Pacman Throws the World-Ender

Well, I’d call that an ass-whoopin’, but I don’t think the Pacquiao-Hatton fight last night lasted long enough to qualify as that. For those of you who weren’t able to catch it, Pacquiao knocked down the Hitman twice in the first round, and landed a thunderous counter left hook that ended the fight and had Hatton unconscious on the mat for several minutes after the ref had called an end to the action.

What can we say we learned from this?

• Pacquiao really is that good;
• Pacquiao clearly has no problem moving up to 140, and we shouldn’t question it if he moves up even to 147;
• Hatton’s previously unblemished record in the junior welterweight division may have been padded a bit by some questionable opponents across the pond;
• Maybe Freddie Roach has a point when he says that trainers are overrated, and that they do little to change the fundamentals of an established fighter.

There’s probably nothing there that we couldn’t have figured out without seeing Pacquiao take Ricky behind the woodshed, so where are we headed from here?

The bright side is that we’ve been blessed with the upcoming July return of Floyd Mayweather, Jr., as he returns to the ring against lightweight champion-turned junior welterweight Juan Manuel Marquez. This probably has just as much to do with Pretty Boy’s IRS troubles as his desire to reclaim the pound-for-pound throne, but I’ll take whatever gets him back in the ring. A victory, which most expect for the undefeated Mayweather, would make the next step obvious: a superfight to decide an undisputed pound-for-pound champion between Mayweather and Pacquiao.

And Mayweather-Marquez certainly won’t be anything to shake a stick at either. All I can say is an already exciting year of fights just got even better.

Pugilistic Contributions to our Vernacular

I changed my mind regarding my focus for the next several post. At least for this particular update, I don’t quite feel like getting into the dysfunction of the heavyweight division.

No, because this Saturday is the most anticipated fight in boxing, the superfight between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton. So we should be celebrating this wonderful sport, not lamenting it, right? Right.

I’m going to now take the easy route to writing and post some of the oh-so-quotables that have risen from the fighters, trainers, and other lovers of the sweet science. Enjoy.

“If my fans think I can do everything I say I can do, then they’re crazier than I am.”
– Muhammad Ali

“If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass.”
– Randall “Tex” Cobb

“It’s a terrible situation when the best I can say for some of these judges is that they’re incompetent. Because the other alternative if they’re not incompetent is that they’re corrupt.”
– Teddy Atlas

And, who can talk about great quotes in boxing without talking about Mike Tyson? Here are some of the most precious gems to ever come out of Iron Mike’s mouth (special thanks to MichaelTyson.com):

“My main objective is to be professional but to kill him.”

“I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.”

“I’m gonna make you my girlfriend.”

“When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books – that Tolstoy crap. People shouldn’t read that stuff. When we read those books, what purpose does it serve in this day and time?”

“It’s no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don’t do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn’t talk anymore… Unless you want to, you know.”

“I’m on the Zoloft to keep from killing y’all.”

And perhaps the most famous of them all…

“Lennox Lewis, I’m coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!”

Battle of the Bulge: What’s killing the Heavyweight Division?

Recently I commented on an article at Boxing News called “Haye vs. Klitschko: Is Wladimir Killing Boxing?” The gist of the article was to blame Wladimir Klitschko’s fairly boring style (and personality) for the current miserable state of the heavyweight division — essentially saying that such a statuesque (not in a good way) champion is dragging it down.

With Wlad holding two of the major alphabet titles, and refusing to fight his brother, Vitali, who holds one more, there is some weight to the argument. But as you can see in my comments to the initial story, I feel that the Klitschkos are more of a symptom of the division’s woes than its actual problem. So what’s wrong with the heavyweights? What’s tarnished the luster off of what has in the past been a collection of the world’s most renowned and beloved athletes?

The Klitschko brothers: Scourges or Scapegoats?

In one way or another, I have in the past made it quite clear what I think about the division as it currently stands. However, the situation does merit more discussion than me making a few jokes about Hostess cupcakes. And with the heavyweight division still carrying the flag for the sport of boxing — the public at large still seems to view the slump in this division as the “canary in a coal mine” for the entire sport — I’ve decided to start a several-part series of articles to diagnose the state of the division… and, where possible, offer suggestions as to what, if anything, we could do to change this. I’ll say in advance, though, that I honestly doubt I will find much of the latter that is particularly constructive.

Because I love the sound of my own voice

Sorry, everyone, but WordPress apparently hates me, and any efforts I make to embed an audio file in the blog itself are failing miserably. I haven’t yet reached the point where I feel like shelling out the cash for the extra space / audio + video uploads add-on for WP yet, so we’re just going to have to settle for me linking you to my inaugural audio post:

Dan’s thoughts on upcoming fights.

Enjoy. No, really. Do it. NOW.

‘Mandingo’ arrested on gun charges

Too often, the cliché is thrown around by athletes in which they say, “My only competition is myself,” or something along the same vein. Of course, it expresses confidence over one’s opponents, and portrays the popular American viewpoint that in sports, as in life, the most compelling stories are those in which individual competitors overcome their own internal obstacles and personal demons.

Rocky went the distance with Apollo Creed when nobody, at times not even himself, believed it was possible. Josh Hamilton of the MLB’s Texas Rangers overcame drug addiction to shine as the record-setting star of the 2008 Home Run Derby. You could go on for days with these stories.

