BY: Vitali Shaposhnikov
Here we go again with the good news: Wladimir Klitschko (55-3-0) and David Haye (25-1-0) are not only back in negotiations, but have already solidified a few bullet points.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Condolences to Bobby Dominguez After Family Tragedy
Sampson Boxing is deeply saddened and is mourning to hear about the tragic passing of promising boxing prospect Bobby Dominguez? son last night in Lomita, California. �The homicide has been reported to have occurred while in the custody of the mother?s boy friend, Daniel Vega. �Bobby Dominguez, son of Fernando Dominguez has a record of (4-0) is not only a promising prospect, but a family member of the Sampson Boxing organization.
Our thoughts and prayers are extended to the family and those affected ...
Our thoughts and prayers are extended to the family and those affected ...
City of Hope to Honor Jake LaMotta, Jackie Kallen, & Micky Ward at ?KO Cancer?
City of Hope is excited to announce their huge KO Cancer event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on April 6, 2011. The night will be honoring three boxing personalities whose lives have inspired movies: Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull). Jackie Kallen (Against the Ropes) and Micky Ward (The Fighter.) The evening’s emcee will be attorney and [...]
Why Hollywood loves boxing more than boxing does | Kevin Mitchell
The Fighter picked up some Oscars but the main event is in trouble, plus Mike Tyson's latest rehabilitation
Hollywood has always loved boxing - but not enough this time for The Fighter to beat The King's Speech at the Oscars. Still, it picked up a couple of gongs, including one for Welsh actor Christian Bale, who beat Geoffrey Rush for best supporting actor in his role as Mickey Ward's wayward half-brother, Dicky Eklund. "Mate, you're the best," Bale shouted out to Eklund in the audience. "He's had a wonderful story and I can't want to see the next chapter ? If you want to be a champion, if you want to train with him, go and meet with him. Go and check him out. He deserves it."
Eklund was not bowled over in a rush of luvvies. There will not be another chapter. He has had his Hollywood moment and will be forgotten soon enough, like most fighters. Sure, the allure of the fight game is still there. It's just that it's in a shimmering, passing image on a screen. The real business is struggling - as the Seattle Times observes.
The message that goes out again to the people in charge of real boxing - give the fans what they want, real title fights between real opponents - will be ignored. And, if you want evidence, look at what is happening near Disneyland, that other palace of fantasy, on Saturday night.
Good luck to Matthew Hatton in his world title fight against red-headed young Mexican hotshot Saul "El Canelo" Alvarez in Anaheim, but this is a fight with the slimmest attachment to reality. Neither is remotely proven at light-middleweight and there is minimal buzz about the contest - which did not stop the WBC sanctioning the fight as for the 11-stone title vacated by Manny Pacquiao - because Alvarez has been ordained as a rising star by Golden Boy, who pretty much are running the business right now.
Boxing continues to write its own obituary - and Hatton, sadly, is just another bit player.
STEP UP, MR TYSON
For a while, Mike Tyson, his image carefully polished by Jim Jacobs, seemed too good to be true.
When he first roared into our consciousness, he strove for acceptance in the largely white sportsbiz establishment of the United States and beyond by softening his Brooklyn edges and speaking with sepulchral reverence about his sport's history and its giants.
It was Mr Dempsey, not Jack. And Mr Louis. Never Joe, certainly not standing alone from his surname. Iron Mike did a spot with the late Harry Carpenter, trawling through the BBC archives in awe of those who'd gone before him and sounding like a tutored student of pugilism (which, thanks to the obsessed Cus D'Amato, he was) instead of the murderously dangerous heavyweight he had become.
Now, at 44 and nearly six years after his last fight, his reputation shredded by his serial craziness, Tyson has found that which he always craved: acceptance on his own terms. Whatever his capacity to explode, he has survived, albeit in a spiritually mangled form.
And what more appropriate place for Tyson to expose his sensitivities again than the rich man's bible, the Wall Street Journal?
In a sensitive rendering of his current circumstances, the WSJ's Gordon Marino writes about an ex-fighter in dignified retreat from his demons.
Tyson talks about his pigeons (not for the first time). Here it is to plug his part in an upcoming American TV reality programme called Taking On Tyson, which starts in the US on 6 March.
He lives in Henderson, on the outskirts of Las Vegas, where he made most of his fortune, in what Marino describes as the "expansive but not extravagant... contemporary minimalist home", once owned by NBA star Jalen Rose.
So, he's not exactly landed in the gutter. And his mind seems to be raised up too. He speaks about how Napoleon bred pigeons called tumblers, how a nearby falcon had dive-bombed his brood recently and how friendship, loyalty and trust matter in the world of pigeon racing.
He would, no doubt, have been chuffed too, when he read the piece. In the newspaper's quaintly old-fashioned style, he was called Mr Tyson throughout.
FRANKLY SPEAKING...
Frank Warren knew a different Mike Tyson. He came up against the one on the loose, who threatened to throw him out of a hotel window. That surreal episode was 11 years ago, when the former world heavyweight champion came to the UK to fight Lou Savarese and ended up clocking the referee in the course of disposing of Mr Savarese in a round.
Warren has been a promoter for three decades. Whatever his strengths and weaknesses, he has hung in there, surviving an assassination attempt and all the other scars that come with working in the wildest jungle in sport.
Still punching, he is putting together shows now that provide probably more value than any on offer in boxing. Partly that is because he has a big stable to feed, from Olympic gold medalist James DeGale to former world amateur champion Frankie Gavin. Partly it is because Sky demand value for pay-per-view promotions in tough times. The piggy bank is not as full as it once was.
Warren's most recent signing, John Murray, is a favourite of mine, an old-style, all-round boxer who has mastered the fundamentals. He will not easily be beaten. We will see in the year or so ahead if he can add some sophistication to his one-paced skills.
Warren would love Murray to fight his former favourite, Kevin Mitchell, and has offered him money the East End wild boy considers an insult. Understandably for a working class fighter with no other obvious earning possibilities, the size of the cheque matters a lot to Mitchell.
As it does to Warren, who tells me: "We're still trying to put it together, but at the moment the money he is asking for is totally unrealistic. I read the stuff in Boxing News about the 22,000 people [he drew to Upton Park last year for his fight against Michael Katsidis]. He didn't draw 22,000 people. The bottom line is he forgets he got absolutely destroyed in three rounds. He's not living in the real world. The real world is what it is.
"And the guy who's in front of him is Murray. Mitchell wants to come back and it's a great route back for him, but I'm not in the pension business - especially when he said after that fight how he hadn't trained properly. He let himself down and let everybody down. So he's not in a position to start making unrealistic demands."
Mitchell is gambling heavily on beating Murray, for which he deserves credit. If he wins, will he have earned the right to haggle for a big purse again. If he loses, he will soon learn what his market value is.
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Weekend Preview: Slim pickings
<b>SATURDAY</b> <b>RAMON GARCIA HIRALES vs. MANUEL VARGAS</b><b>Rounds / weight class:</b> 12 rounds / junior flyweights<b>Location:</b> Tijuana, Mexico<b>Television:</b> Fox Sports en Espanol<b>The backdrop:</b> Garcia Hirales (13-1-1, 8 KOs) continues to pass tests. The solid-boxer puncher from Mexico is coming off a split-decision victory over previously unbeaten Johnriel Casimero in July, his 11th consecutive victory. His loss and draw came early in his career. Vargas (28-5-1, 13 KOs) has been a contender between strawweight and flyweight over the past few years and lost his only title fight, a split decision at strawweight against Donnie Nietes last year. The Mexican is 4-3-1 in his last eight fights but has lost only to very good fighters, including Nonito Donaire in February. <b>Also fighting:</b> Humberto Gutierrez vs. Rene Gonzalez, 10 rounds, junior lightweights<b>Rating the card:</b> C+. This is a competitive matchup between two very good fighters but it could become a technical fight.<b>TEON KENNEDY VS. ALEX BECERRA</b><b>Rounds / weight class:</b> 12 rounds / junior featherweights<b>Location:</b> Atlantic City, N.J.<b>Television:</b> GoFightLive.tv<b>The backdrop:</b> Kennedy (15-0-1, 6 KOs) is a talented and courageous fighter from Philadelphia who is trying to bounce back from his fatal beating of Francisco Rodriguez in November. He easily outpointed Jose Angel Beranza in May in his first fight since the Rodriguez fight. Becerra (20-8, 9 KOs) is more or less a designated opponent for rising fighters. The El Paso-based Mexican is 2-5 in his last seven fights but has lost only to good young opponents. He'll probably prove to be tough enough to give Kennedy some decent rounds.<b>Also fighting:</b> Dillet Frederick vs. Ronald Cruz, 6 rounds, welterweights<b>Rating the card:</b> C. Kennedy is a worth watching, even against someone who probably doesn't pose a legitimate threat.<b>Also fighting Saturday:</b> Krzysztof Wlodarczyk defends his cruiserweight title against Jason Robinson in Warsaw, Poland; Daiki Kameda, rated No. 3 by THE RING, defends his flyweight title against No. 5 Takefumi Sakata in Tokyo; No. 7 John Murray faces Andrei Kudriavtsev for Murray's European lightweight title in Manchester, England.
