Category — Squared circle

“Showdown” Joe Ferraro from Rogers Sportsnet caught up with boxer Roy Jones Jr. following Anderson Silva’s annihilation of Forrest Griffin at UFC 101 on Saturday to get his reaction, especially considering Silva wants to box Jones.

Rodney King, the Black American whose beating by four LAPD cops in 1991 was captured on video and sparked race riots after they were acquitted of any wrongdoing, is sliding down the slippery pseudo-celebrity slope. His stint on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew behind him, he’s now ready to battle a few more demons in the boxing ring.

According to MMA News, King has agreed to fight on a Celebrity Boxing Federation card on September 12. Exactly which washed-up celebrity the 6-foot-4, 250-pounder will face isn’t known yet. How about former LAPD officer Stacey Koon?

Brazilian police have ruled boxing great Arturo Gatti’s death was a suicide and have let his 23-year-old wife Amanda Rodrigues, who was suspected of murdering him, walk free. But Gatti’s family back in Montreal isn’t buying it and have requested his body be exhumed and a new autopsy be performed by the Quebec coroner’s office.

Gatti was found dead of apparent strangulation in his hotel room in Recife, in north-eastern Brazil on July 11. Police originally believed Rodrigues had strangled him with the strap of her handbag while he slept and had arrested her, but they later determined he hanged himself.

Gatti was IBF super-featherweight champion in 1995 and WBC light-welterweight champion in 2004. His career spanned 49 fights and he won 40 of them, 31 by knockout. He retired in 2007.

Okay, this is weird. Yesterday I posted a blurb about UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva’s boxing aspirations and how he wants to fight Roy Jones Jr. Old news, I thought. Very old. But it was an excuse to put up this clip of Silva boxing that I’d come across.

Except today I come across a story on the Fighters Only site that makes the Silva vs. Jones story very new.

“It is undoubted that I will face Roy Jones,” he’s quoted as saying. “We have talked too much, have signed some contracts and we want to make it the sooner the better. It’s not for money or spotlight, it’s for my desire. I watch Roy Jones since he competed as an amateur and in the Olympic Games. I’m looking forward to this fight to put in the ring everything I know, to show my students in the future that I understand what I may say over this or that and don’t seem a pirate parrot.”

Okay, I’m not sure what he means by “pirate parrot.” I’m pretty sure that’s more of a translation issue from Portuguese to English. As for indicating that some contracts have been signed, who knows? Sounds kind of hinky.

But Silva’s desire is certainly there. He’s got four fights on his UFC contract including his UFC 101 bout with Forrest Griffin, so any boxing match is still a year-and-a-half or more away. And that’s not considering the infamous “champion’s clause” in his contract which enables the UFC to extend his contract indefinitely and at their discretion if he is the champion at the end of his existing contract. And I can’t imagine Silva being allowed to just walk away from the UFC after just four more fights.

The Roy Jones Jr. highlight reel I posted a couple days ago got me thinking about Anderson Silva. The UFC middleweight champ has a 1-1 boxing record and has said he’d like to box Jones. That’s old news, but it gives me an excuse to post this video of Silva’s second fight, a 2005 second-round TKO over Julio Cesar De Jesus, who was making his professional debut. Silva looks good, sharp, crisp, but not Roy Jones Jr. good.

No doubt Emanuel Augustus is one of the most-entertaining boxers in the game (assuming he’s still in the game; he hasn’t fought since November of last year). He’s a bit of a clown in the ring, not a joke, but an entertainer known for his “string-puppet dance.” I wonder how good he’d be – he’s got a 38-30-6 pro record – if he stopped with the antics and just boxed. Would he not lose so many close decisions? Or is he like the Sundance Kid – he has to move to get his shots off and hit his target?

Forty-year-old Roy Jones Jr. is set to prove he’s still got it. The 53-5 boxer, who has held belts in four weight classes and eight different promotions, goes back in the ring against former super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy on Aug. 15.

There’s something truly horrifying in this video from last Saturday’s boxing match between junior welterweights Omar Chavez and Marco Antonio Nazareth.

The 23-year-old Nazareth died four days later at a hospital in Puerto Vallarta as the result of a brain hemorrhage sustained in the loss to Chavez, the son of former champion Julio Cesar Chavez.

It’s a tragic loss, sad, regrettable. What makes it even worse is that, as this video shows, Nazareth wasn’t knocked out during the fight, there was no single killer punch. You can actually see him finish the fight, sit on his stool in the corner, take a drink from a water bottle and then gradually slip into unconsciousness. The repeated punishment his brain took, during the fight, during training, during previous fights, it all adds up and in this case the bill was as steep as it comes.

Miguel Torres, the WEC bantamweight champion and good luck charm for the Chicago White Sox, is one of the most exciting fighters in all of MMA. And he speaks his mind.

Torres spoke with the folks over at Yahoo! Sports about his title bout with Brian Bowles on August 9, but it was the stuff he had to say about MMA salaries, Anderson Silva, Brock Lesnar, boxer Floyd Mayweather and the soon-to-be-in-toy-stores Miguel Torres doll (“It has a mullet!”) that makes it worth reading. I just wished they’d asked Torres his thoughts on Bowles’ Ken doll ‘do. Wowzer! Does the guy not own a mirror? Does it offer some sort of protective helmet head?

Anyway, here are a few excerpts:

On not getting paid as much as much as heavyweight fighters: I put in the same training time, if not more. I believe I possess more skill, because I don’t have the size to overcompensate. I can’t Brock Lesnar somebody and lay on them, and punch them with my right hand the whole time and knock them out that way.

On not being as big a draw as heavyweights like Lesnar: I’m more interesting than he is. I’ve heard Brock Lesnar. I’ve interviewed him. It’s like talking to the Hulk. “So Brock, what did you think about the fight?” “Brock smash Mir, Brock eat baby, I’m gonna drink a Coors, and maybe get on my wife.” That’s Brock’s interview! He’s getting paid millions of dollars for that.

On Floyd Mayweather: Mayweather’s got all the exposure in the world, and everyone thinks he’s a god because of all the exposure he’s gotten. If it was not for that 24/7 show, no one would give a fuck about Mayweather, he’d be some other punk, wannabe rapper… Everyone hates Mayweather, because of how they portrayed him on 24/7. He’s the cockiest, ghettoest dude you can look at. And he’s so cocky, so arrogant, everyone wants to see him lose. The other guy looks like a hero. The other guy could be nothing, but Mayweather looks so cocky, so arrogant, you want to see him lose, and you will watch for that very reason… I would love to fight Mayweather, just because of the simple fact that I think he’s a cocky asshole. He thinks that MMA was invented by white people because they couldn’t win in boxing any more. Well, I’m not a white person, and I will smash his ass. I don’t care. His style of boxing is all built on getting people in the clinch. He’ll hit them, and then he’ll get in the clinch with them. Then the referee breaks them, and he’ll hit them and grab them again. I think it’s a great strategy. It’s not clean boxing, but it’s smart boxing. He’s going to hit somebody and grab them in MMA, and he’ll be done for. They’ll take him down. That’ll be all. I’ll be on top of the list to fight him.

On the mulleted Miguel Torres doll: It’s going to be weird to see all the kids playing with the little dolls of me. My daughter will have five of them. They’re going to beat up all of her other toys.