Snips and Snipes 27 August 2015

It’s good to be able to focus on some really top notch fights which don’t include the elephant in the room known as Floyd Mayweather Jr. For too long Floyd has been such a big influence on the welter and super welter divisions. Some fighters have ducked fights in case they lose the chance to be on Floyd’s dance card and others have taken risky fights to try to jostle their way into the queue whilst a third bunch have not fought at all in the hope that not losing will get them there. Floyd has been a great boxer and great for boxing. No fight has captured the public’s imagination in the way that the fight with Manny Pacquiao did and even if it disappointed in the end it was still a huge event. Floyd has fallen away a little from his best in recent fights but he is 38 and he should be assessed on when he was at his peak. Let’s face it if we judge Roy Jones on his efforts over the last six years he would have to buy his way into the Hall of Fame.

But as I started to say we can now focus on Miguel Cotto vs. Saul Alvarez. Puerto Rico vs. Mexico. The Old Master against the king in waiting. For me it is a 50/50 fight. Then there is the battle of bangers between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux. Golovkin with a 91% “kayo” record and Lemieux at 86%. The only other fighter in the division with a comparable % rating is Daniel Jacobs with 87%. You have to feel that one of those two is going to add another knockout to their record but it could be down to who lands first and it may not even get out of the first round. Don’t blink. We have a great all-Mexican battle between Abner Mares and Leo Santa Cruz which can’t help but be a thriller. Throw in Andy Lee vs. Billy Joe Saunders as a huge battle on our side of the Atlantic, Badou Jack vs. George Groves and further down in the weights Nonito Donaire and Scott Quigg, Roman Gonzalez vs. Brian Viloria and so many others. Boxing will miss Floyd of course and although we may not see the sort of money that his fights have generated in the game for a long time-if ever-boxing will roll on with great fights year after year if not month over month and who knows perhaps the greatest fighter in the history of boxing is at this time some small unknown kid wondering into a gym somewhere for the first time and catching the bug.

Nice gesture from WBA secondary light heavy champion Juergen Braehmer who has auctioned a signed pair of his gloves to raise money for Denis Boystov who is still recovering from a serious accident and will never be able to box again.

Marco Huck has put his loss to Krzys Glowacki down to his team. He claimed that he had not been guided to do enough conditioning work and paid for it by tiring so badly. The rumour is that he will take on former IBF super middle and WBC light heavy champion Graciano Rocchigiani as his trainer. Rocchigiani has his own gym and is already training some young fighters but he is not yet considered one of the top trainers in Germany.

Going back to Braehmer’s gloves it reminds me of a story that could only happen in boxing. Don Elbaum was one of those characters that boxing produces now and then and they just don’t seem to be around now. Way back Don was promoting a fight for Sugar Ray Robinson at a time when the greatest ever was a bit past his best. The show coincided with the date when Robinson first turned pro and the highlight of the press conference was when Don announced that after an exhausted search he had managed to find the gloves Robinson wore for that first fight and he presented them to a very moved and grateful Sugar Ray. The press went away with a great story-and Sugar Ray found he had two left gloves!!

The late Baby Jake Matlala one of South Africa’s all-time great fighters has a Foundation named after him which is helping not just young boxers but other children in need of help and is doing great work. When Floyd Mayweather Jr went to South Africa back in 2014 he visited the “Jake Matlala Boxing Academy" in Soweto to pay his respects to the family of the late boxer and to help raise funds for the Baby Jake Matlala Boxing Academy. A lovely gesture from Mayweather. Matlala was WBO fly and light fly champion and the scourge of Scotland’s lighter men. At just 4’10 ½” (148cm) must have be one of the smallest world champions in boxing history. He died in December 2013 at the tragically young age of 51.

Still on Africa look out there is another Nelson out there. Azumah Nelson, for me the best fighter to come out of Africa, was working the corner of his 19-year-old son Junior Nelson at an amateur tournament last week. Junior won his lightweight contest with proud dad Azumah declaring “I see in him a great potential to rule the world soon”. May be a bit of parental bias in there but if Junior does turn pro he will be worth watching.

