Dear Brothers of the Mas,

As you all know, I have mad respect for Floyd’s skills. The kid doesn’t play, not in the ring, not in training, and not in choosing his battles either. That Mayweather clan may be crazy as all crazy, but I also think they’re crazy like dysfunctional foxes. Crazy foxes from the hood, no less – very dangerous foxes indeed. They can smell when a man is weak, that kind.

We had Dana White on my TV show a few weeks ago, and I know he’s a big fight fan, so we asked him who he’d take in Mayweather/Pacquiao.

First thing he said was, “I’m not so sure Floyd is going to get past Shane.”

One of his main arguments for that was that Shane was in camp for Berto, and then after that fight fell apart, he had maybe a week off and went back to camp for Floyd. He saw that as a big positive for Shane, that he’s hyper-prepared and in shape.

Me, I see it as a big negative. Training camp takes a toll on a man Shane’s age, and two camps back-to-back without any layoff is NOT a good thing for him in my opinion. Throw in the fact that the headshots are seriously taking a toll on the man, and I worry for him in this thing, I really do. We had him on the show by satellite on Thursday, and I’ll tell you something – he is slurring like early 80′s Ali. He’s slurring even when the cameras are on, and when they’re off, fuhgeddaboudit. He’s incomprehensible, looks lost and glazed. It’s a sad, sad thing, but Shane is going down the road much traveled.

In short, I think Floyd is going to beat him up but good. I know Shane is a warrior, and I know he will take one hell of a licking and keep on ticking, but Floyd won’t be hitting him with those big Cotto and Margarito telegraphed wangdangers tomorrow night. With Shane lunging and flurrying the way he does, Floyd is going to catch him with more than a few of those you-never-saw-it-didja?-now-dance-for-me-motherfucker type counters, the ones that send you down Queersville in a jiffy.

I picture this fight in my mind and I see something that feels like a cross between Oscar-Floyd and Hatton-Floyd. First couple of rounds, I think Shane will get some licks in, and there will be moments where you wonder… “maybe this is the time, maybe this is the guy…” Floyd will stay cool, of course, take it like a champ, and I think the overall effect that he’s getting roughed up will be at least 60% illusion (unlike Hatton, where it was 100%). The clean potshots he lands on Shane will add up quickly, and by the seventh or eighth, the tide will have turned and we’ll have a bloodbath on our hands.

I see Floyd stopping Shane, and I would put that in the 9th or 10th. It will not be pretty, I fear. Shane’s guts and raw hatred of Floyd will do him a disservice. Marquez walked out of that ring because he went into survival mode. Shane doesn’t know from survival mode – just ask him to put two sentences together for proof of that. He will Hatton himself into extinction.

However, the mere name, “Shane Mosley,” gives me pause on the gambling front. Floyd at -450, -475, is just too rich for my blood. Say Floyd breaks a hand. I think he beats Shane easily with two mitts, but with one he loses. Shane’s old and deteriorating fast, but he still ain’t no Baldomir.

So, you know, if you’re looking to make a wager and want to have a little fun tomorrow night, lay a fin down on Shane if you can get him over +300. Spice up your night. You know you’ll be rooting for him anyway.

In conclusion, I miss you dudes. All love to my Masian brothers. My show is called The Daily Line, and it’s on Versus every night at 6 p.m. We’re making baby steps towards being something solid, I believe, though it takes time in TV land. We’re not walking yet, but we’re crawling with some measure of style.

Aight – keep your gloves up. Hopefully, I’ll be rapping at you sooner rather than later. I promise to get back in the ring either here or at The Rumble if Pac/Floyd goes down.

Love Large

By Lou Dubois (exclusive to No Mas)

Easily one of the most iconic and controversial athletes to ever play in sports-crazed Philadelphia, Allen Iverson’s well-documented NBA career almost never came to fruition. And now there’s a movie that talks all about it.

Famed director Steve James (best known for his work on Hoop Dreams) tells the story of Iverson as a multi-sport high school superstar embroiled in a controversy that if nothing else, brought about a severe racial divide in Hampton, Virginia, the hometown that both the director and the protagonist share. James’ documentary No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson examines the 1993 bowling alley brawl that landed Iverson, then the nation’s top high-school basketball player, in jail along with two friends/teammates. At its core, the movie is as much about race and equality in the south in the early 1990s as it is about a sports star and his divided community.

Since premiering last month at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, the documentary has opened to limited audiences across the country with positive reviews and will air nationally as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series this Tuesday at 8pm ET. It seemed only fitting to attend a screening of the movie among some of Iverson’s biggest fans during last weekend’s Philadelphia Film Festival Spring Preview, organized by the Philadelphia Film Society.

