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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - If it’s Tuesday, it must be Nate Campbell.
And while I can’t speak for the journalistic masses, the notebooks of this Florida-based writer have seemed a mite empty in the four months since the 38-year-old fellow Floridian last stepped in a ring – and in the 19 months since he last won a fight.
But if a Sunday afternoon cyber interview is indicative, the drought is about to end.
Reached via text message the morning after a sleepy middleweight main event in Los Angeles, Campbell insisted his career remains alive and well in spite of the slump he’s endured since winning a close 12-round decision over South African lightweight stringbean Ali Funeka in February 2009.
That night in the Miami suburb of Sunrise, the Jacksonville native won two of three scorecards but nonetheless lost his coveted IBF, WBA and WBO title belts after failing to make the 135-pound weight limit on the pre-fight scales.
He flopped in a painful two-night experiment at 140, suffering a deep eye cut in a three-round no-contest against WBO champ Timothy Bradley last August and aggravating a chronic back problem while losing a wide 10-rounder to rising contender Victor Ortiz in March.
Campbell says the back problem is what hindered his efforts to stay at 135, but, now that it’s been handled, he plans on returning to the division whose control he assumed with an upset of previously-unbeaten champ Juan Diaz four fights ago in Cancun, Mexico. [Click Here To Read More]
And while I can’t speak for the journalistic masses, the notebooks of this Florida-based writer have seemed a mite empty in the four months since the 38-year-old fellow Floridian last stepped in a ring – and in the 19 months since he last won a fight.
But if a Sunday afternoon cyber interview is indicative, the drought is about to end.
Reached via text message the morning after a sleepy middleweight main event in Los Angeles, Campbell insisted his career remains alive and well in spite of the slump he’s endured since winning a close 12-round decision over South African lightweight stringbean Ali Funeka in February 2009.
That night in the Miami suburb of Sunrise, the Jacksonville native won two of three scorecards but nonetheless lost his coveted IBF, WBA and WBO title belts after failing to make the 135-pound weight limit on the pre-fight scales.
He flopped in a painful two-night experiment at 140, suffering a deep eye cut in a three-round no-contest against WBO champ Timothy Bradley last August and aggravating a chronic back problem while losing a wide 10-rounder to rising contender Victor Ortiz in March.
Campbell says the back problem is what hindered his efforts to stay at 135, but, now that it’s been handled, he plans on returning to the division whose control he assumed with an upset of previously-unbeaten champ Juan Diaz four fights ago in Cancun, Mexico. [Click Here To Read More]
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