Your weekly random thoughts …
• HBO's boxing executives -- namely Ross Greenburg and Kery Davis -- must have really big headaches right about now.
They're having all kinds of problems (an understatement) with a variety of dates and fighters, some of which they brought upon themselves with indecision.
The problems started when the Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams middleweight championship fight, HBO's biggest non-pay-per-view bout of the fall, was postponed from Oct. 3 because of Pavlik's staph infection. With Pavlik on the mend, the bout has been tentatively re-scheduled for Dec. 5, which caused the dominoes to fall.
That move forced Shane Mosley off Dec. 5, when he thought he'd face Andre Berto in a welterweight unification fight or defend against Joshua Clottey at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It turned out that HBO's 2009 budget was too drained to pay for Mosley-Berto, so Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer, Mosley's promoter, and Clottey promoter Top Rank cut a deal for Mosley-Clottey.
It looked like the fight would land on Dec. 26 in Los Angeles. It seemed so sure the fight was happening, Clottey hired veteran trainer Miguel Diaz and made plans to train in Las Vegas instead of his usual base in New York.
Somewhere along the line, HBO got cold feet about going the day after Christmas, which was smart. In more than 30 years of televising boxing, HBO has never done a fight that close to the holiday. In fact, it purposely avoids the holiday week, as it should.
So with Dec. 26 out the window, HBO is trying to persuade Mosley to move to Jan. 30, where the bout with Berto can be revived because the 2010 budget will be flush with cash.
If only things were that easy. Here's where it gets a little complicated.
Berto and his promoter, Lou DiBella, do not want to wait that long to fight. Berto hasn't fought since May and, at 26 and nearing his prime, doesn't want such a long layoff, and I can't blame him.
On top of that, if he waits he risks being stripped of his belt by the WBC, which has ordered him to either make a mandatory or an allowance to unify with Isaac Hlatshwayo, with whom DiBella made a deal after the Dec. 5 fight with Mosley couldn't be finalized.
Berto and DiBella are fine with fighting Mosley in late January, but want to be able to take a fall fight with Hlatshwayo first. However, HBO can't/won't give him a date to do it.
So now DiBella is in a quandary: Make Berto sit until late January to fight Mosley (a big favorite) or cross the street to Showtime for two easier fights. I'm told DiBella would get a date for Berto-Hlatshwayo this fall with one caveat. If Berto goes to Showtime, it would be part of at least a two-fight deal under which the second fight ideally would be against the winner of the Timothy Bradley-Lamont Peterson junior welterweight title bout, which Showtime plans to air Dec. 5.
HBO is also trying to smooth things over with Top Rank with regard to Clottey. In order to make things up to them for bailing on Dec. 26, HBO is in the process of working things out so Clottey can have a televised bout on the Dec. 5 Pavlik-Williams undercard.
Now to the other issue with Jan. 30. Schaefer is also in a bind. His other veteran star fighter, Bernard Hopkins, had already been tentatively scheduled by HBO for the date (likely against cruiserweight champ Tomasz Adamek or Chad Dawson). The date is a big deal for Hopkins, who wants to fight in the same month in which he turns 45, and I'm told he's really ticked off about possibly being bounced into February.
Schaefer, who apparently had been told initially that HBO would go Dec. 26 with Mosley, is in the difficult spot of having to play umpire between Mosley and Hopkins, who are now vying for the same date. Hopkins has been out since dominating Pavlik in October. Mosley hasn't fought since destroying Antonio Margarito in January.
Tylenol, anyone?
• For recent major fights, HBO has gone the "24/7" route to build interest in big pay-per-view bouts and put its 30-minute countdown shows on the backburner. But the countdown show is back -- probably. If Pavlik-Williams comes off Dec. 5, as tentatively planned, I'm told the network will produce a countdown show. That's great, especially because it's for a non-PPV fight.
• The bout I was most looking forward to on Top Rank's "Latin Fury 12" on Oct. 10 was the heavyweight fight between undefeated Odlanier Solis and Kevin Johnson. I said "was" because the fight is off. Johnson and promoter Joe DeGuardia scrapped the bout (for the second time) even though they had committed to it. Top Rank's Bob Arum gave them his blessing to bail for a pretty good reason: Johnson is at the top of the list to challenge titleholder Vitali Klitschko on Dec. 12 in Germany. Klitschko and his team are that confident that he'll beat Cristobal Arreola on Sept. 26. Like a lot of people, I am looking forward to Klitschko-Arreola. It should be an entertaining scrap while it lasts. But let's be honest -- is anyone actually picking Arreola to win? Arreola knows nobody is picking him and he's very cool about it. He says he'll shock the world. I do admire his honesty and the fact that he doesn't get mad in the slightest about his big underdog status. He's an easy guy to root for and if he does pull the upset, it would be absolutely huge for American heavyweight boxing and a real bummer for Johnson.
