by David P. Greisman
Ah, the holidays. ‘Tis the time of year when some of the best presents are unwrapped. Alas, some of the best plans have been unraveled.
Juan Diaz was expected to face Michael Katsidis on Feb. 9. Diaz, with his three lightweight titles, had a slew of potential opponents, be it fellow 135-pound beltholder David Diaz, “Ring Magazine” champion Joel Casamayor or mandated sanctioning body challengers Nate Campbell and Katsidis. For all the denigration heaped upon most mandatory match-ups, Diaz-Katsidis escaped criticism. Katsidis had shown himself in 2007 to be a virtual guarantee in the excitement category; fireworks would be a given against Diaz.
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., meanwhile, was thought to be on track for a match with Alfonso Gomez. Chavez had fought 35 times since late 2003, developing beyond a curiosity and into a prospect with a professional career that was substituting for the usual amateur development. Gomez would be a good test, a scrappy welterweight who was still improving following his star turn as the third-best contestant on the first season of “The Contender.”
As things stand now, neither will happen.
Don King and Bob Arum are the respective obstacles preventing Diaz-Katsidis and Chavez-Gomez from coming to fruition. Each has contributed decades to the Sweet Science, putting on some of the biggest matches containing some of the greatest superstars. But prizefighting doesn’t just mean money for the pugilists. In this case, two highly anticipated bouts won’t come about because of the promoters’ love of cold, hard cash.
Diaz-Katsidis went to purse bid Nov. 27, with Golden Boy Promotions offering $1.5 million for the right to promote the bout. The minimum purse bid was $150,000. No other promoters were present. Don King, who promotes Diaz, had traveled to Iraq the previous week to visit American troops over Thanksgiving and had not yet returned to the country. He hadn’t dispatched a representative, either.
Golden Boy Promotions didn’t need to pay 10 times the minimum. But in doing so, the company made a preemptive power play for Diaz, whose contract with King was reportedly set to expire in a few months.
It was the kind of move that would’ve made King’s fuzzy hair stand on end if not for, well, you know.
King’s contract with Diaz included a clause in which Diaz would not be allowed to fight without King’s permission under another promoter that had won a purse bid.
That permission wasn’t coming.
“There has been no movement from Don King. I’ve called Don; I haven’t heard back,” Willie Savannah, who manages Diaz, said in an interview earlier this month with BoxingScene editor-in-chief Rick Reeno. “I don’t know why Don has not already made this fight. Even before the [Oct. 13] Julio Diaz fight, Don already had a deal with us for one more fight to take place before March 31, and HBO guaranteed $1.5 million for a fight against Michael Katsidis or any suitable opponent.
“The money was there. I have it in writing, $1.5 million. Don sent me a contract and tried to get another year’s worth of options after we agreed to give him one more fight. I told him that isn’t going to happen.”
King apparently didn’t want another promoter to make money on his fighter. But said fighter didn’t seem too thrilled with his current promoter. King saw that nothing was in it for him. Diaz would get nothing, too.
With legal action possible if Diaz-Katsidis went forward as planned, HBO pulled its offer to air the fight on Feb. 9. The bout could still be a go for March 8 if all involved parties can reach an agreement, Savannah said last week.
As for Chavez-Gomez, that collision seemed set after Gomez outpointed Ben Tackie in October and Chavez knocked out Ray Sanchez earlier this month. Instead, Gomez became a victim of Chavez’s success.
An announced crowd of 6,077 gathered in Albuquerque, N.M., to see Chavez get his biggest win to date. But the box-office attraction extended to pay-per-view sales; the relatively minor show garnered approximately 70,000 buys, according to ESPN.com scribe Dan Rafael. Chavez’s promoter, Bob Arum’s Top Rank, clearly had a potential cash cow to milk.
“We are going to do our own pay-per-view show with him because we are not waiting on anyone for a date,” Arum said of Chavez’s next fight in an interview earlier this month with BoxingScene writer Jake Donovan. “If you want to get on the Julio express, call us up and you take his fights when we ask you to. If not, good luck, we will do it ourselves.”
