Snips and Snipes 21 October 2014: GGG right now best in the world

We had the privileged of seeing two heavy punchers in action at the weekend. Both won impressively as Gennady Golovkin crushed Marco Antonio Rubio and Nicholas Walters beat down Nonito Donaire. There was no way the Golovkin vs. Rubio fight was ever going to be a distance fight but the way in which Golovkin destroyed Rubio was awesome. The finishing punch was on overhand shot which by the nature of its delivery meant it was difficult for Golovkin get maximum leverage but it was enough to finish Rubio. For me right now GGG is the best fighter in the world. I usually treat pound for pound with the same distain I have for comparing fighters from different eras. If they can never fight each other or are in wildly differing divisions then it is pure opinion and if you waste time arguing over something that can never be proven-get a life. It is my opinion and I don’t want people wasting their time telling me I am wrong. Its opinion not fact. GGG has destroyed everything put in front of him. Other views will see Floyd Mayweather Jr or Andre Ward as “the man” but for me Mayweather has failed to impress in his last 3 or 4 fights and Ward has had only one fight in two years and has not fought for almost a year. I don’t expect to change anyone’s opinion just to state mine. Golovkin is not unbeatable. No one is. Guys such as Andre Dirrell and Edmund Gutknecht beat him in the amateurs, but the signs of things to come were there in the 2003 World Championships when in successive rounds he easily beat both Matt Korobov and Andy Lee and then kayoed Lucien Bute. There are all sorts of fights out there for Golovkin. Miguel Cotto, Julio Cesar Chavez, Saul Alvarez and also Ward has thrown his hat in the ring. There has also been talk of a fight in Monte Carlo in February with Martin Murray’s name being mentioned in connection with that. Golovkin has said he is considering moving to the USA and learning English (I thought those two things were mutually exclusive-only joking guys) but whatever I can’t wait to see him in action again.

The show drew a crowd of 9,323 which is mighty impressive but will have been helped by having a Mexican and a Filipino in the main events.

It was amusing to see Mauricio Sulaiman in the ring at the Golovkin vs. Rubio fight. The WBC interim title was on the line. Did I dream hearing his father Don Jose saying a few years back that the WBC was doing away with interim titles. I guess when he said that he really didn’t mean it-or thought no one would remember. Instead we would have Silver titles-now we still have both. It’s called sanctioning body speak.

It was encouraging to see Rubio fined $50,000 for each pound he was over the contract weight. It just might make for some better discipline and more honesty from fighters and their team and I would like to see all of the other Commissions and Board be just as tough. Pity it wasn’t brought in years ago. I can think of some fighters who would have lost their whole purse in fines and had to take out a loan to pay off the balance.

Walters has gone from practically unknown to a big name in just two fights. Now there is talk of a unification match with Jhonny Gonzalez or Vasyl Lomachenko so the future looks bright for the young Jamaican.

Donaire is taking his time whilst considering his future but there is already talk of a return to the ring in Cebu City in May if he wants it.

With regard to Ward he did get a win this month. He had been in a contract dispute with the now deceased Dan Goossen. Ward’s complaint was that Goossen had failed to disclose financial information regarding a number of Ward’s fight which contravened the Muhammad Ali law. Ward wanted to go to court but Goossen claimed under their contract Ward would have to go to arbitration but a Federal Judge ruled that this was too wide an interpretation of the conditions for enforcing arbitration so Ward can choose to go to court over the matter. With the death of Goossen Ward’s case will now be against Goossen’s estate.

In my last column I used the phrase money can’t buy me a brain in relation to Floyd Mayweather Jr’s contribution to the Showtime production “All Access”. This showed boxers fighting rounds of 5, 6 7 minutes in length and one of 31 minutes without a break. It also showed some gambling on these so called “doghouse” fights and some drug taking. Concerned for the safety of the fighters involved the Nevada Commission called Mayweather before them to explain. Mayweather told them that the film was edited and that in fact the rounds were not of that length. Surprisingly that seemed to close the matter without the Commission calling any of the others in the gym to confirm what Mayweather had said. The matter is live again due to a suit filed by the sons of former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman who were involved in the sparring alleging that there were excessively long rounds including one featuring Hasim Jr of 31 minutes. It will be interesting to see where things go from here. The Commission can hardly ignore the Rahman’s suit but may decide to wait and see what emerges from the suit. If the Rahman’s allegations are proved then Mayweather will have lied to the Commission which, even though he was not under oath for the hearing, will be a very serious matter. Is “Money” bigger than the law? We may get a chance to find out.

Mayweather is certainly not seeing a problem as he is now talking of extending his contract with Showtime. It is due to expire in September 2015 and Mayweather had said he would retire then. Now he is realising just how big a thing boxing is in his life and having second thoughts.

Back in 2010 I reported that former WBO super feather champion Jorge Barrios was facing jail time after losing control of his car and hitting a pregnant woman killing both her and her unborn child. To make things worse Barrios fled the scene. Eventually in 2012 he was tried and sentenced to four years in prison but was released on bail after just a few weeks. The wheels of justice grind slowly but they have finally caught up with Barrios and he has been sent back to jail to serve his four year sentence. Four years seems such an insignificant penalty for ending tow lives.

Some exciting times ahead for boxing. We may get some of those fights that have seemed impossible due to promotional ties. Oscar de la Hoya is obviously serious when he says he will work with anyone and importantly with Top Rank, Showtime and HBO. He has to be congratulated for breaking the log jam that some bad relationships have caused.

In addition there is talk of Al Haymon taking his stable of fighters to NBC. That would really shake things up to have some of the top fighters on US terrestrial TV. Don’t know about his big names but it would be great exposure for some of the young prospects he has signed up.

