Another Stream-of-Consciousness Boxing Morning…
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - I should’ve known it was coming.
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Lyle Fitzsimmons
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827 stories on BoxingScene are published under the Lyle Fitzsimmons byline.
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Articles by Lyle Fitzsimmons: page 82
Roy Jones Jr. Not at The End of The Road
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Roy Jones Jr. wasn’t there to say it for himself. But, according to both his manager and the CEO of his promotional company, Saturday’s methodical beating at the hands of unbeaten Welsh import Joe Calzaghe will not be the last time the 39-year-old Floridian laces up the gloves. Jones lost a unanimous decision to Calzaghe, now 46-0, in his bid for the Ring Magazine light heavyweight championship at Madison Square Garden, scoring a first-round knockdown but failing to win another round on any of the judges’ scorecards. All three, in fact - New York’s Julie Lederman, Terry O’Connor of the United Kingdom and Jerry Roth of Las Vegas - saw the bout, 118-109, for Calzaghe. Before departing the ring, he said of retirement, "I’m not sure. I have to go back home and talk to my team." Jones, who sustained a jagged cut over his left eye from a straight right hand in the seventh round and bled profusely for the remainder of the fight, was unable to attend the post-fight press conference after being dispatched for stitches, according to manager McGee Wright. Still, in spite of the statistically one-sided nature of the bout - Calzaghe landed 344 of his 985 punches compared to 159 of 475 for Jones - neither Wright nor Square Ring Inc. CEO John Wert believed it warranted retirement talk for the former four-division world champion. Jones is 52-5 overall. The loss ended a three-fight win streak that began on the heels of a three-fight skid in 2004-05. It was also his first loss in seven appearances in Manhattan. Calzaghe was making his second appearance in the United States after winning his initial 44 fights in Europe. He fought for the first time in the U.S. in April, getting up after a first-round knockdown to defeat Bernard Hopkins by split decision in Las Vegas. “When Roy dropped Joe he got out of his game plan,” Wright said. “He started looking for too many big shots instead of working and staying busy, and that’s really why he lost.”
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Amid the Turmoil, Campbell hasn’t lost a Verbal Step
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - World championships and newlywed status didn’t change Nate Campbell. So it’s not too surprising that assorted financial nonsense hasn’t done it either. Last seen in a ring - alone - after being stood up a few months back by an unwilling Joan Guzman, the three-pronged king of the lightweights has spent many subsequent days trying to undo the monetary mess created by that failure to launch in Mississippi. But his ability to fill up a reporter’s notebook hasn’t changed a bit. “It’s frustrating, but it’s just something that had to happen,” said Campbell, who holds the IBF, WBA and WBO belts at 135 pounds. “I’m a prize fighter, and sometimes when you’re a prize fighter the ball bounces in strange directions for you. For me, this is one of those strange directions.” Prompted when Guzman weighed in over the limit and later reneged at the last minute on a pledge to go through with a non-title bout, Campbell said the bout’s cancellation denied him nearly $500,000 of purse and “performance bonus” monies from promoter Don King.
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If it’s October… Then it Must Be Election Season
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - But rather than a drone on the goods and evils of red and blue states - you can get that from insipid TV slugs like Keith Olbermann, after all - I’ve decided tackle something a lot more important. This Friday, a full 96 hours before that Election Day, members of the Boxing Writers Association of America will be charged with tapping three more recent standouts for induction to the “modern” wing of the International Boxing Hall of Fame & Museum in Canastota, N.Y. Inductees in 2008 were heavyweight Larry Holmes, junior welterweight Eddie Perkins, promoters Mogens Palle and Frank Warren and journalists Dave Anderson and Joe Koizumi. The Hall’s 20th version of Inauguration Day comes with an official ceremony on June 14, 2009. But first, there’s a primary process. No fewer than 45 boxers active for at least one fight since 1943 are on the ballot for 2009, with voting done through Friday by BWAA members and select non-members chosen by the Hall’s board of directors. Observers, non-participants, pioneers and old-timers are also chosen by the board. Each “modern” voter chooses from one to 10 boxers, with the top-three vote-getters punching a ticket. “They called me and told me I'd made it and I didn't want to tell anyone how excited I was about it,” Holmes said in a post-vote interview last year. “So I went to bed that night and I woke up my wife, and when she asked me what I was doing, I said, ‘I can do that now, because I'm a Hall of Famer.’