• With the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez promotion in high gear because the fight is Sept. 19, and Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao kicking off their media blitz this week in anticipation of their Nov. 14 showdown, it means the two fights will duke it out for attention on Monday in Los Angeles, where media events are planned for both fights. I am told HBO is not too happy with Cotto-Pacquiao promoter Arum for going against next week's fight. It will be interesting to see how the Los Angeles-based media covers both events, and which will receive more attention.
• It won't be part of Showtime's televised card, but there's a pretty interesting match between prospects on the undercard of the Andre Ward-Shelby Pudwill fight on Saturday night. It pits junior welterweights Mike Dallas, Jr. (9-0-1, 2 KOs) and Vincent Arroyo (9-0, 6 KOs). Steve Nelson, who manages Arroyo, said Arroyo was turned down by a variety of opponents until Dallas accepted him when former titleholder Freddie Norwood fell out of the bout. It's shame the fight isn't on TV. It would have made for an excellent "ShoBox" opener.
• I can't say I disagree with amateur boxing officials reducing the number of weight classes for international competition from 11 to 10. There are too many divisions. I wish professional boxing would do the same thing and eliminate three or four of the 17 divisions, at least. However, I don't think the elimination of an amateur division should have been done to simply make room for women's boxing in the 2012 London Olympics, which is what happened. If organizers want to add women's boxing, fine. But don't do it at the expense of the men. What it means is that the total number of male boxers who fought in the 2008 Beijing Games, 286, will be reduced to 250 in order to make room for 36 female boxers. I don't agree with that at all, especially since women's boxing does not have even close to the participation of men's boxing around the world. The new structure goes into effect beginning with international competitions next September.
• Paging Joel Casamayor.
• Now that Wladimir Klitschko is on the shelf probably until the spring because of a shoulder surgery, it means he won't be facing mandatory challenger Eddie Chambers before the end of the year, as had been in the works. I hope Chambers, a fighter who relies on his sharp skills and hand speed, won't just sit on his ranking waiting for the shot. I think he'd be best served by having at least one fight between now and then. Sure, it's a risk, but in this instance it could serve him well as long as he is matched properly. Unfortunately, I suspect he will sit and wait for the fight.
• It's nice to see some fighters retire and never look back. Former bantamweight champ Paulie Ayala (35-3, 12 KOs), one of the most likable people you could ever meet in boxing, retired in 2004 but has stayed close to the sport he loves. Now, Ayala will enter the promotional side of things when his company, Paulie Ayala Productions, promotes its first show in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 10. "I'd like to give Texas boxers the same opportunity that was given to me, to reach their goals," said Ayala, 39, who had two great fights with Johnny Tapia and Bones Adams, as well as slugfests with Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera. Best of luck to a good guy in his new endeavor.
• Got a note from Lester Bedford saying he signed crowd-pleasing junior featherweight contender Antonio Escalante of El Paso, Texas, to a managerial deal. Bedford, a stalwart of the Texas boxing scene whose Bedford Agency has managed and marketed more than 100 boxing events through the years, did wonders guiding the career of former titleholder James Leija. I'll bet he'll do a great job with Escalante, an exciting fighter who deserves a title shot.
• When flyweight titlist Daisuke Naito defends against popular countryman Koki Kameda on Nov. 29, it may go down in history as the most watched fight in Japanese history. It might not mean much to fight fans in the United States, but it will be massive in Japan.
• DVD pick of the week: With heavyweight James Toney fighting for the first time in nine months on Saturday (on the untelevised portion of Showtime's card), I thought I'd watch one of Toney's classic fights. He's one of the most gifted fighters of our generation, even if he wasted a lot of his talent by not always being fully prepared for every fight. But he was at his best April 26, 2003, at the Foxwoods resort in Connecticut. I was ringside for what was one of the best fights I've ever covered. Hadn't watched it for awhile, so into the archive I delved for his slugfest with Vassiliy Jirov. It was a tremendous battle, one of the best in HBO's "Boxing After Dark" history. Although Toney claimed a somewhat wide unanimous decision to win the cruiserweight title, most observers felt the fight was on the table in the 12th round. Toney trainer Freddie Roach thought so also, imploring Toney in dramatic fashion to "put this guy on his ass" before the round started. Sure enough, Toney dropped Jirov in the final round of a great fight.
Dan Rafael
