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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Score one for resurrections.
Two of the week’s three world championship fights involve fighters – one a top-5 challenger and one a unifying belt-holder – whose careers looked something less than title-worthy just a few years ago.
On Wednesday in Sydney, Australia, 42-year-old Antonio Tarver aims for laurels in a second weight class when he faces incumbent and hometown favorite Danny Green for an increasingly relevant IBO cruiserweight strap.
Three days later in Las Vegas, ex-welterweight champion Zab Judah continues a shrunken reinvention at 140 pounds with a 12-round IBF/WBA merger against fellow claimant Amir Khan.
And whomever claims to have seen it coming, please stand up.
Lest we forget, Tarver appeared dead in the light heavyweight water after one-sided losses to Bernard Hopkins, Chad Dawson and Dawson again in three progressively less-interesting spotlight bouts from 2006 to 2009.
He chose gluttony while putting on 46 pounds for a foray among the heavyweights in 2010, but quickly and wisely realized – with just an uninspiring 10-round defeat of Nagy Aguilera under a stretched belt – that bigger wasn’t better when it came to making “Magic.”
Conveniently enough a mid-range pit stop awaits at cruiserweight, where Green, himself a former 175-pound incumbent, has dined on a menu of ex-light heavies playing out the string or seeking an easy title belt – or both – since winning the IBO jewelry in 2008.
Tarver says he’s different. Green disagrees.
The Aussie copped the vacant crown against Julio Cesar Dominguez in Biloxi, Miss., but has subsequently whooped it up for the locals while handling embarrassed veterans Roy Jones Jr., Manny Siaca and Paul Briggs in a combined 10 minutes, 26 seconds of in-ring time.
[Click Here To Read More]
Two of the week’s three world championship fights involve fighters – one a top-5 challenger and one a unifying belt-holder – whose careers looked something less than title-worthy just a few years ago.
On Wednesday in Sydney, Australia, 42-year-old Antonio Tarver aims for laurels in a second weight class when he faces incumbent and hometown favorite Danny Green for an increasingly relevant IBO cruiserweight strap.
Three days later in Las Vegas, ex-welterweight champion Zab Judah continues a shrunken reinvention at 140 pounds with a 12-round IBF/WBA merger against fellow claimant Amir Khan.
And whomever claims to have seen it coming, please stand up.
Lest we forget, Tarver appeared dead in the light heavyweight water after one-sided losses to Bernard Hopkins, Chad Dawson and Dawson again in three progressively less-interesting spotlight bouts from 2006 to 2009.
He chose gluttony while putting on 46 pounds for a foray among the heavyweights in 2010, but quickly and wisely realized – with just an uninspiring 10-round defeat of Nagy Aguilera under a stretched belt – that bigger wasn’t better when it came to making “Magic.”
Conveniently enough a mid-range pit stop awaits at cruiserweight, where Green, himself a former 175-pound incumbent, has dined on a menu of ex-light heavies playing out the string or seeking an easy title belt – or both – since winning the IBO jewelry in 2008.
Tarver says he’s different. Green disagrees.
The Aussie copped the vacant crown against Julio Cesar Dominguez in Biloxi, Miss., but has subsequently whooped it up for the locals while handling embarrassed veterans Roy Jones Jr., Manny Siaca and Paul Briggs in a combined 10 minutes, 26 seconds of in-ring time.
[Click Here To Read More]
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