Snips and Snipes 18 September 2013

 Another display of greatness by Mayweather. Somehow we find a way to convince ourselves that there is a fighter out there who can beat him and that sells tickets, but it is the sheer quality of his skills that make Mayweather stand-out. Now the search for that “man who can beat the man” starts again and then the publicity drums will have to beat out the message that this is the time and this is the man to end the reign of Mr. Money. Some hope! But to the relief of Showtime-hope spring eternal and next year the scene will be repeated until Floyd calls it a day.

Mayweather has almost reached that level where he is transcending boxing and becoming a world wide celebrity. His personality will prevent him ever reaching the level of stardom and love that Muhammad Ali alone of modern boxers has achieved. Mike Tyson reached the same recognition level as Ali but it was mixed with a notoriety which meant there would be as many who disliked as liked.

The hope has to be that there will be a flow down from the huge interest in the fight which will benefit the sport

I haven’t seen the Pay TV returns for Mayweather vs. Alvarez yet but here is the top 5 as it currently stands

1) Mayweather vs. De La Hoya          2.44 million buys

2) Holyfield vs. Tyson(2^nd fight)        1.95 million buys

3) Lewis vs. Tyson                              1.92 million buys

4) Holyfield vs. Tyson(1^st fight)         1.55 million buys

5) Tyson vs. McNeeley                       1.55 million buys

Mayweather vs. Cotto did not quite make the list being 6^th with 1.5 million buys. What a strange world when a fighter as poor as McNeeley can figure in one of the biggest fights in boxing history. Only goes to stress just how huge a draw that Tyson with his four fights in the all-time top five was.

There is still talk of a Manny Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight but it seems to me to be a pipe dream. Even if Pacquiao beats Brandon Rios he will still not be in a strong position. Mayweather has shown that he can earn a fortune without having Manny in the other corner. The Filipino great will be bargaining from a weak position and there is no reason that a fight that fell out because they could not agree details will have any more chance of succeeding a second time. The big argument for Mayweather is that Manny is reportedly getting $18 million for fighting Rios and Rios $4 million. It seems that Floyd Jr does not get out of bed for less than $40 million.

Here’s a trivia question on Mayweather. Who were the last two fighters to beat him. Answer at the end of the column if I remember to include it and at my age a senior moment crops up daily.

With all of the money that Mayweather and Alvarez have earned it was so ridiculous to see the sanctioning bodies falling over themselves to have hugely expensive belts made to present to the winner. Why bother? Mayweather has so much money and so many belts that it will just sit in a case somewhere and even Mayweather will have forgotten about it eventually. The WBC was presenting a gold belt. What next. They made a diamond belt for Pacquiao to win, now gold, next platinum?. Money to money is such a waste. Use it on even more medical research, and the WBC have contribute a considerable sum in this, or to help destitute former champions. Give the money to someone who needs it and not to someone who has more than he can spend. Surely they don’t think that people will be impressed or change their opinion of a sanctioning body because of this profligacy.

British heavyweight RichardTowers is preparing for his Commonwealth final eliminator against Lucas Browne by acting as a sparring partner to Alex Povetkin. The 6’8” (203cm) Britisher certainly has the height to give Povetkin an indication of the physical edge Wlad Klitschko will have but others have found out that nothing prepares you for when Dr Steelhammer’s long left and straight rights start coming down the pipe. Towers fights Browne in Hull on 2 November and it will be his first fight since June 2012.

The Klitschko vs. Povetkin fight is attracting quite a galaxy of stars. Lennox Lewis and George Foreman will attend and since Wlad was training in his native Austria even Arnie Schwarzenegger showed up at Wlad’s training camp.

I hope it was a joke but there was a suggestion that Povetkin’s team wanted Derrick Chisora to be their representative in Wlad’s dressing room. If that happened you might have two fights on the night-one in the dressing room and one in the ring. It won’t go down well if Wlad has to pull out because he hurt his hand punching Derrick ion the dressing room.

The management team of Denis Lebedev were saying last week that they were confident that the WBA will strip Guillermo Jones of the cruiserweight title due to his positive test for a banned substance after his win over Lebedev. The fight took place in May so it has taken four months and is still not yet sorted. That would worry me if I was in Lebedev’s team particularly with Don King raising query after query about the validity of the testing. As of now the result remains a win for Jones but let’s see if the WBA have the guts to take tough decisions.

