posted by Large

My lunch with Budd Schulberg never happened, and now it never will, for as I’m sure you’ve heard by now he died yesterday at the age of 95.

Back in April, I was planning to do a piece for HBO leading up to the Pac/Hatton fight in which I talked to Budd Schulberg about the current fight scene and discussed in particular the Pacquiao-Hatton showdown. As a conceit for an article, this was, of course, merely an excuse to talk boxing with Budd. The hook was something along the lines of, “talking about the big fight with a man who’s seen more big fights than anyone alive.”

Initially, everything went very smoothly. I called his house, talked to his wife Betsy, who was at first suspicious of me but ultimately understood that I just wanted to talk boxing with her husband. “Budd loves to talk about boxing,” she said. We set up a date for me to come out to their house in Westhampton. She’d make us a nice lunch, she said. Later that day, her assistant emailed directions to the house.

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posted by Large

I like Nate Campbell, I always have. But I have to say that the poetic justice as to the way last night’s fight finished up was staggering. I mean… the Galaxxy Warrior, one of the great headbutt artists of his generation, going out like that and screaming to the heavens about a headbutt? Dear God, it was just too perfect.

The best win of Nate’s career came last year over Juan Diaz, and having watched that fight recently I remain of the opinion that Nate’s victory over Diaz primarily can be attributed to his expert use of his noggin as a weapon. He brutalized Diaz with his head from the first bell, opened the cut that threw Diaz way off his game, and then went after it like a surgeon with his fists and, well, his head. It was headwork of the highest order, basically, and I honestly don’t think he would have won that fight without it. Diaz was prepared to go to war in there, and he’s quite a warrior. He was stepping up his workrate in the second round and Nate was starting to lose steam. No cut, no blood, and I think Diaz would have battled it out and maybe even stopped Nate.

But whatever – cuts are a part of the game, and Diaz obviously doesn’t deal with them very well. Plus, if only Diaz had hired a competent cutman that night he might have been able to get out clean, because his cut wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was strikingly similar to the cut Nate suffered last night – significant, and in a bad place, but in general the type of material that a qualified cut-guy can work with.

Would Nate’s corner have been able to stop his cut from bleeding into his eye? We’ll never know, but I’m prepared to say unequivocally that… yes they would have. Led by trainer John David Jackson, that’s one very pro crew Campbell’s got behind him. When Nate got back to his corner after the third round last night, screaming before he even sat down that he couldn’t see and the fight needed to be stopped and it was a butt, he butted me, I can’t see, where’s the doctor?… the first thing his cornerman said to him was, “you’re all right… it’s not that bad.”

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posted by Large

First of all, let me welcome all you Pound 4 Pound radio listeners to the Friday prognostification contest here at the Mas. The contest is simple – leave your own prognostification for tomorrow night’s Timothy Bradley/Nate Campbell fight in the comments to the piece, and the closest to the final outcome wins a No Mas t-shirt of his or her choosing. Price is Right scoring applies, so be specific. Bradley by decision ain’t gonna cut it. We need scorecards. Similarly, when calling a KO or TKO, give the time of the stoppage and not just the round, so we can use that as a tiebreaker if need be.

Aight… on to the matter at hand. I’m going to give my take on the fight, and then at the bottom of this piece you can listen to the prediction from our friends at Pound 4 Pound.

Right off the top, I think everyone out there will agree that we’re looking at a potential FOY candidate here. One never knows how things will play out, of course, but both of these guys come to fight, both are willful and resourceful and familiar denizens of the Ministry of Dirty Tricks, and both have a tremendous amount at stake.

Brother Nate is a 5-2 underdog right now, paying $250 on a c-note. I think a lot of folks, particularly in the Mas community where I know Nate has a following, will look at that and start seeing dollar signs floating around their eyeballs. When you consider what Nate has been through in his career and what kind of heart we all know beats inside his chest, not to mention what he is wont to do with undefeated young hotshots (Kid Diamond, anyone? Baby Bull?), the short end of 5-2 against a mid-level talent like Bradley doesn’t seem to tell the tale.

