God bless Jose Canseco. The former slugger certainly knows how to keep his name in the news, and the best part is that he doesn’t need to beat up his girlfriend or rob a bank to do so. All he has to do is continue acting a fool.
Canseco is supposedly going to make his mixed martial arts debut later this month for the Japanese-based DREAM promotion. Hate to rain on everyone’s parade, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Japanese MMA promotions are notorious for not living up to their promises and this reeks of a desperate attempt to create some buzz for the fledgling DREAM organization. Just look at this quote from Canseco’s lawyer:
“I think they have (jumped the gun) and I don’t have any problems with them doing that because I don’t anticipate any problems but it’s just not confirmed yet,” Dennis Holahan, Canseco’s Los Angeles-based lawyer, told The Canadian Press last week.
“It probably won’t be a sure thing for another week or 10 days.”
I don’t know about you guys, but I am used to a promotion announcing a fight when it’s, you know, officially agreed to by all parties involved. It would be one thing if it were a fight between two MMA veterans, but this is Canseco we’re talking about. Proceed with caution.
Strictly hand-held is how I roll. The video below is cobbled together from some nuggets I culled from what I shot of the major players who hung around after the Pacquiao-Hatton press conference last Saturday night. I recommend you sticking around to hear the bite where Floyd Sr. dismisses Hatton as “damaged goods,” paraphrasing in his own broken English a point that Hemingway made much more eloquently in his great bullfighting tract, Death in the Afternoon – that once gored, most matadors are never the same again inside the ring.
Here in the airport waiting to get the eff out of Dodge. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the Vegas airport is an ugly, ugly place on a Sunday morning.
Speaking to Mrs. Large this morning on the shuttle, she hit me with the question that now has become THE question for all people even remotely to the fight game – “Who do you think will win, Mayweather or Pacquiao?”
I talked to two people in the post-presser mill-around session that have a heavy interest in the matter, Freddie Roach and Shane Mosley. Freddie’s main point on the Mayweather matter was this – Floyd has chosen a mother of a tune-up for himself on July 18th. He’ll be a heavy favorite over Marquez (I thought I saw -350 next to his name at the Grand sports book last night, though I may have dreamed that) but no one in boxing will be considering that win to be completely in the bag until the final bell has rung. Marquez is just too damn good to be anybody’s tune-up, no matter what the catch-weight. The guy has shown time and time again that he can find a way in there facing a variety of obstacles, and though I have infinite respect for Floyd’s skills, and I certainly feel like the weight favors him, I’m certain that JMM will make it interesting somehow.
But getting back to Freddie. From his point of view, the Money/Marquez bout rules out Mayweather (or Marquez I suppose) for Pac’s next bout, because according to him there’s no way Team Pacquiao is going to sit around and wait until July 19th to make Manny’s next fight.
I’m laying here in bed in my room at the Trop, my head still swimming a little from all the lights, cameras and action. I thought about trying to get into the HBO True Blood party at Tabu (pretty much the entire cast of the show was at the HBO pre-party at Puck’s), but as I walked past munching on a Nathan’s, the place seemed skank-deep in skank at the bar, and even if one of them is Anna Paquin, for this old fart, the A-list Vegas skank show comes in a distant second to taking off my pants and climbing into bed with a Drumstick (opted for the Drumstick and not the King Cone in the lobby convenience store… I admit I’m still having the debate in my mind even though said Drumstick is long consumed. The Drumstick is tastier. The King Cone is bigger).
I have some good video that I took after the presser that I may or may not edit up and try and post here of Floyd Sr. pretty much throwing Ricky under the bus at his first opportunity, taking the predictable line of “I told him, I kept preaching and preaching, but as soon as he got in there he just went back to his ole self so what could I do?”, etc.
I’ve taken a lot of guff in various forums, including this one, for my long-time disdain of Hatton as a fighter, my feeling that he was enormously over-rated, that in point of fact he simply is not and never has been that good. I hope that after tonight I never have to have this argument again. Yes, yes, Manny Pacquiao is fantastic, but Ricky Bloody Hatton is bloody hopeless. I gave the man quite the benefit of the doubt in my prognostification, had him holding out to the eleventh because, I reasoned, surely he’s improved himself a bit and has a game-plan to handle Pacquiao’s speed, and plus, he’s big enough to take a good dose of Manny’s punishment and keep coming back for more, isn’t he? He certainly goes on enough about how tough he is, doesn’t he now?
In my book the only way a Ford beats a Cadillac is if the Caddy is like one of those new XLR-V coupes and the Ford is an F-150 and they’re competing in a towing contest.
What we have here is not a towing contest. What’s more, the Ford ain’t even a truck. He’s like, a Fusion.
But enough with the cars crap. What I’m getting at is this – for a fighter of average skills to beat a fighter of elite skills, there must be some x-factor that tilts the playing field in his direction and gives him at least a small chance at the upset, be it an advantage in size, power or heart.
Generally in these kinds of situations, that x-factor is power. The puncher’s chance. George Foreman on the button of Michael Moorer (funny that Moorer should come up, actually…). Oliver McCall with his eyes closed landing that wild miracle on Lennox’s glass chin.
But that’s not in play here. Hatton is not a particularly hard puncher and he’s never been the guy who changes a fight with one shot. He couldn’t stop Paulie Malignaggi, for Pete’s sake, who is borderline defenseless in the ring these days. Buddy McGirt had to do it for him (and I reiterate my feelings on that – shame on you Buddy).
No, if Hatton is going to stage the upset tomorrow night, one of the other two x-factors that can level a mismatch will tell the tale – size and, or, heart.
Dudes, just starting my day out here on the Left Coast. I will have the traditional prognostification piece up later on, but until then I thought I’d tide you over by referring you to this piece of mine that’s up over at HBO right now about the making of 24/7.
Rolling 24/7 – Behind the Scenes of the Most Grueling Job in Sports Television
“With Roach absent from his famed Wild Card Gym, the atmosphere was loose. Giddy even. Pacquiao’s assistant trainer (and best friend), Buboy Fernandez, wore the mitts for the fighter’s pad workout, and they had trouble finding their rhythm. Roach is brilliant with the mitts, and when he and Pacquiao go at it together, it’s like two dancers performing choreographed savagery. Today, though, the Baryshnikov of the company had himself an unfamiliar partner, and the result was a lot of good-natured frustration.”
(P.S. You guys are aware, right, that after the final 24/7 tonight, on the HBO Boxing website there’s exclusive video of Lamps interviewing Freddie Roach and Floyd Joy Sr.? It’s gonna be Lamps in between the two of them a la Cosell between Ali and Frazier on Wide World of Sports. One insider thing I can tell you is that all Freddie had to say about that set-up was “they better have security.” Freddie’s a mellow guy in his public persona, but he don’t take no shit, and he seriously fucking hates Floyd Joy. He also feels pretty confident that he could take him if they threw down. Myself, I’m not so sure about that. Seems to me like a helluva fight…)
God bless Jose Canseco. The former slugger certainly knows how to keep his name in the news, and the best part is that he doesn’t need to beat up his girlfriend or rob a bank to do so. All he has to do is continue acting a fool.