After watching this film, audiences should leave with a clearer understanding of Iverson the person, who has carried a me-versus-the-world mentality with him through his entire public life. It also gives some insight into what has often been referred to as his rocky relationship with the media. As Iverson told Tom Brokaw in 1993 (and shown in the film), “I felt like I was convicted before I went to court by the media.” Perhaps the most fascinating part of this film, however, is that Iverson and many others involved in this case refused to participate in James’ project.

“I’m not even sure if Allen knows that this movie was made,” producer Emily Hart said in a short Q&A after the screening in Philadelphia. “Through his agent, we were basically told that he would not be participating. That was the response we got from a lot of people on this movie—they didn’t want to reflect on the past.”

The film starts by addressing how important Iverson was to the local community in Hampton, as a multi-sport athlete in football and basketball that many expected to put their town on the national radar. His basketball games had to be played at college arenas to accommodate the large following he’d received.

On Valentine’s Day in 1993, Iverson was at a bowling alley with friends when alleged use of the n-word provoked a nasty brawl between a group of black teenagers and white adults. Iverson was charged with hitting a white woman over the head with a chair, though the only grainy video footage of the evening supported no such claim.

The case received an inordinate amount of national attention, including (as referenced in No Crossover) this controversial Sports Illustrated story by Ned Zerman that was accused of being highly inaccurate. As one Hampton native points out in the movie, the case “nearly tore this town apart” based on race.

As the trial progressed, much of the community felt Iverson was being made an example of by the local judicial system based as much on his celebrity as his participation in the crime. When he was convicted on felony charges under a “maiming by mob” statute designed to prosecute lynch mobs and sentenced to 15 years, the town exploded. Iverson ended up only serving only four months at the minimum-security Newport News City Farm before being released and becoming a mega-star.

The film offers a rare glimpse into Iverson’s character and oft-criticized persona, and he comes off as a charming youth who was burdened with an inordinate amount of pressure from his local community to succeed. At the time, Iverson said a friend quickly escorted him out of the bowling alley when the brawl broke out, knowing there was a lot more at stake for the hoops star than anyone else in the building. But in a fascinating 2006 interview with Stephen A. Smith shown in No Crossover, Iverson said: “I’m not saying I did what they said I did, but . . . I deserved to be exactly where I was at. I went through what I went through because God said to go through it. And I overcame it.”

Whether you think Iverson committed the crime or not, it’s a great documentary that James and his crew weaves together 16 years after the crime. It quickly becomes clear as some of the movie’s central stars are talking that despite a Hall of Fame career and a highly publicized life, many in Hampton still think about Iverson in terms of this trial (and in some cases, don’t want to talk about him for that reason).

The film also seems perfectly timed with Iverson’s recent off-court issues that were written about extensively by Smith, dealing with his addiction to drinking and casinos. To see one of the most transcendent athletes of the past decade before he was a star is a harrowing story not to be missed.

As James told the Philadelphia Inquirer about No Crossover last weekend, “(this film) is about Allen at that time of his life on some level, because it has to be. But really, it’s ultimately a film about the community. The best sports films are never really about sports. They go beyond that. Sports is a great arena to express things about race and class and the American dream and family.”

No Crossover premieres Tuesday night at 8pm ET on ESPN as part of the network’s “30 for 30 Series.” To view further information on the movie and to gather tune-in info, visit the “No Crossover” micro site on espn.com.

posted by Large

The Rumble is back up. Lot of problems over there last week, as I’m sure many of you saw. The Sporting News server has been crashing regularly and taking down all of their sites. But thankfully, it’s back up and running just in time for fight week. Just a reminder to all you Masians – all of our usual big-fight business will be going down over there, including the prognog and accompanying contest.

One more word – while we’re all going apeshit over May/Marquez, our man Kurt is headed over to Germany to watch his fighter, Giovanni Lorenzo, fight Sebastian Sylvester (one of the worst two-first-name names I ever did hear) for the vacant IBF middleweight strap. Let’s wish Kurt and Giovanni well and hope they come home with the belt in tow. For those of you who missed it, here’s my interview with Kurt from the summer of 2008 about the arc of Giovanni’s career.

It started with Cassius Marcellus Clay and now it’s come full circle to Muhammad Ali.

About seven years ago, I went to an auction at Sotheby’s and saw a photograph by Flip Schulke of Muhammad Ali,then Cassius Clay,in the Miami years before the first Liston fight. It was the only boxing photo in a large lot of photographs that had nothing to do with sport, so of course it immediately caught my eye. This was before Corbis and Getty had put their archives online and therefore before I had spent countless hours looking at old pictures of Ali. I had never seen images from that moment before. Clay was skinny and young, unmarked by the battles to come and full of the electricity of knowing how good you are before you’ve had a chance to prove it. In the photo, taken in Angelo Dundee’s 5th Street Gym in Miami, Clay’s side-stretching, hands behind his head as he leans left, eyes tracking the camera. He’s wearing a t-shirt that says Cassius Clay,in a Coca-Colaish font where a script C with a long tail stands in for the first letter of Cassius and Clay. Confronted by such beauty, I could only think one thing: I need that mother——- t-shirt.
Read the rest of this entry »

posted by Large

Dear No Masians:

Big news. You might want to sit down for this.

