Snips and Snipes 25 July 2011

It is difficult to keep Manny Pacquiao out of the news. If it is not about his fights, his politics, or the infighting in his organisation, then it is about his money. A Filipino assessment gave his worth as $26 million, which is a lot of money.

He will soon be much richer as within hours of going on sale around 14,000 of the 16,000 tickets to see his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez had been sold. If you don’t already have one, forget it because by now they will all be gone.

Amir Khan brushed Zab Judah aside with ease. A fight which some would have felt was beyond him 18 months ago. It is a measure of how far Khan has developed over that period that now even talk of a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr in 2012 is a serious consideration.

Another measure of his development is the queue of guys who want to be on his list of future opponents such as Robert Guerrero, Erik Morales, Tim Bradley and Humberto Soto ( Soto moves up to light welter with a fight against former WBA secondary lightweight champion Jose Alfaro in September) etc. With Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton, Carl Froch and now Khan, British fighters are becoming fashionable, and popular, in the US.

With the death of Butch Lewis at the weekend, reportedly from a heart attack, at the age of 65, boxing lost one of those characters that it so often throws up. Butch was a familiar figure in his tuxedo - with no shirt. However, Butch was more than just a character; he was a very shrewd and clever promoter. Butch worked as a VP for Top Rank for a while and was involved in both of the Muhammad Ali vs. Leon Spinks fights. He handled the career of Mike Spink and his greatest achievement was getting Mike Spinks a purse of $13 million for the fight with Mike Tyson, Butch also developed Greg Page and other fine fighters and later branched out into entertainment promoting with names such as James Brown. I met Butch a couple of times and found him excellent company, with always a hint of humour in the background. RIP Butch.

If you don’t think this boxing world as run by the sanctioning bodies is crazy then take the case of Japanese fighter Kenichi Yamaguchi. At the weekend he fought for the WBO featherweight title against Orlando Salido and lost. It is just as well that he did, for if he had won the title, he would almost certainly not have been able to defend it in Japan, as he is not licensed there. Only WBA and WBC title fights take place in Japan, something that both the Japanese Boxing Commission (JBC) and the Japanese Professional Boxing Association (JPBA), which represents the managers and promoters in Japan), adhere to. To get around this Yamaguchi submitted a letter to the JBC formally announcing his retirement, so surrendering his license. If he had won, then any title defence would not be supported by the JBC, and no member of the JPBA would have agreed to promote any title defence in Japan. He is now fighting out of the Philippines under the astute ALA promotion banner and presumably has a Filipino license.

A similar thing happened in Britain back in 1987 when Terry Marsh defended his IBF light welterweight title against Akio Kameda. The Japanese fighter’s manager attempted to buck the JBC by forming his own IBF Japan organisation. When Kameda came to Britain to fight Marsh he held a license from the IBF Japan-which consisted of him and his manager - and again, if he had won the title, he would have met considerable opposition when trying to defend his title at home.

The No Decision on Yamaguchi’s record was a disgrace. In a confused battle with Australian Bill Dib, Yamaguchi was bundled to the canvas. He was down on both knees and was facing away from Dib when Dib curled a punch around Yamaguchi from behind and him hit hard on the chin. It was as clear a disqualification as you could get, but when Yamaguchi gamely staggered up, the referee stopped the fight and declared Dib the winner. They could not bring themselves to disqualify Dib, but a No Decision was a cop out.

Salido is the perfect example of why an early career loss is no big thing. The Mexican was 6-5-1 in his first twelve fights and four of those losses were by KO/TKO. Today promoters will move mountains (no make that tombstones) to make sure that their fighters are protected from any risk of a loss early in their careers.

The Salido vs.Yamaguchi fight had some real stars fronting the press conferences to promote the show. Jose Napoles, Carlos Zarate, Ruben Olivares, Lupe Pintor, Pipino Cuevas, Chucho Castillo, Alfonso Zamora and Humberto Gonzalez were all there. What a line up.

Winning the WBO flyweight title has proven to be a bit of a poisoned chalice for Brian Viloria. The WBO have now given him 90 days to defend against No 1 challenger Giovani Segura, and the hard-punching Mexican is a tough ask for any flyweight.

