187 Boxing

Arum: Cotto-Foreman at Yankee Stadium has spirit of Louis-Schmelling (Telegraph)
Bob Arum said this about Yuri Foreman: “His notoriety as a fighter will help him to launch his career (as a rabbi). Incredible.” Arum said this without even a hint of how incredibly awful that sounds. Since Foreman can’t work until after sundown on the Sabbath, he’ll get a police escort to Yankee Stadium and HBO will film it with a helicopter. I wonder if the nWo will be trailing him, or if Sting plans to repel and deliver back-handed slaps in the middle of the fight.

Miguel Cotto, Yuri Foreman on different paths at Yankee Stadium (FOX Sports)
In this article, we find out that Miguel Cotto is “finally escaping years of struggling to get down to 147 pounds.” Cotto weighed in for his last two fights at 145 and 146 and I don’t recall ever hearing he was particularly struggling with his weight. The author also offers that “both men … can fill any New York arena.” Yuri Foreman has never filled any arena in his life. The Top Rank propaganda for this fight is jaw-dropping.

Legendary trainer Emanuel Steward hopes to rejuvenate Miguel Cotto (Sports Illustrated)
“Some guys, their coordination and reflexes are totally shot from the combination of the tough fights and emotions. But I did not see that from Miguel.” — Emanuel Steward

Arum plays down Steward effect (Sky Sports)
Bob Arum doesn’t seem to have much confidence that Emanuel Steward can help Miguel Cotto.

Yankees like Cotto to win fight in their ballpark (USA Today)
“It’s going to be crazy, man. I can’t wait,” offers Yankees outfielder Nick Swisher. Thanks, Nick.

Yuri Foreman eager to show how tough upbringing shaped boxing career (The Star-Ledger)
“When he won the title from Santos, he was smart. Now, he will have to be smarter. When he won the title from Santos, he was sharp. Now, he will have to be sharper. Cotto is that difficult an opponent.” — Joe Grier, Foreman’s trainer

Yuri Foreman, WBA Super Welterweight, to Fight Miguel Cotto at Yankee Stadium (Wall Street Journal)
I like the Wall Street Journal because they always call everyone “Mister.”

CompuBox Pre-Analysis: Miguel Cotto vs. Yuri Foreman (BoxingScene.com)
CompuBox’s pre-fight analysis of the bout. They’re favoring Cotto due to Foreman’s low workrate and lack of power.

On many Saturday nights in June, Yankee Stadium in the Bronx is filled with passionate fans. But this Saturday night will be different. The fans won’t be there to catch the Yankees, they’ll be there to see Miguel Cotto step up to 154 pounds and challenge alphabet titlist Yuri Foreman, as boxing makes its debut at the new Yankee Stadium.

WBA Junior Middleweight Title: Yuri Foreman v. Miguel Cotto (12 Rounds)

Any photo you’ve seen of these two together (including the one to your right) demonstrates the clear size difference between these two fighters. Miguel Cotto (32-2, 27 KO) was a small welterweight, and is absolutely tiny for a junior middleweight. Yuri Foreman (28-0, 8 KO) is a big, solid 154-pound fighter.

Foreman stands 5′11″ with a 72-inch reach, compared to Cotto’s 5′7″ and 67-inch reach. They’re both 29 years of age, but Foreman has taken far, far less punishment in his career — no punishment at all, really. Foreman’s first step onto the true world stage came last November on the Cotto-Pacquiao undercard, when he took the WBA belt from Daniel Santos, who was old, out of shape, and clearly well past the days when he was a very underrated fighter.

For the most part, Foreman has been able to dominate his limited foes, but he has had some trouble with the likes of Andrey Tsurkan and Anthony Thompson, both of whom lost split decisions to Foreman in 2007. There is a question of whether or not Foreman can handle real pressure from a good fighter, one who can bang. Cotto was no monster puncher at 147, and won’t be at 154 either, but the Cotto of old was one of the best pressure fighters in boxing.

Cotto will need to be that guy again. After a two-fight stint with Joe Santiago serving as his lead trainer, Cotto is now working with Hall of Famer Emanuel Steward, who had been in talks to serve as an adviser to Foreman for this bout. On paper, Foreman, who is tall and likes to use his jab, is more Manny’s kind of fighter. But Steward loves a reclamation project, too. The work he’s done in recent years with Wladimir Klitschko has been arguably the best work of his career, even including Thomas Hearns. He’s taken Klitschko from a very powerful but very susceptible heavyweight to a man who isn’t indestructible, but has learned to be damn near impenetrable.

Steward has had his best success with tall guys, guys with big power. But that doesn’t mean he can’t do well with Miguel Cotto. He’s clearly a big believer in Cotto’s talent, and having observed Miguel’s recent fights from ringside while working for HBO, maybe he sees something important missing in Miguel’s game plan. As a novice observer of tactics, my feeling is that Miguel Cotto has just gotten away from what made him the force he was. He was a vicious little guy who targeted the body in a beautifully savage manner, who wore down tough opponents and rarely let them get into their rhythm very effectively. Miguel Cotto beat a very good Shane Mosley in 2007, but since then has been up-and-down.

