posted by Large

Gents, I bring you my recent pieces from The Sporting Blog concerning Roy Jones’ performance against Jeff Lacy (in which I pay undue attention to an aging Phillies’ pitcher of note) and also last night’s highly disappointing news that the Pavlik/Williams fight has been postponed and consequently may never happen.

Roy Jones: The Pedro Martinez of Boxing?
He was embarrassed by Calzaghe, but Calzaghe was a truly great fighter still at the peak of his powers. I couldn’t help but wonder on Saturday while I was watching Roy take Lacy apart how he would fare in Showtime’s super middleweight tournament. Of course, Roy hasn’t fought at 68 in over ten years, and it’s unlikely that he’d be inclined to go back to that weight now. But if he did … could he compete in that tournament? Could he eke out wins over the likes of Jermain and Andre Dirrell and Carl Froch?

Kelly Pavlik vs. Paul Williams Postponed, Possibly Cancelled
What’s left now is to see whether the two promoters can come to some agreement on a make-up date, which is quite a dicey proposition in the ever delicate world of boxing negotiations. There always was something about this fight that seemed too good to be true , two big, exciting fighters in their primes taking a huge risk in agreeing to face each other in a matchup that, although hotly anticipated by boxing diehards, doesn’t even have the crossover juice to warrant big-time pay-per-view money.

posted by Shoefly

I don’t believe in signs or meaning or an universal narrative arc except where myself and my inescapable impending misfortune are concerned. That said… man, it’s been a black-cat-passing-beneath-a-ladder-while-spilling-some-salt kind of summer hasn’t it? All we’ve had is painful negotiations, spoiled fights, and the lasting stink of the true violence and death that the sport is really a manifest pushing away from. It’s enough to convert even a true believer in the church of chance to doubt his own faith.

Which is why Roger Mayweather’s ‘situation” has me worrying in ways that I prefer to devote toward morbid self-attention. Many dislike the Mayweathers, and I understand why, but I have always found them engaging and alive in ways that few are. They have a charm all their own, the out-sized self-love of the sociopath and the holy fool. Roger, in particular, mixes personal regard with gallows humor in a near vaudeville act that at points seems too perfect to be accidental.

“Why does Bill Gates still build them motherfuckin’ computers?”

Why indeed, Roger? Why indeed?

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I talk primarily about the Bradley/Campbell situation on last night’s Pound 4 Pound show. Just a note – the widget takes a second to load. If you click on it, wait ten seconds or so and then try clicking on it again. There’s probably a better one out there, but you know how it is. I’m like, almost 40. I need a seven-year-old to explain this shit to me.

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

Guys, below I bring you my Roger Mayweather piece from over at The Sporting Blog. Due to the blatant hotness of the woman, there’s a lot of speculation out there about whether the relationship between Rog and “Guard Your Grill” St. Vil (and allow me to add… that is one seriously hot nickname) was, dah, beyond professional. I guess we’ll be hearing about that soon enough.

To sum up, my take is that this incident hurts Floyd the promoter much more than it hurts Floyd the boxer. In my opinion, Floyd needs a compelling 24/7 to get this fight up on the marquee of people’s minds, and when one of the major characters of the ongoing miniseries of his life is out there choking women out and making them spit blood, well, it definitely makes the Evil Empire of the Mayweathers seem almost too evil for prime time. It’s hard to laugh about what a rollicking crazyass character ole Uncle Rog is when you dwell on that shit too much. 24/7 had done a nice job of putting the grandmother abuse in the rear-view mirror, but this thing brings it all back home. Darkness visible, innit?

What do you dudes think? Does this incident have any lasting impact on the Mayweather/Marquez promotion or does it blow over? Or does it (I shudder to write this) maybe even help the promotion?

The Roger Mayweather Incident (The Sporting Blog)
“…you have to wonder if this recent storyline with Uncle Rog isn’t too gruesome for even HBO to want to face head on. The 24/7 series has been built on celebrating the antics of the Mayweathers, but this, choking a woman and making her spit blood, is nothing to celebrate, to put it mildly. The situation at the very least will remove Roger from the light of the cameras, and even more, may cast a pall over the coverage of the whole Mayweather training camp.”

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

This trend whereby boxing loses some of its most beloved fighters, another one seemingly every week, to early, violent death, is really getting disturbing. The latest victim is Vernon Forrest, dead at the age of 38, killed last night during an attempted carjacking while he was filling the tires of his Jaguar in Atlanta. Two punks carrying pistols tried to boost Vernon’s car, but evidently he pulled his own piece on them and chased them down the street. Gunshots were exchanged and he took one in the head. The punks both escaped.

Forrest wasn’t an icon of boxing at the level of Gatti or Arguello, but he was known to be one of the sport’s best citizens, tireless when it came to charity work for kids and the mentally challenged.

