Rigondeaux’s cutman, Armando “Wiz” Fernandez takes us inside the training camp, the fight, & the after party. Also Harold Lederman discusses the fight score and what he sees for both guys.



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(WSCR) Harold Lederman is the unofficial ring side judge for HBO Boxing. He joined me to talk about this Saturday’s fight between Bernard Hopkins and Tavoris Cloud. Hear Harold explain what it’s like to be a ring side judge and what goes on behind the scenes before, during, and after a fight:

[cbs-audio url="http://cbschicago.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/harold-lederman-3-08-13.mp3" size="normal" download="true" name="Harold Lederman" artist="Craig Miller"]

Harold Lederman, Vinny Paz, Richard Steele, Greg Haugen, & Ivan Calderon remember Hector “Macho”  Camacho…11/27/12…A BoxingPulse.com Exclusive…SUBSCRIBE to BoxingPulse.com…JOIN Boxing Pulse group on Facebook…Follow me on Twitter @Chris2Gunzz and Boxing Pulse @BoxingPulse

On June 9, 2012 the boxing world saw what many believed to be a Manny Pacquiaovictory over Timothy Bradley. The judges didn’t see it that way however. Bradley was given a split decision win over Pacquiao sparking a public outcry for an investigation into the judging.

Most who saw the fight watched it on HBO PPV with their announcing team of Max Kellerman, Jim Lampley, Emanuel Steward and Harold Lederman. Questions have been raised about whether their biased calling of the fight affected the way most people viewed the outcome.

A new video has popped up on youtube analyzing the fight from every angle. Watch it below and it might give you a different take on who won.

ANOTHER THING I DID NOTICE THEY DIDNT SHOW AFTER THE FIGHT WHICH THEY ALWAYS SHOW IS THE COMPU-BOX NUMBERS AND THE LITTLE BODY THING THAT SHOWS WHERE THE PUNCHES LANDED ON THE BODY AND HEAD AND IT NORMALLY HAS THE NUMBERS WHERE IT SHOWS THE LANDED PUNCHES ON EACH SIDE OF THE HEAD AND BODY AND CHIN BUT FOR SOME REASON THEY DIDNT SHOW THAT AFTER THE FIGHT!!!

I had this fight a split decision before and after the fight for Bradley but after rewatching the fight and seeing this video it should have been Bradley the whole way not a split!!!

With a weekend so fertile for sports, the number three rings loudly through the five boroughs and beyond. The Yankees took three from the Mets, I’ll Have Another didn’t win the Triple Crown, and an unknown trio may have ruined a sport.

Manny Pacquiao, perhaps the best boxer on Earth, whipped Timothy Bradley on Saturday night in Las Vegas. And everyone knew it, except the three people who judged the fight – a most unholy trinity who had the best seats in the house yet didn’t see the bout.

Inexplicably, Bradley was awarded a split-decision and a worthless, welterweight title belt. Even the lone judge who got it right somehow found five rounds in Bradley’s favor.

First, let’s strip the euphemisms from the decision, with “controversial” chief among them. Call it disgusting, grotesque, galling, or hideous.

Harold Lederman, who has been scoring fights since 1967, gave Pacquiao 11 of the 12 rounds.

ESPN boxing analyst Dan Rafael also gave Pacquiao all but one round.

Jim Lampley, the television face and voice of boxing for decades, said it was the worst decision he’s ever witnessed.

Larry Merchant, who has been calling bouts for HBO since 1978, said Pacquiao won handily.

USA Today conducted an informal poll of the boxing writers ringside, and all of them gave Pacquiao the fight. All of them.

Famed boxing trainer Teddy Atlas said, “If you’re an honest man, you know who won that fight. It’s an injustice.” He was being diplomatic. This was inane, if not insane.

Bob Arum, who promotes both fighters, gave Pacquiao ten rounds.

Bradley’s own manager, Cameron Dunkin, gave his fighter just four rounds. Even Bradley, before he changed his cadence once the tainted crown rested on his shaved head, told Arum, “I tried, but I couldn’t beat the guy.”

