Boxing Blog – TSS Tidbits

In Boxing News: Things heating up for Lacy-Calzaghe

Things are heating up both here and overseas in anticipation of Saturday’s big super-middleweight bout at the MEN Arena in Manchester, England between Jeff Lacy and Joe Calzaghe. Robert Morales of the LA Daily News gives us the lowdown on Saturday’s big Showtime bout, while giving a nod to the less significant, but no less potentially explosive, fight between Miguel Cotto and Gianluca Branco being broadcast at the same time on HBO. Great Britain’s The Sun, as evenhanded as ever, quotes Jeff Lacy about his Welsh opponent: “Refs think he is all over opponents with punches — but that is not the case. When he is going in for the kill, he is slapping shots to make it look like he is busy. He is not knocking people out, referees are stopping contests. If he tries that kind of trick with me he will not succeed. He is going to have to put force behind his punches to get me to respect himâ€? … Baby Joe Mesi is back in the news with a vengeance. His ostensible mission – to find a place willing to license him to fight – finally complete, the Buffalo Bruiser has made his way from the winter chill of the northeast to the sunny climes of Puerto Rico to begin training for his April Fool’s Day fight. As the two-fisted TSS columnist Michael Woods reports in Baby Joe Spars in Puerto Rico, when Mesi was asked if he might be a “little bit gun shyâ€? when that first overhand right comes his way, Baby Joe replied, “No. None. I have no worries about taking punches. I’ve done the research. I’ve talked to experts. I have no doubts.” We may have doubts, but we don’t doubt for a second that Joe Mesi speaks the truth … Word from Louisville via USA Today is that Greg Page, although he remains in critical condition in the Jewish Hospital’s intensive care unit, has turned a corner. A hospital spokeswoman said doctors were slowly taking the 47-year-old Page off a ventilator so he could start trying to breathe on his own. His wife Patricia said her husband is alert and responsive. “I am encouraged by the progress he is making.” So are we. Once a fighter, always a fighter … And last but not least, former top-ten heavyweight Tommy Morrison is wanted in South Dakota. He was arrested last fall at the Sioux Falls airport in possession of rolling papers, a pipe and syringes. The onetime contender alleges they were for medical use.

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In Boxing News: Mosley Wants Mayweather

It was a big boxing weekend, headlined by the junior welterweight bout between Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Sugar Shane was victorious Saturday night with an eye-popping stoppage of El Feroz in the tenth. It wasn’t like the old days, far from it, but it was swell nonetheless. Shane, off the victory, and to the surprise of no one, wants to fight the man everyone else wants to fight as well: “Floyd Mayweather is a talent,” Mosley said. “Pound-for-pound, we’re two guys with great skills. It should be a great fight.â€? In undercard action, Calvin Brock sent Zuri Lawrence into dreamland with a dynamite hook in the sixth, and Jhonny Gonzalez KO’d Mark “Too Sharpâ€? Johnson in round number eight … A crowd of 4,000 saw Glen Johnson and Richard Hall duke it out Friday night at the Hard Rock Live Arena in Miami. The Road Warrior had a tougher time than expected. He was strong early, scoring a standing 8-count in the second, but faded in the middle and late rounds. Hall may have lost the decision, but it was a pyrrhic victory, he took Johnson the distance. “I didn’t expect such a tough fight,â€? Johnson said. “Richard Hall is a tough guy. He was a true champion. I had to pull out all my cards to give him the whupping I did.” On the same card, lightweight Joel Casamayor whipped the Cuban flag-waving crowd into a frenzy with his fifth round demolition of the Dominican Republic’s Antonio Ramirez. “I could feel the power at this weight,” said the former the super feather champ. “This was the fight I wanted. I am not done yet” … Kassim Ouma has signed to fight Australian Sam Soliman, who ‘lost’ to Winky Wright at the Mohegan Sun in December. “Soliman proved world-class against Winky Wright,â€? Ouma said. “He is the perfect fight to prove myself at middleweight.â€? But first Soliman has to get by unbeaten middleweight champ Jermain Taylor on April 15 in Little Rock … Dynamite Danny Williams won a controversial split decision over Matt Skelton in England Saturday night. The next fight on the horizon for Williams may be against the 7-2, 300 lb. Beast from the East, Nicolay Valuev. That should get the juices flowing. Stay tuned … TSS’s eagle-eyed Zachary Levin invites us backstage at the Grand Ballroom in New York City where Brownsville’s undefeated super middleweight sensation Curtis “Showtime” Stevens prepares for his bout with Jose Spearman. Might also want to check out some cool pics of Showtime in action … American Heritage flashes us back 40 years with a beautifully written piece on the first fight between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali). That was the bout where Sonny the champ was going to send the brash Louisville Lip into oblivion via an ambulance to the nearest hospital. Instead, what happened that night redefined boxing, redefined race relations, and helped throw the world off its perilous axis.