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Bernard’s Latest Win Prompts a Ghostly Reunion
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - The grave marker says he died long before the opening bell. But I for one happen to know that Johnny Sample was alive and well Saturday night. Because he was sitting on my living room couch. Oh sure, the former Super Bowl winner’s decomposed carcass was being channeled more vibrantly by my friend Marquis Richardson, but as Bernard Hopkins was dominating round after round against Kelly Pavlik in Atlantic City, it was Sample’s voice I was hearing from Marquis’s mouth. “C’mon now, you’re forgetting who he’s in there with. That’s B-Hop,” my visitor repeatedly insisted to=2 0me and my three fellow non-believers, each of whom had joined me in picking Pavlik by KO or wide points win. “He’s not normal like the rest of us. He’s a living legend.” The voice got louder as the night went on. And after a while, it was 2001 all over again. I first met Mr. Sample seven years ago, when, with a haze of dust and smoke still hanging over Lower Manhattan, former newspaper colleague Todd Thorpe and I headed to Madison Square Garden to see Hopkins meet Felix Trinidad for the WBC, WBA and IBF middleweight title belts. Todd and I had debated the likely outcomes for the duration of our New Jersey Transit train ride into Penn Station that evening, with me forecasting a decisive win for Tito and him expecting a much closer fight that in the end could go either way based on circumstance and good fortune. We saw - or, more appropriately, heard - the other side when we got to the press table. Camped out amid a pile of notes, pads and pens was the 64-year-old ex-New York Jet, studiously prepping for his role as a post-fight radio commentator and, after the requisite introductions, more than happy to share a litany of pre-fight opinions with a pair of card-carrying “Executioner” cynics.
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IBO’s Ed Levine - A Champion of Endurance
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Ed Levine is committed to going the distance. Though admittedly chagrined with the speed at which his pet project - the International Boxing Organization - has climbed the ranks of relevance, the former ringside judge and career real estate attorney remains determined to fight the good fight for as long as it takes.
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Chad Dawson Takes Antonio Tarver’s Verbal Bait
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Chad Dawson simply saw no other options. After several months on the short end of verbal exchanges with fellow 175-pound title claimant Antonio Tarver, the normally soft-spoken Connecticut southpaw finally decided it was time to fire back. As a result, the two combined for a dissension-packed press conference last week and ratcheted up the tensions leading into their bout for the IBF light heavyweight crown Saturday night in Las Vegas. “He talks a lot, and I’ve been hearing it for a year, a year and a half or two years as I’ve been trying to make this fight happen,” Dawson said in a Monday night telephone interview. “And after a while I just get tired of hearing someone’s mouth going like that all the time. “I’m normally a quiet guy, but he just aggravates me. He’s definitely a better talker than me. He’s not a better fighter, he’s a better talker. But there’s a lot of difference between talking and fighting.” Now 26, Dawson relinquished his thrice-defended WBC belt to meet the 39-year-old Tarver - who’ll be making defense No. 1 of the IBF title he won with a unanimous decision over Clinton Woods in April at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla. Dawson’s last fight was in the final pre-main event bout on that card, where he scored a close but unanimous decision over former IBF champ Glen Johnson, winning by 116-112 counts on all three scorecards.
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Andre Berto - "I am The Best Welterweight"
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Forty-eight hours past the biggest win of his career, Andre Berto was still throwing combinations. After hesitatingly claiming a place among the welterweight elite Monday using the word “young” as a qualifier, the powerful 25-year-old Floridian replied to a follow-up query with an unmistakable view of where he truly fits in. “Yes, I think I am the best welterweight out there,” said Berto, who defended his WBC share of the 147-pound title for the first time with a wide points win over Steve Forbes Saturday night. “I believe it, and I know that in due time I’ll be able to prove to everyone else that I’m No. 1.” Flicking jab. Straight right hand. I’m the best. Mssrs. Margarito, Cotto and Williams… deal with it. “I think I have the total package when you combine speed, power, agility and the ability to adjust to any sort of style from the opposition,” he said. “I’m the first of the new breed of fighter in this weight class and I’m eager to make big fights with the rest of the big names out there.” A convincing winner over Miki Rodriguez to win the Mayweather-vacated crown in June, Berto improved to 23-0 in a four-year career with verdicts of 118-109, 118-109 and 116-111 against Forbes - who got the shot as a reward for a game effort against Oscar De La Hoya in May.
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Grady Brewer Prepping For One Last Curtain Call
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - “Hey… didn’t you used to be Grady Brewer?!?” You’ll have to forgive a perturbed 37-year-old if he no longer laughs at that opening line. “Yeah, it’s frustrating, disappointing, irritating. All those things,” said Brewer, the season two champion of ESPN’s ‘The Contender,’ who’s spent much of the two years since his dramatic win in Los Angeles watching fellow series alumni surge past him on the boxing significance ladder.
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Roy Jones Jr. - The End of a Three-Year Exile in Boxing
By Lyle Fitzsimmons - NEW YORK – A three-year exile to boxing’s backwoods has officially ended.
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