Be thankful for Michael Katsidis: Boxer deals with death of brother to fight this weekend
Boxers are a special breed. Sure they fight to make a living, but they also put their health and well-being on the line to entertain us, the boxing fans. Michael Katsidis certainly had a valid excuse to bail from his fight this weekend in Las Vegas against Juan Manuel Marquez, instead Katisidis is dealing with the recent death of his older brother and stepping between the ropes at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Stathi Katsidis, a top thoroughbred jockey in Australia, was found dead in his Brisbane home on Oct. 19. The 31-year-old was found by his girlfriend.
"This was one tough camp," Katsidis said. "I know there's been speculation on my brother's death last month. He was very close to me. It was tough, but nothing in this sport is ever easy. We've come out here because I'm here to fight and I'm here to win."
Understandably, Katsidis and his management team requested that the death of brother stayed off limits as a topic during the prefight. He first learned of his brother's death while training in the jungles of Thailand.
Katsidis is a well-liked character in the world of boxing. He handle himself with class in trying to secure the bout. He attended the postfight press after Marquez beat Juan Diaz and politely stated his case. Marquez granted him the bout instead of holding out for months waiting for a fight with Manny Pacquiao.
"I really applaud Michael Katsidis's character," Marquez said. "He's suffering from the death of his brother, and I applaud him. Everybody knows Michael Katsidis is a strong fighter. He's a warrior."
The Marquez-Katsidis fight highlights a very solid card on Saturday. Andre Berto looks to defend his WBC 147-pound title and stay in the mix for some major fights in 2011. At 130, Celestino Cabellero moves up to battle Jason Litzau.
Why Hollywood loves boxing more than boxing does | Kevin Mitchell
The Fighter picked up some Oscars but the main event is in trouble, plus Mike Tyson's latest rehabilitation
Hollywood has always loved boxing - but not enough this time for The Fighter to beat The King's Speech at the Oscars. Still, it picked up a couple of gongs, including one for Welsh actor Christian Bale, who beat Geoffrey Rush for best supporting actor in his role as Mickey Ward's wayward half-brother, Dicky Eklund. "Mate, you're the best," Bale shouted out to Eklund in the audience. "He's had a wonderful story and I can't want to see the next chapter ? If you want to be a champion, if you want to train with him, go and meet with him. Go and check him out. He deserves it."
Eklund was not bowled over in a rush of luvvies. There will not be another chapter. He has had his Hollywood moment and will be forgotten soon enough, like most fighters. Sure, the allure of the fight game is still there. It's just that it's in a shimmering, passing image on a screen. The real business is struggling - as the Seattle Times observes.
The message that goes out again to the people in charge of real boxing - give the fans what they want, real title fights between real opponents - will be ignored. And, if you want evidence, look at what is happening near Disneyland, that other palace of fantasy, on Saturday night.
Good luck to Matthew Hatton in his world title fight against red-headed young Mexican hotshot Saul "El Canelo" Alvarez in Anaheim, but this is a fight with the slimmest attachment to reality. Neither is remotely proven at light-middleweight and there is minimal buzz about the contest - which did not stop the WBC sanctioning the fight as for the 11-stone title vacated by Manny Pacquiao - because Alvarez has been ordained as a rising star by Golden Boy, who pretty much are running the business right now.
Boxing continues to write its own obituary - and Hatton, sadly, is just another bit player.
STEP UP, MR TYSON
For a while, Mike Tyson, his image carefully polished by Jim Jacobs, seemed too good to be true.
When he first roared into our consciousness, he strove for acceptance in the largely white sportsbiz establishment of the United States and beyond by softening his Brooklyn edges and speaking with sepulchral reverence about his sport's history and its giants.
It was Mr Dempsey, not Jack. And Mr Louis. Never Joe, certainly not standing alone from his surname. Iron Mike did a spot with the late Harry Carpenter, trawling through the BBC archives in awe of those who'd gone before him and sounding like a tutored student of pugilism (which, thanks to the obsessed Cus D'Amato, he was) instead of the murderously dangerous heavyweight he had become.
Now, at 44 and nearly six years after his last fight, his reputation shredded by his serial craziness, Tyson has found that which he always craved: acceptance on his own terms. Whatever his capacity to explode, he has survived, albeit in a spiritually mangled form.
And what more appropriate place for Tyson to expose his sensitivities again than the rich man's bible, the Wall Street Journal?
In a sensitive rendering of his current circumstances, the WSJ's Gordon Marino writes about an ex-fighter in dignified retreat from his demons.
Tyson talks about his pigeons (not for the first time). Here it is to plug his part in an upcoming American TV reality programme called Taking On Tyson, which starts in the US on 6 March.
He lives in Henderson, on the outskirts of Las Vegas, where he made most of his fortune, in what Marino describes as the "expansive but not extravagant... contemporary minimalist home", once owned by NBA star Jalen Rose.
So, he's not exactly landed in the gutter. And his mind seems to be raised up too. He speaks about how Napoleon bred pigeons called tumblers, how a nearby falcon had dive-bombed his brood recently and how friendship, loyalty and trust matter in the world of pigeon racing.
He would, no doubt, have been chuffed too, when he read the piece. In the newspaper's quaintly old-fashioned style, he was called Mr Tyson throughout.
FRANKLY SPEAKING...
Frank Warren knew a different Mike Tyson. He came up against the one on the loose, who threatened to throw him out of a hotel window. That surreal episode was 11 years ago, when the former world heavyweight champion came to the UK to fight Lou Savarese and ended up clocking the referee in the course of disposing of Mr Savarese in a round.
Warren has been a promoter for three decades. Whatever his strengths and weaknesses, he has hung in there, surviving an assassination attempt and all the other scars that come with working in the wildest jungle in sport.
Still punching, he is putting together shows now that provide probably more value than any on offer in boxing. Partly that is because he has a big stable to feed, from Olympic gold medalist James DeGale to former world amateur champion Frankie Gavin. Partly it is because Sky demand value for pay-per-view promotions in tough times. The piggy bank is not as full as it once was.
Warren's most recent signing, John Murray, is a favourite of mine, an old-style, all-round boxer who has mastered the fundamentals. He will not easily be beaten. We will see in the year or so ahead if he can add some sophistication to his one-paced skills.
Warren would love Murray to fight his former favourite, Kevin Mitchell, and has offered him money the East End wild boy considers an insult. Understandably for a working class fighter with no other obvious earning possibilities, the size of the cheque matters a lot to Mitchell.
As it does to Warren, who tells me: "We're still trying to put it together, but at the moment the money he is asking for is totally unrealistic. I read the stuff in Boxing News about the 22,000 people [he drew to Upton Park last year for his fight against Michael Katsidis]. He didn't draw 22,000 people. The bottom line is he forgets he got absolutely destroyed in three rounds. He's not living in the real world. The real world is what it is.
"And the guy who's in front of him is Murray. Mitchell wants to come back and it's a great route back for him, but I'm not in the pension business - especially when he said after that fight how he hadn't trained properly. He let himself down and let everybody down. So he's not in a position to start making unrealistic demands."
Mitchell is gambling heavily on beating Murray, for which he deserves credit. If he wins, will he have earned the right to haggle for a big purse again. If he loses, he will soon learn what his market value is.
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Cold Blood Returns
Former WBO world title challenger and current NABA-US Champion, Michael "Cold Blood" Clark (40-5-1) returns to the ring tomorrow at the annual Arnold Schwarzenegger Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio. Undefeated in his last six, Clark will face Brian "The Golden Greek" Camechis (19-3) in the main event for the vacant Ohio State Welterweight Title. Beginning at 7PM, the undercard will feature locals Russ Niggemyer (2-0), Mondo Ancona (1-0), Kyle Patrick (5-4-1) and Ronald Green (1-2) in separate bouts. For tickets, call (614) 273-9075.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Open Thread, Start A Conspiracy Theory Edition
Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory, especially boxing fans. The fix is always in, somebody's always faking something, there's an "illuminati" that runs boxing. And hey, in this sport, there's at least a pretty good chance the conspiracy theories are true! So let's have them out. What conspiracy theory have you got on your mind? You don't even have to believe it if you don't want to. Heck, it doesn't even have to be boxing related.
If you guys hit me with some good ones, I'll do my best to irresponsibly advance them.
Then, as usual, because this is an Open Thread, I encourage you to hit me and your commenting pals with any thoughts, questions or topics you see fit.
Your music selection for the month is a live performance from Sleigh Bells. All that fuzz is supposed to be there -- it's not a bad performance or recording. But unlike the YouTube upload of the the studio version, this one has the bonus attraction of you getting to watch Alexis Krauss thrash around in an unbelievably sexy way:
If you guys hit me with some good ones, I'll do my best to irresponsibly advance them.
Then, as usual, because this is an Open Thread, I encourage you to hit me and your commenting pals with any thoughts, questions or topics you see fit.
Your music selection for the month is a live performance from Sleigh Bells. All that fuzz is supposed to be there -- it's not a bad performance or recording. But unlike the YouTube upload of the the studio version, this one has the bonus attraction of you getting to watch Alexis Krauss thrash around in an unbelievably sexy way:
The Fighter ? review
This tale of a boxer's Rocky-like ascent is an affecting study of the pain caused by dysfunctional families
In the 1890s, the reputation of the cinema was seriously, possibly permanently, tarnished in the eyes of moralists and opinion-formers through the movie pioneers' preoccupation with filming prize fights, then, as now, regarded as an unrespectable activity. The fascination continued as Hollywood turned the noble art into the subject of a movie genre and a metaphor for the social struggle and for life itself.
