Highlights: Boxing Notes

January 10, 2009

What the Haye-ll?
Given all the negotiating that’s been going on of late, one thing seems certain right now when it comes to British heavyweight prospect, David “The Hayemaker” Haye – he’s bound to end up in a boxing ring somewhere soon with a guy named Klitschko standing across from him.

Which Klitschko, though? There’s the rub. For a while, most of December in fact, it appeared that it was going to be the WBC heavyweight champ, Klitschko the Elder, Vitali, a.k.a. Dr. Ironfist. The word was that Vitali/Haye was signed on the dotted line for June of ’09 at Wembley Stadium in London, and that word wasn’t coming from shadowy unsubstantiated sources, but directly from the mouth of David Haye’s trainer.

Of course, in the wonderful world of smoke and mirrors that is boxing, no fight is truly a done deal until the two principals are safely ensconced in their corners and the bell rings for round one.

The latest news is that Herr Ironfist does have a certain date for his next fight, but it’s not in June, and it’s not against David Haye. None other than that paragon of integrity, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, announced yesterday that Vitali Klitschko will fight a WBC mandatory title defense against Juan Carlos Gomez in March.

Does this mean that Vitali will NOT be fighting Haye in June? Yes, it likely means exactly that. But don’t worry, because as we all know there’s another Klitschko, the recognized heavyweight champ at the moment, Wladimir Klitschko (a.k.a. Dr. Steelhammer). This is the Klitschko that Haye has professed to wanting to fight all along (Vitali was going to be merely a 6’7”, 250-pound fraternal appetizer) and now the rumor is that talks are under way to make it happen, Haye vs. Wlad, for late spring of this year.

But wait a minute, you’re saying. I thought talks were under way for Wlad to fight Chris Arreola in the late spring of this year? In fact, I thought Chris Arreola’s trainer said that fight was a done deal.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, people. Stop listening to anybody’s trainer when they purport to know anything about anything other than how much their fighter weighed that day.

(By the way, to get the WBC mandatory with Vitali, Juan Carlos Gomez had to fight two eliminator bouts, and one of them was in 2007 against Oliver McCall. Yes, that Oliver McCall. I just thought I’d point that out, lest you were feeling good about the world this morning.)

Don Quixote Marquez
Yesterday, at a presser to promote his Febuary 28th bout with Juan Diaz, Juan Manuel Marquez gave off the distinct impression that he believes a convincing win over Diaz will bring him a step closer to a third fight with Manny Pacquiao.

The man is tilting at Filipino windmills. The Pacquiao/Hatton fight for May 2nd is close to being finished, and one imagines that if he beats Hatton, the next scalp Mighty Manny will look to add to his belt is that of Mr. Floyd Freaky Naughty Money Makes-It-Rainweather.

A Pacquiao/Mayweather match-up is every fight fan’s dream right now, a double-secret-probation level mega-bout guaranteed to bring in boocoo bucks too many for both of the principals in a pay-per-view extravaganza. In other words, you can guarantee that until Pac gets that stupid money date with Ole Stupid Money himself, he will most certainly NOT be fighting Juan Manuel Marquez, the one guy out there with whom he is so evenly matched that they’ve fought 24 rounds to date and the difference between them amounted to a single point on a single judge’s scorecard.

Unfortunately for JMM, that point went in Pacquiao’s favor, and now Marquez is left to chase the Filipino superstar around the globe trying to get a trilogy fight, a likelihood that moved into eye-of-the-needle territory after Manny’s shocker over Oscar De La Hoya. Recently, Pac’s trainer, Freddie Roach, has been telling people that Manny has now decided that he can beat Tony Margarito at 147. And you know what that says to me, besides the fact that Pacquiao might be crazy? It says that the man is pretty much prepared to fight anyone but Marquez. Who knows, maybe Pacquiao will end up fighting a Klitschko before David Haye does.

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