The Gomez train, formerly on track, has been derailed.
Arum has proven himself wholly capable of running profitable pay-per-view shows without support from the premium cable networks. Rather than negotiate dates, opponents and money, he sees himself as able to put Chavez on a Top Rank pay-per-view when he wants and against whatever opponent he wants and still receive a good return on his investment.
Cold, hard cash. It holds sway in a consumer-driven society. It buys those best presents that will soon be unwrapped. And it leads to some of the best plans being unraveled.
No Diaz-Katsidis? No Chavez-Gomez? Bah, humbug.
The 10 Count
1. Junior lightweight phenom Edwin Valero ran up his undefeated record to 23 victories with 23 knockouts, beating Zaid Zavaleta in Mexico Saturday via technical knockout.
Zavaleta’s 16-2-2 ledger entering the bout didn’t exactly speak highly for the fringe challenger. And Valero didn’t waste any time asserting his superiority, dropping Zavaleta in the final seconds of the first round and then continuing to rain down head shots until referee Luis Pabon stepped in to halt the barrage about a minute into the third round.
Valero’s knockout streak and run toward last year’s World Boxing Association title win earned the vicious Venezuelan a measure of publicity. But any rise above cult status has been hindered. Valero is unable to fight in the United States due to a ban levied after it was revealed he had once undergone surgery following a head injury suffered in a motorcycle accident.
There are major match-ups that can occur outside of America, be it against Joan Guzman in the Dominican Republic, Juan Manuel Marquez in Mexico or Manny Pacquiao in the Philippines. The best opportunities for Valero, though, will come if and only if state athletic commissions allow him to fight.
2. On the same Cancun card, Valero’s promotional stablemate Jorge Linares successfully defended his World Boxing Council featherweight belt with an eighth-round stoppage of 126-pound contender Gamaliel Diaz.
Linares, last seen triumphing over Oscar Larios on the July pay-per-view undercard to Bernard Hopkins-Winky Wright, hurt Diaz with a single right hand. The next shot sent Diaz down in a heap, and he stayed flat on his back far beyond any 10 count.
There are four claimants to the featherweight throne: Robert Guerrero, Chris John, Linares and Steven Luevano. Temptation exists just four pounds north, the jackpot that comes with the winner of next year’s Marquez-Pacquiao rematch. Unification at 126 pounds, however, would make at least one of the aforementioned four beltholders a star in his own right.
3. Elsewhere in Mexico, junior flyweight Ulises Solis retained his International Boxing Federation title, stopping aging Filipino veteran Bert Batawang in the final minute of the ninth round.
Solis had last appeared on the August pay-per-view undercard to David Diaz-Erik Morales. That night, Solis underwent a major gut check when Rodel Mayol floored him in the sixth. The referee wrongly called it a slip, but Solis was still forced to battle back, stopping Mayol two rounds later with a fantastic one-two combination.
Solis is 6-0-1 in his last seven fights, his wins coming over Batawang, Mayol, former 108-pound-titlists Will Grigsby (twice) and Eric Ortiz, and former minimumweight titlist Jose Antonio Aguirre. The draw was with undefeated challenger Omar Salado.
Solis should angle for a unification bout with Ivan Calderon, a stellar undefeated boxer who might be getting riper for the picking now that he’s made the jump from the minimumweight division. Also on the radar for Solis? Undefeated upstart Giovanni Segura.
4. In other action, former super middleweight contender Danny Green captured light heavyweight gold by unseating WBA beltholder Stipe Drews with a one-sided unanimous decision.
Green’s name had recently been bandied about as a potential opponent for former 175-pound champion Antonio Tarver. But Tarver ended up with a televised gimme against Danny Santiago, while Green likely ended up pursuing a better career move, fighting in his hometown of Perth, Australia, against Drews.