Every comedian from Chaplin to Jerry Lewis went into the ring at some time or other and most stars found themselves putting on the gloves or playing managers and trainers. The best boxing movies have been about defeat, whether glorious or abject, about the loss or retention of dreams. The least interesting have been triumphalist stories that culminate in championship fights.
There have been fewer boxing films in recent years, probably because of the lessening of interest in the sport and the only two made this century that immediately come to mind are both biographies of boxers whose careers follow a familiar dramatic arc in overcoming adversities and setbacks to win major titles. The first is Michael Mann's Ali (2001), featuring Will Smith as Muhammad Ali, the other Ron Howard's Cinderella Man (2005), starring Russell Crowe as the Depression-era fighter James Braddock.
Now there's David O Russell's The Fighter, in which Mark Wahlberg plays "Irish" Micky Ward, who was still taking serious punishment when Mann's biopic was released. If Ward's name is less familiar to most filmgoers, it's because Ali and Braddock were heavyweights and undisputed champions. Ward was a welterweight (in the crucial fight that provides the climax for the picture, both he and his British opponent, the Liverpool-born Shea Neary, weighed in at 10st 6lb) and won a World Boxing Union title which is far from undisputed.
Micky Ward's story, however, if the screenplay by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson is anything to go by, is quite as extraordinary as the others with as many low points, though fewer major high ones. The most frequently quoted line of late 20th-century poetry is probably the opening of Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse": "They fuck you up, your mum and dad". Had he lived to see The Fighter, Larkin would have found it necessary to add the line: "And so do your older brother and sisters." Because the movie is about a classically dysfunctional family that is pulled apart by internecine violence of a physical and emotional kind, then drawn together by an against-the-odds boxing triumph.
The film begins in 1993 in the run-down, post-industrial town of Lowell, Massachusetts, where the handsome, withdrawn, quietly spoken 27-year-old Micky's career has stalled after early success and he's working as a road paver. Divorced and with limited access to his little daughter, he's a warm-up fighter, a stepping stone for the careers of more promising pugilists on the way up. His extrovert half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), is an infinitely worse case. Dicky is a drunken, womanising crackhead who calls himself the "Pride of Lowell" and lives off the memory of the night when he floored the titleholder Sugar Ray Leonard, though most people think Leonard slipped. Dicky has persuaded Micky that his role as trainer is essential to the younger brother's success, just as their strident, domineering mother Alice (Melissa Leo) is convinced that he owes everything to her determined management.
In fact, they are a pair of albatrosses around his neck, crippling handicaps who are destroying his career. Standing on the sidelines are Micky's six sisters and half-sisters, foul-mouthed harridans with that hard, prematurely aged look of poor, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking women. There's also a cowed father trying to help his son but terrified of his wife and of the chorus of harpies she leads.
The group dynamics of this rowdy household are handled by director Russell with great unpatronising skill in his best film for years, though his most conventional. Into this menage comes Charlene (Amy Adams), a tough barmaid at a local saloon, who once had an athletic scholarship to university but dropped out. She's a spirited woman, who gives as good as she gets, and believes she can free Micky from his family shackles. Her uphill struggle appears to be helped when the self-deceiving Dicky is jailed for fraud, assault, theft and attacking the police. He emerges from prison a different, improved man but still a danger to the diffident, dithering Micky.
This is a frighteningly funny, oddly touching movie that never flinches from or attempts to sentimentalise the grotesquely embarrassing Dicky or to turn Micky into a liberated spirit. Both Wahlberg and Bale are excellent in their different registers, as are Melissa Leo and Amy Adams as the differently calibrated women. Bale, Leo and Adams have rightly received Oscar nominations and this is indeed an actors' film that draws its power and moral energy from the interaction of this ensemble. It's more about family than boxing and what's worth bearing in mind is that after the climactic fight, handled with traditional triumphalism � la Rocky, Micky had three murderous encounters with the late Arturo Gatti, all ending with both in hospital. A shot of the real Micky and Dicky included in the film's final credits shows what havoc 20 years in the ring can wreak on a man's face.
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Gym Notes: I haven't seen it yet, but word is Margarito's looking good
<font size="1" color="#000000">Antonio Margarito (left) shares a laugh with new gym mate Brandon Rios, who is also trained by Robert Garcia. Margarito has been in a good mood during his camp for Manny Pacquiao, an indication that he's working well with Garcia. Photo / Crhis Cozzone-Fightwireimages.com</font>This column is usually a first-person account of what happens in one or more of the many professional boxing gyms of Southern California.For reasons that I'll detail later, this <I>Gym Notes</I> does not contain first-hand accounts of what I consider the "good stuff" of a gym visit, the sparring sessions that veterans and up-and-comers alike use to prepare themselves for high-profile bouts.Few bouts that take place this year will equal the attention that Manny Pacquiao's Texas showdown with Antonio Margarito on Nov. 13 will garner, which is why I was excited to watch Margarito go rounds in his new trainer Robert Garcia's gym in Oxnard, Calif.We all know the event will be driven in part by the controversy surrounding Margarito's hand-wrap scandal and the national backgrounds of the combatants, which promises to bring in droves of loyal Mexican and Filipino fans to Cowboys Stadium. Whether we get an actual <I>fight</I> -- for however long it lasts -- depends on the legs of the former welterweight titleholder-turned-boxing pariah.Margarito's legs were not under him the last time I watched him spar, which was during his camp for the Shane Mosley fight. The emerging Mexican star was easily pushed back on his heels by undersized prospects and rank journeymen in the sessions I witnessed. And we all know what happened once he got into the ring with Mosley. Did 15 years of training like an animal and catching hard shots with his chin like a human PEZ dispenser take its toll on Margarito? Is he spent bullet?I don't know. His comeback fight against Roberto Garcia (no relation to his trainer) in May was inconclusive. Margarito, who was understandably rusty after sitting out more than a year following his knockout loss to Mosley and license revocation, dominated his opponent. However, he didn't look like his old self in doing so. Margarito didn't try to walk down Garcia and beat the tough fringe contender into submission as he did all of his pre-Mosley opponents, which makes me wonder whether that fighter still exists. I thought the nine rounds of sparring I planned to watch on Wednesday would answer that question. If Margarito looked as sharp as he did during his camp for Miguel Cotto, I would go against the opinion of most boxing writers -- who dismiss the Mexican's chances to even compete with Pacquiao -- and maybe even give the underdog a shot at upsetting the reigning pound-for-pound king. However, if Margarito looked the way he did during the Mosley camp, I would seriously reconsider traveling to cover this event. Why bother to be ringside for a slaughter?I still don't know whether I'm booking that flight to Dallas because my 1994 Toyota Corolla stalled quite suddenly in the middle of the Ventura Freeway, just 10 miles outside of Oxnard. Margarito went three rounds apiece with Austin Trout, Cleotis "Mookie" Pendarvis and Ricardo Williams as I waited for a tow truck to transport my 16-year-old vehicle to a nearby auto shop. I thought about putting the column off for another day, but I'd come too far (in the pouring rain no less) to give up. After calling Garcia, my wife and AAA (in that order), I sent a text out to Sam Garcia (no relation to Robert).Sam and his father, Max, co-train junior lightweight prospect Eloy Perez, who has set up camp at Garcia's gym for his Oct. 15 Telefutura headliner against Dominic Salcido. I figured if they were at the gym, they could serve as my "eyes" as I tried to make my way there before Margarito left.Sam replied to my text immediately. I was in luck."We're next door eating lunch," the text read, "we are going back after we eat to watch a little sparring."I informed Sam of my plight and asked if Margarito had begun sparring."Oh damn, he is just warming up," was the reply. "He usually starts close to 2:15 and is done by 3, then begins (his) floor workout(s). I'll let you know."As my car was being towed to the auto shop, Sam shot me this tantalizing text:"He's looking good. We can't wait until the fight."I briefly considered asking the tow truck driver if he knew the location of Robert Garcia's Boxing Academy and talking him into dropping me off there if he did. I hate missing good sparring.Sam and his father are disciples of the most-astute boxing mind I've ever encountered, that of the late "Coach" Don Familton, so I trust their opinion of what they were watching. But I wanted to see it for myself.That will have to wait for another day, but thanks to the Garcias, I would catch the tail end of Margarito's workout and have the opportunity to talk to his trainer about the seemingly Herculean task they face on Nov. 13. Shortly after arriving at Airport Auto Repair on Oxnard Boulevard, Sam shot me the text I was hoping for:"My dad can go pick (you) up if (you) want."Twenty minutes later I was talking boxing in the back of Max Garcia's SUV while we waited in the parking lot for another tow truck to take my car to a transmission specialist in Ventura."Looks like it's time to buy a new car, Dougie," Sam said. "There's no excuse not to now that you've sold out for all that Golden Boy money."Funny guy. He reads my mailbags.Enough jokes. "How does Margarito look?" I asked."He doesn't look shopworn," Sam said."He's ripped," said Max. "He looks very strong, and he's big. They say he's only eight pounds over the contracted weight, but he looks like a light heavyweight. "Of course, it takes more than size and strength to beat Manny. You can tell Margarito is working on walking Manny down and hurting him with uppercuts and body shots, but he's so slow in comparison to Pacquiao, and man, he telegraphs those uppercuts. He lets you know when those body