Your Weekend Itinerary for March 7-8
The major fights which will be televised in America this weekend will probably land, both on the sporting and entertainment scales, somewhere between last week’s shining Vazquez-Marquez 3 and the previous week’s stinking Klitschko-Ibragimov 0.
Highly-touted South African featherweight Thomas Mashaba (20-1-4, 12 KOs) makes his American debut Friday, March 7, on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” and at the final fight card at the Fox Theatre in the Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. His opponent is Mexican journeyman Cristobal Cruz (31-11-2, 23 KOs), who has dropped two of his last three and four of his last seven fights, albeit against accomplished fighters Zahir Raheem, Francisco Lorenzo (twice), and Steven Luevano. This is a showcase for Mashaba, but what else can we expect from this increasingly dreadful show?
Saturday, March 8, brings a full slate of important title fights on the American premium networks.
Showtime, as usual, has a compelling fight with their telecast from England of the cruiserweight unification fight between David Haye (20-1, 19 KOs), holder of two of these belts and generally regarded as the best in that division, against another titleholder, Enzo Maccarinelli (28-1, 21 KOs), trained by Enzo Calzaghe. This fights starts at 2 AM GMT at the O2 Arena in London to accommodate us Yanks, who will see it live at 9 PM EST. Setanata has the TV honors in the UK. Haye says he will move up to heavyweight after this one. Both men’s knockout power may be especially on display before this international audience. In the U.S., Showtime’s boxing telecast is followed by a mixed martial arts card, also from England.
At basically the same time, HBO gives us more heavyweights. Finally, after many had given up on ever seeing this fight, WBC regular heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev (34-5, 26 KOs) takes on WBC interim heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (29-1, 22 KOs) in Cancun, Mexico. Supposedly the winner has WBC heavyweight champion emeritus Vitali Klitschko next, another matchup about which we skeptics shake our heads. With Peter being dropped three times and almost stopped by late substitute Jameel McCline last year in Madison Square Garden, and the 39-year-old Maskaev sitting inactive since Dec. 2006 and postponing this bout a couple of times, it seems best to wonder who will lose rather than who will win this fight.
If these heavyweights manage to deliver yet another performance worthy of purgatory, the HBO co-feature has the exciting and unbeaten multiple lightweight beltholder Juan Diaz (33-0, 17 KOs) defending those straps against the slick and dangerous Nate Campbell (31-5-1, 25 KOs). A lot of the prefight drama has focused on the battle between Diaz’s promoter Don King and his manager Willie Savannah. King announced yesterday that he will no longer promote Diaz after this fight, citing his numerous disputes with Savannah over money, opponents for Diaz, and the like. This controversy may or may not play a role in the fight’s outcome between the 24-year-old college student Diaz and the 35-year-old veteran Campbell, or, if it goes to the judges, their decision. But this one will be televised widely, so whatever happens in Mexico may not simply stay there.
HBO will not be televising the undercard, which includes the return of the vastly underrated heavyweight (and supposedly retooled by trainer Manny Siaca Sr.) John Ruiz (42-7-1, 29 KOs), still just 36, against Jameel McCline (38-3-3, 23 KOs), and a super lightweight eliminator between unbeaten Timothy Bradley (21-0, 11 KOs) and former champion Jose Luis Castillo (56-8-1, 48 KOs).
Ruiz, the victim of questionable decision losses in Germany against Nikolai Valuev and Ruslan Chagaev in the WBA title roulette game, only fought once in 2007, against journeyman Otis Tisdale. Showing movement heretofore absent or at least underutilized in his approach, Ruiz stopped Tisdale in two. If he is given the chance, and especially with today’s heavyweight wreckage, Ruiz could capture one or more of these belts once again.
If you want to see the undercard on this typically loaded Don King show, you either have to be in Mexico, be in a country where the international feed is available, or know how to watch these things online. The same can be said of Friday’s card in Nottingham, England, featuring unbeaten junior featherweight Kiko Martinez vs. Rendall Munroe; Saturday’s fourth bout between flyweight champ Daisuke Naito and former champ Pongsaklek Wonjongkam in Tokyo, Japan, which should be available both on Japanese and Thai TV; and the women’s fights of Ina Menzer vs. Sandy Tsagouris and Alesia Graf vs. Fatuma Zarika from Krefeld, Germany, which will be telecast there on ZDF (http://www.zdf.de/). The latter telecast will apparently feature just the two women’s fights on that card, but after all, March 8 is International Women’s Day, so what better way to celebrate that than televising women fighting each other?
Now make sure that you do all your shopping and errands before this busy weekend.