I won’t drown you with boxing bromides and statistics. Google can cover that. But a most telling metric in pugilism is, of course, punches landed. According to CompuBox, Pacquiao landed 253 total punches to Bradley’s 153. Pacquiao landed 190 power shots. Bradley landed 108. How do you win a fight when you land fewer total punches and about half the power shots of your opponent?

You don’t.

The wretched decision doubles as a time warp to Frankie Carbo, when a certain Sicilian fraternity ruled boxing with a murderous fist. Raging Bull wasn’t fiction; fighters fell when they weren’t hurt and judges were paid based on betting trends.

It was a boxing buffet for conspiracy theorists. Indeed, I’ve been asked many times if the fight were fixed. I doubt it very much.

Boxing should not be corrupt anymore. Carbo and his Murder, Inc. brethren are dead, and the Mafia has been marginalized, particularly when it comes to boxing. Don King, who once acted like an honorary member of the Mafia, is irrelevant.

No, boxing is worse than corrupt. It is inept. When the fix is in you find, fine, fire, and perhaps imprison those on the take. But when an entire sport is incompetent, when it ruins its life, drops the Golden Egg of a final megafight between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr., it’s hard to find hope.

The only reason boxing matters anymore is because of smaller men like Pacquiao and Mayweather and smaller men only box because no other sport needs 140-pound men. And rather than facilitate that fight, quite legally and morally, it immorally aborts the bout that would find its final place on the front page.

What can fix this? Nothing. Because the damage from this decision is irreparable. Pacquiao has to fight Bradley again when he shouldn’t, and a whole lot can happen in during boxing’s glacial movements. And Pacquiao will need a rifle in the ring, because nothing short of killing Bradley will get him a win. And no one cares about the sport enough to clean it up. And by the time the final two titans of the sport can sign a contract, they will either be too old, or one will (legitimately) lose, or the fans will refuse to watch two old men jam to the oldies, or all the above.

Many Pacquiao, who was humble in defeat, is not the only one who pays. We, who have worshipped this sport since before Pacman was born, also suffer. I’ve adored boxing since my old man took me to see Roberto Duran in the old Felt Forum in 1979, when both boxing and Manhattan were great, before the former became neutralized and the latter sterilized. Oddly, both die at the hands of those charged to preserve them.

Timothy Bradley is a good man who came from the part of Palm Springs they left off the brochures, where drugs and gangs were within reach of his gifted hands. He chose a more honorable path, and a noble life. Bradley is very good fighter who earned every fight he’s won, except this one.

Feel free to email me: Keidel.jason@gmail.com
www.twitter.com/JasonKeidel

Did Pacman absolutely get robbed? Vent away in the comments below…

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Alan Dawson – London

The original pound-for-pound star, Sugar Ray Robinson – an undefeated amateur and a professional welterweight and middleweight world champion – leads a star cast of inductees into the inaugural New York State Boxing Hall of Fame. Joining Sugar Ray for induction in March, 2012, is a who’s who of boxing as Mike Tyson, Jake LaMotta, Carmen Basilio, Riddick Bowe, Carlos Ortiz, Mike McCallum, Gene Tunney, Benny Leonard, Tony Canzoneri, Harold Lederman, Steve Acunto, Jimmy Glenn, Gil Clancy, Ray Arcel, Nat Fleischer, Bill Gallo, Emile Griffith, Vito Antuofermo and Arthur Mercante Sr will all be immortalised.

Direct link to article.

Robinson at the Garden in New York.

Bob Duffy, the president of Ring 8 – the Hall’s sponsors – explained the concept at a media event in Gallagher’s Steakhouse in Manhattan: “The idea was around for a while and a group of us got together about 14 months and got this going.

“We plan to do this every year,” said Duffy. “Our first introduction dinner will be at Russo’s On The Bay in March of 2012. We have a wall at Waterfront Crabhouse which will list our Class of 2012 and another at the New York State Athletic Commission.

“We started this to honour New York fight people,” he concluded.

