IBF
light heavyweight titlist Tavoris Cloud was scheduled to face Zsolt Erdei on
New Year’s Eve in Anaheim, California. Cloud, 23-0 (9), a boxer who was once
very active as he came up the ranks, had been stagnant in recent years. With
just one fight in 2009 and two outings in 2010, after last June’s stoppage of
Yusaf Mack, Cloud was looking forward to his latest assignment, hoping to build
momentum for more impactful fights in 2012.
Then
came the news that Erdei would be pulling out of their bout due to a hand
injury. The Showtime broadcast would be scrapped, his future in doubt.
What
was Cloud's reaction?
“Life
sucks,” was how the typically soft-spoken gentleman from Tallahassee put it.
But he admits to being frustrated. “Yes, I was but we got another opponent.
Showtime, they stuck to their word and they're still putting me on. So I'm glad
for that.”
This
Saturday night in Corpus Christi, Texas at the American Bank Center, Cloud faces
the tough Gabriel Campillo in what figures to be an entertaining and
competitive affair. So what did Cloud do during his down time? Perhaps go
fishing, as usual?
“I've
been in camp since like the middle of October but other than that, yeah, I do a
lot of fishing and go to events in the city that I stay in, talk to at-risk
youth. Things of that nature,” he explained. During this stretch, Bernard
Hopkins and Chad Dawson had their aborted match-up. Quite frankly, not much
else happened in this division. “I don't feel that the world is moving right
past me. I feel like that the world is getting artificial boxing matches; that's
how I feel. And I feel that when they finally get a chance to see Tavoris Cloud,
they'll get the real thing.”
It's
been a bit of a mystery why Cloud, who has a fan-friendly style, hasn't become
a staple on either HBO or Showtime. After playing to strong reviews on HBO,
where he earned plaudits from Larry Merchant, he was on the shelf the rest of
the year. It has surprised his promoter, Don King.
“Yes, it has,” he admitted, “I'm very, very shocked and amazed because they
talk about they want the best matches but yet it's not happening. But I'm going
to give them a second chance. Now you got a new man in Stephen Espinoza at
Showtime. I'm looking for bigger and better things from him. A new man at HBO
now with Ken Hershman. So I'm going to look to see better and bigger
things.”
King
makes it clear, “Tavoris Cloud challenges everybody in the world to fight him.
That's what we do. Let's drop the gauntlet and get right to it. From Bernard
Hopkins on down, anyone who so will, let him come. We're calling them all out.
I think [Cloud]'s the best in the world and I think he's the next Tyson and so
he's a guy here we gotta bring out and give an opportunity to fight. Let's
challenge everybody.”
Recently,
attempts to make bouts against the likes of Jean Pascal bogged down over the
issues of options. But the verbose promoter says that anyone willing to step up
to the plate and take their cuts with Cloud will not have to deal with that
issue, stating, “Any champion, we'll go winner-take-all. There's no such things
as any kind of options with anybody, so we've said that right off the bat. Any
challenger, they gotta do the same thing they make me do if they gonna come in
there. And that's only fair and square. Whatever it is, it makes no difference.
So we win, we win. If we lose, we lose. So he's ready to fight any and
everybody. Maybe two of them on the same night.”
Cloud
is at that stage where he's no longer that young fighter with a bright future.
As famed NFL coach George Allen once said, ‘The future is now.’ This is a fighter
who's in his prime moneymaking years.
“Oh,
yeah, there was definitely a sense of urgency. When I turned 30, I realized my
20's were over and I just want to do everything I can to try to reach my goals
of financial independence before I'm out of my 30's,” said Cloud, who
celebrated his birthday on January the 10th.
During
the stretch where he simply couldn't land a date on the premium cable networks,
Cloud was reportedly getting a bit antsy but insisted, “There really wasn't
frustration aimed towards Don King. I see things in a different way. I'm kind
of a spiritual person and I feel that God is leading me through all this and
all of this is just a test of my faith, a test of my patience. In due time, everything
will come to fruition.”
