Snips and Snipes 19 August 2020

It has been a good week/bad week in boxing. The Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Teo Lopez fight will now go ahead at MGM Grand on 17 October. We know who Saul Alvarez’s next opponent will be, there are some more green shoots of recovery emerging and we have gone a whole week without any of the sanctioning bodies inventing a new title although the WBC is investigation the need for a new division. On the down side boxing in the Philippines took a big hit when ALA Boxing decided to pull out after 35 years of being a major force in boxing there and some proposed fights have fallen by the wayside.
Lomachenko showed how much he wanted the Lopez fight and what he was willing to do to get the deal done. He agreed to reduce his cut from $3.5 million to $3.25 million with that $250,000 cut going to boost Lopez purse from $1.25 million to $1.5 million. Both fighters will finish up with more than those amounts when ancillaries are added in. Lomachenko’s move puts to shame those fighters whose ego has seen them walk away from a big fight rather than cut a deal. Bob Arum has said it will not be a PPV fight. He is concerned that with so many people losing their jobs due to COVID-19 that there may a reluctance to pay the PPV fee. I am not so sure. This is a fight that every boxing fan would want to see and if people want something bad enough they will find the money but Arum knows this business better than anyone else and if he feels he can make money out of this fight working with ESPN then even I am not dumb enough to question him.
Just as a contrast Top Rank won the bidding for the vacant WBO featherweight title fight between Emanuel Navarrete and Jessie Magdaleno with a bid of $250,000. They were the sole bidders.
It’s a good sign to see a big heavyweight fight as Dillian Whyte and Alex Povetkin clash on Saturday in Eddie Hearn’s back garden. It is for the interim WBC title as a sop to Whyte who has almost grown old in the WBC No 1 position. I can’t think of any boxer who has been rated No 1 in any division and yet gone almost three years without getting a title fight (he was installed as No 1 in November 2017). The WBC are fooling themselves if they think that this interim title and a Diamond belt are in anyway compensation for the disgraceful way Whyte has been treated.
Green shoots! Boxing has been given the go ahead in South Africa but with strict provisions laid down. Rodney Berman has a card scheduled for 10 October topped by a return fight between super welterweights Boyd Allen and Brandon Thysse scheduled for 10 October. These two fought a draw in May last year. He is also targeting early December for another show.
Another encouraging sign is Hennessy Sports staging their first post-virus card in Redditch on Saturday topped by a British title fight between light heavyweights Shakan Pitters and Chad Sugden and this will be shown live and free on terrestrial TV.
Returning is not an easy road for many promoters. With the additional cost of complying with the condition laid down by national governments and no attendance or TV breaking even is going to be tough or at times impossible.
The proposed unification fight between bantamweight champions Naoya Inoue and John Riel Casimero has fallen through. Bob Arum advised that the schedule for the fight was compromised by the COVID-19 restrictions which had seen the US Embassy in Japan closed making it impossible for Inoue to get a visa. Casimero will now defend his WBO title against Ghana’s Duke Micah on September 28 as part of the show at the Mohegan Sun featuring Charlo twins Jermall and Jermell and Mario Barrios in world title fights. I guess Inoue’s attitude to the fight falling through would be “no sweat”. He has worked with a Japanese company to develop a sauna suit to help with weight making. No news as to whether David Benavidez has placed an order for one. Top Rank are now aiming for Inoue to defend his IBF and WBA bantam titles against Jason Moloney which is good match.
Other fights that have slipped away include the WBC/IBF light heavyweight title defence for Artur Beterbiev against IBF No 1 Meng Fanlong which was to have taken place on 25 September With Fanlong pulling out there is talk that either IBF No 6 Adam Deines or No 9 Igor Mikhalkin may be in the other corner. It is interesting that Deines, who was expected to fight on the SES card in Magdeburg on Saturday, is no longer on the card. The 3 October IBF eliminator between Lee Selby and Australian George Kambosos is back on the table after Kambosos refused to accept a proposal from Eddie Hearn of a cut in their previously agreed purse from $150,000 to $100,000. The IBF may now call for purse bids. Daniel Dubois fight of 19 August is still on but instead of Erik Pfeiffer Dubois will now face Dutchman Ricardo Snijders who has an 18-1 record. The downside to Snijders is that he is not a real heavyweight. Most of his fights have been at cruiser and in May last year he was floored and lost a wide points decision to Joel Tambwe Djeko for the IBO Inter-Continental cruiserweight title. He was 213 ½ lbs for a fight in September but that looks to be a career high weight.
The news of ALA’s closure is a big blow for boxing in the Philippines. Business man Tony Aldeguer set up ALA Boxing back in 1985 and helped develop the careers of many of the top fighters from the Philippines such as world champions Donnie Nietes and Milan Melindo and fighters such as Z Gorres, AJ Banal, Rey Bautista and Michael Domingo. ALA had a good team employing former world title challenger Edito (Ala) Villamor and his brother Edmund as trainers. The impact of COVID-19 and the end of their working relationships with their broadcasting network made it impossible for ALA to continue and I wonder if there will be other causalities. ALA fighters are now all free agents including world rated Albert Pagara and Nietes a four division world champion with a record of 17-0-2 in world title fights and just one loss in his forty-seven fights with the loss being a split decision back in 2004. At 38 Nietes needs a new promoter and some contests. He has not fought since December 2018 and relinquished the WBO super fly title in February 2019.