Labels: boxing, David Haye, Don King, Eddie Goldman, Enzo Maccarinelli, HBO, Jameel McCline, John Ruiz, Juan Diaz, Nate Campbell, Oleg Maskaev, Samuel Peter, Showtime, Thomas Mashaba, Vitali Klitschko
posted by Eddie Goldman @ 7:12 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
The Maskaev-Peter fight could be very entertaining, but even if it isn't, it's a significant fight. It gets rid of someone who should no longer be in the championship mix and it sets the stage for the winner to move closer to title unification against Klitschko. We're not going to wind up with a great heavyweight champion when all this is finally played out, but there'll be a strong public consensus as to who the champ actually is. It's a start. It's a bad time for the heavyweights (and likely to stay one for sometime to come), but the rest the divisions are doing okay.
Juan Diaz is taking on Nate Campbell, who will most likely be his toughest test. If Campbell has a really noticeable weakness, it's that he doesn't seem to regard himself as championship material. That's a shame; I watched from ringside as he dismantled Almazbek Raiymkulov(undefeated at the time, having come off a draw with Joel Casamayor) and it was a performance worthy of Marvin Hagler. If that Campbell shows up on Saturday night, Diaz will need the best night of his life to hang onto the title.
And, with David Haye meeting Enzo Maccarinelli, we'll get a near unification at cruiserweight (only the IBF excluded) and a fight that will almost certainly end in a violent knockout, one way or the other.
I'd say that, worst case scenario, we'll wind up treated to two out of three enjoyable fights.
Before Peter fought McCline, I was certain he would beat Maskaev. After seeing McCline almost stop him, I'm not so sure now. Oleg can punch with his right hand, and Peter isn't hard to find with them.
It should be an entertaining fight while it last. I doubt it will go 12-Rounds. Gun to my head, I favor Peter.
It’s already been a pretty wacky weekend for boxing.
On ESPN2's Friday Night Fights, Mexican journeyman Cristobal Cruz, throwing a reported record of 1580 punches, upset the highly-touted and ranked featherweight Thomas Mashaba of South Africa by a 12-round majority decision. Cruz simply outworked Mashaba, especially in the final two rounds, when he almost dropped him. Cruz, 30, started fighting professionally when he was just 14, according to the ESPN2 announcers.
But also according to our “Boxing Authority,” Mashaba won the fight, while the cheering fans (and me watching from TV) felt the decision was proper. Teddy Atlas was also gushing about how referee Steve Smoger lets the fighters fight but steps in when he has to, when Mashaba landed a clearly low blow in the third round on Cruz’s upper leg on the side opposite of Smoger. Cruz stepped back, somewhat in pain and also upset at the low blow, but Smoger waved them on to continue fighting. Atlas said he didn’t see a low blow, although it was clearly visible from the camera angle shown live by ESPN2. They never replayed it or returned to this subject, either.
Also Friday, in Nottingham, England, Englishman Rendall Munroe upset the previously-unbeaten Spaniard Kiko Martinez by majority decision. I’ve only read a few news reports from the UK on this, and none indicates a hometown verdict. Munroe was already the European super bantamweight champion, and now wins the English title as well. But what does it mean that the English champion was more highly regarded than the European champion?
Another “Boxing Authority,” The Ring, has elevated Robert Guerrero to the top spot in their featherweight rankings, replacing the unbeaten Indonesian fighter Chris John. While the latter mainly fights in his home country or nearby in Asia, his points victory over Juan Manuel Marquez in 2006 is far more impressive than anything the game Guerrero has ever done. Certainly Guerrero’s starching of the very limited Jason Litzau in eight last week is not a grand accomplishment worthy of earning a number one ranking.
But since John seems stuck in his part of the world, placing the Gilroy, California-based Guerrero at number one positions him for a shot at The Ring’s belt. The Ring awards these belts in divisions where they have no titleholder, such as in featherweight, to the winners of bouts between numbers one and two, or numbers one and three. Since Guerrero-John seems rather unlikely, if they can maneuver someone into their number three spot over unbeaten Japanese fighter Hiroyuki Enoki, just like they put Guerrero over John, then they can go on some American pay-per-view and hand out a Ring belt, all the while feigning superiority over the alphabet sanctioning bodies.
We still need an independent, international boxing journalists poll. The Boxing Writers Association of America pretended that they were interested in doing something like that in December 2006, but if you haven’t heard anything about it since, it’s because they ain’t done shit.
OK, Blogger was down for part of the afternoon but now appears to be up.
I just want to add that I did expect a showcase for Mashaba on ESPN2, thinking that his handlers did their homework in picking Cruz as an opponent, and also given that show's history of non-competitive fights. I guess I gave them too much credit. Reasonable skepticism usually requires as targets competent schemers.
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