Antonio Tarver says he is ready to return to the ring and wants to fight Tomasz Adamek. Tarver tested positive for an anabolic steroid after drawing with Lateef Kayode in June last year. Typical of boxing’s attitude to drugs is that although he was banned for a year he was fined a laughable $2,500 out of his $1.1 million dollar purse. Perhaps that was all the Californian Commission was allowed to fine him under the rules and if so the rules need to be changed. The way things are Tarver could have ignored the ban and found somewhere to fight. On the other hand Tarver fought only once each in 2009,2010 and 2011 so a year ban would also be a light rap across the knuckles. Only two things stop a boxer cheating in this way, the certainty of being caught and a severe penalty for cheating. Neither exists in boxing-anywhere. Athletes would love to have a one year ban instead of the much longer sentences they face.

I can’t believe (being honest I can) how the WBC are handing the heavyweight situation. Vitali Klitschko has not defended his title for over a year and has not made a mandatory defence for over two years. Canadian Bermane Stiverne beat Chris Arreola in April in a fight between the No1 and No 2 challengers but has not had a sniff of a title shot. Now No 7 David Haye’s name is in the frame as Vitali would like to fight Haye if Haye beats No 6 Tyson Fury. The WBC will not make a decision until their Convention in early November and even then Stiverne might get stiffed if Haye is chosen. If no decision is made until November the fight will not take place until about March 2014. By that time Klitschko will not have defended for 18 months and if that defence is against Haye then Stiverne will have been waiting almost a year for the title shot he earned, which No 7 Haye or even No 6 Tyson will not have done. There are different rules for different people as Sergio Martinez found out when he had his title taken away for no good reason, and we all know what that “no good reason” was. I have this faint hope that the nodding dog WBC Board of Governor’s ( you’ve seen them in the back of cars just nodding and nodding and that’s what it is like when Jose makes a “suggestion”) will make the right decision at the Convention.

Cornelius Bundrage will take the first step towards regaining his IBF light middle title when he tackles former undefeated WBO champion Zaurbek Baysangurov on 9 November. Contrast the WBC attitude to Klitschko and the WBO action on Baysangurov. He defended his title in October last year but through injury could not defend his title in a scheduled defence in July this year so was stripped off his title.

Brits seem to be the flavour of the year for title fights at middleweight. Darren Barker, Martin Murray and Matthew Macklin have all had world title shots. Prince Arron challenged Max Bursak for the European title in July and now Nick Blackwell has a chance at the same title. He has a tough assignment against Bursak in Kharkov this weekend. The Ukrainian “Tiger” is 27-1-1 and outclassed Arron.

Great show lining up for 9 November in Corpus Christi with WBO super feather champ Rocky Martinez defending his title against former undefeated WBO feather champion Mikey Garcia and Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan fighting a return match. Back in 2007 Donaire won the IBF fly title with a fifth round stoppage of Darchinyan. Donaire will looking to rebuild his reputation after losing so badly to Memo Rigondeaux in April and Darchinyan to continuing a short streak which has seen him get a good win over prospect Luis Orlando del Valle. The third fight sees Vanes Martirosyan and Demetrius Andrade contest the vacant WBO light middle title-the one taken away from Baysangurov who fights Bundrage on—-9 November, so it make the taking of his title just a farce. Anyway the clash between unbeaten former Olympians is a hard one to call. An excellent bill.

There will also be a WBO title fight on the undercard to the Tim Bradley vs. Juan Manuel Marquez welterweight title fight in Las Vegas on 12 October. No 1 contender Orlando Cruz will fight former champion Orlando Salido for the featherweight title vacated by Mikey Garcia. Cruz has done very little since being kayoed in three rounds by Daniel Ponce De Leon back in 2010 but has a WBO Latino title which is enough for the WBO. Salido lost his WBO title on a technical decision to Mikey Garcia in January.

Still on the WBO Peter Quillin defends his middleweight title against Gabriel “King” Rosado in Atlantic City on 26 October. Second defence for Quillin who needs to keep on winning and hope that his name comes up when Gennady Golovkin and Sergio Martinez are looking to make a defence next year. Right now in money terms he is the poor relation of the champions in the division. Usual WBO shenanigans, even though Rosado has not won a fight for over a year and was not in the WBO ratings for July he suddenly appears at No 11 in the August Ratings. It makes a mockery of any thought of fighting for a place in the ratings and shows how often it is the promoter who pulls the strings.

Another exciting show shaping up on 14 December in Las Vegas. Adrian Broner will defend his WBA welter title against No 2 contender Marcos Maidana and Keith Thurman will put his interim WBA title up against Robert Guerrero. Two intriguing fights. A champion and an interim champion for the same sanctioning body and in the same weight division fight on the same show. My dictionary sys that “interim” means temporary or provisiona in the WBA dictionary it means sanctioning fee.

