By Cliff Rold
Photo © Javiel Centeno/Fightwireimages.com
Take a deep breath…let it out. That’s the feeling the whole sport of boxing is going through right now in the wake of the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather show. After nearly six months of incessant hype, advertising, media coverage and utter nonsense about the saving of boxing, boxing gets back to everything it should be. Boxing gets back to being sport.
This Saturday night in the HBO main event, the former World welterweight champion and current Ring Magazine #1 contender to the vacant jr. middleweight title, Cory Spinks (36-3, 11 KO) of St. Louis challenges 2000 U.S. Olympic bronze medalist and current World middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (26-0-1, 17 KO) of Little Rock. It might be the best live crowd of the year as the site (Memphis, Tennessee) allows for the raucous fans of both men to make the trek. Early ticket sales indicate they are.
Spinks, 29 and the son of former World heavyweight champion Leon Spinks, has only one clear loss, a ninth-round stoppage to Zab Judah for the welterweight title in 2005. Spinks also has a knack for upsets, having scored them in winning the welterweight title from Ricardo Mayorga, beating Judah in their first fight, and lifting the IBF 154 lb. belt from the favored Roman Karmazin. Taylor, 28, is looking for a dominant knockout win to cement his shaky status as king after two narrow wins over former king Bernard Hopkins and a draw against Winky Wright. This isn’t seen as a particularly competitive bout because of the perceived size difference in favor of the champion, but both men have their bona fides and vulnerabilities so it’s somewhat compelling.
The undercard is compelling and competitive. In the televised opener, lethal middleweight knockout artists Edison Miranda (28-1, 24 KO, #3) of Colombia and Kelly Pavlik (30-0, 27 KO, #9) of Youngstown, Ohio throw hands for a mandatory title shot in a fight of the year candidate.
That’s it. That’s everything you have to look forward to this weekend and it’s pretty damn good. Four guys under the age of 30 fighting for the one stake that used to mean all: a real world title. Not just any title either; the second most significant championship in the history of the game. It was the title of Bob Fitzsimmons…Stanley Ketchell…Harry Greb…Sugar Ray Robinson…Carlos Monzon…Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Taylor is their heir; the other three men on Saturday seek to join that company.
One can almost hear the crickets chirping.
After all the to-do about the saving of boxing, mainstream media outlets seem to have returned to form. They’re back to ignoring boxing no matter how good it is.
Of course, everyone isn’t ignoring it. USA Today has had coverage and that’s commendable. And I’m sure fans will catch quick blurbs on ESPN this weekend, short paragraphs in local papers.
This card deserves better than that. The lament heard over and over in the build-up to De La Hoya-Mayweather is that boxing needs to get back to the ‘best fighting the best.’ Saying those words out loud, which Oscar himself did more than once, perpetuates the lie that they don’t. This Saturday is case in point.
Since 2004, the middleweight (160 lbs.) and super middleweight (168 lbs.) divisions have been dominated by matchups where the best fight the best. The fierce fists of Miranda have shed the blood of top ten contenders Howard Eastman, Artur Abraham, and Allan Green. The Abraham bout was particularly savage. Challenging the #2 contender to Taylor, Miranda dropped a contentious decision and left the Armenian with a shattered jaw.
Taylor, now making his fourth defense, has stared down two future Hall of Fame entrants in Hopkins and Wright (then and still the #1 contender) and defeated one of the worlds best at 154 lbs, Kasim Ouma. Pavlik, whose power and local following would guarantee a title shot were he to travel an easier path, is risking everything for a shot at greater glory.
The depth of middleweight action isn’t reserved to just the warriors on display this weekend either. Felix Sturm (27-2, 12 KO, #4) of Germany and former lineal World Jr. middleweight king Javier Castillejo (62-7, 41 KO #5) of Spain have split two bouts in the last year. Finland’s Amin Asikainen (20-0, 14 KO, #6) will attempt on June 23rd to repeat his knockout win of Germany’s Sebastian Sylvester (25-2, 12 KO, #8) one year ago. Not only are the best fighting the best, it’s a consistent trend.
For the math impaired, let me count this up. Including the Taylor-Hopkins bouts in 2005, that’s some dozen bouts between top ten contenders. Go eight pounds north, in the kingdom of World champion Joe Calzaghe (43-0, 32 KO), and you find more of the same. No one defines best beating the best like Calzaghe’s #1 contender, Mikkel Kessler (39-0, 29 KO). Check out Ring’s top five contenders in the class; Kessler has beaten three of them in the last two years; Calzaghe beat the other. The two of them might just end up in a ring together this fall.
Borrowing from the steaming cup of leftover hyperbole of the last few months, this looks like a golden era already underway. It’s not happening fifty years ago either, when everything grandpa watched in fuzzy black and white while he wiggled bunny ears was ‘better.’ This middleweight round robin is happening right now, today, in high-def even, and the depth is there to keep it going for at least another two-five years.
Some casual fans reading right now might look at the names mentioned here and shrug. After all, most of these men and too many of these fights are off U.S.-TV. To that casual fan, I offer a casual challenge. Just log on to Youtube and search for the Abraham-Miranda fight. If that doesn’t create a jones to watch this Saturday, to see what Miranda does next, then type in Kelly Pavlik. Watch the KO reels his fans have made.
Boxing doesn’t need saving; it just needs the people to know that it has a vibrant present and violent future. Well here you are people. It’s not just at middleweight either. Keep checking in here all summer because there a slew of quality fights from 108 lbs. to the top of the scale booked for months to come. This weekend matters only because this is probably the best and deepest class of all.
Taylor-Spinks…Miranda-Pavlik. Saturday. That’s it. That’s everything.
