Snips and Snipes | BoxRecNews

I wonder if the Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao fight was ever going to end up anywhere except Las Vegas, or whether the search for a site elsewhere was just a publicity stunt to drum up interest - as if it needed any stunts. The MGM Grand on March 13 will be the place to be - if you can afford a ticket.

I am not sure if Freddie Roach is being disingenuous, but he was saying that he would like Tim Bradley as a sparring partner for Manny. Since there is a lot of talk of Tim challenging Amir Khan, it would make for some interesting times in the gym as Amir and Tim try to do the job properly for Manny whilst not showing too much to the other.

Khan is in a voluntary position now, so he can choose his own opponent, and is under no pressure, although WBA interim champion Marcos Maidana seems to have changed his focus from WBC champion Devon Alexander back to Amir. Don’t expect to see Maidana’s name figuring in the preferred list. He may lack skill but he can certainly punch.

Back to Manny who was in danger of getting some “Tiger Woods” type publicity as stories were circulating of an alleged affair with model Krista Ranillo. Mrs (Jinkee) Pacquiao has rubbished the rumours, so let’s hope that is all they are, as the last thing the great Filipino needs is this sort of distraction before the biggest fight of his life. (Ed. - The latest seems to be that Manny's mrs believes he has been up to a bit of Tigering.)

Manny is also engaged in a fight for a seat in the Filipino congress, but that is not going smoothly, as two of his supporters were gunned down. Stick with boxing Manny, it is much safer.

Just as an aside, where are all of these Filipino young lions coming from? It is not that long ago that Filipinos were being used as fodder by promoters in Japan and Thailand, but now every time you turn around there is another young star emerging. Just last week a practically unknown 19-year-old, 13 fight novice, Johnriel Casimero, turns up in Nicaragua and destroys former WBA interim light flyweight champion Cesar Canchilla. In September Marvin Sonsona, another 19-year-old with just 14 fights beat Jose Lopez for the WBO super fly title. Nineteen seems to be the benchmark for Filipino’s as Manny won the WBC flyweight title 13 days before his twentieth birthday. Apart from Manny and guys such as Nonito Donaire, Rodel Mayol, Gerry Penalosa and Donnie Nietes there is a whole pack of youngsters queuing up for their shot at fame : Denver Cuello is 23, Rommel Asenjo is 19, Milan Melindo is 19, Richie Mepranum is 22, AJ Banal is 20, Edwin Sonsona is 20, Baleg Bangoyan is 22, Ciso Morales is 21, Bernabe Concepcion is 21,Rey Bautista is 23, Mercito Gesta is 22 and 17-year-old Jason Pagar has lost only one of his 21 fights. Quite an array of potential talent.

Miguel Cotto has said that he intends to retire in October when he reaches the age of 30. He may have to reconsider if a couple of things do not go his way. He has a court case pending where his uncle and former trainer is suing him for $7.5 million and a sexual harassment allegation from a Venezuelan woman who is suing him for $250,000. Lets hope he is cleared in both cases and gets to retire in peace.

It always good to see a boxer staying involved in the sport and at the highest level. One such fighter is the former WBC bantamweight champion Rafael Herrera. For a few years now Rafael has headed up the Mexico City Boxing Commission. This not only oversees boxing in Mexico City it also administers the Mexican titles. Rafael will be 65 in January. He had a 48-9-4 record. He won the world bantamweight title in March 1972 by stopping Ruben Olivares, but lost the title in Panama in July against Enrique Pinder. Pinder was stripped off the WBC version of the title for failing to defend against Rodolfo Martinez . After beating Olivares again in an eliminator, Rafael climbed off the floor to halt Martinez for the vacant WBC title in April 1973. After two successful defences Rafael faced Martinez again and lost on a controversial stoppage in December 1974.

Not all former world champions go the way of Rafael. Alfredo Escalera, the former WBC super featherweight champion was destitute and has been helped out by the grant of a $600 pension a month from the Puerto Rican government. Alfredo won the title with a second round kayo of Kuniaki Shibata in Japan in July 1975. He made ten defences before losing to Alexis Arguello in January 1978. He lost to Arguello again in a title challenge in 1979 and retired in 1983 with a 53-14-3 record.

On the subject of the great Alexis Arguello, the show in which Casimero won the interim WBA title was staged to pay homage to Alexis. In attendance were Pipino Cuevas, Marco Antonio Barrera, Ivan Calderon, Shannon Briggs and other from the boxing world.

The WBC held a poll which voted Alexis and Gabriel “Flash” Elorde as the best super featherweight champions of the modern era. Since nothing can ever be proved these polls are just opinion, but these two would be near the top of anyone’s list.