Former WBO fly and super fly champion Omar Narvaez will return to the ring on 2 October against Dominican Diego Luis Pichardo Liriano. Narvaez was to have returned on September 18 but the money was not there for the fight and Narvaez also suffered a hand injury.

Italian Michele Di Riocco has been nominated as challenger to Jose Benavidez for the American’s interim WBA super light title and negotiations are on-going. Di Riocco has relinquished his EBU title and his long-time mandatory challenger Lenny Daws will face Spaniard Ruben Nieto for the vacant title with purse offers due on 10 September unless there is an earlier agreement.

Typical bit of rubbish from the WBA who have appointed Luis Ortiz and Matias Vidondo to contest their vacant interim heavyweight title. Ortiz was caught cheating when he tested positive for steroids after his win over Lateef Kayode in September 2014. He was able to box again after a derisory ban and in June beat Byron Polley (27-18-1) and is now WBA No 8. Having not been rated in the WBA ratings of 8 July Vidondo suddenly appears in the WBA ratings of 12 August at No 15 despite not having fought for 10 months! His nickname is “Matador”. In his last fight in October last year he weighed 262 ½ lbs (119kgs) if the matadors are that big how big are the bloody bulls! A farce all round how can they justify No 8 fighting No 15 for the vacant interim title. Just more WBA rubbish.

On the subject of farces the South African Sports Ministry have finally handed down their “proposals” for live broadcasting by TV of tournaments in South Africa. I say the Ministry because the proposals came from the Ministry with Boxing South Africa (BSA) the body supposed to be running boxing in South Africa just acting as a post office passing on the dictate from the ministry. It is a political document put together by people who have no idea of how the boxing business works despite there being some good people at BSA. The document says the nine provinces in South Africa will be allocated one date each (even if there is no promoter active in the province?). The provinces will “fund” the tournaments and South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) will “showcase the entire province in its promotional material” So the National TV gets the shows for free which makes it obvious that the SABC has no money for boxing. Promoters will be invited by the province to make bids for the one show in their jurisdiction but there is no guidance on how those bids will be assessed and it leaves room for BSA, SABC and the government department to get involved in the process “if requested” which means when they want to. A cronyism charter. When you cut away all the weasel words it will be South African boxing promoters who will fund boxing and actually pay the SABC to cover their show. The best thing that could happen to a promoter is that he does not get a TV date because if he does he will have no money from TV and a lot of his potential customer will just stay home and watch his show for free. Madness. You have to admire the way the promoters are continuing to put shows on down there. And don’t forget that there a whole slew of South African boxers and officials who have not been paid their purses and prizes and Filipino boxers who have suffered the same fate but the Sports Ministry obviously feels that sorting those sort of matters out is someone else’s responsibility. What bit of the title Sports Minister don’t you understand Mr Mbalula?

WBO light fly champion Donnie Nietes has his first American appearance for five years when he defends his title against Mexican Juan Alejo in Carson, California on October 17. Plans are for brothers Albert and Jason Pagara to also feature in bouts. The 33-year-old Nietes is undefeated in his last 28 fights and has made 11 title defences over the two divisions so he will get some well-merited exposure in America.

Current WBA super fly champion Kohei Koni will be making his first appearance in America when he defends his title against No 2 challenger Koki Kameda in Chicago on 16 October. First time two Japanese fighters have faced each other for a world title in America. Kameda has not fought in Japan for over two years as relations between the Kameda clan and the JBC have gone through a rocky period.

Some interesting eliminators coming/being discussed. Canadian Kevin Bizier vs. Frederic Lawson in an IBF eliminator looks a good fight. Bizier is No 6(4) and Lawson No 7(5) so the winner could position himself for a shot at Kell Brook as there is no mandatory challenger for Brook. For the WBC the Isaac Chilemba vs. Eleider Alvarez is a quality fight with Chilemba No 1 and Alvarez No 3 the winner would jump ahead of No 2 Andrzej Fonfara who fights No 12 Nathan Cleverly on 16 October. On 6 September Anthony Dirrell and Marco Antonio Rubio clash in Corpus Christi. Both badly need a win. Dirrell will be climbing in the ring for the first time since losing his title to Badou Jack in April and Rubio since being destroyed in two rounds by Gennady Golovkin in October.