HBO wants to make the Miguel Cotto vs. Saul Alvarez fight happen and Cotto’s advisor has stated that they expect to begin negotiations for the fight soon. That will be a big draw.

Back to the crime count. The police have arrested a suspect in the shooting of boxer Emanuel Augustus. It appears that Augustus (he also fought as Manny Burton)  was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and was hit in the head by a stray bullet. He is still in a critical condition in a hospital in Baton Rouge. Augustus had only recently returned to the town where he was brought up. Augustus had apparently moved from Texas and was in very poor financial straits.

There was some good news/bad news coming out of Germany. The good news was that Marco Huck would not be fighting Johnny Nelson. The British former WBO cruiser champion had proposed a fight with Huck. Now 47 and having been retired since 2005 Nelson had set the record for WBO cruiser title defences at 13 and with Huck having equaled that record with his win over Mirko Larghetti Johnny fancied giving it one more go, but Huck is more interested in moving up to heavyweight.

The bad news is that the WBO have declined to order a rematch between Arthur Abraham and Paul Smith. British observers were disgusted at the result of their fight, in particular a score giving Smith just one round out of the twelve. However there was not much support from elsewhere and there was always very little chance of a rematch being ordered. Abraham returned to his home city of Yerevan where he is building a boxing school. His retirement is still going to be a joint decision with his long time trainer. When the trainer retires, so will Abraham. He has ruled out any fights in the USA partially due to the problems of jet lag but also the “judging”. Very strange since in his only fight in the USA that went to the scorecards only one of the three judges was American and he was more generous in his score to Abraham than the two non-American judges.

Fights to look out for: Big shows in Liverpool and Hull this weekend and also in Monte Carlo. This is a great great time for British boxing fans with just so much outstanding young talent coming through. I don’t think I can ever remember having so many really exciting young fighters coming through at the same time. We have the ridiculous situation of two big shows in Las Vegas on the same night, 13 December. Top Rank has Tim Bradley against Diego Chaves with Matt Korobov against Andy Lee, Mauricio Herrera and Jose Benavidez and Denis Shafikov vs. TBA. Over at the Mandalay Bay Amir Khan faces Devon Alexander (finally) for the WBC Silver title with the winner hoping for a fight with Mayweather-naturally. Demetrius Andrade puts his WBO light middleweight title on the line against Jermell Charlo and Keith Thurman defends his interim WBA welter title against Leo Bundu. Two excellent shows but you can’t be at both. Karim Mayfield returns on November 8 in San Francisco against Mike Balasi as he tries to rebound from two losses on the bounce. On 15 November in Toronto Youri Kalenga will defend his interim WBA cruiser title against unbeaten local Denton Daley. On November 22 Roman Gonzalez (one day he will receive the recognition he deserves) defends his WBA flyweight title against tough Filipino Rocky Fuentes and Takashi Miura defends his WBC super feather title against Mexican Edgar Puerta. Big middleweight fight down in Australia on December 3 with former IBF champion Daniel Geale against Jarrod Fletcher for the IBF Pan Pacific title. Both are coming off losses, Geale to Golovkin and Fletcher to Daniel Jacobs. A must win fight for Geale and I think he has the skill and experience to do it.

Argentinian Israel Perez is slated to challenge Takashi Uchiyama in Ota City Japan on 31 December for the WBA super feather title. A 2000 Olympian it has taken Perez 13 years to work his way to a title shot. Giant Chinese heavyweight Taishan Dong will be in action again on November 13 in Indio, California. The 7’0” (213cm) 283lbs Dong won his first fight in July but we don’t really know yet if he can fight.

It is always good to see the stars of the past being honoured. In Barranquilla, Colombian this weekend at the latest “KO Drugs” show the guests will be Hilario Zapata and Fidel Bassa. I can remember interviewing Zapata for a feature at a WBC Convention in Mexico City $%&* years ago (I’m not telling). He was a quiet, polite guy and easy to interview. He was WBC light flyweight champion and made nine defences in 7 different countries. He lost it then regained it and made 3 more defences. He then won the WBA fly title and defended it 6 times in 5 different countries before losing it to Bassa in 1987. He floored Bassa in a return bout but a draw meant Bassa kept the title. Hilario ended his career in a loss when challenging for the WBC super fly title. A total of 24 world title fights and I guess most boxing fans today would say Hilario Who? Colombian Bassa won the WBA flyweight title by beating Zapata. In his first defence he was behind on all three cards going into the 13^th round against Dave McAuley in Belfast but brought off a dramatic stoppage to regain his title. He made six more defences drawing with Zapata in Panama and just edging out McAuley in a return fight in Belfast. His two fights with McAuley are still remembered as thrillers in Belfast. He lost his WBA title to Jesus Rojas in 1989, his only loss in 24 fights, and then retired. Two great little warriors who deserve to be remembered.

Last week saw the honouring of another boxer, probably one of the best never to win a world title. The event was the 7^th Annual Briscoe Awards for Philadelphian boxers named in honour of the great Philly middleweight-once seen never forgotten. (Fighter of the Year and Performer of the Year) went to Danny Garcia for the third year in a row. Julian William was named (Prospect of the Year), Manny Folly was Rookie of the Year (Rookie! Bloody American /English again), Tevin Farmer (Breakout Fighter of the Year), Julio De Jesus (KO of the Year), Stephen Fulton Jr. (Amateur of the Year), Anthony Caputo Smith vs. Dhafir Smith (local Fight of the Year) and amateur boxer Dylan Price (Everett Brothers Award). Bennie Briscoe vs. Gennady Golovkin now that would be a fight to savour.

Even when training for the Bernard Hopkins fight Sergey Kovalev might have part of his mind on something else this week. He became a father. I guess he has a good excuse for not being there to change nappies (diapers to the USA) or late night feeds.