While
the “Super Six” final was happening in Atlantic City, New Jersey, this past
weekend between Andre Ward and Carl Froch to determine the world's best super
middleweight, in Cozumel, Mexico, another bout featuring a pair of
168-pounders, Librado Andrade and Donovan George, was scheduled for the right
to face IBF beltholder Lucian Bute. It figured to be a fun, back-and-forth
slugfest between two heavy-handed and aggressive bangers.
Only
the fight never took place.
It
turned out that the ring set up by the local promoter at the Froilan Lopez
Baseball Field was too small for the liking of George's handlers.
“The
ring was 15-by-15 [feet]. My contract said that Golden Boy would use its best
efforts to get a 20-by-20 ring for the fight,” said Leon Margules of Warriors
Boxing, which co-promotes George alongside 8 Count Productions. And yes, they
examined the dimensions. “I went in the ring with a tape measure,” he added.
When
asked if he felt Golden Boy, which represents Andrade, was looking to gain an
advantage by - excuse the pun- boxing them in, Margules responded, “What do you
think?” before adding, “To their credit- or to their detriment- I don't know
who's fault the ring was. They blame the local promoter and apologized to me.
They did not try to pressure me to stay in the fight.”
According
to Robert Diaz, who was on site for Golden Boy, “What happened was we were in
Cozumel. It's a very small island here and that's the only thing he was able to
get.” ‘He,’ in this case, was the local promoter, Pepe Gomez. “I mean, it was
to nobody’s knowledge until we got there to the venue that night. I got to the
venue; I walked in there with Abner Mares and I got approached, ‘Hey, we're not
fighting. It's a small ring.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ We looked; everyone
else fought in it. It didn't look small but obviously, yeah, it was small. When
they measured it, it came back 15-by15. It was a surprise to everyone. I went
over to the local promoter and I said, ‘Hey, you couldn't get anything bigger?
Is there anything we can do right now to extend it, to make it bigger?’”
It
was at that point that Diaz and Golden Boy matchmaker Eric Gomez got on the
phone with the IBF to discuss the matter. According to Diaz, Golden Boy does
not own any rings in Mexico and relies on the local promoters and venues to
provide them. According to Margules, “The IBF was on site with a supervisor who
looked at the contract and said, ‘It's your option. We will stand behind you.’”
According
to the Association of Boxing Commissions, the smallest ring should be no less
than 16-by-16. Tim Lueckenhoff, President of the ABC since 2001, explained, “That's
measured inside of the ropes. That's what’s on our website and on our
regulatory guidelines that the federal law requires that we maintain. Most of
the states follow that same measurement. So basically it would be 18-by-18 if
you measure the outside of the apron, if you measure on a two-foot apron.”
However,
since this fight took place south of the border, no such guidelines are
followed. While a 15-by-15 patch of canvas is OK for, say, flyweights, the main
event featured two super middleweights and referee Earl Brown, who is bigger
than both Andrade and George. Thinking about that matchbox set-up for that
night, Lueckenhoff laughed and said, “That sucker must've been small.”
“I
mean, have you ever seen a world title eliminator take place in a15-b-15 ring?
I've never seen it before,” said Mike Michael of Cestus Management, who manages
“Da Bomb.” He says that they have no qualms about their decision to pull out of
the fight. “Oh, absolutely. I think that Golden Boy has a clear conscience that
it was the right decision as well. Look, I don't think it was Golden Boy's
fault, to tell you the truth, because they were working through a local
promoter who put the ring there and nobody is going to see the ring there the
day before the fight. The rings get set up the day of the fight. The bottom
line is that I think we all got a clear conscience, us, our management company,
the promoters, Golden Boy. I think that was the right decision. I think everyone's
in agreement with that.”
Diaz
admitted, “I was surprised. I mean, fighters put in 10 weeks of training and to
decide last-minute, it was like, ‘What?!’ I feel for the fighters at the moment
because they've put in all their team and Librado brought up a very good point,
‘If we would’ve got here and the ring was 24-by-24, was I going to pull away
from the fight? No. I would fight.’ It happened to Librado in Canada [when he
faced Bute]. He showed up and it was a real big ring. He fought.
“Fighters
train to fight. I really don't think it was Donovan George's decision. I think
it was Leon’s.”
According
to IBF President Daryl Peoples, there are no clear guidelines on the minimum
size a ring should be in a fight sanctioned by his organization. “We don't have
anything definitive on it, so we, more or less, rely on the ABC regulatory
guidelines. They say 16 feet- which I think is small- but nonetheless it's 16
feet what they recommend.”
The
question now is: When will Andrade-George take place?
“We're
not ducking the fight,” Margules stated on Monday. “The IBF's going to stand
behind me, so we're in line for that shot. I can't speak for Golden Boy because
I haven't spoken to them since the night of the fight. They were very, very
nice to me and it was very cordial.”
Peoples
said on Monday that before making any rulings, he would first speak at length
to his supervisor (who was in attendance in Mexico) and gather more information
on the matter. But Lindsey Tucker, the IBF Championship Chairman told Maxboxing
that no decision on the matter had been made by Tuesday “only because we got a
letter from an attorney representing Andrade and we wanted to respond to that
first- and then, we were going to rule.”
Asked
about the content or tenor of that letter, Tucker said, “Well, they're asking
for us to appoint Andrade as the mandatory.”
This
much is clear; if you're a boxer who might be claustrophobic, don't cross the
border.
“Mexico
is never going to be a place where they make the big rings,” Diaz points out. “Mexicans
like to go toe-to-toe. That's the way they're brought up. That's in the
culture. That's how fights are.”