Alex Povetkin’s fight with Mariusz Wach in Kazan on 4 November is covering all of the bases. Pole Wach is 6’7 ½” (202cm) so if Povetkin gets his mandatory shot at Deontay Wilder then that is good practice for the 6’7” (201cm) WBC champion and if by some chance he has to face Wlad Klitschko at 6’6” (198cm) or Tyson Fury at 6’9” (206cm) well that is covered too. Wilder’s next opponent Johann Duhaupas is not a bad choice but nor a very good one either. He was not in the WBC top 40 after losing to Erkan Teper in March but arrived at No 15 after outpointing the No 9 rated Manuel Charr so a valid rating but there is nothing in his record to indicate he should be a danger to Wilder. Once this fight is over the WBC need to get tough with Wilder and insist he makes his mandatory defence against Povetkin without having another fight. With the Eric Molina fight he has had one gift of an easy voluntary defence and if he gets past Duhaupas the WBC has to insist he fight Povetkin. I hope!

“Golden” Jack Culcay defends his interim WBA light middle title against Ireland’s Dennis Hogan on 26 September in Berlin. Other fights coming up will see IBF No 4 light heavy Erik Skoglund defending his IBF Inter-Continental title in Nykoping Sweden against Ukrainian Olek Cherviak, super light prospect Anthony Yigit facing Frenchman Chaquib Fadli and unbeaten Heavy Otto Wallin taking on Russian Vlad Goncharov. Good to see professional boxing back in Sweden. A circus tent in Leipzig will be the venue for the next fight for unbeaten German light heavyweight Dominic Boesel and also on the show Felix Lamm fighting Phillip Schuster for the German International title at welterweight.

Roy Jones next fight has been postponed. Jones was to have fought Danny Santiago on St Maarten in the Caribbean on August 28 but Tropical Storm Erika could swing that way so the fight is off with a new date to be advised.

Vyacheslav Senchenko’s retirement was short-lived and he returned with a win in July. Now he wants only one fight-a return with Paul Malignaggi to get revenge for the ninth round loss in 2012 which cost the Ukrainian his WBA title. Could be a possibility if Paulie wanted it,

Good to see some activity in Nigeria as the country has produced such great boxers. There was a show in Lagos on 23 August which I was not able to cover in my report (yes it is possible!) so I will give brief details here. World rated cruiser Olanrewaju Durodola took just 48 seconds to kayo Ghanaian Paakwesi Ankrah, unbeaten Nigeria Jude Ilo took just 51 seconds to kayo Ghanaian Tricky Commey to retain the West African Boxing Union light heavy title, former WBO super middle title challenger and former undefeated CBC champion Isaac Ekpo halted Gabriel Adoku in three rounds and former CBC super fly champion Yakubu Kareem outpointed Akeem Muri. All the losers were from Ghana. It was good to see Durodola and Ekpo going back home for fights.

Durodola’s next fight could be a much tougher proposition as he is down to face big punching Dmitry Kudryashov in Kazan on 4 November. “The Russian Hammer” has won all 18 of his fights inside the distance whereas Durodola has only lost inside the distance once way back in 2012 so I guess they are hoping the Nigerian can give Kudryashov some ring time.

Former world champion Ilido Julio has been arrested in Colombia. The 44-year-old former IBO super fly champion is alleged to have links to a drug cartel. He was arrested back in 2012 for allegedly manufacturing, and possessing drugs but the case was thrown out due to inconsistent evidence. Julio fought in the USA, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Bahamas and Colombia facing Nonito Donaire, Jose Miguel Cotto, Dominic Salcido and in his last fight in November 2010 Adrien Broner.

