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TALKIN BOXIN
July 28, 2003
by Howie Reed
On Wednesday last as the sun came up in the East
(it
does have a way of doing that) it marked a rite of
passage on both Coasts. During the Golden Age of
Sports when Baseball, Boxing and Horse Racing were
king of all sport it would have marked the start of
the "Summer Horse Racing season". In Saratoga, New
York the rich, the poor, the saints and the sinners
would mingle at the Spa to enjoy the sport of kings.
Last Wednesday they did that for the 135th time.
Across the country that same sun brought a new day to the shores Pacific
Ocean in what was once the Golden State. An Ocean whose aqua waves gently
made their way to the beaches of Southern California chasing away the
seagulls who were enjoying a leisurely breakfast before there daily dive
bombing raids on visiting sunbathers.. Just a few miles inland a rooster,
having taken credit for the sun coming up, already had an agent, a reality
show , a personal trainer, a press agent while rumors about he and J.Lo
swirled like a north view of the lady heading south. Horse Racing had come
for a 7 week stay where "The Surf meets the Turf" down at old Del Mar.
Mom always said that beauty was on the inside but then Moms are like that.
Life tells us that beauty is on
the outside to be worn with a certain swagger and
style by all those that own it. At Del Mar the
beautiful people are on display every racing day. Del
Mar is show business and sports in the perfect
marriage. Each day at about 1:55PM when an old 78 is
cranked up and Bing Crosby sings "When the surf meets the turf down at old
Del Mar" a new chapter is being written in the lore of the track the stars
build and
still share with the "common folks". It can be no
coincidence that on Friday the most hyped movie about a sport in year’s was
released. The story of
Sea biscuit was playing at a silver screen or mall near
you. The Sport of Kings, once one of the big three
along with baseball and boxing, has fallen on hard
times. Changing taste’s and attitudes have relegated
racing, boxing and baseball to the also ran’s of
sport. No longer can a sportswriter "make his bones"
by writing eloquently about the majesty of a Joe Louis
or Ray Robinson. The era when each and ever male
rushed to the newsstand to catch the "ball scores" of
the previous days games is gone like last New Years
Resolutions.. No longer do men gather over a draft of
foamy lager to argue the merits of Citation vs. On
Trust , "the Biscuit" vs. the world or say "How about
that old Dan Patch".
Sadly while baseball and racing are making efforts to
regain some of the attention that they’ve lost to
professional football, basketball and golf, boxing
muddles along on it’s road to oblivion happy as a pig
in fertilizer. A radio talk show person once described
the democratic party strategy as "How can we fool them today". The sport of
boxing must have adopted the MO as that’s what is happening in the sport.
Like the political party that preaches "tax cuts for those that
don’t pay tax’s", boxing promotes its’ sport to those
that are "losers" in life not because of life but
because they’re bums. They’ve seeded sports fans to
other sports wishing to own 100% of a nothing audience whose size in some
case’s depends on the weekend police blotter. Baseball and Horse Racing do
everything they can to gain new fan’s. They encourage
attendance through give-a-ways, family packages and
fun. Boxing discourages attendance while presenting an over priced inferior
product. They do what Jessie
James did and don’t have to wear a mask.
ON Friday as I was wending my way home from the Salt Mines of gainful
employment I got an "inkling" that
something was in the wind. An "Inkling" unlike a
premonition comes with signs that must be read
properly. My first clue was that as I stopped to visit
my turf account to collect some accrued interest on
some equine investments and to re invest, must help
the economy, in similar ventures. It was raining cats
and dogs ("Don’t step in a Poodle") which caused the
locals to look towards the sky in wonder. Like
turkey’s a large number probably perished from
drowning while telling wife or significant other,
"Look Mabel it’s water from the sky." The rain also
settled the dust not necessarily in Vegas but inside
my luxury car as I had left the windows open while
slaving in the Salt Mines.
The second sign came while I was strolling through the
gourmet section of my local Vonn’s singing "Rice A
Roni the California Treat" to box’s of Hamburger
Helper. I was asked by a friend to try a Dutch Beer
that was new to the market. I am not a fan of Dutch
anything as it is my firmly help opinion that the
Dutch are just Germans without the great sense of humor. Yes I do like
window shopping in Amsterdam but that’s another column.) That aside my
friend reminds me of Jarin Jack Jackson, aka The Old Pro, who use to do
commercials for the old Fallstaff Beer.."I want you to try ******** Beer.