Old School: I hope everyone was glued to their seats for the excellent battle between former light heavyweight titlists Glen Johnson (45-11-2, 30 KO) and Montell Griffin (48-7, 30 KO) last night. Griffin was returning from over a year off after highly disputable losses in 2004 to Rico Hoye and 2005 to Julio Gonzalez. Johnson was making his first start since being jobbed in England last September for the IBF belt (against rival Clinton Woods) and the eleventh round stoppage in Johnson’s favor clears the way for Johnson-Woods IV. Those points aren’t what intrigued me most.
No, what intrigued me was how high a level both these men still fight at. Johnson is 38, Griffin 36. Before taking over completely around the seventh round, Johnson was matched step for step by Griffin. It was what one should expect between two men with the experience these two have. They had, before Wednesday, fought literally everyone of substance in their time except each other. Both of course are most famous for their wins over Roy Jones but they’ve done so much more. They’ve been the exemplification of old school professionalism, fighting anyone and everyone to keep a little change in their pocket. If the whole sport was this well-schooled and willing, the sport would be better off.
Johnson, the victor, adds yet another impressive scalp to a late career run that is nothing short of amazing. His first loss, in 1997 to Bernard Hopkins, seemed to expose him. He would take eight more losses in his next 13 fights, but it was the last of those that seemed to flip a switch. A God-awful decision rendered against him in a 2003 loss to Julio Gonzalez seemed to be a new awakening. Johnson had transformed from a jabbing counter-puncher to a full steam-ahead pressure fighter. He’s never looked back. Since lineal World champion Zsolt Erdei seems destined to never take his piece of history seriously, I say Johnson skip over Woods and target the winner of Winky Wright-Bernard Hopkins, especially if it’s Bernard. He’s a different fighter than he was ten years ago and a rematch with Hopkins would be a chance to turn back his own clock, regain the U.S. lineage of the World title (the Ring Magazine belt), and put a smile on new school and old school fans faces.
The Picks: I would be remiss not to let my faithful readers know ahead of time exactly what to expect come May 12. We’ll start with the opener, or as some might call it the real main event. Miranda is the hot hand right now but he’s not a perfect fighter. He’s been hurt (by Eastman) and dropped by Green in his last bout. So far it’s been about keeping him down; no one has. Pavlik has all the tools to do it. He’s got a long jab and he can crack. His question mark is his defense. He’s been dropped in fights against guys not known for power because he leaves openings for counters. This is a rough fight but I’ve been high on Pavlik for a while. I’m gambling that the chin is there and picking Ohio’s favorite non-Buckeye…Pavlik KO in 8.
Taylor-Spinks is a pretty easy fight to pick. Taylor is going to knock Cory out. All the talk about Taylor in his recent ventures has been about his lack of stoppage wins and Cory, a jab-right hand and run guy who could knock me out and that’s about it, can’t hurt him. That means the physical champion can go straight through the naturally smaller man. This isn’t an if; it’s a when. The longer it takes Taylor to end this, the more likely it becomes that Spinks builds rounds making him look bad before the inevitable end. If Manny Steward has Taylor throwing what once looked to be one of the best jabs in the sport before it wound up on a milk carton, Taylor should get this done by the fourth.
The Ten-Second Bell: I don’t usually comment on best-of lists, but I have to say this. Any list, for any reason, that says it’s about the “Fifty Greatest of All-Time,” and doesn’t have Harry Greb in the top ten, belongs at the kiddie table at Christmas...
Canadian Light heavyweight Adrian Diaconu, who won his bout with Rico Hoye last Wednesday on ESPN2, looks like he might be one to watch. Diaconu (24-0, 15 KO) is working his way into the top ten nicely…but his people might want to hold off on taking a shot at WBC titlist Chad Dawson (24-0, 15 KO). Dawson is still a bit raw, but at age 24 he’s also one of the best blue-chip futures for the game. I’d like to see both these young warriors mature a bit more as fighters before we see them together…
When does Mayweather-Mosley 24/7 start? The sooner we hear that announcement, the sooner we’ll know that we’re getting another great event fight. Hurry up already...
Prawet Singwancha deserved the win last Friday over Jose Cotto; he didn’t deserve to be fighting for a lightweight title. The WBA continues to illuminate why thinking people don’t pay attention to these silly sanctioning organizations anymore. Singwancha was better than the woeful level of opposition in his career, but Cotto is still probably the best fighter on his record. Considering how bad Juan Diaz beat Cotto, that’s not saying much. For the record, all the sanctioning fees in the world don’t change the only thing that matters at 135 pounds: Joel Casamayor is the Champion of the World. Period…
One of the things Oscar De La Hoya made a point of repeating over the last few months was how much better a promotion his bout with Mayweather was than anything he’d done in the past. He pointed out all the little things that could have made some of his past fights bigger. That brings a question to mind. While he cashes the estimated $40 million for May 5, what excuse can he offer for his company’s performance on Marco Antonio Barrera-Juan Manuel Marquez? Modest ticket sales and pay-per-view for a first-time face-off of Mexican greats speaks poorly of the promotion of that bout, especially when a case can be made that the promoter was too distracted by his own enrichment to give his clients their money’s worth. If I was Marquez or Barrera, I’d be looking for Bob Arum’s phone number…
Last note: while I wait (and hope) to see Mayweather-Mosley or Mayweather against one of the top welterweight contenders, I shudder at his calling out Tito Trinidad. Trinidad hasn’t fought in two years. His words, not mine, are that such a fight would be ‘easy.’ I agree, so why bother? Mayweather has stepped up his competition in his last three bouts but bringing shot guys out of retirement is no Ray Robinson move.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