That old one about “insult and injury” applied to Danny Green regarding his fight with Antonio Tarver. Not only did Green lose the fight and his IBO title, he also took a heavy financial hit. Danny had put a great deal of money on the table to get the fight, and even put up his home as collateral. Unfortunately the crowd and TV buys fell well below expectation, and the show lost a lot of money, so Danny may not be able to retire.

Although Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson are due to meet for the WBC light heavyweight title in October, the WBC have already announced a set of eliminators to find a mandatory challenger for the winner. Jean Pascal, No 2, will meet No 5 Zsolt Erdei and Chris Henry No 3 will face No 6 Ismayl Sillakh. Chris Henry has not had a fight for 16 months, so he should not even be in the WBC ratings, and by the time these fights come off-if they do-it will be more like 20 months since his last fight. These are the guys who have been threatening Nonito Donaire with stripping him off their bantamweight because he has not defended for five months.

Talk is of Jorge Arce, the WBO super bantam champion moving down to bantamweight to fight Donaire on the New York show on December 3 where Miguel Cotto gives cheat Antonio Margarito another big payday. It remains to be seen whether the WBC will be willing to wait that long for a Donaire defence, as they seem determined to strip him.

The WBO will not be willing to wait and they are already taking about an interim title fight at bantamweight.

The WBO scramble for sanctioning fees will also affect the light middleweight division. Even though Serhiy Dzindziruk is scheduled to defend against Lukas Konecny in September, they had already accepted a fight for the interim title between Zaurbek Baysangurov and Brazilian Mike Miranda in Odessa next week. Miranda is another example of stupid ratings. The Brazilian is rated because he is the WBO Latino champion. Since losing to Umberto Guedes (record 7-2) in May 2009 he has won three fights against guys with records of 0-5, 19-19 and 8-6-1, and that gets him a No 5 rating. He is 38 and has fought outside Brazil only once-when he was kayoed in three rounds by Reda Zam Zam in 2006- and since then only two of his opponents have had positive records, Guedes, who he lost to, and his opponent in March, who was 8-6-1.

Left out of all this is the WBO interim champion Alfredo Angulo, but he is slated to face Vanes Martirosyan in a WBC eliminator.

In another example of their stupidity (let’s be kind and call it that) having had James DeGale rated No 3 super middleweight (flattering, but not necessarily stupid), after his loss to George Groves they dropped him to No 7. Groves? Never heard of him. DeGale is No7 and Groves is not in the top 15!

What a farce the WBO ratings are.

It remains to be seen how soon Tim Bradley might get back into action. The WBC and WBA light welterweight champion is involved in some lawsuits (and counter lawsuits) so he could be tied up for quite a while. Bradley has not defended his titles since beating Devon Alexander in January. Bradley January-Donaire February-how come no WBC threat to Bradley?

If Bradley is going to be tied up the WBO is already talking about an interim title fight between their No 1 Cesar Cuenca and Devon Alexander. Argentinian Cuenca, 30, is unbeaten with 40 wins and 2 No Decisions, but has never fought outside Argentina so no one really knows how good he is. Cuenca must be unique in being a No 1 rated fighter who in over 40 contests has only once won a fight inside the distance.

Under the category of news you did not want to read, it is reported from Brazil that Acelino Freitas is making a comeback. Acelino, the former WBA and WBO super feather and WBO light champion, retired in 2007 after a loss to in a unification fight against WBA champion Juan Diaz. “Popo” who is 35, is training in preparation for a September 24 fight with unbeaten 21-year-old middleweight Michael Oliveira. Also a Brazilian, Oliveira had been throwing out challenges to Freitas, who agreed to fight Oliveira provided he was given four months to prepare.

Andy Golota is another fighter on the comeback trail. The controversial Polish heavyweight is going to give it another try. The 43-year-old retired in 2009 after bad defeats by Ray Austin, and in a fight for the IBF title by Tomasz Adamek (he qualified for this by losing inside a round to Austin and then not fighting for eleven months. Where are the FBI when you need them, comeback Bobby Lee all is ……… no perhaps not). There is even talk of a horrifying third fight with Riddick Bowe (Golota lost consecutive fights against Bowe on disqualification in 1996), but that I don’t believe. The closest Golota came to winning a worlds title was a draw with Chris Byrd for the IBF title in 2004.

The medical report for boxers covers a WBC champion, a world rated middleweight and a young prospect.

