Snips & Snipes | BoxRecNews

Eric Armit's subjects this week include Ricardo Mayorga's switch to MMA, the epidemic of Filipino southpaws and - you heard it right - Manny Pac struggling to shift tickets!

Some times I feel sorry for Mike Tyson, and sometimes I don’t. Certainly his name works against him. Mike’s latest project is an Animal Planet series “Take On Tyson”. It is a TV reality show in which Mike, a life-long lover of pigeons, will pit his racing pigeons, against the best in New York. Sounds okay. But no, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are alleging that profits will be made from the races, which contravenes New York’s gambling laws. The District Attorney for Brooklyn is reported to be investigating. Poor Mike, sometimes it must feel as though the whole world is against him. I was feeling sorry for him until I read that he has signed with Don King again and Don will handle his return to the boxing ring. Anyone dumb enough to do that deserves everything that comes his way.

Dr. Esteban Martos is a medical officer involved in boxing in Mexico for 26 years. In a recent paper presented to the Mexican City Boxing Commission he stated that he considered that the change to weigh-ins a day before fights may in fact be doing more harm than good. He has studied many cases of boxing injuries and is convinced that the very quick re-hydration and weight gains post the weigh-in can cause serious metabolic changes in the body, and are very harmful. He quoted a number of cases of fatalities and serious injury which he attributed to this. It was also interesting that as part of the presentation he claimed that in interviews with Gene Block and Lenny Rome at the University of California in Los Angeles, often quoted as the recommender of earlier weigh-ins, they denied that they had ever studied or advised on this subject, which raises the question as to whether it has ever been properly investigated or just accepted as an “obvious truth” with the downside being ignored.

There are more and more boxers deserting boxing for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Luckily it has mostly been guys whose boxing careers are behind them. The latest is former WBC light middleweight champion Lupe Aquino. Now 47, Lupe was WBC champ briefly in 1987 and retired in 1999 after 64 fights. I guess he needs the money, but it shows the spectacle, and not quality or safety, rule in MMA. Another to go over is the former welterweight and light middleweight champion Ricardo Mayorga. Unlike Aquino, Mayorga is still relatively young at 36 and was active up until 2008. Mind you, the Mayorga style of fighting often seemed closer to MMA then boxing. More concerning is the talk of WBO No 4 cruiserweight BJ Flores going over. He has his career in front of him, but they way that politics ruin boxing means he is a long way from a title shot, so may be getting impatient.

What is with the Philippines and southpaws? At one time “wrong way round” fighters were the exception in boxing and many a trainer, on being confronted with a southpaw , considered his first task to be to convert him to orthodox so that he would not be shunned as an opponent. The “stigma” has largely disappeared but the Filipinos seem to be taking it to extremes and seem to be breeding them. Manny Pacquiao, Gerry Penalosa, Marvin Sonsona, Eden Sonsona, Mark Melligan, Dennis Laurente, Jimrex Jaca, Melcito Gesta, Czar Amonsot, Vivino Rufino, Michael Farenas, Lorenzo Villaneuva, Eric Barcelona, AJ Banal, Malcolm Tunacao, Richie Mepranum, Florante Condes, Glenn Porras……..etc. The only top Filipino fighters that do not appear to have been infected are Rodel Mayol, Donnie Nietes and Nonito Donaire, but then Donaire learned how to fight in the US amateur programme.

There should be a society for the protection of old fighters as too many just do not know when to stop or to stay away. It should initially concentrate on Colombians as both Kermin Guardia and Mauricio Pastrana need some sort of intervention. Guardia, once a good WBO strawweight champion, is now 40, fighting at super bantamweight, and is 2-10 in his last twelve fights. Pastrana, a former IBF light flyweight champion is 37, is also fighting at super bantamweight and has lost six of his last seven. When you add to this the talk of former WBA featherweight champion Fred Norwood, 40, returning to fight world rated Demetrius Hopkins at welterweight. At the weekends we had a 37-year-old Ed Mahone, inactive for almost two years, being fed to a 6’7 ½” unbeaten Russian who outweighed him by almost 80lbs. We also had 39-year-old Phil Holiday staging a comeback after seven years out of the ring and going straight into a twelve round fight.You feel so helpless for a sport that can’t look after its own. However, they are all big boys, with brave managers, so I guess you just let them get on with it, and cross your fingers.

Not quite so dangerous, but certainly very misleading is the variable quality of boxers from different regions. Take Adam Richards, the recent challenger to Marco Huck. The “Swamp Donkey” had an acceptable looking record of 23 wins and two losses. However, anyone looking closely at the record would see that he had hardly ever fought outside Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas and his record was littered with third rate opponents, twelve of whom had lost more fights than they had won. The only time he stepped out of his comfort zone was when he fought Chazz Witherspoon, and then he was stopped in eight rounds. The WBO somehow rated him No 13 making him a legitimate challenger, this despite the fact that his only wins since his 2008 loss to Witherspoon were over Gustavo Enriquez (stopped in his previous two fights) and Harvey Jolly (an eight round split decision over a guy with a 9-10 record).