Even though he is preparing for his fight with Rios Manny Pacquiao has not forgotten his political duties. He has lodge a bill in the Philippines House of Representatives named as the “Philippines Boxer’s Welfare Act of 2013”. It is covers comprehensive health care benefits, an alternative livelihood programme, a system of life insurance and reliable death benefits. It also proposes the formation of a Philippine Boxing Commission (PBC) with its brief being “to provide for the welfare of boxers, coaches, trainers and support other stakeholders and to establish uniform rules and procedures related to boxing, safety procedures to protect boxers from physical and financial exploitation and create a system of registration and licensing for boxers, referees, trainers, seconds or cut men and other personnel necessary for boxing, to issue or suspend or revoke permits and licenses and impose fees for the issuance of such licenses and permits” The commission will be appointed by the President (of the Philippines). Currently boxing administration falls under the Professional Sports Division of the Games and Amusements Board where some of what is mentioned in the proposed Bill is already in place. Everything in the Bill is things you would want to see. The downside would be the cost to boxing of implementing the changes and the cost of administering and policing such a detailed bill in a nation spread so wide. A real downside is that it is only proposed to cover boxers who compete and win in international boxing events sanctioned by the PBC, which would leave out the majority of the most vulnerable boxers in the Philippines who are not of that standing.

Still on administering boxing the South Africa Board (BSA) must have iron toes to have shot themselves in the foot so often. In the past they have suspended a top official, continued to pay his salary for an extended period and then had to pay him compensation on top of that. Recently they have been rocked by the sudden, mysterious and still unexplained resignation by their chairman Ngconde Balfour, a man who was driving through some drastic changes which were being vigorously challenged by promoters and others. This month their chief executive, Moffat Qithi  is facing disciplinary action after allegations surfaced that when applying for the 1 million Rand post he failed to disclose that he had a criminal record for receiving stolen property and a DUI conviction. Neither of these were recent events but have they never heard of “due diligence” when reviewing the suitability of someone for a post of this importance. Of far more importance will be the challenges to BSA’s edict that they will control the broadcasting rights to fights and not the promoters. To show again their complete lack of understanding they had proposed to set up a symposium and invite an official from the Nevada State Athletic Commission to tell them how the Commission are doing it “as their system is working and ours is not”. Do they really believe that guys such as Bob Arum and Golden Boy do not control the broadcasting rights for their promotions in Nevada? Even someone with only the most basic knowledge of how boxing commerce works knows that. If they force this through it will be the end of major world title boxing in South Africa. You already have the case of Moruti Mthalane. There is no incentive under BSA for a promoter to do a show that may not make a profit or break even. With the BSA saying a boxer can only be contracted on a fight-by-fight basis there is no incentive for investment in a boxer’s career. Mthalane  has not been able to defend his IBF flyweight title for over a year. He has a defence scheduled for October 19 in LeipzigGermany. The bidding for the fight was won for a pittance by German group SES-because no one else bid. He is fighting Romanian Silvio Olteanu and my impression is that TV is not interested in the fight-a South African vs. a Spanish-based Romanian in Germany-so that’s no surprise and there has been talk of delays.  To add to their self inflicted troubles IBF Promoter of the Year Branco Milenkovic has take the BSA to court over the proposals with regard to the allocation of broadcasting rights. Because of the court case the BSA has refused to televise fights resulting in some promoters being unable to stage promotions. Balfour was due to address a meeting on this subject but instead tendered his resignation. In addition Milenkovic is suing Qithi and BSA for R4 million over statements made to the media after the IBF stripped female welterweight Noni Tengo’s title. Branco claims that when he advised BSA of this possibility he was snubbed by Balfour and after it happened he was publicly blamed by BSA. Another aspect of the case raised queries over the licensing of boxers by the BSA with the suspicion that some boxers may be boxing without having renewed their licenses. There are probably some well meaning people in the BSA but what do they say about the road to hell?

Still on South Africa Peter Malinga failed in attempt to win the South Afdrican lightweight title at the weekend. The Malinga’s have been one of South Africa’s most successful boxing families. Not in the class of the Kamedas cut very big on the local stage. Patrick is a former South African lightweight champion and a challenger for the super feather title. Brother Vusi is a former South African and WBC International bantamweight champion and has challenged for both the WBC and IBF titles and Peter, now retired, was South African, IBO, and WBU welterweight champion. A talented family.

Nice to see some good work recognized. Both promoter Joe De Guardia and boxer Chris Algieri both received awards from SuffolkCounty before the show in Huntington at the weekend for their contribution to the business and civic community. Joe was also given a Lifetime Dedication Award by New York Ring 9. Boxing is not all about million dollar fights and sanctioning bodies.

The last two fighters to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr were Augie Sanchez in the US Olympic Trials for the 1996 Olympics. Floyd gained his revenge in a box-off which earned him the berth at the Atlanta Games. At the Games Floyd lost 9-8 to Bulgarian Serafim Todorov the eventual silver medallist.