Snips & Snipes February 23, 2010

Eric Armit's global gossip column offers some fascinating insights this week. Did you know that, according to the IBF, Martin Lindsay is an Israeli...

Big fights to look forward to include HBO show with Tavoris Cloud defending the IBF light heavy title against former champion Glen Johnson on April 10 with WBC welterweight title Andre Berto defending the WBC welter title against former WBO champion Carlos Quintana. Venue yet to be advised.

On March 26 in Sunrise, Florida former champ Steve Cunningham aims to regain the IBF cruiserweight title as he meets Matt Godfrey for the title vacated by Hungarian Zsolt Erdei. Interestingly Erdei has moved back down to light heavyweight and is the mandatory challenger for Nat Cleverly’s European title.

March 6 at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, WBC light welter champion Devon Alexander and IBF champion Juan Urango meet in a unification match. Alexander won the title with a win over Junior Witter last August. Urango, a former Ricky Hatton victim, also won his title in August by stopping veteran Randall Bailey.

April 17 sees Lucien Bute defending his IBF super middle title against dangerous Colombian Edison Miranda. Only in boxing-Miranda gets the shot for losing to Andre Ward. In all other sports you get penalised for losing, but not in boxing, it makes you more acceptable.

Bute has stayed outside the Super Six, and unfortunately at the end of the competition we will still have two champions, and I bet that within one year we will be back to three or four super middleweight ”champions”.

The programme for Super Six has suffered a change as Andre Dirrell was injured in training and his fight with Arthur Abraham has been put back to March 27, but the addition of Allan Green to the competition will be a plus.

Australian Danny Green, having failed to get a fight with Bernard Hopkins, steps way down by defending his IBO cruiserweight title against former WBA super middle champion Manny Siaca. The Puerto Rican won the WBA title by beating Anthony Mundine back in 2004, but lost it to Mikkel Kessler in his first defence in November 2004. Green is hoping that by beating Siaca he can tempt Mundine into a fight. However, Green is fighting at cruiser and Mundine at middle. The IBO claim to have the most honest ratings, but sometimes honesty can work against you as they rate Siaca as their No 35 light heavy, so how good a match is this?

One fight that may not be set in concrete is the one between Paulus Moses, the holder of the secondary WBA lightweight title, and Jose Alfaro, a Nicaraguan who is a former holder of the title. A date of March 19 has been given. However, Alfaro has also been pencilled in as an opponent for Erik Morales in his comeback fight on March 27, and that would be a much bigger payday for Alfaro.

On the subject of Morales, a Mexican paper reported the Erik was going to play the part of Vicente Saldivar in a film of the life of Howard Winstone, but I have heard nothing of this on this side of the Atlantic.

Big paydays do not appear to be the only consideration. Rolando Reyes was offered $70,000 to fight Ali Funeka for the vacant IBF lightweight title in South Africa. The fight seemed set, and then Reyes pulled out, saying it was not enough money for him to fight Funeka in South Africa. I am sure this is probably twice any previous purse he has received, and world title shots do not come along every day, so it makes me wonder if some deal was done for Reyes to step aside, and let Joan Guzman get the fight. This is boxing after all.

One to look forward to is Japan’s Hozumi Hasegawa defending his WBC bantamweight title against WBO champion Fernando Montiel in Tokyo on April 29. That is a good 50-50 match. On the same show WBC super bantam champion Toshiaki Nishioka will defend against unbeaten Filipino Balweg Bangoyan.

Vic Darchiyan will defend his WBA and WBC super flyweight titles against Rodrigo Guerrero on March 6. Vic has declared his interest in competing in the UFC and has been training for that competition as well. His father trained the Armenian Olympic wrestling team so Vic feels that boxing is not the only sport that is in his genes.

Vic is not the only one who is thinking of involving himself outside boxing. The unbeaten Ukrainian light heavyweight Vyacheslav Uzelkov, WBA No2 and WBO No 3, whilst waiting for a title shot is training a team from his home town of Vinnitsa to compete in an extreme theme show entitled “The Battle of Ukrainian Cities”. The competition will take place in-Argentina!

I did the Texas Commission an injustice. They did not agree to allow Antonio Margarito to fight in their State on the Manny Pacquiao vs Joshua Clottey show. Instead the plan now is to have Margarito fight in Aguiscalientes, Mexico on May 8 and his aim is a fight with Pacquiao. If he gets that then you have to wonder about a sport that rewards a cheat with a big payday.

