Snips and Snipes 26 March 2015

Just under six weeks to go to the big night. Only six more weeks of hype, insults, scare stories, rumours predictions, band wagon jumping etc. etc. The hype has already doubled the potential worth of the Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao fight (I listed them alphabetically so don’t read anything into the order of the names) at one time it was worth $200 million now the figure of $400 million is being mentioned with the fight being shown in 170 countries so the biggest just got bigger.

After what happened five years ago it was alarming to hear the words “Dope Testing” thrown in again. This time it was Pacquiao’s team trying to muddy the water. The testing procedures were agreed up front and are already being implemented in accordance with the contract. Now Manny’s team proposed a $5 million fine if either fighter gave a positive test before or after the fight. Mayweather’s spokesmen told them to get lost and rightly so. Once you agree a contract you don’t go running back trying to add to it. I am sure we will see more attempts to muddy the water and upset the other team but they will have to be careful. Remarks and writings by Mayweather regarding Pacquiao walking away last time over the testing regime saw Pacquiao sue Mayweather and win a seven figure settlement. It would a nightmare scenario for boxing if either tested positive. It won’t happen so let’s hope the subject is dead and buried with regard to this fight.

I have seen comments about “legacy” surrounding this fight. Mayweather has most to lose as he still has his unbeaten tag but if this is about legacy then it is about adding to the already huge legacy that these fighters have accumulated and not really about losing it. They both won their first title in 1998 Mayweather at super feather and Pacquiao incredibly down at flyweight. It will be world title fight No 24 for Mayweather and No 20 for Pacquiao. No matter what the result on 2 May these are two of the best boxers ever to put on gloves and they would be greats in any era. We are privileged to have seen them.

Pardon the pun but I see it as a very positive move that Al Haymon has insisted that any boxer appearing on his Premier Boxing Championships shows must agree to undergo blood and urine testing in compliance with World Anti-Doping Agency standards. Just one bit of evidence that Haymon is taking boxing in the right direction.

That WBA ratings elevator was working hard this month. It had to go down to the basement and carry two fighters way up in the ratings. In their ratings published 31 January the WBA ranked 14 super featherweights (the No 1 spot was vacant). In their ratings published 10 February they still listed 14 challengers but with a big difference. Neither Emanuel Lopez nor Carlos Padilla were in the 31 January ratings but now they suddenly appeared from the basement at positions 4 and 5 respectively. Last weekend the vacant interim WBA super featherweight title was contested by-you guessed it-Lopez and Padilla. So how did they earn these promotions? Well Lopez lost a wide unanimous decision to Marcos Gonzalez (12-1) on 5 December but on 20 December beat Alex Acosta(1-8-2) and on 3 January beat Fernando Cruz (5-3-1) and those results were “enough” to catapult him from nowhere to No 4. Padilla? He did not even have a fight between November and the publishing of the 10 February ratings so his rating was an even more blatant bit of manipulation. It makes a complete mockery of ratings if 14 guys can get overlooked and two guys with no qualifications are parachuted in. Even when they don’t parachute someone in the WBA still do some manipulation. On 9 May Jack Culcay fights fellow German Maurice Webber for the vacant interim WBA super welter title. In the 17 January ratings Webber is no 15 and in the February 10 he is No 8 not having fight since November!

The WBC have not done their bit as ratings “adjustment” yet. On 11 April Pedro Guevara will defend his WBC light flyweight title against Filipino Richard Claveras. Some “adjustment” will be needed as on the ratings on the WBC web site today Claveras is No 26. Next ratings “adjustment” will see him at least up to No 15 if not higher and the 15 guys current rated by the WBC in that division just get screwed as the promoter picks the challenger and the WBC anoints the selection and being rated in the top 15 is meaningless.