Richards gave it a good try against Huck but it was a mismatch made possible by inexplicable ratings by the WBO. He was essentially a fighter rated and matched way over his head and he got there on the back of a record that for fights of any real quality was essentially 0-1, but you can’t sell a fight on that basis. The American Deep South and Mid-West areas are a favourite hunting ground for promoters looking for padded records and safe opponents, so be warned and save your money, unless you are the kind that likes to see second raters beaten up by your local favourite.

Next up for Marco is American Brian Minto. Actually Minto is no bum. He is rated No 5 by the wonderful WBO. It appears he qualifies to fight for the title by being beaten in four rounds by Chris Arreola in his last fight. As for being No 5 cruiserweight, never in his career has Minto scaled inside the cruiserweight limit and the last time he scaled below even 210lbs was in 2005 - some cruiserweight.

Still on undeserving challengers, Don King has announced that Cory Spinks will defend against unbeaten Texas-based Mexican James “King” De La Rosa. The tall 22-year-old is actually not a bad fighter, he just does not happen to be rated in the IBF top 15. Don’t hold your breath, even though he has not fought since October, you can look for his name in the next IBF ratings. With a nickname like “King” it’s a certainty. I thought it was ratings manipulations with certain boxing promoters that got Bobby Lee in trouble!

The WBC is not much better. The March 20 fight between Jhonny Gonzalez and Antonio David was advertised as a WBC featherweight title eliminator. Well Gonzalez is No 3 and Davis is number…um….number….um….Well he is not in the March top 40, so I guess he was eliminated before the eliminator. It is just as well that the Trade Descriptions Act is a British law.

I have a liking for really awful puns, but never having been a headline writer I never had the chance to use them. I feel the frustration particularly when I see some of the names around. For instance there is a Ukrainian light middleweight Artemis Karpets who has not lost a fight - “Karpets Beaten”..."Karpets Taken to the Cleaners” a dream realised. Then there is the Thai light flyweight Samson Tor Buamad - “Samson Scalped”, “Samson Loses Hairline Decision”. Incidentally, Samson is a woman in this case. Now you can see why they never let me do the headlines. However there are some names I would hate to have to deal with such as Arno Prick - (incidentally the Arno bit was correct as he was a fair quality German heavyweight who boxed from 1966 to 1977, winning his first 18 fights) and Argentinian light middleweight Oscar Fucks. Don’t go there, Eric!

It is no wonder that the Klitschko brothers feel that they have little to fear from the boxers coming through today (with the exception of David Haye of course). Wladimir is just over 6’6” tall and is a beautifully sculptured 246lbs, Vitali is just under 6’8” tall and is also a comparatively svelte 250lbs. Right up there in the list of future challengers is Cuban Odlanier Solis, a former amateur star who is 6’1 ½” and weighs approx 270lbs. That is just plain fat. The only danger to the Klitschkos would be if he fell on them.

Still on the Klitschkos, it could easily be seen how angry Manny Stewart was at Wladimir’s failure to put Eddie Chambers away. Manny and Wlad could be seen exchanging angry words in the corner at the end of the eleventh. What illustrated Manny’s frustration was that he actually accompanied Wlad out to the centre of the ring for the bell for the last round to continue to press him for a finish. I have never before seen a corner man go to the centre of the ring for the last bell. It worked because Wlad was a man on a mission in that last round.

The proliferation of titles is becoming ridiculous (surely 'even more ridiculous? - Ed.). I consider the European Boxing Union (EBU) to be one of, if not the, best sanctioning bodies in the world. Their ratings are excellent (and no, I do not have anything to do with them) and their title fights are usually of the highest quality. I was therefore very disappointed when they introduced the European Union titles and the titles for European fighters from non-European Union countries. The EBU is affiliated with the WBC and only deals with the other bodies on sufferance. My feeling was that the introduction of these additional titles was partly to provide opportunities for these fighters to prevent the other sanctioning bodies establishing themselves in Europe. It worked for a short while, but now we have bodies representing the WBA (EBA) the WBO (EBO) and IBF (EBF) all introducing European titles and there is nothing the EBU can do about it. The only consolation for the EBU is that the standard of fights for these other titles is abysmal, but it is a cancer that will grow as more, and better fighters, who can’t get shots at the EBU title, will turn to these other outfits.

Manny Pacquiao may be red hot at the boxing box office, but he is a poor draw at music concerts. There was to have been a “Manny Pacquiao Live” concert in Hawaii this week, but it had to be cancelled due to poor ticket sales. Manny may have drawn close to 50,000 in Texas, but after selling only 603 tickets the Hawaii the promoter decided to cancel and swallow an estimated $50,000 loss.

Manny will now go home and have another try at winning a seat in the Philippines Congress. Despite his popularity he will have a battle on his hands as the area in which he will campaign is in the hands of one of the strongest political clans in the Philippines. One good thing, at least no one will ask Manny to take any anti-doping tests.