One match missing from the show featuring the Edwin Valero title defence in La Guaria on December 19 was the fight for the interim WBA lightweight title between champion Miguel Acosta and Colombian Aristedes Perez. Senor Perez could not make it as he had been arrested just a few days before in a sting, allegedly found in possession of $50,000 worth of drugs. It is all a mistake he says.

It seems to have been a bad month for lightweights as the WBO No 1 Jorge Barrios was also arrested. The former WBO super featherweight champion was “visibly intoxicated” when he got into a fight with a former kick boxer. Not a smart thing to do as the former kick boxer was also the bodyguard of the Argentinian Trade Secretary. The “Hyena” bit off more than he could chew.

Golden Boy Promotions had a good couple of weeks as they signed bantamweight contender Abner Mares to another five year deal and also snapped up former lightweight champion Nate Campbell. Nate was one of those boxers left out in the cold when his Native American promotional group decided to stop their boxing programme.

The January 16 show in Kampala where Frans Botha will defend his WBF heavyweight title against Evander Holyfield is shaping up to be the biggest event in Uganda in years. Apart from the main bout there are also plans for Kassim Ouma to fight on the show and for Ugandans, Peter Semo and Abdu Tebazalwa, who are part of the Baltic Promotions team, to appear. John Mugabi has also been invited, but not to fight I hope. Baltic Promotions, who are staging the show, have also donated a large amount of boxing equipment to the Ugandan Amateur Boxing Federation. They were thanked by Godfrey Nyakana, a former world champion with the old WBF who beat Willie Beattie and Del Bryan back in the early 1990’s.

Don’t look for Frenchman Souleymane M’Baye in the list of potential challengers to Amir Khan. The former WBA champion recently settled a four year old law suit with the WBA. When M’Baye was mandatory challenger the WBA allowed him to be by-passed by both Vivian Harris and Carlos Maussa. As part of the settlement M’Baye gets to fight “the leading available contender” for the interim welterweight title by May 2010. That will give the WBA three champions in the division, and once again makes a mockery of the interim titles which originally supposed to only be used when a champion was unable to defend his title for an extended period due to injury.

To show how much of a mockery it is, the WBA cruiserweight champion Guillermo Jones has not defended his title since September 2008, but the WBA have not held any fights for the interim title in that time. Of course Panama has a big influence in the WBA.

The WBA mockery continues...You may have forgotten who former garbage collector Kali Meehan is, as he has not fought since August 2008. Despite this he is rated No 2 by the WBA and is lined up to face Ruslan Chagaev in a final eliminator to be the next challenger to David Haye, after the John Ruiz fight is out of the way. Meehan was No 3 in October so after 16 months of inactivity he gets promotion. Don King promotes Kali Meehan. Who says King is a spent force?

The WBA were also caught with their ratings down by the Juergen Braehmer vs Dmitri Sukhotskiy fight. To take the sanction fee they had to move the Russian from outside the top 15 to No 9, when he had been inactive for two months, and drop Edison Miranda. Nothing changes.

One day someone will decide to do something about the scoring in bouts. Last week we had one judge scoring the interim WBC title fight between Sebastian Zbik and Emanuele Della Rosa 120-109 to Zbik and another 115-113 to Della Rosa. A 13 point difference in a twelve round fight. Also in the Australian super middleweight title fight between Mike Bolling and Serge Yannick all three officials had it for Bolling, but one by 96-95 and another 100-92. They just saw the fight differently is all we can say. We are always going to have this as long as we score fights as if they were beauty contests, and have no definitive way of sorting out opinion, incompetence and dishonesty.

It really is a different world out there. You have to feel sorry for Zambian Joseph Chingangu. Now 43, Joseph fought in Britain back in the late 1990’s and the early part of this decade. He lost to Julius Francis (and fought Wladimir Klitschko in Germany), and stopped Herbie Hide. However, his last two fights here saw him kayoed in three rounds by Pele Reid and in 2003 in one round by Herbie Hide. He took four years out and has since won the Zambian and African Boxing Union titles. He wanted to defend his African title in November against Nigerian Adewale Abbey. He and his DS Boxing Stables raised sponsorship from various companies as loans to put the show, and some land, and Joseph’s car were put forward as collateral. Joseph kayoed Abbey in one round. However the show receipts came a long way short of the money borrowed. He now owes approximately 100,000,000 Kwacha (approx K4,680= $1) which is a lot of money. The Catch 22 for Chingangu is that to repay the debt he needs to fight, but to fight he needs sponsorship and to get sponsorship he needs to repay the debt. Abbey was paid his $4,000 purse, but Joseph received nothing. It is a different and much harder world out there.