No Mas and The Sporting News are partnering on a new website dedicated to both boxing and MMA to be called “The Rumble.” Below you can see the masthead, and if you want a more detailed view, you can just go on over to the actual site and take a gander.

There are a lot of kinks still to be ironed out, and we haven’t started publishing there yet, but the plan is that we’re going to get it up and running with content this week and then launch it officially and publicize next week in time for the pre-May/Marquez and UFC 103 festivities.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m very proud to announce the debut of “Hammer of Tor”, a new short documentary directed by Ben Younger, who wrote and directed Boiler Room and Prime, featuring up and coming New York City heavyweight Tor Hamer (7-0, 6KOS).

Click here to check it out, and if you’re interested in the behind the scenes read on after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted by Shoefly

I can’t help it, I kind of like Paulie Malignaggi. When I first started watching him he was enjoyable as a cartoon heel, a fun guy to root against. His fast-talking, guido, frost-tipped, metrosexual act made him eminently loathable. His fighting style is unattractive; a retreating, jabbing, clowning, and spoiling mush that can be borderline painful. He seemed a mockery of the slick African-American fighting tradition mixed with the righteous indignation and attitude I most prefer.

But he took his two beatings , from Cotto and Hatton , like a man and I started to warm a little. And Saturday’s fight against Juan Diaz was one to remember.

Now, first, let me say the cries of robbery seem a little overstated to me. I didn’t keep score, but I had the general feeling the fight was a pick’em with enough close rounds that it wouldn’t be a tragedy either way. Of course, I also knew who the HBO kept boy was and, as such, had no doubt that Diaz would be the winner.

Read the rest of this entry »

A little grist for the prognostification mill…

No Mas’s agency side Office of AIR is now the agency of record for Everlast, and we’ve been working with them on videos to promote their new fight gloves. Historically they’ve only ever offered one fight glove but this year they introduced “The MX”, a made in Mexico punchers glove that compares favorably to Reyes, and the Protex 3. The Protex offers the kind of protection a volume puncher with fragile hands might be looking for, and Paulie, apparently consulted on its development.

Check the video below, wherein Paulie waffles on whether he’ll use the Protex 3 or the less padded Mexican. The glove he comes out in tonight may offer an early clue on his fight strategy.

btw, last few months have been crazy for me between getting married and the amazing things happening at The Mas (more to come on that soon). But I’m concerned I may have stiffed a couple contest winners. If you won and haven’t received your gear yet, please leave a comment below or get in touch direct if you have my email. Good luck tonight and congratulations to KRONK’s Andy Lee who we shot last night for The Undercard. 8th round TKO in Indiana.

(Gentleman, we’ve got the august Shoefly on the prognog piece this week, and yes, the contest is on. Call the round, call the cards, call it call it call it and win a Mas shirt of your choice. But remember… be specific, be very specific. -L)

posted by Shoefly

There’s losing, there’s losing by knockout, and then there’s losing by beating. The type of grueling, pounding, and unmanning hurt they don’t tell you about when you first walk into the gym; the sort of hiding a proud kid who always got his way could never imagine. I’m thinking here of a fight like Calzhage/Lacy. A man enters the ring as a champion and exits a bruise on legs.

I generally think the modern obsession with a fighter being damaged and faded following a loss is unhelpful and inaccurate, but when a boxer receives the deep hurt it’s impossible not to look for signs of a changed man.

And that’s what Saturday’s Diaz/Malignaggi fight is really about; how much of Juan Diaz is left? Did the great Juan Manual Marquez knock something essential loose when he ripped two-dozen of the most lovely uppercuts you’re likely to see into the younger man? It was a terrific fight, one of those classic encounters that are so familiar across the course of boxing history; the young lion vs. the old champ, the reckless pressure fighter vs. the counterpunching genius.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted by Large

Dudes, again I refer you to my piece at The Sporting Blog, which touches on a subject near and dear to our hearts, the two gigantic, rival promotions of the fall.

To which I will add that this annoying situation where I am generally writing my pieces over at TSB and then linking to them here is going to be resolved soon once and for all, and I think to everyone’s satisfaction. More on that very soon…

Mayweather/Marquez vs. Pacquiao/Cotto Could Be the Fight of 2009
“If Floyd really wants to take a sure path towards making this fight enormous, and if he wants to immediately supersede any other news that surrounds him or his camp or the fight as it is posited right now, he has it in his power to do so… All he has to do, with his inimitable gusto, is insult the honor of Mexican boxers, Mexican people, and Mexico itself. Then, oh man … then all hell would break loose.”