Boxing historian and analayst Steve Farhood, who was a part of the nominating committee, said: “When we think of New York State, in terms of boxing, we think of a little place up the street, Madison Square Garden because it’s played such a huge part of boxing.

“Gleason’s Gym is another shrine. And New York is the media capital of the world. Now, New York has a Boxing Hall of Fame and I’m happy to be part of it.”

Broadcast legend and former ringside judge Harold Lederman, a 2012 inductee, was delighted to be mentioned alongside all-time greats such as Sugar Ray Robinson (pictured left), Tony Canzoneri and Benny Leonard.

Lederman said: “This is such an honour for me to be here, an unbelievable honour. What a fabulous idea to form the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame. New York has more fighters, better fighters, and is still the Mecca of boxing.

“It’s such an honour to be in the same class as Sugar Ray Robinson, Tony Canzoneri and Benny Leonard. It’ll get better and better each coming year, bringing people to the forefront for what they did in New York and Madison Square Garden.

“I’m so honoured to be in this first class,” he finished. “I’ve asked myself how did I get in the same class as Sugar Ray Robinson.”

Stay tuned for On The Beak‘s profiles on the 2012 inductees…

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Alan Dawson – London

“Who ever heard of a fighter winning a world title at 46-years-old?” Broadcast legend Harold Lederman recently told On The Beak editor Alan Dawson regarding veteran American boxer Bernard Hopkins‘ exploits in the ring this year. The WBC light heavyweight champion defends his belt against Chad Dawson on October 15 at the Staples Center, Los Angeles and Lederman – HBO‘s ringside scorer – foresees a competitive contest.

Direct link to article.

Good orator, better boxer; Hopkins at the podium. Credit: Stacey Verbeek - Maple Avenue Boxing Gym

“Hopkins is an amazing person,” Lederman exclusively said to On The Beak. “Who has heard of winning a title at 46-years-old?”

By trumping former number one at 175lbs – Jean Pascal – Hopkins (52-5-2, 34ko) punctuated an already legendary career that had included a record-breaking 20 world title defences at middleweight. His most impressive professional wins have arrived in the last ten years having defeated Felix Trinidad, Oscar de la Hoya, Winky Wright, Kelly Pavlik and Pascal – most of these victories were achieved whilst being burdened with the label of an underdog.

“I don’t think he’s gotten worse and he looks the same as he was when he was middleweight champion of the world, he is in great shape and is a tremendous fighter,” said Lederman. “Hopkins will be very competitive with Dawson.”

Regarding Dawson, himself an impressively framed prizefighter with a proven background of winning against the world’s elite (Tomasz Adamek, Glengoffe Johnson x 2, Antonio Tarver x 2), Lederman pointed to the talent the 29-year-old American possesses and also to the need for a motivational corner who can offset his own occasional lack of drive.

Assessing Bad Chad, Lederman noted: “He [Dawson] uses that right jab, right hook and left cross. He is tall, has good skills and can punch but lacked drive, enthuiasm from the corner and he needs to be spurned on in the corner. He needs to be inspired.”

Lederman will be ringside at the Staples Center this evening as he will provide HBO with his scorecards after rounds three, six, nine and after the conclusion of the bout should it last the distance.

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Alan Dawson – London

Questionable judging has long dogged boxing. It is almost common to see at least one high-profile contentious decision a month; one that arouses the ire of the defeated fighter, the boxing industry and fight fans in general. Last weekend was no different as Steve Cunningham and Gabriel Campillo were dubiously out-pointed by Yoan Pablo Hernandez and Karo Murat. On The Beak caught up with renowned boxing judge Harold Lederman to debate the issue of reform.

Direct link to article.

HBO's ringside judge Lederman at the Khan - Judah bout in Vegas. Credit: S. Verbeek - Maple Avenue Boxing Gym, Dallas

In an official capacity, Lederman has provided the scoring for world title fights involving Vitali Klitschko, Marco Antonio Barrera, Nigel Benn, Evander Holyfield, Julio Cesar Chavez, Larry Holmes, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali. In 1999 he retired yet continues to work for HBO where, for over 575 televised prizefights, he has broadcast his score and take on the night’s action speaking in his distinctive New York accent that was made to air.