   Snips and Snipes 6 August 2015

Now we know that Floyd Mayweather is looking to go out with a whimper not a bang. He has all the money he will ever need and his focus now is on his legacy. In selecting Andre Berto as his next opponent he knows that the fight will not be a huge draw but is a low risk fight to make sure he gets to 49-0. With his ego the achievement of equalling Rocky Marciano’s figure will never be enough. I hear talk of another three-fight contract but I don’t see that. If he gets past Berto-nothing is certain in boxing-will he get away with another “Berto” for No 50? I don’t think so as Mayweather vs. Berto would be no draw without the 49-0 being there as a selling point. The sales figures for the Berto fight may be the factor that drives the 50-0 fight decision and also whether Mayweather will be able to hand-pick another low risk, low attraction fight. Looking past Berto it is tricky. Does Mayweather wait for Pacquiao to get fit again, does he go for return fights with Saul Alvarez or Miguel Cotto, does he give Tim Bradley a chance, could Keith Thurman or Kell Brook get in the mix or the winner of Gennady Golovkin vs. David Lemieux or Amir Khan who wants the fight so badly whatever he might say. Perhaps the noise I hear in the background is a few million fans praying for a Berto victory. Sweet dreams.

Putting Ramon “Rocky” Martinez vs. Orlando Salido on the undercard will give the show a Puerto Rican vs. Mexican flavour which the main event lacks as a target audience. Martinez lifted Salido’s WBO super feather crown when they fought in April so there is a revenge element in there.

Manny Pacquiao’s tax problems have not disappeared. The Commissioner of the Philippines Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said recently that they will continue t0 pursue Pacquiao for the P3.2-billion (not sure if I got the decimal place right but it came out at nearly $70 million). The Philippines Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order stopping the Court of Tax Appeal from imposing on Pacquiao a surety bond of R4.9 million or a cash bond of P3.9 billion. The posting of the bond was a prerequisite for lifting a seizure warrant on Pacquiao’s bank deposits. I don’t suppose they would agree to go twelve rounds double or quits with you Manny even with your injured shoulder.

The recent kite flying over Deontay Wilder’s WBC title defence is horrifying. The names being bandied about are Hughie Fury, Kyotaro Fujimoto and Andrej Wawrzyk. Fury is a promising but still very raw novice who has not fought anyone of standing but has met the right sort of opposition for someone of his level of experience. Right now he is rated No 33 by the WBC so in theory that means the fight can’t be for the WBC title unless the WBC manipulate their ratings and give him a huge promotion for beating 41-year-old George Arias. It appears that Fury’s team are being sensible and saying that they would not have enough time to train properly for the 26 September fight but I am sure there must be among the 32 fighters above Fury being by-passed who would like to have been asked. Japanese champion Fujimoto as an opponent is a joke, but not a funny one. He is eligible being No 14-now. He is 12-1 with his loss being a stoppage by Solomon Haumona in 2012 and in his next fight Haumona was knocked out by Kevin Johnson. In his last fight in April Fujimoto only just scraped by Nobuhiro Ishida on a split decision. That’s the Ishida who weighed 158 ½ lbs when being knocked out in three rounds by Gennady Golovkin in 2013 and was almost 50lbs heavier when he fought Fujimoto. Just to have Fujimoto and Wilder stand next to each other would kill this one as Wilder stands 6’ 7” and Fujimoto 6’0” . Let’s hope that fades away. Wawrzyk was in the WBC ratings at No 31 after wins over Danny Williams and Frans Botha (wow!) but he was dropped for 16 months of inactivity and only returned to action last month with a win over a guy with a 3-14 record. A bit difficult to put him from nowhere to the top 15 on that basis but with sanction fees all is possible. Wilder had his pick and chose Eric Molina now he should be told to pick a credible opponent and not embarrass the WBC because if the choice is to be one of these three opponents then the WBC will either have to openly manipulate their ratings and lose what credibility having a good ratings team gives them or fit Fujimoto with skyscraper stilettos and hope no one notices.

It seems to be the time for throwing out names. For Jorge Linares’s opponent in Caracas on 17 October Rod Salka, Ivan Cano and Franklin Mamani are being mentioned. Mamani and Cano are in the WBC top 15 lightweights but Salka id down at No 27 super feather. After that the WBC may insist that Linares face his mandatory challenger Dejan Zlaticanin.

For Roman Gonzalez on 17 October in New York the list is Brian Viloria, Giovani Segura and McWilliams Arroyo and any of these would be a good fight.