shots are coming."He doesn't have an easy time tracking down the fast guys who move on him like Mookie and Ricardo""True," Sam interjected, "but he does eventually slow them down. It takes him a few rounds but when he catches them, they have to fight for their lives. He does damage. Last Monday he hit Ricardo Williams with a body shot that shook the gym. Ricardo made a loud retching noise when he got hit with it. It looked so painful I almost took a knee. If Pacquiao is not on his A-game, he's going to be fighting for his life."Margarito was on the speed bag when we arrived at the gym. He sported a big, toothy grin as he loudly dribbled the bag. It was strange seeing Margarito smile as he trained. He didn't do much of that during workouts with his former-and-now-estranged trainer Javier Capetillo.I asked Margarito's co-manager Sergio Diaz whether this camp reminds him of any from the past."It's much different from his old camps," Diaz said. "It's not as -- how do I put it? -- it's not as <I>military</I> as Capetillo had it. It's work, but it's a relaxed atmosphere and he has fun. He likes it here in Oxnard. He likes being away from the city."I noticed Margarito's wife, Michelle, sitting on the ring apron, watching her husband train, even conversing with him a little. I don't recall ever seeing her around during any serious camps in the past."No, she never used to sit in workouts when Tony trained with Capetillo," Diaz said. "Capetillo believed the wives of fighters belonged at home getting dinner ready for their husbands."I think it goes without saying that Garcia has a different training philosophy than "General Cappy."Garcia marvels at Margarito's work ethic, but he says he keeps a close eye on him in order to ensure that the relentless fighter doesn't burn himself out.I'm glad Garcia is wary of Margarito overdoing it. I believe the Tijuana slugger was over-trained for many of his fights, including underwhelming performances against Daniel Santos, Joshua Clottey and Paul Williams. "Tony's like Brandon (Rios), he'll spar every day if you let him," said Garcia, comparing Margarito to the rough-and-tumble young lightweight contender he also trains. "You have to hold those guys back for their own good."Garcia says he's tracking every mile Margarito runs and every round of sparring, making adjustments to his meticulous training schedule as they go along."Last week was his first week of sparring, he went eight rounds with Mookie, Austin and K.C. (Karim Martinez) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday," Garcia said. "Today was the first day he went nine rounds. He'll eventually build up to 10 rounds, but he'll only go 12 rounds twice in this camp. We have six weeks until the fight, plenty of time to build up and taper down. We'll probably do 170 rounds of sparring in this camp, but we could do less."Last week his weight was good and he looked sharp in sparring, so I told him to take Thursday off."I still need to watch Margarito spar to gauge the sturdiness of his legs and the speed of his reflexes, but his body is every bit as ripped as Max Garcia said it was. Following traditional abdominal work in the center of the ring, Margarito's washboard stomach was put to the test during a bizarre stick routine that consisted of Garcia systematically whacking away at the fighter's midsection with a baton for three minutes. Rios, who tried the torturous exercise once, said it's more painful than it looks. It must be. Margarito, whose face turned beet red after about a minute, was in obvious agony. He let out a "Whooo!" and dropped into a squat near a corner the moment the three minutes were up.This was the only time he wasn't smiling while I was there. "I'll never do that again," Rios said. "It stung too much after only a few seconds. I was like, 'Hell no, that's enough!'"Eloy Perez gave it a try and quickly found out what Rios was talking about."How long did I last?" a winded Perez asked Garcia."Twelve seconds," Garcia said."This isn't one of my exercises," Garcia told me. "Tony was doing this in Tijuana before camp started. He brought this up with him."Margarito is a tough S.O.B., but I had to ask Garcia whether he seriously thought his fighter has a realistic shot at beating Pacquiao."I've been watching video of Pacquiao's fights every day since the last time you came by the gym (one month ago), and I'm telling you I see things," he said. "Every time I watch him the job we have seems a little bit easier. That sounds crazy to anyone who watched what Pacquiao did to Hatton and Cotto and Clottey. When you watch Pacquiao fight live, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement, because his speed and power is so unbelievable that you don't notice what he's doing. "He seems unbeatable. But if you really study him -- somebody that really knows boxing -- you see a lot of mistakes. And you see that his opponents, who didn't have it or didn't try like they should have, should get some credit in how incredible he looked. That's not going to be the case with Tony. "I think Tony is going to do what lately nobody's been able to do," Garcia continued. "The last one to do it was Erik Morales -- he beat Pacquiao when he did it -- and that's not show him any respect. He can be backed up. He backs up easy. When you do that, you put him on the defensive and there's a lot of things he does instinctively, like cover up as he goes to the ropes, that a strong fighter like Tony can take advantage of."I got really excited about Nov. 13 for the first time since the bout was announced as Garcia talked about his fighter's confidence and Pacquiao's perceived weaknesses.Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. I want to see a fight when Pacquiao and Margarito meet in that giant stadium, not a slaughter. Perhaps I'm subconsciously rooting for Garcia, a former fighter and a good man who seems to have found his true calling as a trainer.Or maybe I just have a soft spot for Margarito, as blasphemous as that notion is after the heinous crime he and his former trainer almost committed. I'll try to stuff that anticipation for now and be as cynical as the next internet boxing writer -- at least until I watch Margarito spar sometime next week.
Tight decision, not a robbery: Hopkins settles for draw with Pascal
Against a fighter 17 years younger, Bernard Hopkins turned in another age-defying performance Saturday in Quebec City. The 45-year-old looked fresh into the final round and outlanded Jean Pascal, but he didn't do enough in the eyes of the judges to walk away with the WBC light heavyweight title.
Hopkins' (51-5-2, 32 KOs) chances were hurt severely at the start of the fight when he hit the deck in the first and third rounds. In a spirited scrap, the knockdowns gave Pascal just enough cushion to retain his belt via majority draw, 114-114, 113-113 and 112-114.
Hopkins was effective to the body in Rounds 5-12 and scored with leaping left hooks on numerous occasions, but he landed his heaviest shots after the fight.
"I dominated the fight. I threw a lot of combinations. I had a lot of energy. He was holding," Hopkins told Showtime announcer Jim Gray. "Look at his face and look at mine. I threw the more crisper shots. He threw more bolo shots."
Steve Morrow, an American judge, gave the win to Hopkins, while Daniel Van de Wiele, a Belgian, scored it 113-113. Canadian Claude Paquette had it 114-114.
The Haitian-born Pascal, who lives in Laval, Quebec, walked away with his belt, while Hopkins was denied the chance to become the oldest world champion in the history of boxing.
"I put on a helluva performance for a 45-year-old man. It's going to be controversy and talks about this. This was a sure enough robbery," Hopkins said. "And this is what hurts the sport. I'm not going to cry over spilt milk. The fans seen it. The fans know what it is."
Hopkins won over the 16,500 in attendance at the Pepsi Coliseum, who booed the decision.
As far as a robbery, Hopkins' passion is understandable, but it was far from a ripoff.
Showtime's crew, Al Bernstein and Antonio Tarver, were split on the fight. Bernstein scored it 114-112 for Hopkins while Tarver had the same score for Pascal. Showtime's press row scorers -- Bernard Fernandez, Albert Ladouceur and Herb Zurkowsky -- gave a split decision to Hopkins.
Yahoo! Sports' lead boxing writer Kevin Iole had it 114-112 for Hopkins. SI.com's Chris Mannix scored it 113-113, while Tim Smith from the N.Y. Daily News had Hopkins 114-112. The Yahoo! boxing blog scored it 114-112 for Pascal.
Showtime's Gray had his mind made up that Hopkins won the fight and aggressively confronted Pascal, asking him how he earned a draw.
"I do believe I won the fight," said Pascal, 28. "That wasn't my best fight but Bernard likes to fight ugly, dirty. It's not that he's that good. He's a tough guy to box. He's always coming with his head."
Hopkins led with his noggin throughout the fight and often ducked. It cost him in the first and third rounds, when Pascal put him down.
The first knockdown punch appeared to be borderline. Hopkins wasn't hurt badly. In the third, Pascal landed a left hook and a left to the chest, while B-Hop was on the ropes. His momentum took him to the ground.
"I don't think [the first-round knockdown] was legitimate; I ain't [going to beef] about it. I'm a warrior. I ain't complaining about it. I got up and fought like a champion," Hopkins said.
"For a 45-year-old, soon to be 46 next month, to put on the kind of performance? I did it after a back-of-the-head knockdown, which was really a slip, but you didn't hear me complain. I got up and fought, and won that last round."
Hopkins has every right to complain, but then he entered silly territory by saying this is why he rarely fights outside the U.S.
"Just because it's a small city in a small poll doesn't mean the votes can't be counted correctly, right? This is the reason that most [American] fighters don't like fighting out of the country. It's because of this," Hopkins said.
Pascal (26-1-1, 16 KOs) scoffed at the assertion that the judges were slanted toward him.
"We got fair judges in Canada," said Pascal.
"One thing about fans, they hear and they watch everything. You don't see Pascal jumping around. You don't see Pascal jumping around joyful," Hopkins said.
Hopkins did outland Pascal 171-105. According to Compubox, he also landed more power shots.
It was a very good performance by a guy who turns 46 on Jan. 15. Hopefully, Hopkins continues to fight and calls out someone like Lucian Bute or the best fighters from the Showtime Super Six, Carl Froch and Andre Ward.
Judah Visits Barringer High School in Newark
In what has become a beloved pre-fight�tradition for the Brooklyn native, Zab "Super" Judah took time to visit a school in Newark. He stopped in at Barringer High School to talk to the students. Zab thoroughly enjoyed his time with the kids. He spoke of growing up in Brooklyn and encouraged the students to follow their dreams. �� "I've been there.�You just need to know that you can change you life. You can make your dreams come true, you just have to work ...