The remaining light heavyweight picture currently consists of “Ring Magazine” champion Bernard Hopkins, lineal champion Zsolt Erdei, beltholders Chad Dawson and Clinton Woods, and aging name fighters Roy Jones and Antonio Tarver. Those boxers fight primarily out of America and Europe; something tells me a showdown with fellow Aussie Paul Briggs could be in the cards for Green, if not a rematch with the subject of this next entry.
5. After all, the last man to defeat Green, super middleweight Anthony Mundine, retained his 168-pound trinket last week with a fourth-round kayo of overmatched, under-qualified challenger Jose Alberto Clavero.
Clavero came into the Mundine bout having gone 2-4-1 in his previous seven outings, with the wins coming against sub-.500 opposition. Perhaps that’s enough to qualify for a shot at a bauble, the WBA “regular” belt, which only exists because the legitimate WBA title had been unified by Mikkel Kessler and is now owned by super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe.
As for Mundine, victory must be sweet for a man whose career could’ve been over. In August, Anthony Mundine suffered an infection in his left eye after a strange incident at a New Zealand restaurant. Mundine had reportedly been bothered by smoke, so he removed his contact lens and then licked it before putting it back on, according to the Australian press.
6. Other WBA silliness: Welterweight beltholder? Miguel Cotto. Interim titlist? Yuriy Nuzhnenko, who outpointed Frederic Klose on Dec. 8 for said dubious recognition.
Cotto hasn’t been injured or inactive; the Puerto Rican sensation has fought thrice since winning the title last year, stopping Oktay Urkal and Zab Judah and winning a decision over Shane Mosley.
Interim belts were designed for certain circumstances. If Cotto isn’t following the rules by not defending against unworthy foes, either strip him of his belt or, more sensibly, mandate better challengers. This move stinks of a desire to hold onto the large sanctioning fees Cotto produces while adding a second set.
7. Boxers Behaving Badly update: Jurgen Brahmer was acquitted last week on charges stemming from a June 2006 incident in which the super middleweight contender was accused of assaulting a man in the German city of Schwerin, according to news outlet Bild Zeitung.
Brahmer also had scrapes with the law in 1998 and 2002 that have left him currently on probation, something that would have come back to haunt him had he been found guilty in this case. Brahmer is currently in the top slot in the World Boxing Organization rankings, and the IBF, WBA and WBC also have him ranked among their top 10 super middleweights.
Brahmer last fought in September, scoring a fourth-round knockout of Mario Veit.
8. It ain’t the Mitchell Report, but the case against “Contender” first-season quarterfinalist Joey Gilbert continues.
Gilbert had reportedly tested positive for six different banned substances in drug tests issued before and after his Sept. 21 first-round stoppage of Charles Howe. The laundry list of substances Gilbert allegedly tested positive for included the steroid stanozolol metabolite, methamphetamine, amphetamine, nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam. As a result, the Nevada State Athletic Commission temporarily suspended Gilbert pending a hearing in front of the commission.
That hearing is now tentatively scheduled for January, though the methamphetamine charge will no longer be on the table due to the positive result for the drug not repeating itself in a second urine sample, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Gilbert’s potential penalties include a lengthening of his suspension, revocation of his boxing license, erasure of his win over Howe and levying of a fine up to his entire $25,000 purse, according to earlier reports.
9. Congratulations to the newest inductees into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Entering Canastota in 2008 are two retired boxers, former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and two-time junior welterweight champion Eddie Perkins; posthumous honorees Len Harvey, Frank Klaus, Harry Lewis and Holman Williams; promoters Mogens Palle and Frank Warren; journalists Dave Anderson and Joe Koizumi; trainer Bill Gore and 19th-century heavyweight Dan Donnelly.
10. R.I.P. Hank Kaplan, 1919-2007. As a professional boxer, he was 1-0. As a boxing historian, he was peerless. He graced us with his presence for 88 years. His influence on the fight game will continue.
David P. Greisman’s weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com