In
many respects, this is a referendum on Cloud’s promoter. The question is very
simple: In 2012, is Don still capable of being a King-maker? There was a time
when “DK” would have made Cloud a household name by now, performing on some of
the biggest shows in the sport. But in recent years, without a Mike Tyson, Julio
Cesar Chavez or Felix Trinidad as his clean-up hitter in his line-up, King was
made persona non grata for the most part at HBO and Showtime. The veteran
promoter says, “Tavoris is a good fighter. He's willing to fight and so we got
to get some fights for him. We can't play with ourselves. These guys, they won’t
fight and then the TV- as you so eloquently laid out- they have become the
promoters and so if they don't want to buy Tavoris, unless we jump through
hoops, that put us in a bad position. That's why I'm challenging everybody
beforehand because if he loses, it won’t make no difference anyway; ya know
what I mean?”
However,
before we talk of any future showdowns with the likes of Hopkins, Dawson, Pascal
or anyone else at 175, Cloud has a guy in Campillo that will not be an easy out.
He's a tall, active southpaw who throws leather in bunches- and like Cloud, he's
rarely in a bad fight. There is this question of whether or not ring rust will
affect Cloud. His trainer, Al Bonanni, thinks his fighter will be just fine. “Don't
forget; we had a good training camp for the first six weeks and we were ready
for Zsolt Erdei and [Cloud] took that hard because it was only two or three
weeks before the scheduled December 31st fight. So we felt bad. He
was happy about the training. We had good sparring; everything was good.
Neither one of us was happy how it was canceled but then he went home for
Christmas and he stayed 10 days up there.
“So [Cloud] was able to relax and have Christmas and New Years with his family
and he came back January 2nd. So that broke it up and that made things
a little bit better for him.”
Bonanni
believes that it was key to have a break after the cancelation of the Erdei
fight before restarting camp to prevent his charge from getting stale in the
gym or getting fatigued mentally.
Cloud
states there is no need to break out the WD-40. “No rust. Physically, I feel
like I'm a caged beast that's used to the jungle. So let's ring the bell so
they can let me loose. There's no rust. I did a lot of sparring this camp
because the camp ended up being longer than it was supposed to be. I had three
right-handers I was sparring with and then I ended up sparring with three
southpaws. So I had a lot of sparring, young guys, fast guys. Y’ know, I'm
ready for anything. The furthest thing I am is rusty.” He says of the Spaniard
who will be across the ring from him, “Campillo, I don't know much about him.
The only thing I know is on February 18th, he ain't going to be the
new world champion. I know he's a tall southpaw and that's about it.”
Campillo
is now trained by Gabriel Sarmiento (best known for his work with middleweight
champion Sergio Martinez) and has trained out in Oxnard, California for this
fight.
“I expect a little more of an aggressive Campillo,” said Bonnani. “I think he
really believes that he can beat Cloud. So I think he feels that he's big and
strong, although he has what, two knockouts? (Well, actually, Al, Campillo has
eight stoppages in 26 professional bouts) He doesn't have many knockouts that I
see but I don't think he's going to try to run. He's going to try to take it to
Cloud and I hope so because then I won’t have to go up the stairs too much.”
Hopefully,
it will be the first of many appearances from Cloud.
When
asked how many times he'd like to fight in '12, he said without hesitation, “Five.”
Five?!
“Five,
six; if I had my choice, I'd fight them all this year.”
EMAIL
Here's
an email I received recently from my old friend, “Battleship” Bill Pittman:
Hi Steve, you had be cracking up pretty
good when I read your match-making with Larry against Alverez. The line about
crow being high in protein was pretty good too and in fact, the entire Final
Furies was pretty funny! Nice job on the rest of the article too. It dovetailed
nicely with the one you wrote about Hershman at HBO last week. Hope Showtime
can continue the solid standard they’ve built for themselves over the last
several years and not become a GB/Hayman auxiliary.