The three Kameda brothers will all be fighting overseas. Tomoki will defend his WBO bantam title in San Antonio on 9 May against the holder of the secondary WBA title Brit Jamie McDonnell. Koki is lined-up to challenge WBA super fly champion Kohei Kono with Chicago a possible venue. There is also talk of brother Daiki fighting soon, but again outside Japan. The three brothers cannot fight inside Japan as the Japanese Boxing Commission withdrew the licence of their gym effectively preventing them from fighting. They attempted to set up a new gym named K-3 but the JBC squashed that. The Kamedas, and particularly Daiki, have been in trouble with the JBC before. The current problem arose out of the unification match between then IBF champion Daiki and Liborio Solis in December 2013. The WBA champion Solis failed to make the weight so lost his title on the scales but won the fight. The JBC were angered by the IBF refusing to strip Kameda of his title for losing which led to a dispute between the JBC the IBF and the Kameda camp and that bad feeling continues and the Kamedas Cannot fight in Japan.

The JBC have one idea that others could usefully follow. The have an “Invited Boxer Ban List”. Any imported fighter who performs abysmally is put on the list and cannot fight again in Japan. If that list were used by authorities in Europe it would put a lot of Brazilians, Latvians, Georgians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Slovakians, Czechs etc. out of business,

There is still no definitive information when/if Sergio Martinez will fight again. The former world champion will return to Spain at the end of the month for evaluation on his leg injury and make a decision after that. At 40 it would be good to think that Martinez is ready to walk away and concentrate of his stable of fighters and his business interests. He has nothing left to prove.

At the dinner to honour Flash Elorde both Donnie Nietes and Nonito Donaire were indicted into the Elorde Hall of Fame and Randy Petalcorin and Rey Loreto were named as Boxers of the Year.

As with Gabriel “Flash” Elorde it is good to realise how much fighters meant to their communities. Another example is the late (Juan) Carlos Duran. The Argentinian-born Italian hero is remembering by an annual tribute night in Ferrara with this year’s being the 14th. He turned pro in Argentina in 1958 and moved his base to Italy in 1960. He was Italian and European middleweight champion and later European super welterweight champion. He fought most of the top names in the 1960’s including Nino Benvenuti, Emile Griffith (not a good night as the fans rioted due to lack of action!), Ted Wright, Charlie Austin, Jupp Elze, Harry Scott, Luis Folledo, Wally Swift, Johnny Pritchett, Tom Bogs, Jean-Claude Bouttier and Jacques Kechichian and many more. He died in in 1991 at the age of just 54 and is still a hero to the citizens of Ferrara.

The South African fighters are still waiting to see a single rand from the Premier Boxing League in which they competed. There seems on the surface to be nothing being done to right the wrong. The Boxing South Africa (BSA) rules are quite explicit. They state:

(4) A promoter must not later than 30 days prior to the date of a tournament or by any other date specified by Boxing SA, deposit with Boxing SA in cash or by bank guaranteed cheque an amount equal to the total of - (a) the purses to be paid to the boxers engaged for the tournament or where one or more boxers are to be paid a percentage, the estimated amount thereof as determined by Boxing SA;

If this was not done then BSA should not have let the tournament proceed but it seems they did nothing to enforce their own rules and therefore bear a heavy responsibility for the boxer not getting paid.

The biggest loser was the competition winner Xolisani Ndongeni who stood to get a prize of over $80,000. At least some good has come out of it for Ndongeni as he has now joined Colin Nathan’s Hotbox gym. He will be stablemate of Hekkie Budler and through the working relationship between Nathan and Rodney Berman Ndongeni will get some high level exposure. The 25-year-old Ndongeni, the South African lightweight champion and former super feather champion is 17-0 and one of the best and most exciting fighters down in South Africa right now. As for the BSA these are the guys that say they should have control of broadcasting rights but this farce undermines what little case they had for that.

As I write this Shannon Briggs is in action again on Friday in Panama. He again proves what a fraud he is. He screams about wanting to fight Wlad Klitschko and thinks he proves his point by fighting guys like 48-year-old Zoltan Petranyi. The Hungarian veteran has a 51-21 record with 14 of those 21 losses by KO/TKO. He announced his retirement in June but returned to the ring in December to be knocked out in three rounds by 5 fight novice Zoltan Csala. Briggs has no intention of taking any fight which contains even the remotest hint of risk and the thought that he might get a world title shot by this path is depressing but in this sport of ours is not impossible.

