for the John Ruiz vs. Roy Jones fight for the first time. As is usual for boxing commercials, this one breaks the 'truth in advertising' laws. In the ad, a God like voice states that Jones will fight "The heavyweight champion", instead of stating the bout was for a fraudulent WBA version of the heavyweight title. That is the equivalent of advertising the NIT college basketball tourney as being the same as the NCAA tourney.
Speaking of Ruiz (a good man who I feel bad taking cheap shots at.... but hey it comes with million dollar purses), I got a press release from his people stating that he had a logo made to establish a 'brand identity' for Ruiz. The logo consists of Ruiz's name interwoven with a sword, which I am supposed to relate to Ruiz for "merchandise and sponsorship opportunities". What!? Why do I need a logo to identify a supposed heavyweight champion? Let's see, Joe Louis is known for his incredible power, Jack Dempsey for his ferocity, Muhammad Ali for his speed, and Rocky Marciano for his determination. John Ruiz is known for...... O.K. maybe a logo is not a bad thing after all. On a related note, my wife says I am known for being "whipped".
Last week, Don King visited Nicaragua's capital city of Managua with his conquering hero Ricardo Mayorga. During the visit he was awarded the keys to the city by Mayor Herty Lewites. Two hours later, a visibly upset Don King walked out of the Bank of Nicaragua cursing the fact that the keys did not work on the bank's vault.
Quick, run to your local ticketmaster............ and burn it down. Tickets ranging from $100 to $600 have gone on sale for Oscar De La Hoya's 'fight' against Yori Boy Campas. The fight card has been billed as 'Night of Champions' by Bob Arum. It should be more accurately described as 'Night of Chumps' in honor of the fools who would pay for this event. You would get more for your money by attending Oscar's workout sessions with his heavy bag.
Speaking of Oscar and Bob Arum screwing people out of money, it looks like Shane Mosley will balk at the four million dollars that he is being offered to fight Oscar in a rematch. Four million sounds like a reasonable offer until you find out that Oscar's share (remember he lost the first fight to Shane) of the gate would amount to upwards of 12 million dollars. I know life is not fair, but I have to side with Shane in this dispute. I guess we will see how serious Oscar REALLY is about wanting to avenge his loss to Shane now. In related news, the Oakland Raiders have demanded the Tampa Bay Buccaneers give them the winners' share of the Super Bowl bonus because they sell more replica jerseys.
In a recent interview, Mike Tyson's manager Shelly Finkel said of Mike Tyson, "I think you'll see a maturity that's not been there before. He's mellowing in his old age." I will have to re-read my history books and see if Attila The Hun, Genghis Khan, and Vlad the Impaler mellowed with age.
ESPN called last week 'rivalry week', and even featured Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier prominently in their ads. So, I tuned into ESPN Classic on Tuesday night for their weekly boxing show (otherwise known as the Ali tribute hour) expecting to see a classic boxing rivalry. The only problem was that ESPN classic never showed a single boxing match during rivalry week! No Zale vs. Graziano, Pep vs. Saddler, Leonard vs. Duran or Hearns, or even Bowe vs. Holyfield. ESPN Classic only schedules a measly two hours for boxing fans a week. Even then, they do not make up for the lack of quantity with quality, if you got ESPN Classic for the boxing, unsubscribe right now.
You want to know why the WBC, IBF, WBA and WBO suck? They suck because they prevent many good fights from even getting past the negotiation stages. Just last week, the WBC prevented Oscar Larios from getting his largest payday ever from HBO by threatening to strip him of his title if he fights Marco Antonio Barrera. After all the work Larios (a fellow Mexican, Senor Sulaiman) has done to win a world title, this is the reward he gets? Then, the WBA tells Leonard Dorin he cannot have a unification fight with Paul Spadafora, or he would be stripped of his WBA lightweight title. Maybe the WBA was upset at the thought of having a champion who is not promoted by Don King?
The difference that Brian Kenny makes for the ESPN2 Friday Night Fights series is amazing. He engages the entire cast in free flowing conversation which leads the show to subjects which might not have been covered if he were not there. Kenny's replacements seem to be fed lines about fights they have no clue about, and even then they don't sound believable.
Have you noticed that ESPN's Friday Night Fights is starting to call itself, "Your Boxing Authority"? Until someone comes along with a better all around boxing show, I will have to agree. Although, Maxboxing.com has enough video clips to fill a two and a half hour show.
If you ever want to get a preview of what Max Kellerman is going to say during the FNF broadcast, check out his ESPN.COM web chats on Tuesday (also archived on the ESPN site) afternoons. He, invariably, repeats his thoughts from the web chat on the show. Which shows that Max gives his opinions a lot of thought before he airs it to a national audience. He probably thinks of stuff to annoy Teddy Atlas on the spot, however.
Middleweight prospect Jermain Taylor was the special guest for the FNF show. Let's just say that Taylor makes a lot stronger statement with his fists than his mouth. Don't look for Taylor to step into any kind of broadcasting role after his retirement.
The Main event of Omar Weis vs. Emanuel Augustus was not as thrilling as hoped, but did prove that Weis is impossible to look good against. I was annoyed by Augustus stopping the fight to adjust his foul protector on a couple occasions early in the fight. Could you imagine if he had tried to do that with Duran or Dempsey? Roberto would have ripped his head off in a heartbeat, instead of standing there waiting for him to get done adjusting his cup.
HBO's show on Saturday had it's share of excitement - too bad it all came in the first fight. Antonio Margarito confirmed suspicions that Andrew Lewis' chin could not stand up to a strong breeze, much less a punch. Also, give Margarito credit for following his corner's instructions to throw uppercuts, which led to his victory in the very next round.
I criticized Joe Cortez for recent performances in heavyweight bouts, but he stopped the Margarito vs. Lewis fight right on time. While Lewis was obviously hurt on the ropes, Cortez waited until Margarito finally landed a solid blow (Margarito was missing a lot with his follow up punches) to step in and halt the bout, thus preventing the kind of "I could have continued, let's do it again" talk we hear from fighters who are saved from taking that extra punch.
During the telecast, Larry Merchant and Bob Arum kept mispronouncing Margarito's name as "Margarita". I will assume both were in a hurry to get to the bar and have some Margaritas, because Margarito would make the ugliest Mexican woman I ever saw.
I would never have featured Raul Marquez on the same night as HBO ran its "Bloodiest Fights" video montage. The fear that Marquez would suffer from sympathy bleeding before the opening bell would scare me off the idea. Of course, Marquez did bleed on cue as his fight with Mosley had to be stopped in the third round, with bad cuts along both eyes.
Shane looked to be getting on track when the fight was stopped. Mosley looked decent considering he was in against an awkward southpaw almost designed to make him look bad. I have little doubt that Shane would have won the fight within six rounds, cuts or not. One gets the feeling that negotiations for the second Oscar fight will be much tougher than anything Marquez could have done to Shane.
I take boxers to task, and poke fun at them when they get in trouble with the law. So, it would be hypocritical of me not to mention that Showtime analyst Bobby Czyz was recently arrested for suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol. A friend of mine put it best when he asked, "Will this affect Czyz's status within the MENSA organization?"
This week a promoter is featured in our weekly focus on charitable work by a boxing personality. The oft maligned Don King does do good things with his money at times. Which was the case when he went to Nicaragua last week. After celebrating the victory of Nicaraguan Ricardo Mayorga over Vernon Forrest, Don King took the time to make a $100,000 donation to Hospital Berta Calderón for renovations to the medical facility. Thanks Don.
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