Your biggest opponent is yourself. It may be cliché, but it’s especially true of the Austin-based junior middleweight contender, Ann Wolfe protege, and rising superstar James “Mandingo Warrior” Kirkland. You may remember the video I posted of his most recent victory over Joel Julio. He’s an attack-first, stalking powerhouse, and with 22 victories of his 25-0 record coming by knockout, he’s one of the most crowd-pleasing brawlers in boxing.

He’s scheduled to fight Michael Walker on May 2 on the undercard of the upcoming Pacquiao-Hatton superfight in Las Vegas. But that next stepping stone in a seemingly bright future is now in danger of coming to a screeching halt, as Kirkland was recently arrested in Austin for breaking the terms of his probation by illegally possessing a loaded .40-caliber Glock handgun.

Is Kirkland, right, down for the count?

It would be expected that, even considering the gravity of such an offense, a superstar athlete should be able to overcome such legal issues and continue a promising career. The public relations battle would be more difficult than that in the courtroom. However, let’s spell out the full context of this arrest (thanks to the Austin-American Statesman and ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael):

• This violated the terms of probation that Kirkland was serving for a 2003 armed robbery charge; this already put the fighter’s career on hold for over 2 years
• Kirkland’s probation officer was in the process of revoking his probation because of another recent transgression in which he allegedly was illegally in possession of a .45-caliber Ruger pistol
• This most recent arrest wasn’t made by Austin police, but rather by agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.  No offense to the local police, but ATF involvement certainly means this won’t be any legal walk-in-the-park.

Yes, Kirkland is only 25 years old. Depending on whether he is convicted, and for how long he is sentenced to prison as a result, I honestly believe he could come back to a steady career as a successful journeyman fighter — hell, I’ll at least give him better odds than the NFL’s Michael Vick (did anyone else suddenly think he’d be a great candidate for Celebrity Boxing?). But while I won’t call this a complete career killer, it looks like this is very likely the end of Kirkland’s hopes at becoming a superstar in the sport.

It’s unfortunate. As I said, he was one of the most crowd-pleasing contenders in boxing. He fights with an aggression and personal disregard rarely seen by American fighters, and he could have been something for fans in the U.S. to rally around. But it looks like the strong-chinned, relentless fighter just delivered himself a thunderous knockout punch that even he can’t get up from.

Boxing vs. MMA, Once more for good measure

I know I just ranted about this, but I just this afternoon read an article that made me want to drive home my previous point a little more about how useless it is to compare Boxing with MMA, specifically the UFC.

UFC boss Dana White, loudmouthed asshole that he is, immediately issued a knee-jerk reaction after the conclusion of last night’s highly-hyped UFC 97, specifically stating his extreme displeasure (to put it far more mildly than White himself would) with the main event between purported pound-for-pound champion Anderson Silva and Thales Leites.

Now I didn’t get a chance to see the fights, but here’s my understanding of what happened — according to Yahoo! Sports. Silva won by unanimous decision after a 5-round fight in which he, the superior striker, was consistently frustrated by Leites’ attempts to fall back to the mat and bait him into making it a grappling contest. Silva wouldn’t bite, and instead forced Leites to get back up and keep fighting upright.

White apparently wasn’t happy with this:

“I can honestly tell you that I’ve never put on an event that I was embarrassed to be at until tonight,” White said. “I want to publicly apologize to all the fans.”

Furthermore:

“I apologize. I personally apologize for what happened tonight,” White said. “You guys know, this isn’t what the UFC was built on and this isn’t the way the fights usually go. Listen, any night you can have an off-night. When a guy is that talented and can literally end a fight whenever he wants to, wow.”

It’s not the first time that White has made his displeasure at a fight well-known, notably apologizing to the fans attending the Ken Shamrock – Tito Ortiz rematch that was very abruptly ended by the referee early in the fight. I’m not about to say that catering to your fans is wrong; of course I understand that the goal of sports executive should be first and foremost to provide an entertaining product for fans. However, White, and the sport of MMA as a whole, tends to take things a bit too far.

This was a stylistic mismatch — nothing more, nothing less. Demanding that a fighter, especially such a master of the sport as Silva, change his style in order to provide the kind of match that you feel will drive pay-per-view buys is a travesty. We all remember how well that worked when EliteXC tried that by offering bonus money to Set Petruzelli to avoid exploiting Kimbo Slice’s grappling deficiencies. Ironic that White himself called any such influencing “criminal.”

Yet that’s exactly what White is attempting here. Boxing has been dealing with the issue of stylistic mismatches for decades — most promoters actively take these into consideration when lining up fights. It’s a reality of the sport that sometimes a bout will lay an egg, that it won’t be a bloody, all-out war. It’s the nature of these things; fighters do what is necessary to win. And most of the time, true fans will understand and try to appreciate the technical expertise that is on display instead of screaming for blood. Look at boxing’s Floyd Mayweather, Jr. In all reality, he has a very displeasing style: high emphasis on defense and a lack of ideal knockout power. Yet people pay to see him fight in record numbers. It’s impressive and compelling to watch a man as elite as Pretty Boy do what he does best.

Yet the UFC, which as I previously mentioned has an inherent promotions and marketing advantage due to its centralized control of the sport, won’t rise to the task of thoroughly exploring style matching. Instead, it would rather flirt with blatant choreography than supporting its superstars and touting their abilities.