Heavyweight Lou Savarese is now promoting fights in Houston, and hoping to go with a show every two months. These are up-market club fights with Lou proposing a new approach for his VIP customers. He is talking about providing an orchestra to play for them and professional models to serve them. Very nice up there but it will still be pain and blood in the ring below.

Whilst it is Cubans Yuriorkis Gamboa, Odlanier Solis and Guillermo Rigondeaux who are making the headlines, there are other former top amateurs who have made their way off the island. Apart from the team in Ireland, Luis Franco, a former World Junior champion, Luis Ortiz, 30, a former Cuban national heavyweight champion, with more than 300 fights, and Yasmani Consegura, also a heavyweight with an outstanding amateur record, are all fighting in Miami. The Cuban national team is suffering a loss of their top amateur which is normal for other nations, so perhaps, as in Beijing, there will be wider spread of nations winning gold medals in amateur competitions whilst the Cubans are re-building.

The Dominican Republic has also lost three of its amateur stars with Jose Carlos Payano, Claudio Marrero and Argenis Nunez declaring that they are turning pro. Flyweight Payano is the one they will miss most as he was an outstanding amateur and must be a hot prospect, but cruiserweight Nunez and bantamweight Marrero will also do well as pros.

I used to just love Argentinian Jorge Castro. The former WBA light middleweight champion, who lost only eleven of 144 fights, admitted that he hardly ever trained for a bout. If you think that is setting a bad example for young fighters then –you ain’t heard nothing yet! Apart from the drink and drugs, Jorge recently admitted that he regularly had sex on the day of a fight. With “Locomotora” I guess we are lucky he did not have during fights.

It should be a good day for boxing fans in Reno on July 4. The city is celebrating the day which put the city on the map. It is the 100th anniversary of the Jack Johnson vs Jim Jeffries heavyweight title fight, which was staged there in 1909. George Foreman, Buster Douglas and Ray Mancini have reportedly committed to being there. Apart from a boxing show there will also be other events including a Jack Johnson Pardon Dinner, a screening of the Johnson vs Jeffries fight and a Memorabilia Museum.

The McCall family certainly had a bad week. It stared with former WBC heavyweight champion Oliver being arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia and parole violation, and ended with his son losing his unbeaten record as he was kayoed by Dieuly Aristilde in a show that dad was supposed to be the top attraction. Oliver has been in trouble before, as back in 2006 he was arrested by police with a small amount of cocaine in his pocket. He was also accused of threatening to kill one of the officers. Not a good week.

Frenchman Anthony Mezaache has relinquished the European lightweight title. When Mick Hennessy won the purse bidding it meant the Frenchman facing John Murray in England. With Edwin Valero out of the picture, Mezaache considered it too big a risk to his WBC No 2 ranking, and chose to relinquish the title instead.

Ratings watch: This week I looked at the IBF. They do not believe in keeping their site up to date. According to them at light heavyweight the WBA champion is Hugo Garay (lost the title in June 2009), The WBC champion is Adrian Diaconu (lost the title in June 2009) and the WBO champion is Zsolt Erdei (who won the WBC cruiserweight title in November 2009). They are also not too good on their geography as they reckon Martin Lindsay is from Israel. Martin is No 6 featherweight. Also rated are Nat Cleverly No 3 light heavy (but the Nos 1 & 2 spots are vacant, so he is the highest rated fighter), Mathew Macklin No 5 middle (but there is no No 2). Kevin Mitchell and Nicky Cook are both rated at super feather, Kevin No 3 and Nicky No 10, and Rendall Munroe is No 11 at super bantam.

Mind you, the WBA are even better - or worse. Don King managed heavyweight Kali Meehan has not had a fight for 19 months but recently was promoted from No 3 to No 2. He is to meet Ruslan Chagaev in a final eliminator to find a mandatory opponent for David Haye. Seems like a tactical error. Judging by his progress up the rankings so far if he stays inactive long enough he could become champion, unless he leaves Don King of course.

Tragedy struck in Japan with boxer Hirokazu Yamaki losing consciousness after an eighth round kayo loss in Tokyo on February 19. Yamaki suffered an acute subdural hematoma and despite emergency surgery he passed away. Deepest sympathy to his family. Boxing is well administered and safety standards are high in Japan, but the very nature of boxing makes these tragedies inevitable.