It’s Dutch and comes in big 12 ounce bottles. Not the small 12 ounce
bottles". I should step back here for just a brief explanation. My Pal is
dead certain that there is more beer in a 12 ounce can then there is in a 12
ounce bottle. He is also positive that there is more beer in a 32 ounce
bottle than a 12 ounce can. Nothing escapes his steel trap mind while 1 out
of 2 isn’t bad.
The signs continued. While searching for chips, to go
with the beer, I was mumbling "Ruffles have ridges.
Ruffles have ridges." Then of course it was time for
the sour cream for dip. "Farms in Berkeley" I said to
containers. Of course there are no "Farms in Berkeley"
so I bought Tillamook Sour Cream. Cause it was the
best ? No. On sale. "A penny saved is a penny saved
from the money grabbing government." Everything was in place but what was
going to happen. I’ll tell you the
gall darnest slam bang fight in many moons. Super
middleweight Scott Pemberton and Omar Sheika put on a "Slam bang Thank you
Mame" type of fight that would bring a tear to the eye. Pemberton got a
majority
decision, the NABF crown by a split decision over
twelve rounds. ESPN2’s T. Atlas had it even
Stephen Stephen and it probably was. The local lad
usually gets the nod in these case’s. T. Atlas
mentioned during the fight. "Sheika can either punch
or defend. He doesn’t do both. He also has no jab."
Right on. What kept him in the bout was his punch and
great heart. In the 11th as Pemberton was cruising
along with his active jab, Sheika landed a punch that
had Perberton out on his feet. He had to be directed
to his corner when the bell sounded ending the round.
The 12th was a battle of wills. It was a great fight.
My "inkling was correct".
As a sidebar to this fight (a sidebar is stuff that is
of interest but not necessary. Yes like Talkin Boxin)
someone in the Sheika camp has convinced Omar that
marching into the ring with the Palestine Flag is not
a smart career move. Especially for someone born and
raised in New Jersey. Scott Perberton, aka The
Sandman", asked his girlfriend to marry him before the
fight. She said "YES". Advice to Perberton. "On Friday
night you got a split decision and that’s a win.
You’re getting married where a split decision is a
loss. Trust me."
Could this inkling continue. It did in spades on
Saturday. First I didn’t bet a Julie Krone that paid
$78.60 and Del Mar. Bummer. The Ms. Krone misstep was nothing as Saturday
provided some great boxing from Tunica Mississippi (ESPN) and from Los
Angeles. First from Tunica where Referee Elmo Adolph, who did the Art
Simonyan-Carlos Contreras curtain raiser, said to Contreras when he tossed a
few punches after the bell, "The Bell rang, did you hear it ? Get out of
here."
The line was delivered while gentling shoving the
Mexican towards his corner. Could have been a great
spot for, "What bell ?" or "I didn’t think you heard
it". But alas this is boxing. Was a heck of a good
fight with Simonuan getting the UD and keeping his
record clean. As I either have or have not already
written about the Vargas fight the real star of the
evening was Manny Pacquiao (37-2-1). I have been a big fan of the hard
hitting Philippino for some time. he
really did the business with a one punch demolition
of outclassed wild swinging Emmanuel Lucero. Lucer’s
game plan was to duck and swing. He ducked OK until
"The Pac Man" caught him with a picture perfect left
to the jaw. The effect of the punch made Lucero’s
leg’s shimmy to the point that a Vegas Topless Dancer
would be in envy. Fight over at 48 seconds of round 3.
Next for Pacquiao ? Probably a move to 126. To all
those at 126 some words of wisdom, ‘Wash Out".
J.C. Candelo cemented his very own self as one of the
better middleweights with a 8 round stoppage Julio
Garcia. It was true boxer/puncher against puncher. The
true boxer/puncher will win every time. One more win
and Candelo gets a mandatory fight with the IBF.
Boxing done for the night, no horse racing and the
"inkling" was over. Desperately wanted to watch
something on the tube but the only show even vaguely
interesting was Sex and the City. Not up to it, no pun
intended. Couldn’t take a half hour with it’s "Horse
Faced Star who is nothing more than a support system
for a matched set of bodacious Ta Ta’s."
THE tenor of what a major sporting event should or
should not be jumped up and took a large bite out of
my rather large sitting place.9That’s why the Olympic
in LA has fewer seats now for fans like me. Thank
you.) On October 4th Evander Holyfield is scheduled
to fight James Toney on SHOWTIME PPV from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. On
Wednesday I got semi duded up (Slacks, socks and comb) to attend the free
luncheon and press conference. Both regular readers of these spaces will
remember that I am as welcome at the "Bay" as a pork chop at a Jewish
wedding. That aside I couldn’t pass up a free lunch, a press conference
without Don King and a chance to see live and in person Evander Holyfield.