My two cents on Mosley against Alverez,
is the same as the projected Chavez Jr. vs Margarito…YUK! What does GB and Arum
have against Mosley and Margarito that they want to try and get them both
beaten up when they should be retired? Sugar Shane should be putting in his 5
years and waiting for the Hall to call, not reminding us how far removed he is
from his prime. As for Margarito, he’s taken a lot of punishment in his last
few fights, does he feel he’s going to look like a Mexican Nick Fury when he
winds up with a permanent eye patch? Plus he’s just not a middleweight…but then
of course, neither is Junior, except for that brief time that he steps on the scale.
But seriously, why endanger both guys health, just so a young tiger can get a
big name scalp on his belt? It’s the lowest common denominator and we do way
too much of it in boxing. I’m not excited about Mayweather/Cotto anyway and if
the undercard turns out to be what you listed, I’ll save my $65 and wait for
Pac/Bradley, which seems like a more interesting fight to me.
Anyway, the boxing business, is the
boxing business and it seems to continue to survive and even thrive, despite
itself.
Keep up the good work, it’s always very
enjoyable!
Bill P
Elkhart, Indiana
Bill,
as always, thanks for your thoughts. Yeah, when it's all said and done, Ken
Hershman and Stephen Espinoza will be judged on the fights they program for
their respective networks. Ross Greenburg’s and Kery Davis’ (who is still
there, amazingly) failure to uphold the standards of HBO's boxing franchise is
the reason why both Hershman and Espinoza are in their new positions.
And
yeah, that's part of the unfortunate machinery of boxing where old lions get
sacrificed at the end of their careers. But I really wonder just how many of
your fellow fans will take your positions and save their money for June 9th (and I agree; Pacquiao-Bradley, to me, is a much more interesting fight from a
pure boxing standpoint). When it comes to pay-per-view, success is really
dictated oftentimes by the names on the marquee and not the actual match-up on
the canvas. However, as I've said before, when it comes to Mayweather-Cotto and
Pacquiao-Bradley, I'm just thankful we're getting some new, fresh face-offs.
By
the way, how do you like your new moniker? I didn't know you were a Navy guy till
you told me in one of your recent emails. No wonder why you seemed to like Glen
Johnson and the “Battleship” nickname I dropped on him a while ago.
LIN
FLURRIES
I
really like the March 24th offering on the NBC Sports Network put
together by Kathy Duva and Main Events, featuring the IBF junior welterweight
eliminator between Zab Judah and Vernon Paris, a heavyweight bout between
Bryant Jennings and Sergei Liakhovich and the return of Tomasz Adamek in
Brooklyn...According to my partner on “MaxBoxing Radio,” Corey Erdman, a May 19th bout between Michael Oliveira and Acelino Freitas will take place in Rio De
Janeiro. Don't laugh; this fight will do big numbers down there, I bet...This
is sadly predictable but Thomas Dulorme and Jonathan Gonzalez, members of
the highly touted “Team Puerto Rico,” are fighting this weekend on “ShoBox” at
the Chumash Casino. Yeah, that's television packaging at its finest/worst...To
steal a line from Larry Merchant, “Jeremy Lin makes Victor Cruz look like a sad
story.”...Speaking of which, no, Floyd Mayweather's comments on Lin did not
offend me. They're actually amusing in many ways and speak for themselves.
Again, consider the source. This is not Cornel West or Dr. Harry Edwards here.
And I certainly don't think he speaks for all African-Americans in this regard.
If I did, that would be more offensive than anything he could ever state about
Lin...Please tell me “Pan Am” is coming back for another season...Yeah, I just
received “Thompson Twins’ Greatest Hits,” the “Rocky IV” and “Flashdance”
soundtracks- so I'll have some new workout music for my Walkman. Just remind me
to buy a new headband and leg-warmers...Speaking of Lin, did you hear? He
really is a bad driver (he can't go to his left)...