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posted by Large

A couple links on the Gatti tribute front. First of all, my piece over at HBO, which is a compendium of excerpts from interviews I did with Micky Ward, Buddy McGirt, Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, Manny Steward, Max Kellerman and Ross Greenburg. It’s an HBO-heavy list, admittedly, but I got a lot of great material, and I think the piece reads like a neat little oral history of Gatti’s career.

I also include links to Pound 4 Pound’s show from last night, which was devoted to Gatti and includes Ward, McGirt, Greenburg and Ivan Robinson as guests. Also, remember, HBO is running all three Gatti-Ward fights back-to-back-to-back tonight at 9 and then tomorrow on HBO2 at 10:15. In other words, get the TiVo humming, cause you’re going to want to keep them shits in the collection.

Remembering Arturo Gatti
Jim Lampley: “At the end of any HBO fight, the mechanics of the telecast are such that I throw into the ring and then stand up and walk to the camera to do my post-fight on cameras, which is a difference of maybe eight or ten feet. When I stood up at the end of the tenth round of the first Gatti-Ward fight to walk the eight or ten feet to go to the camera, I almost could not straighten my body up because my stomach muscles were locked so tight from being tensed up involuntarily… just from watching what these two guys were doing to each other.”

Pound 4 Pound Radio: Gatti Tribute 1

Pound 4 Pound Radio: Gatti Tribute 2

posted by Large

We here at the Mas are proud to announce a new partnership with Pound 4 Pound Radio, the only boxing show on Sirius XM. We’ll be cross-promoting with them and they will be taking part and drawing participants to our “call-the-round” t-shirt contests for the big fights. The next such contest will be for the Bradley/Campbell fight on August 1st, and let me tell you something, Masians – gonna be a lot more action on that one than there has been in the past, so you better get your thinking caps on right now.

Also, starting next week, I will be making regular appearances on their radio show, which airs on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. EST at Sirius/XM 98. I urge you to check it out, because it’s really an excellent show with a regular roster of top-notch guests. Take tonight, for instance, which is a special Arturo Gatti tribute show. They’ll be talking Gatti with Ross Greenburg, Ivan Robinson, Micky Ward and Buddy McGirt.

Quite a lineup. And that’s not at all the “Mas on the Radio” news I have up my sleeve. The one and only Chief Executive Masian (he’s like Oscar, I’m like Richard Schaefer… or maybe I’m Bernard… that’s a bad thought, actually), the I-berglar, Chris Isenberg, will be making an appearance on a show called “Under Score” on the same station (Sirius/XM 98) at 3 p.m. tomorrow. Under Score is a show that focuses on the intersection of sports with society at large, art, culture, whatnot, obviously fertile terrain for I-berglary.

I’ve included below a few links to both shows for you to sample below, and also a link to a piece of mine from over at The Sporting Blog, which gives my thoughts on Showtime’s Super Six tournament, which I gather will be one of my primary topics of conversation on Pound 4 Pound next week.

Pound 4 Pound Radio (Juan Diaz, Giovanni Segura)

Under Score (Tor Hamer)

Showtime’s Boxing Tournament Doomed Early
“Therein lies the most glaring problem with their tournament, a problem not unfamiliar to those schools left out in the cold come Selection Sunday for March Madness. And this is no 64-team field. Showtime has six fighters locked up for this tournament, and they are indeed six worthy names. But not among those six is the current champion of the IBF (one of the three major sanctioning organizations), the Romanian by way of Montreal, Lucian Bute (pronounced, to my great delight, ‘boo-TAY”).”

Gents – I bring you my elegy for Gatti today from The Sporting Blog. I’m also in the process of doing a piece on him for HBO that will include remembrances from a lot of different writers and commentators. I’ll link to that when it’s up. As with Arguello (fucking-A, Arguello and Gatti in a matter of weeks…), I encourage you to post your thoughts and reminiscences in the comments here. I know Gatti numbers many a Masian among his hardcore fans. In conclusion, I think of Marlene Dietrich’s infamously curt epitaph for Captain Hank at the end of Touch of Evil: “He was some kind of a man.” What else is there to say?