Holyfield’s son, by-the-by, will be a entering Freshman at Auburn
University. He’ll try to make the top 10 ranked football team as a
wide receiver. (Little trivia here Auburn University is the only University
in Division 1 with three
nicknames. "The Plainsman, War Eagles and Tigers".)
In the lads last year in high school he teamed up with
the son of ESPN's Chris Mortonsen as the "catch guy" as part of a pitch and
catch duo. The afternoon of
October 4th the Tigers/Plainsman/War Eagles will be
playing hosts to the Tennessee Volunteers. Hope
there’s a lot of "Rocky Top this".
The afternoon festivities began with a delightful
lunch served family style via lazy Susan. Whoops
that’s not to cast aspersions on our serving lady
whose name was Jodi, with an "I". Lazy Susan is a dish that sits in the
middle of the table, is spinable and
dispenses goodies. Jodi on the other hand brought us
ice tea and a triple helping of pecan pie.. Dan
Goossen, promoter, then took to the rostrum to
orchestrate the press conference portion of the
afternoon. While not the best in the world Dan does an
adequate job and is pleasant in doing so. For any
Gentleman Quartly readers that stumbled in here he was wearing a dark suit,
a pink shirt, patterned tie and apink in suit pocket. Very spiffy. I knew I
should
have kept my pink shirt as it would someday make a
comeback. Bummer.
Dan introduced both Diego Corrales and Joel
Cassamayor, who fight on the card as a in the semi
main which anywhere else would be a main. Neither was rude, vulgar or
unpleasant,. Although since
Cassmayor’s been in the USA for 10 years, as they say in New York, "Learn to
speak the frigging language". As they say in North Las Vegas "Habla
Ingles Joel, no es en Cubra." Jim Thomas has been Evander Holyfield's
attorney for 12 years. Unlike most attorney’s that get involved in boxing he
seemed like a pleasant person. He was attempting to answer "why
Holyfield-Toney and why now ?" It was at this point directly after Mr.
Thomas had said, "What a pleasure it is to be here for a boxing press
conference where someone doesn’t filibuster for 2 hour’s trying to promote
himself", when he was interrupted by James Toney uttering the usual gutter
garbage.
Mr. Toney, who was dressed in a fine suit, proved that
if you put chocolate on horse manure, you don’t have a
éclair. You have chocolate on horse manure. Putting a
suit on Tony you still have a sack of garbage. For the
next 30 minutes Toney never missed an opportunity to
interrupt which left the IQ challenged white punk at
the next table in stitches. The act got old and boring
much as Toney’s career is. "That’s just Toney being
Toney", said Dan Goossen. Toney is a bum who would be fighting for peanuts
and bananas (you make the
connection) if he weren’t fighting Holyfield. It was a
stark contrast between Holyfield and Toney. Guess
who’s fan buy tickets and who’s fans try to steal them
after you buy them?
MANY who like boxing look back rather than forward
when thinking fondly of the sport. Is it any wonder
that boxing fans yearn for a yesterday that by it’s
very definition will never return ? The answer in
"NO". If boxing would just say "Come Home" to those
that like boxing the sport would get a shot in the arm
that would sustain it for years. It’s those that
"Like" the sport who’ve been lost. It’s very
fashionable in this "touchy feelie" age to talk about
"love". Ike and Tina asked the musical question,
"What’s love got to do with it ?". The answer is
nothing. Love is with a person, a blow up doll or (in
certain societies) a sheep or aardvark. "Like" is
sport.
Last week (here’s that test again) I wrote about the
original Golden Boy Art Aragon. Vic "OR" Cross from
the Beach at Pattaya opined on the subject. "Howie:
Your comments about Art Aragon jogged my Alzheimer's a bit and made me
recall watching Carmen Basilio train in Long Beach prior to fighting Aragon.
He devastated the Golden Boy and I think that sent Art into the bail bond
business. His motto was, and may still be if he's alive, "I'll get you out
of jail if it takes 100
years." O.R." O.R., for Old Rugged, Cross is almost
correct. The Basillo fight in September of 1958
ended when Aragon got TKO’s in 8. The Golden One did go on for almost two
more years but never at the level as before. He would have 11 fights going
7-4 and
one NC. It was the end of Aragon fighting names
fighters although he did step in the ring with "Lefty"
Joe Mceli (58-37-7) only to get KO’d. My favorite name
from that period is Dickie Wong who Art KO’d in 2.
How about a headline from that fight. "Art right.. Dickie Wong ". Yes indeed
a blast from the past.