It seems that the boxing revival in Spain is not as strong as I hoped. A show this month featuring Gabriel Campillo and Juli Giner had to be cancelled for “financial” reasons i.e. not enough tickets sold. Pity as they have some good young fighters coming through and they need plenty of home activity to avoid being used to pad out someone’s record on the road. Former WBO super feather and lightweight champion Acelino “Popo” Frietas is returning to the ring and will fight in Sao Paulo on 6 June. No opponent named yet. Acelino, 39, retired in 2007 but returned for one fight in 2012 when he kayoed young upstart Michael Oliveira. As far as I know he has no money worries so not sure of his motivation.

The excellent ESPN Boxcino super welter (154lbs) tournament will continue on 10 April with the semi-finals. I guess it should be called the super welterweight or as near as you can get. For the 1st round both Brandon Adams and Vito Gasparyan were 155lbs, Michael Moore was 154.75, and John Thompson and Simeon Hardy were both 154.25. So it looks like close enough is good enough.

Matches made or being made include Sadam Ali vs. Francisco Santana under the Klitschko vs. Jennings fight on 25 April in New York, Mickey Bey defending his IBF lightweight title against Russian Denis Shafikov in Las Vegas on 30 April, Mercito Gesta vs. Carlos Molina in Indio on 30 April, on 1 May Ray Beltran fights Takahiro Ao for the vacant WBO light title, Tony Mundine vs. Austin Trout for the WBC Silver title is in San Antonio on 9 May, London on May 30 sees Kevin Mitchell challenge WBC light champion Jorge Linares, Marco Huck defends his WBO cruiser title against his mandatory challenger Krzys Glowacki on 12 June in Chicago, unbeaten German hope Tyrone Zeuge has recovered from flu and returns to action on 25 April with Enrico Koelling also on the show and looking to rebound from a loss to Italian Mirco Ricci last month

A couple of fights not taking place: Zaurbek Baysangurov’s return on the Klitschko-Jennings show is off due to injury and the big show in Ghana with Emmanuel Tagoe against Filipino Joebert Delos Reyes has been postponed to 24 April to allow Tagoe to recover from a bout of Malaria. This one is planned to go Africa-wide by a telecast.

It was sad to read that fellow-Scot Ricky Burns has declared himself bankrupt. The former two-division WBO champion successfully fought off a claim for £1.8 million in lost profits from Frank Warren for ending his promotional agreement with Warren’s company and joining rivals Matchroom but it was a pyrrhic victory as the court ruled that Burns was not entitled to end the promotion with Warren and was ordered to pay Warren £170,000 commission and his £200,000 costs. Those awards left Burns with debts of £400,000 and negligible assets. He fights former undefeated WBC light champion Omar Figueroa in San Antonio on 9 May but the purse from that will not put him back on his feet. You know where you are in the ring but in a court of law that’s a different arena altogether.

Snips and Snipes 12 March 2015

I opened my new pack of cornflakes this morning and to my amazement there were no Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao plastic figures. How could that be? Every boxing web site seemed to be dedicating 99% of its content to any word gesture wink or nudge by either Floyd or Manny and speculating on who would win. It seemed that everybody was being interviewed to give their opinion. The police were finally called when they began canvassing the opinion of three-year-old kids down my street and then they had to rush away to break up a fight between Floyd and Manny adherents at the local care home for the over 100’s. I waited for 5 years for the fight to get signed and I survived that but I am not sure I can survive another 7 weeks of saturation coverage by every type of media imaginable (quick is it one puff of smoke or two for Manny to win?). I am looking forward to it. I hope it will be a great fight. I hope someone wins clearly. As someone reminded me due to a previous omission by myself, I hope both fighters emerge healthy but for this week from this point forward this column is going to be a “Floyd vs. Manny Fee Zone”. If any of you want your Floyd-Manny fix this is the time to go read somewhere else.