A Fight Fan Remembers Arturo Gatti
“What is it that Mickey Rourke says at the end of The Wrestler? He’s about to head into the final contest that will probably kill him, and he turns to Marisa Tomei, gestures to the ring, and says something like, ‘I’m fine in there… the only place I get hurt is out here.” I’ve been thinking about that line these last couple of days. You always sensed that there was exuberance and joy woven into Gatti’s endless turmoil, and yet one wonders if there wasn’t something in the larger-than-life Gatti persona that he simply could not out-run in the end, some essential poison in the 180-proof cocktail that was his existence.”

posted by Ariel Helwani

Prior to every major UFC event, Dana White puts out several video blogs to show what he’s up to behind the scenes in the days leading up to a pay-per-view. Of course, he is doing the same this week for the upcoming UFC 100 event.

As far as video blogs go, this might be the worst one yet. I mean, I’m all for jokes and hijinks, but did we really need to see almost 10 minutes of some office prank?

The best part of this video? Check out which T-shirt UFC CEO and billionaire Lorenzo Fertitta is rocking. Respect. (The shirt in question makes its appearance at about 4:30.)

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t the first time Fertitta has shown love to the Mas – that’s him in the picture up top sporting the colors on the right.

Meanwhile, every few weeks I see White wearing the infamous Leon Spinks shirt:

So to all the MMA haters on this site, I ask you this: when’s the last time you saw Don King, Bob Arum, Lou DiBella or any other boxing promoter wear a No Mas shirt? That’s right, never. Show some love! (Now that should put an end to the ridiculous boxing vs. MMA debate once and for all, right?)

posted by Ariel Helwani

Once upon time, I provided No Mas with my 23 greatest moments in Wrestlemania history. So with UFC 100 right around corner, I thought I would do the same kind of thing, only this time I’ll keep it at 10. I don’t think anyone wants to read about my top 100 moments. Let’s do this:

10. Randy Couture def. Vitor Belfort via TKO (punches) , RD 1, 8:16
UFC 15 – Collision Course
Date: October 17, 1997
Location: Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

I remember watching this fight thinking that there was no way this wrestler guy (Randy Couture) would defeat the terrifying Belfort. Well, he did, and it helped kick off one of the most storied careers in MMA history.

9. Matchup: Gabriel Gonzaga def. Mirko Cro Cop via KO , RD 1, 4:51
Event: UFC 70: Nations Collide
Date: April 21, 2007
Location: Manchester, England

Greatest. Knockout. In. UFC. History.

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posted by Large

Gentleman – here’s my Alexis Arguello piece from over at The Sporting Blog. A more beautiful fighter, a sweeter scientist, there never has been. It’s a sad day in Boxiana. Needless to say, Arguello is a no-doubt, hands-down, first-ballot No Mas Hall-of-Famer. I invite you to share your memories of him here – I’m sure the Masian faithful have many great Arguello memories. Mine are primarily of the two Pryor fights and the Mancini fight, where I admit I was rooting against him, and yet came to be awestruck by his greatness by the end of the evening (like so many, I rooted for him against Pryor – I couldn’t win with this guy). Anyway, for the second time today I write – may he rest in peace. He was something else.

Alexis Arguello, 1952-2009
“What most Americans will remember of Arguello is the beautiful and courageous boxer, the man who won titles in three weight divisions and fought some of the most memorable battles of his era, with defining victories over some of the great names of the 70′s and 80′s, like Olivares, Alfredo Escalera, Rafael Limon, Bobby Chacon and Boom Boom Mancini. Boxing experts generally rank Arguello as the greatest 130-pounder who ever lived, and among the greats at 135.”

posted by Large

Papa Was a Rolling Stone
Literally, the first thing I saw when I turned the corner off Figueroa and looked down at the facade of the Staples Center was Oscar De La Hoya’s dad standing alone directly across from his son’s statue (and if you’ve seen it, you know that statue looks about as much like Oscar as I do). Joel De La Hoya was in a suit but no tie, drinking a can of beer and pacing around next to the road like he couldn’t decide whether to stick around or maybe hop in a cab and go somewhere else. I went up and talked to him for a while, got his prediction for the fight (Ortiz by decision in a tough one) and his take on the comparison between Ortiz and Oscar, which according to him is a non-starter because ‘Oscar is left-handed, but I teach him to fight conventional… Ortiz, he fight left-handed… so I cannot compare them.” I left him then and made my way to the media entrance. When I looked back, he was still there, looking agitated and indecisive. I wonder if he ended up leaving. It definitely seemed like it was on his mind.

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