Scoop: Not Your Typical Boxing Column: #10

January 27th, 2012

By Scoop Malinowski

Guillerno Rigondeaux is one of the best fighters in the business today. The 31-year old super bantamweight champ has won two Olympic gold medals (2000, 2004) and just won a world title in just his ninth pro fight, with a sixth-round KO of Californian Rico Ramos. If “El Chacal” did not leave Cuba a few years ago, he surely would have become the only man in boxing history to win three Olympic boxing gold medals in 2008. Rigondeaux, promoted by Top Rank, is in position to become a major star. Moments after clobbering the highly-touted Ramos, Rigondeaux called out Nonito Donaire who later answered the challenge by saying he is more interested to test his skills against fellow Cuban dynamo Gamboa.

Floyd Mayweather attended the Rigondeaux-Ramos match but was booed by the Las Vegas crowd when the ring announcer made the announcement. They keep telling us Money Mayweather is such a major star but it does not bode well when the Las Vegas resident is booed in his own hometown. I remember hearing champions like Ali, Frazier, Lewis, Duran get their names announced at fights and receiving thunderous ovations.

And speaking of Mayweather, if he really truly wants to face Manny Pacquiao next, why didn’t he make a point to attend the Pacquiao-Marquez 3 fight which was also staged in his hometown? I’ll tell you why – he doesn’t really want the fight, he just pretends to want it. Fakery and deception are Floyd’s game.

Seth Mitchell will make his return on the Hopkins-Dawson 2 undercard in April in Atlantic City. Mitchell has emerged as the most exciting African American heavyweight prospect since, perhaps, Michael Grant.

IBF/WBO/WBA and Ring Heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko has been relaxing and golfing in South Florida and will leave for training camp in Austria at the end of the month. Klitschko will face former Cruiserweight champ Jean Marc Mormeck in March. EPIX network will televise the world title fight in the United States.

Did you ever see the movie “Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man”? It has a boxing theme, Bud and Lou play a pair of private eyes hired by a badly managed boxer who drinks a potion and becomes an invisible man. The boxer wants to catch the gangsters who set him up. It’s a silly little movie but the boxing angle makes it worth watching. There used to be a lot of boxing themes in the old black and white comedies, Charlie Chaplin did a boxing scene in the all time classic “City Lights.” Ralph Kramden got himself into a boxing match with a goon in one of the Honeymooners episodes. It reflects how popular boxing was as a part of the culture in those days.

Bobby Gunn, the Bareknuckle Heavyweight champ, is trying to secure a fight with Roy Jones Jr. Gunn, a cruiserweight beltholder, is a very interesting character, very smart and he has a throwback aura about him, both in and out of the ring. I think Jones vs. Gunn could be a good fight to see, much more so than Jones vs. Haye.

A funny boxing memory from Bobby Czyz: “My first pro fight. Because of (appearing on) ABC’s Wide World of Sports and the Olympic team and all that stuff, and my fighting the Irish team, before my first pro fight they had a press conference and somebody actually cared what I had to say. Because I was a local kid from Wanaque, NJ, fighting in Totowa. And they said, ‘Could you describe yourself? Who is Bobby Czyz?’ And I made the following statement: ‘I’m the antithesis of the stereotypical fighter.’ Which got nothing but laughter and roars [smiles]. I just thought that was funny. Because nobody talked like that, that fights. I’m different.”

And lastly, there are rumors that Mayweather will choose Miguel Cotto as his May 5 opponent. No chance of that happening. Cotto is perhaps the second most dangerous opponent Mayweather could pick, aside from Manny Pacquaio. Mayweather already ducked Cotto back in 2008 so if Floyd and his advisor actually do agree to face Cotto, who is far from finished, I would be very surprised. Mostly because a semi prominent boxing manager told me Haymon once told him he would never match Floyd against Margarito because “Margarito is just too big and too strong, and he never stops coming.” I just don’t think Floyd or Haymon would want to risk it with Cotto who looked excellent in dominating the still respected Margarito late last year. I will regain a considerable measure of respect for Floyd and Haymon if they agree to fight Cotto, after ducking Manny Pacquiao for about the seventh time over 26 months.