A Dog's Breakfast
By Luke Dodemaide (July 12, 2005) 
Photo © HoganPhotos.com
Welcome to my all new hard hitting, thought filling, crazed column where I, Doghouses’ very own Luke Dodemaide, will regurgitate all my random boxing rabble onto the pages of this site and hopefully into the minds of those who leave them open. So get that cup of coffee, glass of coke or perhaps even a pint of beer and sit down, shut up and let’s get started.

First of all I want to pay some respect to the San Antonio Spurs and congratulate them on a third championship in eight years. I heard it was an enthralling series they went through with the Detroit Pistons, pity I couldn’t tear myself from my new John Ruiz DVD collection I just bought on Amazon.com. But in all seriousness let’s just say though close there was a little too much D for me. So the series went seven? Well, John Ruiz goes twelve every time and his fights still serve as a great substitutes for sleeping tablets.

On Ruiz and the heavyweight division, what direction is our ‘champion’, Vitali Klitschko, looking to take the heavyweight title in September? The last I heard was that the WBC champion is going to defend his title against Oleg Maskeav. Now I don’t want to disrespect Maskeav too much here, but this is a guy that hasn’t won a meaningful fight for six years and has been knocked out five times, and he’s going to be looking across the ring at Vitali Klitschko in September? He’s going to get the chance at the linear world championship that such fighters like Chris Byrd, James Toney, Lamon Brewster, Hasim Rahman and yes, John Ruiz are being denied of?

The mandating of the WBC interim championship bout between Rahman and Monte Barrett I thought was en route to forcing Vitali into defending his crown against the best in the division, not for the mere purpose of WBC financial benefit through the sanctioning fees they charge both parties to take part in the interim bout. And if the winner of either Rahman or Barrett doesn’t get the next shot at Klitschko after their bout, then what significance does that interim title actually have?

I know it’s only a short break between fights for Barrett-Rahman, but unless this is an earlier than scheduled Corrales-Castillo II that sees Rahman and Barrett produce a brutal bout where they bruise and batter each other relentlessly, I don’t see why the winner cannot back up six weeks later for the heavyweight championship of the world.

Talking about bruising and battering, the word Down Under is that Kostya Tszyu’s brain has been bruised by the punishment he suffered at the hands of Ricky Hatton last month. This sounds bad but by no means does it mean Kostya is going to be the next Gerald McClellan or Joe Mesi, just as a bruised arm heals without lasting symptoms, so does a brain. In the racing industry it’s a common injury.

So while this injury doesn’t spell lasting trouble for Tszyu, it does in a cruel way pay tribute to the power Ricky Hatton does possess and the force he is in among the deepest division in the sport. I also wouldn’t be all too surprised if it was found that Arturo Gatti suffered similar injuries after his public execution two weeks ago after Mayweather had his way in six brutal and humiliatingly one sided rounds.

‘Humiliating’, I think, is also just about the best adjective to use when describing Vivian Harris’ (a man who ran his mouth for miles than Al-Guerrouj‘s feet) loss to Carlos Massau on that same card that night in Atlantic City.

The Brooklyn bad ass was made to look a clown in a fight that played out like a comedy sketch which Carlos Massau obviously found hilarious, smiling and laughing throughout his bizarre seventh round knockout victory over Harris. But that win was no fluke and it says a lot about rhythm in the sport of boxing. I think Massau could have kept up that same pace for twelve rounds no problem, he was just rolling those punches over like a 15,000 metre Olympic freestyler and this eventually saw him touch the final wall the WBA super lightweight champion of the world.

And no matter what you say about Massau and his style, the guy’s a world champion with a legitimate WBA championship belt. I’m not going to go as far to say he’s a strong force at 140, but he is no less a champion than many others in the various divisions.

The emergence of Floyd Mayweather to the brink of super star territory is a welcome addition to the bland planes of the current boxing landscape; though we have many intriguing match ups, situations and political issues, at the moment this is a sport without a super star. This time last year we had four: Felix Trinidad, Mike Tyson, Roy Jones and Oscar De La Hoya.

But since then we’ve seen Felix Trinidad’s star faded into retirement as the monotonous rounds ticked over in what he said was his last fight against Winky Wright; the circus which was Mike Tyson’s career twilight finally reached its last stop in Washington as he quit on his stool after six rounds; and Roy Jones’ future is up in the air after his last two fights which I won’t even dwell on any further.

The only one I haven’t mentioned there is Oscar De La Hoya. Though he was knocked out last time out and was less than impressive the start before that, I think should he choose to comeback in 2006 as planned, he can again be a major player (as a fighter not just as a promoter) in boxing. So what if De La Hoya wants to fight at 150 pounds, ‘Oscar-weight’? The guy is worth his weight in gold to sport and this industry, and if he wants to go ahead and fight at 150, who are we to argue otherwise? De La Hoya is the only guy in the sport who can offer a boxer $6 million to fight him and be turned down, reason being because they know that no matter the pounding they put on Oscar’s lovely features, they will still leave the building envious of the green in the Golden Boy’s pockets.

But since when could Winky Wright turn down $6 million anyway? Sure he’s coming off three impressive victories, but what does he think he is? Exciting?

Well London is counting down 2012, so I guess 2006 isn’t too far away, right?

Until next time, this was ‘A Dog’s Breakfast’….

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