BUTE
Speaking
of Bute, it looks like instead of facing the winner of the “Super Six,” Andre
Ward, he will face the runner-up, Carl Froch.
Jean
Bedard of InterBox, which promotes Bute, confirmed to Maxboxing, “That's what
we're working on right now. There's some talks. Carl Froch has got a big story
here. He fought Jean Pascal, winning against him. He was always talking against
Lucian, that he was not fighting anyone. Our plan was to fight Andre Ward but
unfortunately, I think he wants to pass and wait to fight maybe another guy. So
Froch seems to be the best opponent right now for Lucian and he wants to be
able to fight in his country. So that's what we're working on.”
The
first Bute-Froch battle would take place in April in Canada. According to
Bedard, “If it's a good fight and everyone is interested in a second fight, it
could be in England.”
As
for a showdown with Ward- which seemed like the obvious plan when Bute was
inked to a three-fight deal last year by Showtime- one of the major issues will
be that while Ward fought to smaller and smaller crowds in the “Super Six” as
he was taken away from his home base of Oakland, Bute is one of the major
attractions in all of boxing in Montreal and Quebec. Bedard says, “They need to
work to build Andre Ward. I was surprised; he's a gold medalist, an Olympic
champion for the United States and the attendance, I would say there was more
British fans present there than the Americans.”
The
fight this past weekend had an announced crowd of just over 5,600 (To put that
into perspective, Bute's last outing against Glen Johnson in November drew
right around 16,000 fans to the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City).
“So
I think Ward is a good fighter in terms of boxing but he needs to be more
popular in the United States so we'll be able to do a bigger fight,” Bedard
continued. “So that's why I think he needs time to develop a base of fans and
then we can talk about doing a Bute-Ward fight.”
Bedard
makes it clear; if Ward raises his profile, they are willing to face him on
neutral ground somewhere in the States. “We know and Lucian knows that we will
have to go outside and sacrifice, I would say, the gate or part of the gate to
be recognized all over the world and that's one of our main goals. We think
it's too early based on what we saw in Atlantic City to think of doing a
neutral place to fight Andre Ward, like in New York. But I think he needs to be
more popular in the United States, so that it will make sense in terms of
money.”
The
reality is this, no matter if Ward has The
Ring magazine belt, some fantasy pound-for-pound ranking and a trophy for
winning a tournament, it's Bute who is the draw. Just fighting twice a year on
a premium cable network with no discernible increase to his Q-rating will not
get Ward this bout. He will need to be promoted- not just TV packaged like so
many other boxers in today's business. Bedard points out that Bute drew 14,000
for his match-up with Brian Magee, 10,000 for his fight against Jean Paul Mendy
in Romania and then his strong numbers for Johnson.
“Name
me another boxer that drew 40,000 people in 2011,” asked Bedard.
PASCAL
Regarding
the other boxer who does robust numbers in the Montreal/Quebec region, Jean
Pascal, it looks like he will have to wait and see about what will take place
with the WBC light heavyweight title between Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson,
who were ordered to rematch last week at the WBC convention, after their
October 15th fight was ruled a “no-decision” due to Hopkins injuring
his shoulder after getting planted in the canvas by Dawson.
If
Hopkins decides to vacate that title, Pascal could be in line to face Dawson
again for the belt. Regardless, Pascal can count on a strong hometown support
to lean on. “What I have and what they don't have is a strong market,” said
Yvon Michel of GYM, which handles Pascal's career.
He
added, “I believe Jean will have a very successful year. I believe he will
fight for a championship, that he will become champion again and I foresee a
fight at the end of the year between Pascal and Bute.” When asked about that
possibility, Bedard said, “Well, 2012, we don't know. We want to stay at 168 if
it's possible; we want to fight the best. I think we have good names on the
table and it's a very dynamic category. We can fight Froch; there's Mikkel
Kessler- that's a good fight for us- and also Andre Ward. So that's our main
guys we're focused on right now. So Jean Pascal is not on the list at the
moment.”
I'll
say this; if Bute-Pascal took place this year and staged at Montreal's Olympic
Stadium (where the historic first encounter between Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray
Leonard took place in 1980), it would draw between 30-40,000 fans.
SUPER
SIX
I
got this email recently on the attendance at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic
City for Ward-Froch from T. Briggs:
Steve,
I attended the fight Saturday night and sat in section 114, row A. It was the
4th fight that i've been to at the Boardwalk this year, i've been to at least
10 in my lifetime, second in the main arena(Martinez v Barker) and the other 2
fights were at the ballroom(Froch v Johnson & Williams v Lara). You stated
in your column "Sputtering Six" that you don't know of anyone who
believes there were "even 3,000 people" at the fight. I beg to differ
with that. I obviously didn't count every person there, but there were
certainly significantly more people in attendance than there were at the
ballroom, which I believe only seats up to in the neighborhood of 2,000. I
would say somewhere between 4,000 to 5,000 would seem more accurate. I enjoyed
the column though and keep up the good work!
FNF
OK,
here is the early schedule for “Friday Night Fights” on ESPN2:
January
6th: Dyah Davis vs. Alfonso Lopez
January
13th: Teon Kennedy vs. Chris Martin
January
27th: Ruslan Provodnikov vs. Julio Diaz
February
3rd: Edison Miranda vs. Yordanis Despaigne II
February
10th: Demetrius Andrade vs. Derek Ennis
February
17th: John Molina vs. Alejandro Sanabria
February
24th: Juan Carlos Burgos vs. Cristobal Cruz
CLIPPER
FLURRIES
I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing.
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