That’s that. Now there is just the two of us left. It is good to realise that there is a world of top class boxing out there that does not rely on certain fighters I have promised not to mention. A typical example is at the Bell Centre in Montreal this weekend with Sergey Kovalev vs. Jean Pascal, Steve Cunningham vs. Vyacheslav Glazkov and Isaac Chilemba vs. Vasily Lepikhin or a local war in South African with Thomas Oosthuizen vs. Ryno Liebenberg and lots of other good quality shows.

With Al Haymon’s PBC show getting very good viewer figures and boxing returning to terrestrial viewing channels in Britain the profile of the sport is on the up again. Italian TV has been experimenting with some shows to see how the figures come out before making a long term commitment which is again encouraging. There will always be the need for cable to generate the really big money but terrestrial exposure can help build the following that can take a boxer to those heights. It was very encouraging to see that CBS Sports are going to show the Dennis Hogan vs. Tyrone Brunson fight from a Casino in Hinckley Minnesota. The fight will get a much higher profile than it ever would without CBS. It’s a good level match between two boxers who are practically unknown outside the sport so can help build a following for them and for boxing.

I have reservations about the way Haymon has been gobbling up fighters of shapes and sizes but if a man is willing to put his own money on the line to develop his boxers than I am all for him.

It is difficult to know where Haymon’s influence ends. At the weekend there was talk of Hong Kong’s Rex Tso getting a shot at WBA super flyweight champion Kohei Kono. However the WBA have issued Kono with an instruction to start negotiations for a defence against No 2 rated Koki Kameda which would seem to scupper the plan for Tso. It is rumoured that the Kono vs. Kameda fight will actually take place in the USA in June with Haymon involved in the arrangements.

Still on the Orient Katsunari Takayama will defend his IBF minimum title against Thai Fahlan Sakkreerin Jr in Osaka on the same show where Juan Carlos Reveco puts his secondary WBA fly title on the line against Kazuto Ioka. It seems that Takayama will relinquish his WBO title and focus on a fight with Hekkie Budler to unify the IBF and WBA titles. [Ed-From what I understand the WBO belt was vacated on Thursday]

A look at the WBO ratings in that minimum division illustrates just how twisted their”reasoning” when it comes to ratings. The current No 1 challenger is Mexican Julian Yedras. He lost to Carlos Buitrago in July 2013 and did not fight for a year. He dropped gradually down the WBO ratings to No 15 before disappearing completely in the June 2014 ratings. His first fight in a year, in July 2014 saw him beat over six rounds a guy with a 7-9-3 record who was 0-6-2 in his previous eight fights and somehow that jumped Yedras from nowhere to No 8. In a six round fight in October he beat a guy with an 8-11-1 record who was 2-6 in his last 8 fights and that saw the WBO elevator take him from No 8 to No 3. In January, without fighting again he made it to No 1. So nowhere to No 1 for beating two guys with negative records and that’s the Alice in-wonderful world of the WBO for you.

I do owe an apology to one sanctioning body. I blasted the WBA for sanctioning the fight between Lewis Pettitt and David Kvaratskhelia for their super bantam Inter-Continental title. It was not a title fight so I need to apologies for that bad mistake. No excuse.

Latest rumour over Gennady Golovkin’s opponent for May 16 in Los Angeles has Argentinian Jorge S Heiland getting the nod. The 28-year-old “Gaucho de Pigue” has not lost inside the distance and scored an upset stoppage of Matthew Macklin in his last fight in November,

Vlad Hryunov, the promoter of Dmitry Chudinov says he has an agreement with Frank Warren for a return fight with Chris Eubank Jr. He used the word agreement and not the word contract so that is probably wishful thinking as Warren has other plans for the new WBA interim champion.

With Billy Joe Saunders having relinquished the European middle title mandatory challenger Michel Soro was left without a dance partner for a short while. The EBU have filled the gap with Italian Emanuele Blandamura who was knocked out in five rounds by Saunders for the vacant title in July. With Soro (25-1-1) and Blandamura (23-1) it is another high quality EBU pairing. Michele Di Rocco is another Italian involved in a European title fight. He will make a voluntary defence of his super light title on May 30 with no opponent named yet. Negotiations are ongoing for Di Rocco to make a mandatory defence after this fight against Brit Lenny Daws. Andrea Di Luisa is a third Italian soon to be in European action. He makes a voluntary defence of his European Union super middle title against Kevin Thomas Cojean on 18 April.