Andre Ward to join Everlast on Capitol Hill
Super Middleweight World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist Andre Ward (Dublin, Calif.) will take his talents outside of the boxing ring to Washington DC today for the 12th annual National Health Through Fitness Day. Ward will join Everlast and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) in the nation's capitol to advocate for key legislation promoting a healthy and active lifestyle for all Americans.
Alvarez takes another step toward stardom
LOS ANGELES -- Victor Ortiz scored an impressive knockout of Vivian Harris, putting the veteran down four times in less than three rounds, on Saturday at Staples Center. Daniel Ponce de Leon looked positively scary in his KO of Antonio Escalante. And Shane Mosley's listless performance in his draw with Sergio Mora was further evidence that he is in decline.Saul "Canelo" Alvarez was the talk of this card, though.Alvarez (34-0-1, 26 knockouts) was nothing short of sensational, becoming the first to knock out Carlos Baldomir since very early in the Argentine's career as 13,591 mostly Mexican and Mexican-American fans roared their approval.And it wasn't just the result, which wasn't terribly surprising given Baldomir's age (39) and the fact he has lost whatever hand speed he once had. It was <i>how</i> Alvarez did it.The 20-year-old from Guadalajara demonstrated maturity beyond his years, patiently outboxing a clever, awkward opponent with far more experience than he has. He displayed a world-class jab to set up powerful, well-timed rights.Baldomir (45-13-6, 14 KOs), reputed to have one of the best chins in boxing, took many of Alvarez's best shots early in the fight but gradually broke down as his baby-faced foe landed more and more telling blows.Then Alvarez gave the crowd exactly what it wanted - a thrilling finish in the third round. He landed one hellacious shot ... then another ... then another and Baldomir started to wilt. Finally, a straight left put the Argentine on his face and ended the fight two seconds before the end of the round as the crowd erupted."I'm very happy, I'm full of emotions to be the first to knock out Baldomir in a big fight," he said through a translator.Again, we shouldn't read too much into a victory over a faded opponent who was never particularly good to begin with. Baldomir was a good test, though, a tough, veteran fighter who was desperately trying to hang on as a contender. And he aced the test.It's becoming more and more obvious that he'll be the next Mexican star, among fans both south of the border and in the United States. He's good looking, he's well-spoken, he's humble, he mixes well with the masses ... and it is becoming more and more clear that he's very talented.Of course, he must continue to win. And one person with considerable knowledge of boxing is fairly certain he will."He hits really hard," Baldomir said through a translator. "I was surprised by his power. No one has hit me like he did. He's definitely going to be a real champion. He's the real deal."<a href="mailto:ringtveditor@yahoo.com">Michael Rosenthal can be reached at RingTVeditor@yahoo.com</a>
Donaire puts big fight at risk by fighting Sidorenko
Someone must've slipped something in Nonito Donaire's Thanksgiving dinner. He's doing the unheard of this Saturday.
With an HBO superfight against Fernando Montiel on the horizon, "The Filipino Flash" is moving up a weight class to take on a former champion this Saturday in Anaheim.
Donaire (24-1, 16 KOs) is already regarded by some as a Top 10 pound-for-pound fighter, but he has yet to get the premium exposure he might deserve. HBO is fired up for the February Donaire-Montiel fight at 118. Donaire, who has surprising power winning six of his last seven by KO or TKO, is prepping for his jump by facing Ukranian bruiser Wladimir Sidorenko (22-2, 7 KOs).
Since a huge win over Vic Darchinyan back in 2007, Nonaire said his recent opponents down at 115, like Hernan Marquez, Manuel Vargas and Rafael Concepcion, were too easy.
"There was a lack of motivation for those fights," Donaire admits. "There was a 'just another day at the office' kind of feeling. That's one of the motivations for the training camp because I'm fighting somebody good, an elite fighter. It does help a lot to be in there with somebody who is going to be really tough."
Donaire will try to become the first opponent to finish Sidorenko.
"We're in there against a tough guy and we have to come up with a good game plan. But Nonito's style and his footwork are perfect for either outboxing this guy and looking great against him, or even trying to go for a knockout if possible," Donaire's assistant trainer Roberto Garcia said. "I know that he's never been down or out, but Nonito has very good power so he can be the first to knock him out."
Donaire isn't worried about focus. He know he's got to get by Sidorenko if he wants that shot on HBO.
"I've never been really motivated like this before. I've never been in as tremendous shape as I am now. I'm in the best shape of my life,' Donaire said. "I want to see where that takes me. I think that being in the best shape gets me to see my real potential in boxing and my ability."
Donaire-Sidorenko is now the main event of this weekend's "In Harm's Way" PPV. Julio Cesar Chavez had to bail from his fight because of the flu. The card also features Humberto Soto against Urbano Antillon.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Boxers of Yesteryear: Johann ?Rukeli? Trollmann
If there ever was a story of ?Blatant Injustice? in the annals of boxing history. It is without a doubt that the story of Johann Trollmann would rank high in the list. He was first destroyed as an athlete than finally murdered by the Nazi regime
Pacquiao in Baguio City: Training camp begins
<font size="1" color="#000000">Manny Pacquiao, here hitting the speed bag, is in the mountain town of Baguio City -- away from the pressures of Manila -- preparing for his fight against Antonio Margarito. Photo / Ted Lerner</font><i>RING correspondent Ted Lerner is in Baguio City, a mountain town in the Philippines, as Manny Pacquiao opens training camp for his Nov. 13 fight against Antonio Margarito. This is the first in a series.</i>BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- Manny Pacquiao came here ostensibly because he wanted to engage in several weeks of high altitude training for his fight against Antonio Margarito on Nov. 13 at Cowboys Stadium. But after only a few minutes in this busy, but pleasant mountain town 1,500 meters above sea level, you realize that perhaps the main reason he is here for the second time to make camp is that it affords him a rare chance to relax.Compared with sprawling, teeming and oppressively hot Manila, a six-hour drive south of here, Baguio is a laid back haven. This hilly town at the gateway to the Cordillera Mountains is covered with sweet-smelling pine trees. The weather is ideal. In the daytime it is slightly warm and never oppressive. At night a faint chill fills the air. The locals are friendly and polite and noticeably non-intrusive.One gets a good idea of why Pacquiao is here by visiting Cooyeesan Plaza, a modern but non-descript rectangular commercial complex just a few minutes outside the center of town. Except for the bright red pickup truck emblazoned with "Team Pacquiao" in the parking lot outside, there's nothing here to indicate that the world's most exciting and very arguably best boxer is anywhere near the place. No banners welcoming the champ. No big crowds trying to get his autograph.The building houses a variety of establishments. On the ground floor facing the street there's a supermarket, a hardware store and a beauty salon. Inside there's a dance school, a small college, several small canteens and restaurants. On the second floor sits the modern Shape up Gym. In the back of the weight room is a door leading into the bright and clean boxing gym. This is home to Team Pacquiao for the next month.Pacquiao and his entourage are staying in the 129-room hotel on the third floor. The hotel isn't fancy. Giving it three stars would be a bit of a stretch. The whole setup, though, seems to fit Pacquiao's personality to "T." He might be a high-flying, all-action superstar, but at heart he is really a simple kid from the province. Here he has everything he needs. There's even a basketball court on the fourth floor. And Pacquiao can just take the stairs down to the gym.Thursday was to be Pacquiao's first day of sparring. The previous week he had been training in Manila, several miles from the Philippines House of Representatives. Just after lunch every day, Pacquiao would show up at the Elorde Gym in Quezon City, part of Metro Manila, and train for several hours. He would then quickly shower, don his suit, dodge the massive crowds that had gathered on the streets outside, and head straight to the Congress for the 4pm session.Pacquiao had a productive week in Manila. Under huge banners and murals documenting the legendary life and career of Hall of Famer Gabriel "Flash" Elorde, Pacquiao plowed through his daily workout. On the mitts with trainer Freddie Roach, he showed blinding speed and footwork, and frightful power. The Manila media and others, including plenty of local celebrities who crowded into the gym to watch, marveled at how, despite a layoff of several months, Pacquiao hadn't seemed to have lost a step.After one impressive 10 round session on the mitts, a confident Roach revealed some of the game plan he and his fighter have in store for Margarito."We're working on some angles a little bit," he said. "I want him to go deeper on the angles so Margarito doesn't have a target in front of him and give him [Margarito] a little more room so he'll follow us because he has the tendency to follow his opponents. Once he picks his foot up, we'll drill him. The first four rounds he's going to be trying to walk us down. We'll set traps for him and walk him into combinations. I love this style of fighter for Manny Pacquiao." Roach said that he's also preparing for the possibility that Margarito will counter Pacquiao's game plan with a different tactic. "I do think he'll move in this fight a little bit," Roach said. "That's why I'm bringing a mover in [as a sparring partner]. I'm anticipating him coming forward, but they might try and throw a wrench in this and not come to us at all. I'm trying to cover all our bases. It's not a problem. One thing about Margarito is that he can move backwards but he's not