Cotto has fought five times since the win over Mosley, going 3-2. He easily dispatched of patsy opponents Alfonso Gomez and Michael Jennings, but between those bouts was worn down by Antonio Margarito. The first half of that bout looked like something of a master class from Cotto, who was fighting differently, clearly aware of Margarito’s size and power, clearly aware that Antonio did not wear down easily. But as he was building up a sizable score card lead, he was taking punishment the whole time. And eventually the punishment was too much.

After beating Jennings, he fought Joshua Clottey and escaped with a hard-fought split decision, a fight I felt than and feel now that Cotto won, but mostly because Clottey’s rounds of inactive indifference allowed that to happen. Miguel Cotto was good and he was tough that night, and he fought very brave, but more than anything I believe Clottey gave the fight away. Again, Cotto was against a guy he couldn’t really damage. Clottey went down off-balance in the first round, but that was fluky. And Cotto still wasn’t the vicious attacker he used to be.

We all know what happened last November as Manny Pacquiao simply sliced and diced Miguel Cotto down the stretch. Cotto was doing the best he could, but was overwhelmed by Pacquiao’s speed, power and offensive genius.

So how does he combat Foreman?

As a Miguel Cotto fan who just wants to see the best Cotto, I hope Manny Steward has him ready to eat jabs on his way in to attack the body. That’s the only way Miguel Cotto can overcome the size difference, the fact that he’s no longer the fighter he used to be (though Cotto is, I believe, still a hell of a good fighter), and what may be some self-doubt.

And I don’t think I can see Yuri Foreman holding up well under a grueling close quarters attack from Cotto, either. Foreman is a nice story and a nice guy, but he is in no way a special talent. He’s very sound and doesn’t make mistakes, but he’s got little pop and lives and dies on being able to outbox the other man. He can outbox Cotto if Cotto isn’t sharp, too.

If Yuri Foreman wins this fight, it’ll probably be clear, widely scored, and dull. If Miguel Cotto wins this fight, it will be because he brings a major storm onto Foreman that Foreman cannot handle. It might just be that I really believe that Cotto is still a very good fighter, and it could just be that I want that to be the case. But I’m expecting a re-focused, re-energized Miguel Cotto on Saturday night to bang out a decision win and get some of his mojo back. If it goes the way I expect, I also will say I don’t think Yuri Foreman will ever reach these heights again. Cotto UD-12

Junior Middleweights: Vanes Martirosyan v. Joe Greene (10 Rounds)

Top prospect Martirosyan (27-0, 17 KO) survived a very tough scrape with veteran Kassim Ouma in January with his undefeated record intact, but it was a close call. It was the first time that the confident, 24-year-old Martirosyan had been tested. Overall, I thought he acquitted himself pretty nicely. Most top prospects get that scare.

Greene (22-0, 14 KO) is taking a risk with this one. Mean Joe’s climb up the prospect ladder has hit a speed bump, as he fought just once in 2009 (a win over Delray Raines) and also fought on April 2 against well-known opponent Chris Gray, a tricky sort of guy, to get tuned up for this bout.

Greene’s a good fighter, but probably doesn’t have the level of polish that Martirosyan does, and certainly doesn’t have his pedigree. It’s a big measuring stick bout for Greene in particular. Martirosyan is further along in his development, and I think has to be considered the solid favorite. A good fight for both, no matter who wins, will serve to strengthen their profiles, but obviously the winner is very close to a possible title shot in the weak 154-pound weight class. Martirosyan UD-10

Bad Left Hook Judges List for Foreman-Cotto

1. Chair 1: SC
2. Chair 2: The Boxer Rebellion
3. Chair 3: Verklemptomaniac
4. Chair 4: lcollins1
5. Chair 5: Option27

This recent FanPost brought up a great idea to get everyone a bit more involved in our fight coverage, and we’re going to break it out this week for the first time.

We’re going to have five Bad Left Hook judges scoring the fight Saturday night between Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto. Most of the time we do this, two of the seats will be taken by myself and Brickhaus, but since Brick is on vacation, to start this idea we’re going to have four open spots available.

If you want to be considered, let me know in the comments. Here’s what’s expected:

1. Score the fight round by round, and keep track of your scoring. Probably wouldn’t hurt to write it down on a piece of paper or whatever even if you score in the live thread, because then you won’t have to go back digging through everything to find your scores per round.
2. After the fight, send me your round by round scores in an email (my email address is listed in my profile here, and at the bottom of the main page).
3. Also give some type of wrap-up thoughts on the fight in that email. Doesn’t have to be more than a paragraph or so if you don’t have much to say or don’t have the time or whatever, but something. If you want to give it a good, long analysis, feel free. I’m not exactly worried about how much space we take up. It’s a blog meant for in-depth discussion, so if you want to write a damn essay, go right ahead.
4. If you’re not terribly confident in writing ability, don’t worry about that at all. I’m a decent enough editor on the blog level that it won’t be a problem. I won’t change what you’re saying, though.

