Snips and Snipes 29 October 2020: Heavyweight Bonanza on its Way!

Photo From Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions

The heavyweight bonanza planned for the next two months starts on Saturday night in London with Olek Usyk and Dereck Chisora clashing in London. It is effectively a WBO eliminator and there will be a push for whoever wins to get a fight with Anthony Joshua. The WBO could well throw a spanner in the planned schedule for the two Joshua vs. Tyson Fury fights by threatening to strip Joshua if he does not fight Usyk or Chisora.

Joshua puts his three titles on the line against Kubrat Pulev on 12 December and Tyson Fury fights someone on 5 December. Lots of names being thrown around but none seem too threatening as the last thing Eddie Hearn and Bob Arum need is a banana skin such as Andy Ruiz proved to be. There is then the skeleton of a plan for Joshua vs. Fury 1 around April/June next year with Joshua vs. Fury 2 in November/ December 2021.

Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte have their return bout on 21 November for the interim WBC title but it looks as though it may be 2022 before they get a title shot

Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois clash on 28 November for the Commonwealth, British and vacant European titles and the EBU have set a date of 17 November for purse offers for two unbeaten heavyweights Tony Yoka and Croatian Peter Milas to fight for the vacant EU title. Joseph Parker faces Junior Fa on 11 December, Luis Ortiz fights Alex Flores on 7 November, Filip Hrgovic fights Rydell Booker 7 November, Murat Gassiev has his first fight at heavyweight on Saturday against Nuri Seferi, Andy Ruiz is training hard(well relatively hard) and Deontay Wilder is training but he has no idea why. Let’s not forget the two boxers who have been cast into the wilderness for the sin of winning version of the WBA heavyweight title. The rules say a champion must defend his title within twelve months – less in some cases. Well poor Mahmoud (Manuel) Charr won the secondary title in November 2017 so just short of three years and Trevor Bryan won the interim title in August 2018 so over two years. Message to the WBA: Your rules and regulations are on your web site if you have lost your copy.

I still have serious reservation over the 10-8 scoring for a round in which a fighter is knocked down. This is cast in stone in the rules of the sanctioning bodies with no ifs or buts. It says plainly if there is a knockdown in a round then the round shall be scored 10-8 in favour of the boxer scoring the knockdown. That means that a fighter could hand out a beating to his opponent for 2:55 seconds and Compu-Box might show the boxer had outlanded his opponent by a huge margin in the round but if a punch to the shoulder causes him to lose his balance and his glove touches the floor then he will lose the round 10-8. I am amazed at the insult this is to boxing judges. The sanctioning body will tell you that they have the best judges in the world but don’t even trust them enough to let them judge a round over the whole three minutes and take into account the impact of a knockdown on the totality of the round. It is even worse when you consider that the 10-8 score has different impact depending on who is knocked down. If the fighter who is knocked down was losing the round then 9-10 becomes 8-10 so really just a one point penalty. If the fighter is winning the round then a 10-9 becomes an 8-10 so a three point penalty arising from what could be just a glove touching the canvas. To some judges the 10-8 is a great let-out. If a round is close then the knockdown makes life easy for you as you can dismiss any uncertainty from your mind over who you were going to give the round to as the rule book relieves you of any responsibility for your score in that round. It’s 10-8 a no brainer. It takes a very courageous judge to actually score the round 10-9 to the guy who was knocked down for if the other two judges are split then your 10-9 could be the score that decides a winner in a world title fight. The losers team would have a readymade protest and the loser’s fans would murder you on social media. Why have the best judges in the world and them tell them how to do their job?

Interested in money-who isn’t? Purses for the big show last weekend were: Roman Gonzalez $500,000 (the second biggest purse in the Nicaraguan’s career), Israel Gonzalez $75,000, Juan Francisco Estrada $300,000, Carlos Cuadras $50,000, Julio Cesar Martinez $100,000 and Moises Calleros $30,000. There seems an imbalance between what Roman Gonzalez was paid and the payment to Estrada but I guess everyone was happy with what they earned.

Showtime is preparing a documentary about Hector Camacho which will cover both his great achievements in the ring and his battles with addiction out of the ring. Camacho was killed in a still unsolved shooting incident in Bayamon in November 2012. The three division champion should make a fascinating study. In one run he beat four fighters with combined records of 92-1and scored wins over Rafael Limon, Jose Luis Ramirez Freddie Roach (yes that Freddie Roach), Edwin Rosario, Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Howard Davis, Ray Mancini, Vinny Pazienza, Greg Haugen, Roberto Duran and a badly faded Sugar Ray Leonard. I recall seeing Hector in Aruba dancing in a glittery spangled outfit wearing earrings and a pig tail smiling, gyrating and having a great time. A fond memory. A great fighter and a tragic end.