good at it. It'll be a mistake if he does that, I feel."After a week of fighting the traffic and thick, smoggy air in Manila, Roach was elated to get up to Baguio this past Sunday. He loves the clean, cool air here and has even chosen to enjoy it to the fullest by staying at a nearby resort, Camp John Hay, inside a log cabin. After several days of going through the basics, Roach was anxious to get to the meat of the training and wanted to start the first sparring at exactly 2pm. As the clock hit 2, everyone sat around the quiet gym chatting and waiting for the Man; Roach, conditioning coach Alex Ariza, Pacquiao's childhood friend and assistant trainer Buboy Fernandez, sparring partners Glen Tapia and Michael Medina, about a dozen of Pacquiao's confidants and hangers on, and a few local media. The atmosphere here was a stark contrast to that in Manila. Just past 2:30, a smiling Pacquiao walked into the gym. Roach insisted that everyone but the team had to leave for the sparring session. The few members of the media on hand could come back in after about 30 minutes, when the sparring was over. We could watch Manny shadow box, hit the speed bag, do his stretching, Roach said. But the sparring would be private. "We have some things to go over," Roach said. Fernandez then shouted out that we all had to leave. As Roach had said, 30 minutes later the doors were thrown open. Pacquiao hammered the speed ball as about a dozen reporters and others watched. Tapia had worked all four rounds and, as he undid his hand wraps, looked pleased with himself."It was a great experience," the 20-year-old from New Jersey said. "He's the greatest. He's not like fighting an average lefty. It's like fighting a lefty and righty mixed together in one. He gives you angles, he'll pop you then spin you, then he's on the other side. He's very fast. His footwork is great. He'll hit you then he's all of a sudden on the other side, then he hits you again and he's on the other side this time."I just tried to go in there and put pressure on him. That's what Freddie wanted me to do. It's the first day of camp so we can't really tell. He's going to get much better." Roach seemed generally happy with the sparring, but said Pacquiao got clocked several times."It was better than I expected," Roach told me, referring to the sparring. "He made some bad moves, he made some good moves. That's part of the first day. I wanted to see how the sparring partners worked out. Glen was perfect. He fought just like Margarito does. Very strong and very aggressive. I picked the right guy. It was a good first day. Manny's timing was off a little bit. He hasn't boxed since the Clottey fight. I'm happy with it. I saw a couple of mistakes. Manny got hit a couple of times when he shouldn't have. And that's my job tomorrow. We'll work it out on the mitts. That's my job to show him how to defend against that. "He knows the mistakes he made. He's getting his feet wet, he's getting back into it. It takes time. That's why my training camps are eight weeks long. We've got seven weeks to go. We're ahead of schedule. But the best part about today is that Tapia fights just like Margarito. He's like a clone of him. He comes forward, he's sloppy, he comes wide with his punches, he's heavy handed and he's rugged. He hit Manny right in the balls today by accident. That's going to happen. It was an accident, but it can happen."I asked Roach if that meant that he thought Margarito was a dirty fighter."Margarito's not dirty," he said. "I don't believe in a dirty fight, because it is a fight. I'd say he's physical. He does whatever it takes to win. I was a physical fighter too. Head butts, elbows, a little low blows here and there. It's all part of the game. Manny won't get dirty, but he knows how to handle it. He knows how to keep himself out of those positions. My rule is if a guy hits you low, you hit him back low. Manny won't do it. He will not foul a fighter. He's too respectful a fighter for me sometimes, but that's just his nature. "We have a plan A, a plan B, and sometimes a plan C. If we don't do it here in the gym, we'll never do it in the fight. We cover all our bases in the gym. He understands the game plan and he follows it completely, but sometimes when a fighter gets hit and gets angry, he will exchange. But that's something I like. That's in his heart. That's what makes Manny Pacqiuao, Manny Pacquiao."It's that massive heart and a work rate that exceeds anything he's ever seen. It never fails to amaze Roach."That protection I wear doesn't work that well," he said. "He beat the shit out of me yesterday. He hurt me with more shots than usual. And the other day he knocked me down right in my ass. First time in my life. He uses his whole body weight, from his legs. He's got so much explosion. He's so quick and snappy, he just like ... wham! He actually explodes on you. And that's one thing he's always had. But now he knows how to use it effectively. It's something we work on every day, but that power of his, I can't take credit for that. He was born with it. He could always knock you out with one punch. I've tried to get him to hone that power in a more productive way."For the next month in this quaint city, far away from the maddening crowds in Manila, the two will gradually hone that incredible power and speed with some of the most-extreme training Roach has ever been a part of. "It's intense and continuous," Roach said of Pacquiao's workouts. "He does an hour and a half in the morning with the runs. Then we do three and a half in the afternoon. He doesn't rest. We've done an hour on the mitts and he ignores the bell, he works right through it. Actually, if he needs a day off from training camp, I'm going to let him go. The hardest to do is to get him to take a day off. "Sometimes I'm afraid he's going to burn himself out and overdo it. I tell him to take a day off and I'll catch him running 10 miles. It'll be a blessing if he takes a day off. I welcome that. I don't have confidence without reason. His work ethic is it."
Why is it so hard to make big fights? Part II
<i>This is the second in a two-part series examining the reasons behind the difficulty boxing has had in recent months putting together its bigger events.</i>As discussed in <a href="http://www.ringtv.com/blog/2340/why_is_it_so_difficult_to_get_big_fights_made/">Part I</a> of the series, several fights involving elite boxers have recently been either postponed, announced and then retracted, or were being negotiated for far longer than seemed ordinary or necessary.Putting together big fights has rarely been very easy business in this game, but the degree of difficulty lately would appear to be greater than at other times in the recent past. As luck would have it, in the two weeks since the first article ran, several solid events have come together or solidified. The Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez fight is definitely on, as is the oft-postponed Andre Dirrell-Andre Ward bout. Carl Froch-Arthur Abraham finally has a home, a bantamweight tournament is coming to Showtime, and Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana and Juan Manuel Marquez-Michael Katsidis are done deals. This is no small news and suggests that the final months of what has been a mostly abysmal year for boxing will be superb. The truth remains, however, that many of these fights came together only after hard negotiations that were protracted and grueling even by boxing's standards, and that false starts, delays, retractions and done deals that weren't done at all seemed the norm. An excellent example is the Tim Bradley-Devon Alexander match, which at this writing is purportedly a scant few days from being "official." Again.The best available evidence suggests that at the root of things lies a power struggle that pits the game's three most powerful entities -- Top Rank, Golden Boy Promotions and HBO -- against everyone else. Those forced to do business on a smaller scale than those in boxing's triangle of power want the freedom and leverage to move their fighters as they see fit while maximizing their financial gain. Meanwhile, the game's power brokers want to continue to strengthen and increase their leverage and scope, necessarily at the expense of their smaller competitors. Toward this end, Top Rank and Golden Boy have sought to make most of the bigger fights "in-house" -- a practice defended by manager Cameron Dunkin in Part I of this series -- but almost universally cited among smaller promoters as an impediment to making the best matches the sport has to offer. Dan Goossen of Goossen Tudor Promotions told Ringtv.com it's just bad business. "For many years I battled Bob (Arum) and Don (King) and quite frankly felt back then as I do today that keeping everything in-house is a detriment to the overall good of the sport," Goossen said. "Today we're still on the same business road, which is very detrimental."Citing the upcoming Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito fight, Goossen told RingTV.com that he must suppose Arum asks himself why he would put his fighter in with anyone that is not his fighter when he can still make a lot of money giving the fans a B-level or C-level opponent and sell it like an A-level pay-per-view. "What Bob is saying," Goossen said, "is, 'I don't want to lose my star attraction to a fighter my guy probably can't beat. I'd rather keep it in-house and do all my spin marketing and I'll make a lot of money because people will buy it. I'll be able to sell it.' Which he will. The problem is the next day, after people put down 50 bucks, is whether they throw up their arms again and say, 'Why did I buy this?' We've got to get away from that."Calls to Top Rank seeking comment were not returned.Goossen also said that it is incumbent on the fighters to push for fights against the best available competition, the way the best fighters did in past eras."When everything's said and done I don't blame Bob because it's a good, self-serving financial move by him," Goossen said. "But like with many instances in our sport, those self-serving financial gains hurt our sport further than it's been hurt by that thought process. "... When Hagler, Leonard, Hearns and Duran were fighting, it was the fighters insisting on the best fights. If Bob had his druthers in those days, he would have milked it the way he's milking Pacquiao right now."Gary Shaw agrees about keeping fights in-house. "It ruins boxing, which has always been about making the best fights. What (Golden Boy and Top Rank) are trying to do is copy the UFC model," he said. And what's wrong with that?"If you go through their rosters," Shaw said, "they don't always have the best. At 140 pounds the top would be Bradley and Alexander and Khan, but the fact Golden Boy has Khan and (Victor) Ortiz and (Marcos) Maidana, HBO let them off the hook by not forcing them to fight the likes of Alexander and Bradley.""Wouldn't it have been a great tournament if Golden Boy decided to put their fighters in a tournament against the best fighters the world?"Shaw believes HBO has seriously damaged the sport in two ways that prevent bigger fights from getting made. "The worst thing HBO ever did was giving Golden Boy an output deal, which tipped the scale for boxing and for the promoters, allowing them to sign a lot of fighters they couldn't sign because they have dates - with no fighters and no fights," he said."