How we’ll pick:

1. If you sign up by Thursday at 8pm EDT, I’ll put your name in a hat and draw randomly. It’s that simple. I’ll post the results of that by 9pm EDT on Thursday so you’ll know early enough. If you have to drop out, let me know and it’ll be no big deal. I realize things come up.
2. If you consistently sign up and don’t get picked, I’ll eventually put you in a “seat” just because. It’s bound to happen that people get picked often and other people keep getting shut out. I’d like to spread this out as much as possible, but random picking is the best way to do it here at the start.

And I know it sounds corny, but most importantly, make sure you have fun if you want to sign up. That’s really the point for this, just to get everyone more involved, which I always want to do, and to up the community level even more. If your card completely differs from mine or any other card (official or fellow BLH judges), that’s fine. You might get called nuts, you might think everyone else is nuts. It’s inevitable that we have cards that are “controversial,” and mine will be there too. I’m no better at scoring fights than anyone else here, which is another reason I like this idea so much.

So sign up, and tomorrow between 8-9pm I’ll get the drawing results up.

Rick Reeno of BoxingScene.com reports that Joel Casamayor believes a July 31 fight with Amir Khan is set, and his manager Luis DeCubas says the money is the only thing to be finalized.

Casamayor is still the same old ornery guy he’s always been, ready to talk up a storm:

“Come July 31 lightning is going to strike twice because I’m going to knock Amir Khan out dead. … [C]ome July 31st I’m going to prove that he’s a nobody.”

Casamayor, 38, was set to fight Joan Guzman in Las Vegas on the Marquez-Diaz II PPV on that date. Now, that show will be a split main event with Marquez-Diaz II in Vegas and Khan-Casamayor in the UK, assuming that this really does get done. The veteran has been inconsistent in his last four fights, which date all the way back to November 2007. He was given an extreme gift decision over Jose Armando Santa Cruz, then stopped Michael Katsidis and was highly competitive against Juan Manuel Marquez before being stopped himself for the first time in his career. He returned last November heavy to fight club fighter Jason Davis, and looked iffy at best, but conditioning and indifference may well have played a role in that. No doubt he’ll be up as much as he can be for a fight with Khan.

Khan (23-1, 17 KO) will have some real physical advantages. He’s much faster than Casamayor is anymore, and will have three inches of height and a couple inches reach to his advantage. Khan has shown a good ability to use that reach, and since Casamayor (while no slugger) has a lot more pop than Paul Malignaggi, I’d expect Amir to treat Joel with a lot more respect when it comes to how open he leaves himself. Khan fought a bit recklessly with Paulie because Malignaggi has no power. Not that Khan was just winging haymakers, but he seemed slightly indifferent to defense at times, because he could do that and get away with it.

It’s a fairly interesting fight. There is the chance that Casamayor is simply too old and too small to be beating anyone good at 140 pounds, but he’s done a lot in his career and I can’t begrudge him a final shot at glory and a good payday. He’s earned it.

Main Events will be putting on two shows at the Prudential Center in Newark, one in July and one in August.

On July 16, former welterweight champ Zab Judah returns against Jose Armando Santa Cruz. Judah recently signed with Main Events, though everyone dutifully pretends that it’s a co-promotion with “Super Judah Promotions.” Judah (38-6, 26 KO) hasn’t won a meaningful fight in years now, and though he should win in July, this won’t be one either.

Santa Cruz (28-4, 17 KO) is best-known for being disgracefully robbed against Joel Casamayor in 2007, when he challenged for Casamayor’s lineal lightweight crown. Since then, he’s gone 3-1, with none of the wins being notable and the loss a sixth-round knockout at the powerful but limited hands of Antonio Pitalua.

Main Events also confirmed that Tomasz Adamek (41-1, 27 KO) will indeed be fighting washed-up, never-was Michael Grant (46-3, 34 KO). I like Adamek a lot, but this is one of those fights where I want to root for “the other guy” simply because everyone involved with making the fight deserves to have their plans foiled. Grant is 37 years old and has been carefully feasting on mediocrities and tomato cans for the last seven years, since a loss to Dominick Guinn. Grant isn’t just not a contender, he’s not even relevant anymore. The fact that he’s big and could punch some in his prime will be used to shield Adamek from criticism. Grant’s frame (6′7″, 86″ reach) will allow Main Events and Adamek’s team to say that they are using the veteran to prepare for the Klitschkos. It’s even possible that they won’t be lying. But nobody in their right mind thinks Grant is a viable substitute for a Klitschko, and there are similarly qualified opponents out there who aren’t functionally out of the sport.

I don’t expect either of these fights will stir up a ton of interest, though you can already pencil in a couple of things, I’d say. First, the Judah card will disappoint at the gate. Second, the Adamek-Grant show will do very well.