Comments Thread For: De La Hoya: Seth Mitchell vs Michael Grant Could Be Next

[MarcianoFan]

Won't happen, too much risk for both.

Totally agree. No way De La Hoya puts his two heavyweight prospects in together unless it's at LEAST a title eliminator. There'd have to be big money in it before it would be near the table, let alone on the table. And it's not like the two are going to be calling each other out or beefing. I sat right in front of Wilder and right next to Mitchell at the Alexander-Maidana fight in St. Louis, and the two guys sat there and talked like best friends and joked around for about an hour straight.

[MarcianoFan]

Won't happen, too much risk for both.

Totally agree. No way De La Hoya puts his two heavyweight prospects in together unless it's at LEAST a title eliminator. There'd have to be big money in it before it would be near the table, let alone on the table. And it's not like the two are going to be calling each other out or beefing. I sat right in front of Wilder and right next to Mitchell at the Alexander-Maidana fight in St. Louis, and the two guys sat there and talked like best friends and joked around for about an hour straight.

[MarcianoFan]

Oh and as for Grant- I don't like it. Bring him in as a sparring partner if you want to work with a tall guy...but don't make us watch that fight. If Grant at 6'7" was good enough to remotely prepare you for a Klitschko, he'd be a top contender. It didn't work for Adamek, and it won't help Mitchell. If the only criteria is being really tall, why not shoot for a guy that is at least a good name on the resume? Fury, Thompson, Dimitrenko would all fit that bill, and don't even really see any of them as a great threat to beat Mitchell. I'm sure Fury wouldn't want any more to do with Mitchell than he does with Price, and I'm sure Thompson would be unavailable two months after Wlad puts a beating on him. But Dimitrenko is on the fast track to gatekeeper status now, and I think you might be able to brow-beat him into the ring.

This is going to sound weird, but he may want to think about Ray Austin if he wants a guy that can do a halfway decent Wlad imitation. He did a really good job of controlling range and landing solid straight punches for multiple rounds in a row against Stiverne. I don't know that you're going to do better than that with anybody else in the division today in terms of approximating Wlad's skill set (a very very poor man's version, of course).

Let's be honest. If he's calling Grant, it's not truly to prepare him for Wlad. It's to give the public the impression he's trying to do so, while secretly just hand-picking an easy opponent so that he can wait around for his shot, just the way Adamek did. And why not? The Champ is already dropping his name. He's got the payday on the horizon. Why bother building yourself into a top 5 contender at great risk if you've got the shot in the bag already as a top 15 guy? We just shouldn't let ourselves be deceived as to what's really happening, is all.