Boxing will return to Puerto Rico on 5 December. Miguel Cotto’s promotional outfit has received permission from the Department of Heath for the show. No fans allowed but it will be televised. It is planned that unbeaten prospects Danielito Zorrilla and Oscar Collazo will both fight on the card. The Department of Health has offered to help with the necessary medical exams.
The news is not so good from Germany where two planned shows have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 virus. The shows were to be in Berlin and Munich but for the venues the number of local virus cases measured on the COVID-19 incidence scale meant that the Berlin one had to be cancelled and the Munich show would be restricted to 50 people in attendance and would have to close doors by 9.00pm which made it impractical. There is a show scheduled for 21 November in Magdeburg and that seems likely to go ahead with former IBF cruiserweight champion Yoan Pablo Hernandez continuing his comeback despite a seventh round kayo loss against Kevin Johnson in August.

Puerto Rican Prichard Colon was hospitalised this week. Colon has been in the care of his mother since requiring emergency surgery after suffering a brain swelling in his fight against Terrel Williams in October 2015. This hospital surgery was required to reconnect a tube which supplies Prichard with food. It is hoped he will released from the hospital in a few days but life is still a struggle for Prichard and his mother.

There are already some fighters eager to compete at the new weight introduced by the WBC (and eventually the IBF, WBA and WBO who would not want to miss out on the sanctioning fees but as usual will all come up with their own name for the division). From Poland Mateusz Masternak, Krzys Wlodarczyk, Michal Cieslak and even WBO No 1 cruiser Krzys Glowacki have all said they will look at going up to the 224lbs division.

There will be an interesting fight on the undercard to Tyson Fury vs. TBA on 5 December as Michael Conlan clashes with former WBO super bantam champion Isaac Dogboe in a big fight for both boxers.

Artur Beterbiev’s defence of his IBF and WBC light heavyweight titles against Adam Deines has been rescheduled for the third time and will now take place in January in Russia with the expectation that it will be in front of a full house of fans.
The WBO have given the handlers of super welterweight champion Patrick Teixeira until 5 November to agree terms on Teixeira’s mandatory defence of the super welterweight title against Brian Castano or it will go to purse offers.

As WBO No 2 at super welter Tim Tszyu should move into the mandatory position after the above fight. Tszyu is not sitting waiting for that to happen and on 16 December will tackle New Zealander Bowyn Morgan in Sydney. Morgan is a good choice with a 21-1 record 13 wins in a row and a good depth of amateur experience.

BoxRec shows a fight scheduled for Friday in Dar es Salaam featuring a local boxer and Thai Sirimongkol Singwancha (Sirimongkhon Iamthuam). Singwancha has had a remarkable career. He turned pro in 1994 as a flyweight and won the World Boxing Union super flyweight and bantamweight titles in 1995. He won the interim WBC bantamweight title in 1996 and the full title in 1997 and lost it in the same year in his fourth defence in seven months. He then progressed up through the weights until he won the WBC super featherweight title in 2002 but lost it in 2003. He won a WBC lightweight eliminator in 2005 but did not get a shot at the title. Over 2007 and 2008 he won minor titles at super feather and super light and in 2012 won the WBC Asian title at welterweight. In 2014 he won the WBO Asia Pacific title at super welter and just before losing in a challenge for the WBC Asian middleweight title his record was 94-2. In 2018 he won the Thai light heavyweight title and for the fight in Tanzania will get down to super middle. He is now 43 and has had at least one fight in 25 of the 26 years he has been a pro. His record is 97-4 with 62 wins by KO/TKO so he might get to 100 career wins if he goes on for another year.

It saddens and ages you when you read of the death of a fighter whose career you followed from start to finish. That’s the case with Miguel Angel Castellini who died on Tuesday at the age of 73. I followed his progress though Simon Bronenberg’s KO Mundial and monthly results sheet from Julio Ernesto Vila-who I miss still. After an indifferent start to his career Castellini went on a run that saw him lose just one of his next thirty-eight fights and win the WBA super welter title. It took him eleven years and 76 fights to win a world title and he reigned for just five months. He retired in 1980 with a record of 74-8-12 with 51 wins by KO/TKO. RIP Miguel I enjoyed the ride we took together