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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - I’m no big fan of Antonio Tarver.
Never have been.
I didn’t think much of him in the Eric Harding/Montell Griffin days. I gave Roy Jones Jr. eight of 12 rounds in their first fight. The most memorable thing to me about their second was Tarver’s eyes were closed when he hit the history-making home-run ball with the left hand.
And in the rubber match, Jones did far more to lose than the incumbent did to win.
So when the “Magic Man’s” empire crumbled with a loss to Bernard Hopkins and slid over the cliff of irrelevance against the Elvir Muriqis, Danny Santiagos and Clinton Woods of the world, no tears were shed from my traveling keyboards in Philadelphia and Florida.
In fact, by the time he was drubbed twice by Chad Dawson in Las Vegas and put on 46 pounds to waddle past Nagy Aguilera in an ugly-fest last October in Miami, Okla., I figured the long-standing mental vendetta I’d carried on had officially dissolved into the sunset.
But then it came back.
Instead of manning the Showtime microphones and collecting a cent for every dozen “Rocky Balboa” rentals at the local Redbox, the more-than-halfway to 43-year-old insisted a pit stop at 200 pounds would result in an IBO title coronation down under in Sydney. [Click Here To Read More]
Never have been.
I didn’t think much of him in the Eric Harding/Montell Griffin days. I gave Roy Jones Jr. eight of 12 rounds in their first fight. The most memorable thing to me about their second was Tarver’s eyes were closed when he hit the history-making home-run ball with the left hand.
And in the rubber match, Jones did far more to lose than the incumbent did to win.
So when the “Magic Man’s” empire crumbled with a loss to Bernard Hopkins and slid over the cliff of irrelevance against the Elvir Muriqis, Danny Santiagos and Clinton Woods of the world, no tears were shed from my traveling keyboards in Philadelphia and Florida.
In fact, by the time he was drubbed twice by Chad Dawson in Las Vegas and put on 46 pounds to waddle past Nagy Aguilera in an ugly-fest last October in Miami, Okla., I figured the long-standing mental vendetta I’d carried on had officially dissolved into the sunset.
But then it came back.
Instead of manning the Showtime microphones and collecting a cent for every dozen “Rocky Balboa” rentals at the local Redbox, the more-than-halfway to 43-year-old insisted a pit stop at 200 pounds would result in an IBO title coronation down under in Sydney. [Click Here To Read More]
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