Though he had a long and successful career in which he competed in the Olympics and won three world titles in two different weight classes, Vernon nevertheless always will be remembered as something of a hard luck story. A favorite to win a gold medal in Barcelona, he got a dose of food poisoning before his first-round bout and lost unceremoniously. Later, on the cusp of mega-stardom after his two signature victories over Shane Mosley in 2002, he was stopped in the third round by Ricardo Mayorga in only the first fight of a brand-new multi-fight deal with HBO. By the time of the rematch, Forrest already was struggling with the left shoulder and elbow problems that would force him to have multiple surgeries and stay out of the ring for two years during his prime. After Mayorga beat him a second time, the surgeries began, and his all-too-brief stint on the A-list was over.

He fought well when he returned to the ring, beat Ike Quartey in an exciting fight in August of 2006 and then won the WBC junior middleweight belt from Carlos Baldomir in 2007, a title he lost and then won back from Sergio Mora last year.

Inactive since that second Mora fight in September of ’08, there had been some talk of him matching up with Sergio Martinez, which would have been an entertaining fight for sure. But now he’s dead, a victim of some random thuggery and his own instinct to fight back. R.I.P. Vernon and God bless. As for the rest of you fighters out there, for Pete’s sake, be safe and watch your back, because some very nasty vibe is loose in the atmosphere lately and it seems to have the best of the boxing world in its crosshairs.

posted by Large

A late reminder that I’ll be making my inaugural appearance on the Pound 4 Pound radio show tonight, an hour-long show that airs at 7 p.m. EST on Sirius/XM 98. Other than my esteemed self, the guests are Chris Arreola, Steve Cunningham and Stephane Larouche, who plays left wing for the Canadiens. No, wait… he’s Lucien Bute’s trainer.

I understand the topics that I’ll be addressing will be the Showtime Super Six tourney, the Pac/Cotto extravaganza, David Haye’s continuing ridiculousness and some other recent news today concerning Tomasz Adamek and Amir Khan. They’re also encouraging call-ins tonight, so do holla if you have the itch at 1-888-942-7326. I include below some links to recent pieces of mine from The Sporting Blog and my latest HBO article.

Pacquiao vs. Cotto: Questions Will Be Answered (HBO.com)
“Over the next four months, this match-up is certain to provoke a firestorm of debate among devoted followers of the sweet science. Both men are accomplished stars who inspire great passion in their fan base, and yet they have unanswered questions hanging over them at the moment,questions that will be settled once and for all when they fight in November.”

David Haye Is Ducking the Klitschkos (The Sporting Blog)
“I have no doubts that the Klitsckos were working him over big-time at the negotiating table, but them’s the ropes in this hustle, Hayeburger. You essentially have done nothing in your heavyweight career yet but talk a big game and wear cool t-shirts. You’re a former cruiserweight champ with a stoppage loss to Carl Thompson on your record. The most impressive scalp on your belt is a past-his-prime Jean-Marc Mormeck, who wasn’t all that impressive even when he was in his prime. No matter how much you blab, son, when your resume is that bloody thin, you’re going to have to settle for table-scraps if you want to sit at the king’s table, or even the king’s brother’s table.”

Pacquiao vs. Cotto: Big Fight, Good Fight (The Sporting Blog)
“Bob Arum’s Top Rank Promotions officially announced yesterday that the Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto fight, scheduled for November 14 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, is a done deal at a catch-weight of 145 pounds. In what has been a strange, transitional year for the sweet science, this is likely to prove the only true super-fight of 2009 in terms of both the legitimacy of the match-up and the interest it generates.”

Kelly Pavlik: A Man Without a Plan (The Sporting Blog)
“Pavlik and his handlers now have themselves a serious problem. A boxing Machiavelli like Bob Arum has to be thinking to himself at this point, “Maybe, just maybe, Kelly Pavlik isn’t that good.” After all, he doesn’t really have any A-list scalps on his belt. He beat Jermain Taylor twice (who, of course, beat Hopkins twice in highly disputed decisions) but there is no one in the fight world left standing who will tell you that Jermain is or ever was a great boxer. A-plus potential, but Jermain probably maxed out at B-plus performance.”

posted by Large

I’ve been trying to get up here with a report on Khan/Kotelnik all day, but various nuisances have kept me otherwise engaged. And then, well, then the other shoe falls and suddenly a Khan/Kotelnik recap seems about as pressing as a soft summer rain (though it was a pretty enjoyable fight on the whole – I’ll try and get a short piece up here with my thoughts either today or tomorrow).

So look, brothers of the Mas, if you don’t know, now you know – the shit is on like Donkey Kong. So many arguments, so many comments, so much dissension to be enjoyed in the ranks. I’m going to do a feature on this very topic for HBO this week, and when I’m done I’ll link it here and then I’ll be available to start moderating the madness. Until then, Brad, Ricky, and the rest of you maniacs… play nice.