Another piece of bad news was to hear one of Manny Pacquiao’s advisors talking up a fight between Manny and Conor McGregor saying that nine out of ten Filipino’s wanted the fight. Not sure what that says about fight fans in the Philippines. It will probably sell but as a finale to Manny’s career it stinks. Manny is working hard on his political duties. He is involved in an investigation into the alleged part played by the Philippines Bureau of Customs and Excise into a shipment of $126 million of illegal drugs from China.
The WBC should send a thank you card to David Benavidez. When he lost his WBC super middleweight title on the scales he opened the door for the WBC to nominate Saul Alvarez and No 1 Avni Yildirim for the vacant title. It gives the WBC a big sanctioning fee and a high profile fight. Yildirim became No1 with the WBC for losing a disputed decision to Anthony Dirrell and has not fought since February 2019! Of course Alvarez is the holder of the secondary WBA a title and the ridiculous WBC Franchise title but I assume he will relinquish the WBA title as you can hardly be the WBC full champion and the secondary WBA champion-even our sport can’t be that stupid. I need to stop saying the sanction bodies can’t get even more stupid as they seem to be taking those words as a challenge.
The fact that the WBC are reviewing the need for a new division for fighters weighing between 200 and 225lbs won’t be welcomed by most fans. There are times when I believe all of the sanctioning bodies operate Title Invention Teams (TITS). The WBA get on my tits most of all but let’s not forget the Jose Sulaiman was the first to introduced the interim and silver titles. This is new division proposal is a little different. The WBC also introduced the light flyweight, super flyweight; super middleweight and cruiserweight divisions and I don’t now believe that boxing people see them as unnecessary. Before their introduction if you weighed more than 185lbs you were too heavy to be a light heavy so could find yourself having to fight guys weighing 240-250lbs and more. At the other end of the scale if you weighed 105lbs then you would be fighting guys who weighed 112lbs and even more than that by fight time. That’s a lot for the small guys to give away.
As an example I looked at the last recorded weights of twelve of the top heavyweights in the world:
Tyson Fury 272lbs
Deontay Wilder 231lbs
Anthony Joshua 237lbs
Ole Usyk 215lbs
Alex Povetkin 229lbs
Andy Ruiz 283lbs
Dillian Whyte 271lbs
Mike Hunter 226lbs
Dereck Chisora 260lbs
Luis Ortiz 236lbs
Joseph Parker 245lbs
Kubrat Pulev 248lbs
Looking ahead the next generation / currently unbeaten heavyweights are also above 225lbs: Joe Joyce 270lbs, Daniel Dubois 240lbs, Filip Hrgovic 241lbs, Efe Ajagba 242lbs, Tony Yoka 239lbs, Junior Fa 267lbs, Guido Vianello 230lbs, Cassius Chaney 250lbs and Peter Kadiru 239lbs so all over 225lbs.
It makes a case I might support in return for a vow not to introduce another set of interim, silver, gold, bronze, tin titles etc. Now come on don’t laugh I am serious but of course once again the TITS will be dancing on the tables as they gleefully tot up the potential sanctioning fees.
Sorry to see Sergio Martinez returning to the ring. “Maravilla “fights Spaniard Jose Fandino in Oviedo on Friday. Even at 45 Martinez should not have any problem beating Fandino but he has already approached the WBA about getting approval to challenge Ryota Murata the holder of their secondary middleweight title.
Boxing has rallied around to help Ricardo Mayorga the former WBA and WBC welterweight champion and WBC super welterweight champion. The Nicaraguan is in a bad way and former WBA Minimumweight and light flyweight champion Rosendo Alvarez together with Mauricio Sulaiman have helped get Mayorga into rehabilitation to fight his problems with drugs and alcohol. Alvarez is now a major promoter in Nicaragua. He does not get the respect he deserves. At a time when Ricardo Lopez was 47-0 and on his way to the International Boxing Hall of Fame he twice fought Lopez in unification fights with the first ending in a technical draw with one judge having Alvarez five points in front and then lost a split decision to Lopez in the return. Lopez retired with a record of 51-0-1.
Good old reliable WBA. When they hit rock bottom they keep right on digging. Their new interim WBA champion Rolando Romero was rated No 7 before winning the title last week. That’s despite having had only eleven fights, never having fought a ten round fight and only one eight round fight in which he beat a guy with a 5-0 record. Pity all those poor suckers who think they actually have to beat reasonable opposition to be awarded with a title fight. It takes quite something to make the other sanctioning bodies look good but the WBA can do it in their sleep. Come to think they probably were asleep when Romero slipped past them