Some controversy has arisen in Poland over drug testing. Two major fighters Dawid Kostecki and Tomasz Adamek have come out with comments over some unofficial reports. Kostecki was sidelined for a while due to some prison time but returned to the ring in November in Krakow where he lost on points to Andrzej Soldra. Although Kostecki says he has had no official notification it is alleged now, four months after the fight, that he tested positive for anabolic steroids. Kostecki denies this and is awaiting official notification so that he can respond to whatever is written. Tomasz Adamek appeared on the same show and again there are rumours of a positive test. This is strenuously denied by Adamek’s lawyer who says that they have not seen the written evidence but they understand that what is being put forward is that the result for Adamek was an atypical result by a non-accredited procedure which indicates only that further analysis or research is required which is not a positive test. Obvious both of these incidents need clarification and also why it has taken four months for these reports to be floating about.

There should be no medical impediment to Lucas Browne getting his shot at secondary WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev. Early in his career it was alleged that Chagaev had tested positive for hepatitis B and before his fight with Wlad Klitschko in 2009 the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians expressed concerns over the fight going ahead. These concerns were dismissed by the then Universum Box Promotion physician who stated. “After contracting Hepatitis B many years ago, Ruslan Chagaev has never been sick due to Hepatitis B. He is just a healthy carrier of the hepatitis antigen with consistently normal liver enzymes. Infection doesn’t necessarily mean illness. According to international expert opinions, Ruslan Chagaev is regarded as non-infectious”. So no problem there.

Both Amnat Ruenroeng and Zolani Tete retained their IBF titles in fine style at the weekend but have both been promptly ordered back into business. Ruenroeng had been ordered to start negotiations for his defence against mandatory challenger Filipino John Riel Casimero which looks likely to end up in the Philippines in May. Tete has to start negotiations for a defence against his mandatory challenger Puerto Rican McJoe Arroyo and with the way things are in South Africa right now he will almost certainly have to travel.

Boxing in South Africa seem to lurch from crisis to crisis and scandal to scandal. A while back I read of the outcome of an exciting tournament. It was a Premier Boxing League (PBL) contested in four divisions flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight. Some of South Africa’s top boxers took part. The winner of each of the four divisions was to receive prize money of R200, 000 and the overall winner would get R200, 000 for winning his division and R1, 000,000 for being outright winner. The eventual winner was Xolisani Ndongeni with Makazole Tete, Toto Helebe and Macbute Sinyabi each winning the R200,000 for topping their divisions. A great competition. Then I added up the prize money and converted it to dollars. Ndongeni was approx $96,000 richer and each of the three other division winners $16,000 so I am looking at approx $145,000 in prize money which is unbelievable money for boxing in South Africa as things are right now. Just my suspicious nature? I hope so as six weeks after the competition not one boxer has received R1. The man running the PBL says that as boxers have a bad habit of wasting their money the prize money has been paid into trust funds for them and that the boxers were told this would happen. The boxers and their managers deny this and seemingly with no help coming from Boxing South Africa (BSA) or the Sports Minister they have taken to social media sites demanding their money. I have a bad feeling about this one.

Money is a problem for boxing throughout Africa. Ghana has produced some of the greatest fighters to emerge from Africa but as with many countries on that Continent Football is king. The Chairman of the Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA) has been appealing for some financial support from the Government as football has soaked up the grants over the past two years and there is not enough activity in Ghana for the GBA to be self financing. Considering the various problems of financing boxing in Ghana it is truly amazing what that country has achieved in the sport.