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In Boxing News: Joe Mesi’s April Fool’s Day Comeback

Heavyweight Joe Mesi returns to action against 41-year-old journeyman Ron Bellamy in Puerto Rico on April 1. Last week the Puerto Rican Boxing Commission licensed Mesi to fight, after two years of hearings, lawsuits and whatnot, after he passed the commission’s medicals. The 32-year-old Mesi suffered two subdural hematomas, aka brain bleeds, in a March 2004 Las Vegas fight with Vassiliy Jirov, which Mesi won by unanimous decision. Baby Joe was as gutsy as usual in that bout. He’ll be as gutsy as usual in Puerto Rico and beyond. “I’ve got a great euphoric feeling, like a dream come true. There were many days that I thought I was not going to fight ever again. So this is incredible,â€? Mesi said. “I’ll be ready” … Speaking of being ready, Oscar De La Hoya has signed to fight WBC welterweight champion Ricardo Mayorga on May 6 at the MGM Grand. It’s Oscar’s first outing since he was stopped by his business partner Bernard “The Executionerâ€? Hopkins last September. The Golden Boy hopes to get past Mayorga and then call it a day with a big bout with, maybe even a coronation of, Floyd Mayweather Jr. “Ever since I’ve been training with Floyd Sr., people are constantly asking me, ‘Hey, you ever going to fight Floyd Jr.?’ I started thinking about it and I think that’s the best fight out there for me to retire.” First he needs to outbox Mayorga … There’s a fine feature on Mark “Too Sharpâ€? Johnson, who challenges WBO bantamweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez on the undercard of tonight’s Vargas-Mosley. The 34-year-old native of Washington D.C. is the first African-American to capture the IBF flyweight (115) and junior bantamweight (118) championships. A great champ, and a longtime known quantity to boxing insiders, but being a small man in a big sport has kept significant purses out of reach. “Some people say that I am over the hill. That doesn’t motivate me,â€? Too Sharp said. “What motivates me is trying to become a 4-time world champ in three different weight classes.” Ah, the challenge … Saturday night’s big fight in Great Britain between Danny Williams and Matt Skelton is generating more copy across the pond than on these shores. Little surprise when the fragile psyche of Danny Williams is such a prominent X-factor. “It’s been a hard career in many ways with far too many ups and downs,” Williams told The Independent. “But now my head is right, I can see exactly where I am going.” Last July Williams withdrew from his bout with Skelton with less than 20 hours until the opening bell. And the Brits are ascribing Danny’s early exit from this week’s pre-fight press conference less to religious fervor and more to a good old case of nerves. The lucky winner of tonight’s bout at the ExCel Arena may eventually tangle with WBA heavyweight champ Nicolay Valuev. No wonder Danny Williams is nervous … Former WBA heavyweight champion Greg Page is in critical condition at a Louisville hospital. He sustained brain damage during a fight with Dale Crowe in 2001, was rendered comatose, then had a stroke during post-fight surgery, and has been paralyzed on his left side and confined to a wheelchair ever since. Last week, in a related matter, Crowe was charged with murder in the death of a Cincinnati man. Both fighters are in our prayers.

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In Boxing News: Danny Williams unpredictable as ever

The unpredictable Danny Williams remains as unpredictable as ever. Two days before his heavyweight showdown with Matt Skelton at the ExCel Arena in England, Williams, after waiting for an over an hour, stormed out of the pre-fight press conference at London’s Landmark Hotel, ostensibly to pray at his mosque in Brixton, prompting promoter Frank Warren to call him “very unprofessional.â€? Skelton, whose Commonwealth title is on the line Saturday night and was stuck in traffic, was a bit more understanding: “I don’t think it’s a sign of his mental state. I respect his religion if he’s gone to pray.â€? Several writers wrote that they think Williams doesn’t have a prayer Saturday night. It looks like they might be wrong … Former middleweight and super middleweight contender Michael Olajide has joined the team at TSS and in his inaugural column Elevating the Game he throws down the gauntlet to those who takes fighting and fighters’ injuries for granted. Olajide tells it like it is, and has the aches and pains to prove it … Keith Idec of the Herald News writes of a conflict of interest between Miguel Cotto’s promotional team and the promoters of Bernard Hopkins vs. Antonio Tarver. Cotto is prepared to fight June 10 in New York’s Madison Square Garden, the same night Hopkins and Tarver are supposed to get it in at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Since all three fighters are aligned with HBO, the prospect of dueling fight cards finds the cable giant’s competitors licking their chops and opening their checkbooks … Amy Green leaves her home turf and hits the Wild Card in LA to give us an up-close-and-personal look at the life and career of the trainer Macka Foley. Foley is lovable, huggable, and tough, so Green goes right to the heart of the matter and brings one of the fight game’s great characters comes to life … Reports from Hawaii indicate that Brian Viloria, who decisioned Jose Antonio Aguirre last week in the first defense of his WBC light flyweight title, broke the fourth metacarpal on his right hand in the “second or third round.â€? Like a true champ, Viloria continued fighting.