(Also), the tail now wags the dog. The networks, by throwing crazy money around, have ruined the sport of boxing by paying fighters money they don't deserve. I'm all for fighters making money because the only way I make money is if my fighters make money. But then you try to make a fight and you can't because the fighters think they're worth more money than the networks are willing to pay." Compounding the problem, Shaw said, is that there are no secrets. The advent of the Internet has given fighters direct access to fans and media and, importantly, one another. "The fighters talk to one another," Shaw said. "And if a fighter goes on the Internet and says HBO is paying $1.8 million for this fight, HBO doesn't get on and say 'That's not true, he's getting $850,000.' So fighters are always thinking every other fighter is making a lot of money because the fighter saying it wants to brag to make himself look bigger and all the other fighters believe him. "The networks should revamp their budgets. And then they could put on twice as many fights, and the fighters should be paid based on their drawing power."Calls made to HBO seeking comment were not returned.Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy, demonstrating the vast difference in perception that exists between the game's top power brokers and everyone else, said it's common sense that fights between guys working under the same umbrella are easier to make. In other words, it's not in-house fights that keep the better fights from getting made, but squabbling promoters. "It's usually the promoters fighting about it, and that's the reason fights don't get done," Schaefer said. "There's no question about it that a fight is much easier to get done if you have one promoter involved than if you have two promoters involved. "But I don't agree with the statement that big fights aren't getting done," Schaefer said. "Big fights <i>are</i> getting done. There is one big fight that hasn't been made yet; Mayweather-Pacquiao." (Disclosure: Golden Boy Promotions owns THE RING magazine and RingTV.com)Schaefer went on to say that rather than impeding the making of bigger fights, cable networks are forcing them to happen by demanding the highest quality for their money. "I have never seen big fights getting done with the regularity they're getting done with right now," he said. "The reason is the networks are being much more strict with the kind of fights they are willing to buy."Schaefer cited the Williams-Martinez rematch as a good example of how that is helping the sport. "Williams-Martinez is the best fight in my opinion in that weight class and it is done," he said. "That's because (HBO) stuck to their guns. They didn't want another Martinez fight or another Williams fight. They stuck to their guns. That's the one they wanted."Schaefer also said that promoters aren't wielding the power in the sport right now, and those who believe otherwise are wrong. "Since HBO -- or Showtime, for that matter -- are the ones with the wallet, the wallet rules. It's not the promoters, it's the people with the wallet and the money who are going to say how they are going to spend it, and what they want to buy," Schaefer said."So the power really lies with the networks to say, 'You know what, we're willing to spend money, but don't tell us what we want to buy. We want to buy, for example, Bradley-Alexander. If you guys don't want to do that, that's fine. Go find someone else who's going to buy fights for these two guys fighting somebody else. So that's where the power is." In that scenario, one can see why smaller promoters might be unhappy: They've invested money bringing a fighter to a high level and rather than being able to maneuver into gradually larger purses in front of a very large audience, they're forced to take a dangerous fight they might not otherwise take. If he loses, there goes their investment and any likelihood they can get that fighter on a big stage again. That's Shaw's take, which is curious given his seeming willingness to put his fighters in tough. "The networks don't have any interest in fighters with multiple losses on their records," he said. "That's another problem with our sport." The record says otherwise. HBO showcased Arturo Gatti, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito and even Paul Malignaggi after losses. Showtime didn't drop Vic Darchinyan after Nonito Donaire stopped him. Or, for that matter, after Joseph Agbeko beat him. Even Pacquiao's lost three times. Recent comments attributed to Oscar De La Hoya by reporter Ben Grossman of TV trade publication Broadcasting & Cable can only add to the anxiety and resentment felt by the smaller promoters. According to Grossman, De La Hoya said Golden Boy's plan is to "sign all the talent and get all the TV dates; then you can have your own agenda and have a schedule for the fans and the sport. You can do a monthly PPV, a bi-weekly HBO fight, you can have the best fighters fight each other. When you have five or six promoters, it's very difficult."Asked whether he plans to take over the sport, De La Hoya replied, "My plan is not to take over boxing, but really do what no other promoter was able to do, and that is have unified rules and one commissioner and make sure the fighter is taken care of and is not cheated out of anything. That's one of the reasons boxing hasn't really taken itself to the next level, because we cannot make those big fights and a lot of times promoters are the ones in the way."We are very transparent with whatever we do with our fighters, and in a way, yes, we do want to take over. Well, we don't want to take control of boxing, but we want to do the right thing for the sport."Depending on one's point of view, that's either the best or worst thing that could happen to the game. Time will tell. Until then, there are good fights to watch over the next couple months. Lots of them, finally. It's about time. <b>Some random observations from last week:</b>Things really are slow these days. I haven't experienced so much uncomfortable silence since that time I called the IBF and asked the guy who answered the phone to explain their rankings at junior lightweight. ...Things certainly are looking up, though. In case you missed it, they just made Kelly Pavlik-Bryan Vera. Vera just lost to a guy in the Ukraine who couldn't be more anonymous if he were the Green Party's presidential candidate. You can't blame Pavlik for taking an easy fight, though. He took such a beating from Martinez last time out I thought he was going to say to hell with it and buy Jack Loew's driveway-paving business. He deserves an easy one and this guy will give it to him. Vera makes Jesse Feliciano look like Wilfred Benitez. ... Gary Shaw discussing his intellect: "My father once told me that if I'm the smartest person in the room, I should get out of that room." ...Call me a sadist if you want, but I think referee David Mendoza was wrong to stop the Tim Coleman-Patrick Lopez fight on <I>ShoBox</I> just because Lopez fell into the corner when getting up. The guy's got until "10" to get it together. How do you know he wouldn't have? Cripes, haven't any of these guys ever seen <I>Rocky</I>?On the other hand, Ray Corona's timing was perfect in Archie Ray Marquez's win over Juan Santiago. Speaking of Marquez, between the first name and the handspeed, the kid's got a heck of a future. ... Don't go throwing your money away betting Maidana's punch over Khan's chin. Maidana isn't the kind of puncher Khan has to fear; he's too slow. Khan wins easy. ... Thank goodness Kassim Ouma beat Joey Gilbert. Any other result would have signified the collapse of the universe. ...Wondering how in the hell Shannon Briggs got a fight with Vitali Klitschko? It's easy: Briggs' manager is Greg Cohen. Cohen recently founded Empire Sports and Entertainment, and hired Shelly Finkel to be CEO. Finkel used to manage the Klitschkos (he now "advises" them). This is example 971 of "How Things Work" -- not just in boxing, but in all business. ...Everyone scratching their heads over Arum's plan to ugly-up Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by matching him against Miguel Cotto can stop scratching with the news that Chavez is meeting Alfonso Gomez. Yep. That's more like it. ...<I>Bill Dettloff, THE RING magazine's Senior Writer, is working on a biography of Ezzard Charles. <a href="mailto:dettloff@ptd.net">Bill can be contacted at dettloff@ptd.net</a></I>
Video analysis: What's next for Donaire? 'JuanMa' says stay away from 126
Before this weekend's fight, Nonito Donaire was highly regarded at 118 pounds, but after a second-round knockout of Fernando Montiel, the Filipino-American has vaulted to the top of the class. Now there's talk of Donaire jumping to 122 or 126.
Juan Manuel Lopez is the top dog at featherweight. He says Donaire better be careful before jumping eight pounds.
"I think that at 118, he should dominate without any problems and perhaps he can do the same at 122 pounds, but at 126 I think right now it’s a little too much for him," Lopez told BoxingScene.com. "Not only against me, but against [Yuriorkis] Gamboa and against Orlando Salido. So far he’s never felt a blow from a man at 126 pounds. It is not the same. [Donaire] is not a fight I would dismiss. It would be a good fight, but at the right time. Right now, I think he’s not ready [to be at featherweight]."
Yahoo! Sports' lead boxing writer Kevin Iole joined us to talk about the Donaire victory over Montiel and agrees with JuanMa, the hot shot should gradually move to 126.
When should five legends who stuck around too long have retired?
