A Dog’s Breakfast
By Luke Dodemaide (October 1, 2005) 
Photo ©
So it’s been a long time between drinks? Well since when did anyone but Lassie get treated to such a high quality verbal canine cook up on any frequent occasion? But I’ll promise you this instalment has such an instilment of regurgitated random boxing rabble that there’s gonna no need for lunch, so forget that healthy diet, sit down and chew the fat- pre fight Ricky Hatton style- with me as we go over the boxing world in the fast, insane and controversial way that only the DogHouse does.

The sport let out a huge collective sigh of despair as Samuel Peter's championship caliber coming out party on Saturday night turned sour when little brother Klitschko rose from the canvas three times too many, stumbled to microphone (here for metaphorical purposes) and announced that the heavyweight division is in fact still in a state of depression, and that we may have to adopt the patience of a Jewish priest waiting for the messiah while we- the boxing world- wait for the two hundred pound plus savior to grace our rings and wear our belts with prestige not attained since Lennox Lewis, saving us from this travesty they call the ‘heavyweights’. Peter the next big thing? I don’t think so. The only big thing this division’s got at the moment is James Toney’s gut, and if he varies his chosen steroid for Saturday night’s fight, we may not even have that!

Peter may not have disgraced himself, but no big hitting legitimate juggernaut fails to put away china chin Wladimir. Peter didn't do as great prospects do, as rising superstars do, or as Miguel Cotto does. Now here is a man you can bank on emptying your bank account half a dozen times as you proceed to pay for his future pay-per-views, especially if you're Puerto Rican. Cotto may have been put down, but in doing so, getting up and stopping the game Torres, his stocks rose much more than a one-sided beating could have ever ensured. And with Ricky Hatton recently making like Michael Finley and heading to a winning formula - leaving Frank Warren for Dennis Hobson's “Fight Academy”- we may even get a realistic chance to see this super fight in the near future, in which would prompt for the first time in big fight recent memory that Jimmy Lennon will be able to utter my favorite rhyme - since ‘put your hands in the air, like you just don’t care’ became the most plagiarized line in musical history- being 'somebody's 0 must go' .

Another '0' not going anywhere soon- try this decade!- is that of Andre Ward's. The twenty one year old is the fastest if not the best prospect in the world, and certainly my favorite. I've seen his every pro performance and with every bout and near enough every punch it seems Ward's skills enhance as he familiarizes his god given talent with the pro game. There was a brief moment of panic in his fight against Kenny Kost when he was legitimately staggered leaving all those ringside to fear the worst, but I believe it was either a great man, my grandmother or Ben Cousins after last weekends AFL grand final who said 'what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' and in cases such as this it is, well, certainly the case. With the Olympic gold medallist fighting on the undercard this weekend on HBO's long awaited third installment to the light heavyweight championships greatest rivalry of recent years, I’m sure we’re gonna see a bit of flash, a bit of pizzazz and more than a bit of brilliance.

And talking about that HBO card, doesn’t it feature a formerly flawless fighter by the name of Roy Jones?

I, for one, don’t buy into the argument that Roy’s completely lost it, I re-watched his fight with Johnson for the first time last week and their was one round, the third I’m sure, that seemed to slip from my memory. In this round Roy looked as though the skill and the speed had not quite fully escaped the grasp of undisputedly the most talented fighter of the generation.

Wishful thinking or was Roy extremely unmotivated and uninterested in this fight? There’s no doubting he still had it in the Tarver rematch, he just happened to walk into a big left hand and a slightly fast count. Many forget that the first three minutes of the fight was a display of vintage RJ. Maybe only Pensacola agrees with me here, but at least this is a question that will not linger any longer than the early hours of Sunday morning.

But jeez, does Showtime really think they can compete with their multi-mediocre card headlined by James Toney fighting Dominick Guinn? Please, if I wanted to watch a drug cheat in action I'd sit down to a rerun of the past six or seven Tour De France's (no names here). Even if Byrd is one of the four heavyweights with a title, his bout with a Darryl Williamson is sure to provide more than just a ‘Touch of Sleep’, I’m predicting more heavy eyelids than heavy cheers ringside for this one.

I know I may be a little forgiving, but I think we can pardon a champion a couple of losses after over a decade of domination, Roy Jones’ attempt to re-ignite his greatness has all the making of a Hollywood script, while the rival Showtime card has all the ingredients of a drug induced snooze fest.

One last word before I put the knife and fork together after another edition of “A Dog’s Breakfast” has to be centered around former undisputed super lightweight champ Kostya Tszyu and his current whereabouts. There seems to be a lot of confusion in the boxing world over whether we will see the former pound for pound hardest puncher on the planet enforce his crushing power on another foe after his disappointing performance against Ricky Hatton earlier this year. The feelings I’m getting out of the Tszyu Crew seem pretty much mixed and very hard to decipher any movements out of. The last I heard Kostya Tszyu was hanging out at Russian karate tournaments with none other than ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson himself. Another word on the street is that he’s set to star in a Russian remake of Rambo! So make what you want of that but hey, remember where you heard it first!

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