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In Boxing News: Last Days of Mike “The Bounty� Hunter

Today, LA Weekly gets things started not with a bang but with a whimper with a heartfelt article about the career and last days of former USBA heavyweight and IBF cruiserweight champ Mike “The Bountyâ€? Hunter. Born in South Carolina, he started boxing in Maryland in 1985 and ended up in glittery LA. It was all fast cars, fast women, fast lane; James Caan of “The Godfather” was even his manager for three years. It was quite a ride for the big tough back country scrapper. But Mike Hunter’s rags to riches tale wouldn’t be complete without that inexorable return to rags. The end came on Feb. 8 on the roof of the San Moritz Motel in Los Angeles, where a drug-crazed Hunter, armed with a black polymer replica of a gun, allegedly attacked an LAPD officer while he was talking on his cell. Mike “The Bountyâ€? Hunter was shot in the chest and arm and later pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center … Marc Lichtenfeld gives his trademark compassionate spin to The Sudden Starts and Stops of Richard Hall, a feature on the journeyman light heavyweight who gets the chance of a lifetime when he faces Glen “The Road Warrior” Johnson this weekend in Florida. Read all about it … Virgil Hill is alive and well and back from a holiday in sunny Mexico. The 30 stitches over his left eye, a wound from winning his fifth world title in his last fight with Valery Brudov at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, have been removed. Quicksilver Hill, a young 42 with a record of 50-5 (23), is returning to the gym in New Jersey to resume training for his first defense of his new crown … National Geographic, onetime purveyor of topless pics of native girls for a pre-internet lost generation, weighs in on abstinence and sports with an article titled Sex and Sports: Should Athletes Abstain Before Big Events? Doctors of this and professors of that have their say on this always pressing matter … And finally, from Merry Old England, a 54-year-old Dunmurry man has been given a three-year suspended sentence for attacking WBU welterweight champion Eamonn Magee with a bat and breaking his leg in February 2004. Magee successfully defended his title a year later.

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In Boxing News: Spike Lee’s biopic of Joe Louis

Spike Lee, the director of genius everyone loves to hate, the grandmaster flash of aesthetic in-your-face, has announced that his next big project (once his documentary on Hurricane Katrina is a wrap and in the can) will be a biopic based on the life of 1930s heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Oscar nominated actor Terrence Howard, of “Hustle & Flow” fame, will play the former champ from Detroit via Alabama. With Lee at the helm, his Joe Louis should be one part musical, one part object lesson, one part comedy and two parts tragedy. The stale hot air of Michael Mann’s “Ali” is about to get blown away by the Brooklyn auteur … Boxing writer emeritus Ed Schuyler gives us a guided tour through the land of One-Punch Knockouts. Buckle your seatbelts. And don’t blink … Amir Khan has the sort of boxing celebrity in England unthinkable in U.S., and some commentators are complaining that his promoter Frank Warren needs to pick up the pace. Sounds good on the face of it, but Khan just turned pro and has had only five fights. Team Khan is wisely resisting the entreaties. They say Khan fights for a title in a year … The NY Daily News’ longtime boxing columnist Tim Smith maps what looks to be the end of the road for either Fernando Vargas or Shane Mosley, assuming (and praying) Saturday’s fight at the Mandalay Bay and on HBO PPV is not declared a draw. He also brings us up-to-date on a busy boxing schedule in New York: seven shows in the next five weeks … Young gun Benn Schulberg spotlights slugger Andre Berto, the cream of the fistic crop, exemplar of a New Generation of hard-hitting boxing star … Former top-ten heavyweight contender Tommy Morrison has broken a long silence and come out publicly against Buffalo’s Baby Joe Mesi getting licensed to fight. “He (Tony Holden, Morrison’s ex-promoter) called me up and flew me up to Buffalo, NY,â€? Morrison said. “He wanted me to watch Joe Mesi and tell him what I thought. I told Tony he doesn’t have it. He doesn’t hit hard enough and he’s too good looking!â€?