<font size="1" color="#000000">Evander Holyfield (left) probably should've retired more than a decade ago. Photo / Mary Ann Owen-FightWireImages.com</font>Who ever thought we'd see a day when Roy Jones' record would include seven defeats? Or, perhaps more accurately, and certainly more depressingly, seven defeats and counting?The news last week that Jones' fight with Danny Santiago was postponed because of a hand injury does nothing but delay the inevitable. Jones will fight again. And the smart money says he will lose again - probably not against Santiago, but against someone eventually. Jones once was nearly unbeatable. Now he's beatable even to a fringe contender like Danny Green.Whether you loved or hated Jones in his prime, you have to feel sad for him now, as he nears his 42nd birthday and still insists on making his living as a professional boxer. For fight fans, this brand of emotional distress is nothing new. With rare exceptions, our pugilistic heroes always hang on longer than we'd like them to.Maybe once or twice in a generation, a superstar fighter makes a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpUyb37CFT4">Costanza-like exit</a>: Rocky Marciano. Marvin Hagler. Lennox Lewis. Ricardo Lopez, if you could call him a superstar.The vast majority hang on far too long. But who says we have to settle for the unhappy endings they give us? Why can't we re-write the endings so that the fight game's finest retire at the absolute perfect moment?What follows is a look at what would have been the perfect note on which to go out for the five biggest stars of Jones' era: Jones himself, Oscar De La Hoya, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Julio Cesar Chavez. (Note: George Foreman probably belongs on that list in terms of star power, but you could make a strong case that his second retirement actually was well timed, so I've chosen to exclude him from this discussion.)<b>ROY JONES</b>This one is easy: Jones' perfect time to retire was after he beat John Ruiz to claim a heavyweight belt. It would have seemed ludicrous at the time for Jones to quit after one fight at heavyweight and with several options for eight-figure paydays out there. But in hindsight, we know he never fought again at heavyweight anyway, missed out on those eight-figure fights (against the likes of Tyson, Lewis or Holyfield) and hit the wall with maximum force when he tried to cut back down from an all-muscle 193 pounds to 175.If Jones had quit in '03 after dominating Ruiz, he would have been 48-1 and would have had a decent case that he belonged in boxing's all-time pound-for-pound Top Five, near names like Robinson and Armstrong. Sure, detractors would have held his opposition against him, but the case could have at least been made on Jones' behalf. Not anymore. When the greatest fighters of all-time saw their physical abilities decline, they found other ways to win at least some of their major fights. Who's the best opponent Jones defeated after his controversial decision victory over Antonio Tarver in '03? A washed-up, blown-up and rusty Felix Trinidad? The decaying remains of Jeff Lacy? Anthony Hanshaw?Had Jones quit on top at age 34 after the Ruiz fight, sure, there would have been unanswered questions, but is that such a bad thing? Maybe if Marciano hadn't retired when he did, he would have lost four of his next six fights and ended up rated on par with Max Baer or Floyd Patterson or Ken Norton, somewhere on the borderline of the all-time heavyweight Top 25. Unanswered questions are sometimes preferable to the answers we end up getting.<b>OSCAR DE LA HOYA</b>There are two very different questions to consider here: When would retirement have best served De La Hoya? And when would De La Hoya's retirement have best served the sport of boxing?I wrote a column the day after De La Hoya knocked out Ricardo Mayorga, taking the unpopular stance that "The Golden Boy" should retire immediately because he was never going to get another opportunity so perfect, against another opponent who could make him look so sensational, to go out on top. I took heat from some other writers for suggesting that De La Hoya walk away at age 33. But we now know that moment was indeed his last opportunity to go out with people buzzing primarily about his talent.However, De La Hoya did benefit financially by fighting on, and the sport benefited enormously because he passed the torch of superstardom, to varying to degrees, to Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. But this article is about the fighters themselves and what's best for them. And when all factors are considered, I think De La Hoya retired just one fight too late.The money he made against Mayweather was well worth any punishment he took, and his reputation wasn't damaged at all by a razor-close loss to the then pound-for-pound king. If he'd come out after that and announced that his next fight, in the Los Angeles area against Steve Forbes, was a hometown farewell fight, it would have provided the perfect ending. We all know it would have been tough to quit at that point, without Pacquiao having dished out that beating most fighters need in order to be convinced the hourglass is bottom-heavy, but in retrospect, that's when Oscar should have gotten out.<b>MIKE TYSON</b>There's plenty to chew on here. If Tyson had quit all the way back in 1988, right after destroying Michael Spinks, some would have considered him the greatest heavyweight who ever lived. If he'd retired after the Bruce Seldon fight in '96 - fueled by some sort of "I can't fight in a world without Tupac" sentiment - he'd have been spared most of his lowest moments in the ring. If he'd faded into Bolivian after falling to Lewis in '02, it would have been a sad but fitting ending and he wouldn't have had to lose to any ham-and-eggers. And if he'd hung around for exactly one more fight after that, he could have gone out on a high note, with a one-punch KO of Clifford Etienne.While the first couple of scenarios are perfect from a legacy standpoint, they're just too absurdly unrealistic. We can all agree Tyson should have quit sometime before losing to Danny Williams and Kevin McBride. But what would have been preferable: ending with the Lewis loss or the Etienne win?It's a tough call, but on the off chance he might never have gotten a tattoo on his face, I'll go with the Lewis loss. From the defeat itself to his seemingly-at-peace postfight interviews and the image of him cradling his baby in the dressing room afterward, it would have been a sweetly poetic ending to a turbulent ride.<b>EVANDER HOLYFIELD</b>I got Holyfield on the phone last week and asked him when the perfect time to retire would have been, and he said, "In 2018, after I defeat Wladimir Klitschko to re-unify the heavyweight championship of the world."(Note to all those without senses of humor: This is not a real quote. I did not really interview Holyfield last week. Please do not post this quote on your Twitter feeds as some sort of exclusive scoop.)It's hard to believe it, but Holyfield is still fighting more than a decade after the perfect time for his retirement. That time was at the end of 1999, after he lost his rematch to Lewis. It was a fight that could have gone either way (I scored it a draw from ringside), which was good news for Holyfield's reputation since it furthered the belief that he would have beaten Lewis in his prime, having nearly done so on what we assumed were his last legs.Holyfield did score one impressive win after that, upsetting Hasim Rahman in Atlantic City, N.J., but we can live with that stricken from his record because it was more than compensated for by his six post-Lewis defeats and, most importantly, his trilogy with John Ruiz. For the record, the horror of that trilogy is frequently overstated by those with short memories. The first and second fights were decent and packed some drama; only the third was truly awful. But the three fights launched Ruiz into the heavyweight elite, so in order to erase from existence Ruiz vs. Kirk Johnson and Ruiz vs. Fres Oquendo, Holyfield retiring in '99 becomes a must for fight fans.<b>JULIO CESAR CHAVEZ</b>The great Chavez getting abused by the ordinary Willy Wise remains one of the saddest sights of the last couple of decades in boxing. And the WBC leaving Chavez ranked No. 1 after that so he could get clubbed into submission by a prime Kostya Tszyu remains one of the strongest arguments for the abolition of Jose Sulaiman's band of merry scumbags.Even though Chavez was on the decline from his 1993 "draw" against Pernell Whitaker on, he remained a championship-caliber fighter for a few more years and it wouldn't have been reasonable to expect him to retire after his first official defeat (against Frankie Randall) or his second (against De La Hoya).The right time probably would have been after defeat No. 3, also against De La Hoya. Chavez got more business done than he did in the first fight with Oscar, made what amounted to a gutsy last stand at age 36, then undid some of the gutsiness by surrendering on his stool after the eighth round. Maybe that wouldn't have been the perfect image to leave on. But it was the perfect sign that the fight had been beaten out of Chavez and, in hindsight, the perfect way to spare Chavez the humiliating experiences that followed.<b>RASKIN'S RANTS</b>- A penny's worth of free public relations advice for boxers: If you've ever made a million dollars in a single night, don't complain about being in a "slave contract."- A penny's worth of free public relations advice for ex-boxers-turned-promoters: Just don't talk to the press. Ever.- Hey, I didn't fall asleep during <i>ShoBox</i> last Friday night! No, not because the fights were over so quickly; because I fell asleep more than two hours before the show started. A penny's worth of free advice to rapidly aging semi-narcoleptic boxing writers with little kids who get up at 5 o'clock every morning: Don't even bother trying.- I did catch <i>ShoBox</i> on my DVR Saturday morning, and that definitely goes down as one of the best cards in the history of the show. I don't know where a guy with four knockouts in 19 prior fights gets off throwing an uppercut like the one Tim Coleman used to wreck Patrick Lopez, but I'm glad he threw it.- Boxing may be dead this October, but <a href="http://ringtheory.podbean.com/">Ring Theory</a> isn't. Check out a new episode later this week. Who knows, Bill Dettloff and I might even come up with something to talk about.<i><a href="mailto:raskinboxing@yahoo.com">Eric Raskin can be reached at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.</a> You can read his articles each month in THE RING magazine and follow him on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/EricRaskin">@EricRaskin</a></i>
Jessie Vargas returns to Fight Night Club
Junior welterweight prospect Jessie Vargas returns to <i>Fight Night Club</i> on Thursday night at Club Nokia in Los Angeles.The former amateur star, who is trained by Roger Mayweather in his hometown of Las Vegas, faces Oxnard, Calif.-based Argentine Pablo Sarmiento in the eight-round welterweight main event on Sports Net and RingTV.com.Vargas (11-0, 6 knockouts) has stopped his two previous opponents at the downtown night spot, Robert Luna in one round in February and Ernest Zavala in six rounds in June. In between he stopped Arturo Morua in six rounds on the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Shane Mosley card in May, giving Vargas three straight KOs.The 39-year-old Sarmiento (34-13-2, 16 KOs) has some ability and experience but is making a comeback after a six-year hiatus from the sport, having last fought when he lost a split decision to Colin Lynes in 2004.Also on the card, in the co-main event, Anthony Martinez (5-0, 4 KOs) of Las Vegas faces Ronnie Peterson of St. Paul, Minn., in a four-round welterweight bout. Martinez is 2-0 since returning from a three-year hiatus from boxing.Irish prospect Jamie Kavanagh (2-0, 1 KO) faces Ricardo Malfavon (0-2) of Santa Ana, Calif., in a four-round welterweight bout. Kavanagh, who had an extensive amateur career, is trained by Freddie Roach in Hollywood.Salvador Rios (1-0, 1 KO) of Santa Ana fights Marcus Robinson of Lancaster, Calif., who is making his pro debut. And Ramon Valadez (1-1) of Los Angeles faces Carlos Hernandez (3-3-2) of San Fernando, Calif., in a four-round lightweight bout.The card also includes three amateur bouts.Tickets, ranging from $19.75 to $250 (on stage), are available by calling TicketMaster at 1-800-745-3000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-745-3000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-745-3000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-745-3000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, online at www.ticketmaster.com and at the Staples Center box office.
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