Can’t say I am enthused by Adonis Stevenson’s 11 September defence against Tommy Karpency. His win over Chad Dawson has given Karpency the right to be there but he lost every round against Nathan Cleverly and was well beaten by Andrzej Fonfara. For Stevenson it gives him a legitimate challenger but he is falling behind Sergey Kovalev who is now generally recognised as the top dog at light heavy and the only way for Stevenson to change that is to fight and beat Kovalev-if he can. Good fight on the undercard sees Errol Spence (17-0) facing South African Chris Van Heerden (23-1-1).

If you are interested in money then you might like to know that Kovalev’s purse for the Nadjib Mohammedi fight was $750,000 and Mohammedi’s was $250,000. So $1 million, Mayweather had already been earned more than that before the referee finished giving his pre-fight instructions in the Pacquiao fight.

German boxer Enrico Koelling looked flat in losing his unbeaten record against Italian Mirco Ricci in February. He returned with two wins but again lacked the energy that brought him 16 wins in a row before the Ricci loss. He recently spent three days in an intensive care ward in a hospital in Berlin and that revealed that he was diabetic. He intends to continue his career and one of the first to send him best wishes was Ricci.

Omar Narvaez has been missing from the ring for a while but the former WBO fly and super fly champion has not retired. He is aiming to return to the ring on 18 September against Argentinian-based Dominican Republic fighter Dario Luis Pichardo. Narvaez was helping in the corner of Soledad Matthysse when she won the WBA and WBC female titles at featherweight last week. She is the sister of Lucas and the now retired Walter. Not a family to pick a fight with.

I am sure Frank Buglioni is already fired up for his challenge to Fedor Chudinov for the WBA interim title but he will be even more determined when he hears that Chudinov’s people are already negotiating with Team Sauerland for Chudinov to put his title on the line against Vincent Feigenbutz-after he beats Buglioni. That should be if-not after.

Boxing seems to be picking up in South Korea. They have had a number of shows there this year and so far they have been a success. Fighters being lured there for a planned show include Randall Bailey and Cuban Robert Alfonso. The promoter has also signed Pakistani Muhammad Waseem as a pro. He won both bronze and silver medals at the Commonwealth Games and a bronze at the Asian Games at 49kg. In his first bout on 4 October he is to fight for the Korean title.
(Ed's note- more about Waseem here- Pakistan star Muhammad Waseem goes pro! Debut set for October 4th!)

So Shane Mosley Jr tested positive for a banned substance and is under suspension with the Nevada State Commission. It brings to mind his father’s problems with allegations of Shane Snr. using steroids and EPO and for clarification on that you could go to You Tube and watch Shane admitting to taking steroids and EPO treatment from BALCO. Mosley always said he did not know these were banned substances but a $12 million defamation case Mosley started against the CEO of BALCO was "voluntarily dismissed with prejudice and without costs, disbursements or attorney's fees to any party against another," Read into that what you will.

IBF No 1 heavyweight Vyacheslav Glazkov keeps busy with a fight in Krasnodar on 15 August against Kertson Manswell. Wins over Tomasz Adamek and Steve Cunningham have seen him rise to No 1 making him the IBF mandatory so he is waiting for the winner of Wlad Klitschko and Tyson Fury.

A big shows is being planned for Moscow on 4 November with Alex Povetkin (you remember him don’t you Deontay) Denis Lebedev, Rakhim Chakhkiev and Dmitry Kudryashov all down to appear against the all-encompassing “TBA”.

There has been a lot in the newspapers about drug testing with German sources playing a part in uncovering what are alleged to have been very suspicious test results given by top athletes and not acted upon. On a much smaller scale there has been a testing case running for a few months now in boxing in Germany. After a fight for the IBF Mediterranean title it was revealed that there had been no testing by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA). In itself that was not a problem as it is not compulsory under the rules of the overseeing body the GBA. However it became a problem when in response to this query over testing the promoter of the fight produced an NADA document covering the post fight testing. The only problem was that it was NADA headed paper but not an NADA report at all. The promoter said that the testing had been done by a laboratory but the results had been put onto a NADA document template from the internet. The NADA are far from happy and it rumbles on but just shows what a mess testing is in some areas.

