Geno’s Boxing Corner: Manny Pacquiao/Antonio Margarito & Roy Jones JR’s Failed Fight
By Geno McGahee
The Broken Hand Hoax
The Roy Jones JR – Danny Santiago PPV fight is off. I wish I could say that I was shocked, although there was a good excuse: hurt hand. Imagine how much your hand would hurt if you had to stand there and shell out all of that money you were going to lose. RSR got informed earlier this week that this fight was falling apart due to horrible ticket sales. Plans to save the fight failed and the injury was created to kill the fight, a fight that will not be postponed. It is cancelled. There is very little interest in the career of Roy Jones, JR., at this point, outside of some hanger-ons that are attempting to use his faded star to brighten their own lives.
Why Roy fights is still a mystery. Every great fighter seems to have this instinct to leave the sport in a mangled heap. Evander Holyfield once said that if he was seriously beaten, he would retire. James Toney beat him to a pulp, but the “Real Deal,” continues. Sadly, many fighters are the victims of corrupt promoters, bad investments, and drug problems. They are not accustomed to having money and blow through it quickly. Boxers are not alone in this. Anyone in the public’s eye that gets to a high level of note and success don’t always plan for the future and cannot go from fighting for millions on pay per view to asking if you want fries with that, or becoming a greeter at Walmart.
The ending of the career of Jones, JR., will be similar to what we have seen of late. He was dominated by Bernard Hopkins, knocked out by Danny Green, and beaten from pillar to post by Joe Calzaghe. If the public isn’t buying Santiago, and they are most certainly not, and they didn’t buy Hopkins either, then what will they buy?
The public execution is always a sale and if there is nothing left for Roy to do, they will look for him to go out on his back and it seems inevitable at this time. He has to think of his family and health before doing anything drastic, and that includes taking any sort of risk in the ring. One of the scariest things I have ever seen was when Glen Johnson knocked Roy into tomorrow. Roy doesn’t lose well. There has to be concern that if he faces the wrong guy, like a Tavoris Cloud for instance, then the need to defeat Jones handily mixed with the faded reflexes of the self proclaimed “Superman” would lead to a disaster. Boxing is not a game. People have died in the ring, and it would be a shame to see Roy be blinded by the money and sign the wrong contract.
No matter what I say. No matter what the groupies that Jones tends to surround himself with say. He is going to do what he has to do to feed his large ego and his bank account. Ask Roy if he ever lost a fight and when you are done with that, ask yourself if he is living in reality. He has convinced himself that he still has it and it will cost him. He should have stuck to commentating…not rapping, please.
I Want to Get Excited…
We have two heavyweight title fights on the horizon and both are coming at us with a lot of trash talk. On October 16th, we have WBC Kingpin, Vitali Klitschko, 40-2, 38 KO’s, taking on former WBO Champion, Shannon Briggs, 51-5-1, 45 KO’s. Then on November 13th, we have WBA Champion, David Haye, 24-1, 22 KO’s, taking on Audley Harrison, 27-4, 20 KO’s.
Briggs and Klitschko are having a heated dispute over Shannon’s asthma. Vitali has called it an excuse and it is, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid one. Briggs has taken great offense and has come out publicly to defend those out there with this dreaded condition. I am a sufferer of asthma and thank heavens Briggs came to my defense.
It just seems like a silly argument. How about insulting mothers…something more interesting. As much as I am intrigued by this bout, the prefight stuff just isn’t doing it for me. I am also less and less convinced that Briggs can pull this off. I want some shaking in the heavyweight division but the Klitschko rule is tough to overcome, especially for a guy that wears down. Briggs has reportedly come down in weight and will try to use mobility as well as power to win. Vitali is only human and he has been hurt before. Corrie Sanders stunned him. Briggs isn’t the puncher Sanders is, but he has one hell of a punch. If he blitzes Vitali, anything can happen. This is one of those fun puncher’s chance fights. If Briggs moves and boxes, he will be TKO’d late. I still want to see the fight. Beat him for all the asthma sufferers out there Shannon!
Audley Harrison is talking a good game as he goes into his fight with Haye, but I can’t help but to think of the times he went into fights and forgot to fight. Harrison has a decent punch, good skills, but he tends to fall asleep at the wheel. Haye will blitz him and I don’t think he can hold him off and he may not realize that he’s boxing. It seems to take Harrison several rounds to realize where he is. With the two brash Brits, the fight is interesting, but on paper, it seems like an easy defense for Haye.
If Haye and Klitschko make it out of their fights with titles in tact, maybe they will finally meet, but with the championship brothers fighting so well as of late, I doubt that Haye or anyone else will be eager to take a swipe at them. Instead they will wait and keep hoping that they will retire soon.
Antonio Margarito is a Nice Guy
Did you know that? He is now donating money to the less fortunate and even took time to pose for the press while doing it. How nice. Then again, it could just be a Bob Arum move to buy him some public sympathy. After all, he didn’t do anything wrong, right? He is just an innocent man that was duped by his trainer.
Actually, for those of you that think that way, I must disagree. Margarito knew about the plaster in his hand wraps and everyone in the boxing world knows it and there is the perception that he is a scumbag. This public relations move will not change that perception with anyone with an IQ over 50.
Manny Pacquiao will be fighting one of the bad guys in boxing and will be fighting for Arum, another bad guy in boxing, hoping to steal your hard earned money. Take that 60 bucks and treat your family out to dinner. Don’t support this crap no matter how many manufactured nice things that Margarito does for the camera. He could have killed Miguel Cotto, most likely ruined his career by beating him with bricks for nearly an entire fight, and yet he is a nice guy. I strongly disagree and hopefully everyone out there will realize it too and boycott this fight. It’s wrong for boxing and not worth the money. If you won’t do it because it’s wrong, do it because it’s a mismatch. Minus the plaster, Margarito is average and average doesn’t stand a chance against Pacquiao. It didn’t stand a chance against an old Shane Mosley.