A case in point about lousy matches that are promoted
from here to there. Saturday night Fernando Vargas
destroyed Fitz Vanderpool (24-5-4). It was ballyhooed
as Vargas "comeback" fight after he got whacked out by Oscar De La Hoya. The
preceding was written before the fight. How’s that for calling a "lousy
fight a lousy fight" although the "sold out crowd" at the Olympic loved it.
A brief note about "sold out". Jim Lampley, never one to miss a chance
to add a little hype or misinformation said, "This is the first time the
Olympic has been sold out in two decades." That’s 20
years for those that went to public schools. "Oscar
didn’t do it when he faced Jimmy Bredahl (16-0").
Might be true BUT Mr. Lampley did you mentioned that
was Oscar’s 12th fight ? Or how about his 16th pro
fight when he fought John Avila (20-1) on December
10, 1994 ? Or Mr. Lampley did you mention that there
was seating then for over 10,000 now it’s barely over
7,000 ? HBO is doing their best to make Fernando
Vargas into a big star. That’s all well and good. The
problem is Fernando Vargas.
WANTED to give you a brief update on Mark Beiro and
his battle to regain his sight. When Beiro first lost
sight in his right eye he was told by the Doctor that
he would eventually regain his vision. After losing
vision in his left eye a Doctor has given him the same
diagnosis. ``He said I should eventually regain my
sight, although he can't guarantee when,'' said Beiro,
who added that his vision had improved slightly. ``It
could be two weeks, two months - there's no timetable.
I have to be patient. He said it was a minor hemorrhage caused by my
diabetes. It occurred during rapid eye movement during sleep. With my eyes
dilated,
I was able to see the eye chart. I can't do anything
about it. I don't look forward to being blind, and if
the doctor told me to put two drops in my eye to clear
it up, I would. But I'm not going to sit around and
worry about it all day. I'm actually embarrassed by
the attention I'm getting. Maybe I'll get another eye
patch and run around with two of them and say to
people: `Have you seen my parrot?' ' God Speed.'
A Week ago on Friday Heavyweight Brad Rone of Las
Vegas died I a boxing ring in Cedar City ,Utah. Rone
was fighting , some claim, the 52th professional bout
of his career. At the time of his death he had a
reported record of 7-41-3. The cause of death was a
"massive heart attack". Is there any test that could
have been conducted prior to the fight to detect that
a heart attack was on the horizon ? Probably not. In
boxing, auto racing, Rodeo and football deaths can
occur. This appears to be one of those case’s. There
will be some that will complain that someone with a
7-41 record should not be in any ring and any time.
Usually I would agree but not in this case. From my
source on interesting facts comes the following. "the
guy that died last night in cedar city was 7-41-3
however in 51 one fights he only matched up with three
guys with losing records all of which he beat....his
opponents records at the time of the fights was
643-157-25 and amazing 12-3-1 average record of
opponent and they included Rahman, Oquedo , Jason
Williams. Williamson, Norris Gonzalez, Couser Stewart,
and Sullivan, Vaughn bean and troy Weida. Rone lost 25
in row leading up to his death at 34 one week short of
his 35th birthday, obviously an opponent who took the
best on...what could he have gotten for this his 52nd
fight in cedar city Utah after losing 25 in a row ?"
AND finally. If I may digress from Boxing for a
moment. Got the following e-mail from a gentleman in
Phuket, Thailand. A regular reader, a Brit and an
exceptional individual. " How about THE Open--there
is only one real Golf Tournament and this is it as it
proved yet again over the last weekend. Fantastic
event where you have to be on your game all the time.
Great result--rookie beats the World's best. Stupid
Dane needs to practice bunker shots on the practice
ground not when leading the event." My answer in part.
"Mr. Brook the only thing the Open lacked was the
Clown’s mouth and the Windmill to putt through and
around. It was a combination of the movies Tin Cup
and Happy Gilmore. Loved it when the entire watching
world was unable to find Tiger’s ball off the first
tee. It is though understandable as the BBC coverage
showed a lot of backs, ground, boats on water, the
White Cliffs of Dover but very little of golf balls
flying through the air. After watching the Open, I
know where the term Cow Pasture Pool came from. Any cow unlucky enough to
have been housed on the Open site would starve to death and be praying for
Mad Cow Disease. Winners Teelock was sporting a nice rack."
(Opinions and editorials of
HotBoxingNews.com is the opinion of those writers and may not be the
opinion of HotBoxingNews.com)
Want to make contact or comments to Howie Reed
Go Here! mailto:reed@hotboxingnews.com
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