Emmanuel Tagoe is a case in point. The 27-year-old “Gameboy” will have his first fight in 19 months when he faces Filipino Joebert Delos Reyes on the “Legendary Fists” show in Accra on March 27 for the WBA International title. After losing his first pro fight Tagoe has won 22 fights in a row and collected four different titles. The plan is for the fight to be shown in 50 different African countries (yes there are in fact 54 sovereign States and 10 non-sovereign territories) so plenty of exposure. On the same show George “Red Tiger” Ashie (25-4-1) former Commonwealth Boxing Council champion is fighting Filipino Ronald Pontilla.

Still on Africa it was being reported from Namibia that a couple of Africa’s top fighters over the past ten years former WBA secondary lightweight title holder Paulus Moses and former IBF super feather champion Malcolm Klassen would be clashing on March 20. Only problem is that Klassen is scheduled to fight Xolani Mcotheli in Kempton Park South Africa this Saturday. How about we let the promoters fight it out between themselves. My money’s on Rodney Berman so I have my doubts about the Namibia show which was to also feature Vikapita Meroro and Bethuel Uushona.

The death of French amateur boxer Alexis Vastine was a tragedy for his family and for French boxing. His parents had lost their daughter Celia in a car accident in January so to lose a second child in such a short space of time is an unimaginable agony for parents. He was an outstanding amateur winning bronze medals at the World and European Junior Championships; a silver medal at the European Championships was twice World Military Champion, represented France at three World Championships and felt deeply his elimination at the semi-final stages of both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He was determined to go that step further and get a gold medal in Rio but that will never be. My deepest commiserations to the Vastine family.

You have to be from my era to understand the reverence with which Gabriel “Flash” Elorde is held in the Philippines. The great Hall of Fame fighter was world super feather champion for seven years and successfully defended it ten times. He was OPBF champion at two weights and Philippines champion at three weights. When he turned pro in 1951 the Philippines was still in the very early stages of its recovery from being ravaged by war and needed someone to give them pride in their nation. Elorde was the man that did that. He fought names that are still big today and also those that big in those days. He was in with Tanny Campo, Sandy Saddler, Ike Chestnut, Paolo Rosi, Teddy Davis, Sonny Leon, Vicente Rivas, Solomon Boysaw, Harold Gomes, Joey Lopes, Giordano Campari, Johnny Bizarro, Carlos Ortiz, Frankie Narvaez, Ismael Laguna, and Percy Hayles. I’ll stop there because he had 118 fights. He only lost 4 by KO/TKO. After a stoppage loss early in his career the only three other times he failed to last the distance were against Sandy Saddler for the world featherweight title (who he also beat) and twice against Carlos Ortiz. That’s why ion the Philippines each year they have the Gabriel “Flash” Elorde Memorial Awards and Banquet of Champions. This year it will be on 25 March and the Elorde fighting tradition is still strong. As part of the night two of his grandsons will be boxing. Juan Miguel (17-1) will face Indonesian Rasmanudin in a fight which they hope to get sanctioned as for the vacant WBO Asia Pacific super bantam title and Juan Martin Elorde (16-1-1) who will be defending his WBO Asia Pacific super feather title against Hirotsugu Yamamoto. Flash died of lung cancer in 1985 at the age of 49 but as you can see he is still a hero in his homeland.

Argentinian Walter Rojas has an interesting record for a guy who has had 31 fights including a world title fight. Rojas was stopped in one round by Nkosinathi Joyi for the vacant WBA minimum title in 2012 and the same thing happened when he faced Brit Kevin Satchell at the weekend. Of his 31 fights 29 have ended inside the distance. Thirteen of his fights have ended in the first round and he is 10-3 ahead on those. Eight have ended in the second round and he is 6-2 ahead there and 4-1 ahead in fights ending in the third round. Only 5 fights have gone to the fourth round and all ended there so in his career not one of his 31 fights has lasted more than 12 minutes. Just as well he is not paid for quantity.

I would have finished this quicker but I had four people knock on the door canvassing my opinion. Two wore Floyd badges and two wore Manny badges-and I live on the east coast of Scotland! I told them I supported East Fife which sent them all away scratching their head. Only another seven weeks to go…………………..