Zimbabwean fighter Charles Manyuchi was subjected to a right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing when he went back to Harare last week. Manyuchi was fresh from an outstanding victory when he retained his WBC International welter title with a win over Italian Gianluca Frezza in Italy. His trophy for the fight was confiscated at the airport whilst crowds were waiting outside to cheer him. It all ended well with Manyuchi getting his trophy back and President Mugabe personally congratulating him. Must be one or two guys at the airport waiting for the axe to fall after that stupidity.

Still on Africa Boxing South Africa (BSA) finally got around to sacking their suspended CEO. A disciplinary tribunal had recommended he be sacked after they found him guilty on 10 out of 14 charges five of them involving “gross dishonesty”. For the past two years he has reportedly been getting paid approx 1,000,000 rand per month that’s about $7,500 per month for two years out of the pockets of the South African taxpayers and he was also paid bonuses for those two years! There will be quite a number of changes as the Chief Financial Officer was dismissed and the director of operations resigned before his disciplinary hearing. In typical government reasoning the man ultimately responsible for appointing these people will get no blame whatsoever for his own incompetence in letting this happen under his stewardship and will probably have the final say on the new appointees and god forbid that anyone with any knowledge of how the boxing world operates should get selected that would be totally against policy. And this is the organisation that says they are the ones to control broadcasting rights for South African boxing.

Boxing does continue down there and as in many parts of the world there is a “brotherhood” in the sport. A recent example was Rodney Berman’s gesture at his show at the weekend. Light flyweight Thabo Moabi lost in five rounds to DeeJay Kriel and his record dropped to 3-5-1. When Berman learned that Moabi works as a shelf packer for a low wage and trains in an open field because there is no gym around that he can use he added an additional 2000 Rand to his purse and made a donation of 10,000 rand towards a gym.

In other South African news former Floyd Mayweather victim Phillip Ndou is getting back into action. The 38-year-old former South African feather, WBC International and WBU super feather champion lost on a seventh round stoppage to Mayweather for the WBO light title in 2003 and lost to fellow South African Lovemore Ndou for the IBO welter title in 2009. His last fight was in 2013 and this fight will be the first in his birthplace of Thohoyandou.

Ndou fought from feather to welter so he put on a bit of weight as a pro but nothing compared to South Africa Vusumzi Mlindwa. He turned pro in 2008 weighing 145lbs and when he lost to Danie Venter on 29 July he was 231lbs. That’s a whopping 86lbs more and as he had not grown any taller it must have all gone to his waist. The word fat does not even begin to describe it.

There will a few matchmakers in Britain sorry to hear the Pole Krzysztof Szot has announced his retirement. Szot was a fill-in favourite coming over to face British young hopefuls and had just the sort of record a matchmaker looks for 1-8 in nine visits to Britain and always went the distance. Don’t despair there are plenty of Georgian’s Latvian’s, Hungarians Slovenians, Slovakians and even other Poles to fill the losers corner.

Vijender Singh’s signing pro forms with Queensbury Promotions has not gone down too well in some part of India. He was training to become a member of the Haryana Police (HP) and therefore an employee of that force. The HP are stating that Singh is a government employee and cannot accept another employment or remuneration from any other source without the government’s permission. Hopefully it will all be sorted out amicably as Vijender was an outstanding amateur and could stir interest in professional boxing in India.

Antonio Margarito is back in training and intends to fight again. He has said that he has had some good quality time with his two children and is ready to return to action. He has not fought since losing to Miguel Cotto in 2011. After the plaster casts in his gloves episode he is lucky to be allowed in any ring.

Back in 2012 Tor Hamer was making waves and after winning the Prizefighter Tournament and beating Kevin Johnson looked a reasonable heavyweight prospect. Losses to Vyacheslav and Andy Ruiz dented those hopes and his last fight, the loss to Ruiz, was in 2013. Late last month Hamer was arrested by police in New Jersey and allegedly he had in his vehicle 7.5lbs of marijuana. He is also being charged with resisting arrest by trying to run away.

Sad news from Denmark reported the death by suicide of former pro Anders Huggers. The Dane was a top level amateur a four-time Danish champion who competed at both the World and European Championships before turning pro. He ran up 11 wins but then was forced to retire due to an eye injury. He was just 34. RIP Anders.