The WBC cruiser champion Krzys Wlodarczyk was rushed to hospital suffering from a reported overdose of antidepressants. Wlodarczyk had been having personal problems and it was rumored that it was a suicide attempt, and that he was in a coma. However, a Doctor stated that he was conscious and recovering well. There was talk of a unification match with WBO champion Marco Huck, end October or early November, but it remains to be seen whether that will take place.

Middleweight hot property, Daniel “The Golden Child” Jacobs, put his recent inactivity down to a “little injury”. The injury was in fact a tumor on his spine. He suffered a loss of feeling when doing roadwork and was sent to hospital for examination. He was promptly operated on for the removal of the tumor, which if it had not been diagnosed, and removed, could have left him paralysed. Although Jacobs talked about fighting early in the New Year, it may take a lot longer before he is fit.

Featherweight Ronny Rios was diagnosed as having hepatitis C after a routine test early this year. In California boxers diagnosed with hepatitis C automatically lose their license, so it was a big threat to the career of the 21-year-old. Thankfully he is now clear to continue and moved to 15-0 with a win at the weekend. Rios was US amateur champion and National Golden Gloves champion in 2007, but lost out to Gary Russell Jr for the Olympic berth in 2008.

A stupid idea from Arizona is just the sort of news that boxing does not need. On August 5^th there will be a bare knuckle title fight between former “world champion” Bobby Gunn and South African MMA fighter “Chris “The Butcher” Thompson. Gunn’s title was the IBA world title, but when he fought for more prestigious titles he had less success. He lasted less than a round against Enzo Maccarinelli in a WBO cruiser title fight  in 2007 and, in a typical piece of IBF rubbish, was allowed to be rated so he could challenge Tomasz Adamek for their title in 2009, losing in four rounds. Gunn is actually scheduled to fight for the vacant IBU title in Atlanta in September, which tells you all you need to know about the IBU. The law must be different in Arizona. In Britain bare knuckle fighting is illegal, and if anyone died in such a fight, then the charge would be murder.

Look for the career of Nigerian banger Oyewale “Wale” Omotoso to take off. The 26-year-old welterweight has been signed by Top Rank so will get some exposure in the US. In his campaign in Australia the tall 26-year-old is 18-0 with 16 wins by KO/TKO, the last nine in a row. He is worth keeping an eye on.

I recently noted how French former world champions such as Christophe Tiozzo and Brahim Asloum are still involved in boxing, well Italy also has a former world champion who is right in there. Maurizio Stecca is in charge of the Italian team competing at the World Youth Championships. An Olympic gold medalist in 1984, Maurizio twice held the WBO featherweight title back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and was also twice European champion. Brilliantly managed by the great Umberto Branchini, he won his first 36 fights, and the only time he fought for the Italian title was in his last fight, in 1995, which he won on points. He retired with a record of 49 wins and four losses.

Santo Dominican lightweight Ruddy Encarnacion may not be the most talented fighter in the world (record 21-22-3) but he literally has another string to his bow. The Spanish-based fighter is a noted guitar player, singer and composer and has a band which specializes in Latin American music. Now if they could get a match between him and WBO No1 light welter Cesar Cuenca-original nickname “Fred Astaire”- I am sure we could find a sanctioning body to rate them both so that we could have a “Continental” title fight. Anybody know of a boxer with the nickname “Ginger” out there?

There were points of interest regarding both Will Rosinsky and Boyd Melson who won their fights at the weekend. Rosinsky proposed to his girlfriend immediately after the fight. The second fighter to do this in the last couple of months. Whilst there is a certain degree of natural interest in this, it strikes me that if the fighter doing the proposing lost the fight then his girl friend might say “No! Who wants to marry a loser? “Hey Buddy, see if the winner is available and get me his phone number whilst you are up there”. Surely it would be more exciting if the fighter was in a divorce rather than proposing. He could offer to fight his wife over six rounds to see who gets ownership of the 52” Plasma TV. Ok as long as you are not married to Christy Martin-then he might need a gun.

Melson was an outstanding amateur who missed out at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Trials. He is described as Jewish/Creole, which had me wondering if they do a kosher Jambalaya.

Lastly - nickname time again. How about the Australian Les Brown - “The Narooma Booma”. Good one, Les.