What are the main things Lederman, an experienced amateur and professional judge, looks for in any fight?

“You want to see who landed the clean punches – that’s 90 percent of scoring,” he said, concisely. “If you can punch you have an advantage over a boxer. Paul Malignaggi is a boxer, Yuri Foreman is a boxer… they have to win decisively and not get hit to win a fight against a guy who is a big banger. You want to see who is the more effective aggressor, who showed better ring generalship and defence, who blocks more punches and who slips more punches, but clean punching is 90 percent.”

Easy to talk to, I got the impression that Harold could have chatted boxing all night with me. A clear lover of the sport, Lederman had no qualms on providing me with an education on why it is not the judging system that needs to be reformed but, rather, the actual appointment of scorers at ringside.

“I don’t see how much more they can do, except… it’s the appointment of officials that is very important,” the World Boxing Hall of Fame inductee said exclusively to On The Beak. “When you have a high profile fight whether that’s Dereck Chisora and Tyson Fury or Victor Ortiz and Floyd Mayweather, you take the best three judges. In boxing, they do the opposite! They sometimes have inexperienced guys [at world championship fights].

“They need to be more careful about who you put in. You can give new guys a chance but you have to work your way up. Inexperience can lead to bad decisions. If they watch the appointments more carefully, they’re made because the sanctioning bodies [WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO] want to use their people. With high profile fights, like Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye, you have the three best judges regardless of sanctioning bodies they are affiliated with and that’s the end of the story. Controversial fights are scored because of the appointments.”

Controversial scoring is not exclusive to one country. While Cunningham and Campillo appeared to be duped out of a deserved win in Germany, there have been just as questionable decisions scored in England (Obodai Sai versus Jamie Cox), Northern Ireland (Breidis Prescott against Paul McCloskey) and the United States (Lucas Matthysse versus Devon Alexander and, most infamously of late, Erislandy Lara against Paul Williams).

Key – Total punches landed/thrown per round. Source: Compubox

Key – Final Compubox stats.

In each of those cases, it was the home fighter who benefited from the decision. I asked Harold whether factors such as crowd noise can affect the judging: “Let me tell you something… judges are human,” he said. “There’s no doubt that judges hear the crowd. Any judge that says they don’t hear it – they’re lying!

“You’re always going to hear the yelling and the screaming, it’s close, they might lean toward the home name… it’s part of the game. Judges try like heck to be honest but the truth of the matter is you’re always subject to what’s going on in the background and it may take some effect but will they effect the judge to make a really bad decision, you follow what I’m saying? [Regardless of the noise level it] shouldn’t sway the judging from making a good decision to a bad decision.”

In the cases of the aforementioned contests, despite winning by a tight or sometimes just an inaccurate score, the victor is elevated to a healthy position in the global rankings while the recorded loser has to go back to a position where they are, effectively, pushed back one year, perhaps two. In that space of time they have to take a fight, two fights, maybe three, taking 200, 400 or 600 clean punches in the face or body in order to get back to the position they were in – that high profile fight.

The fact that incompetent judging can send a fighter through an unnecessary physically grueling schedule is one of the main catalysts for the calls of reform and, with the rise of technology, scoring systems like Compubox have become increasingly popular as a way of determining who was the more effective puncher in terms of punches thrown, landed and accuracy – but not in terms of damage.

“Let me tell you something… HBO uses Compubox,” began Lederman in response to whether boxing would miss the human element of judging if it was replaced with technology. “It’s fun for fans watching the fight at home but it shouldn’t effect the scoring of the fight.

“Paul Williams is gonna throw 100 punches every round but the question is: do his punches really mean that much? Do they do that much damage? Against Lara without question, anyone at ringside or at home could tell that Lara was landing the cleaner, more effective and the more solid shots. He did more damage for nine out of the 12 rounds and, at the end of the day, that’s what you’re there to judge – who hurt who more in that round? And that’s who you give the score to.

“Compubox systems are fun but their statistic doesn’t necessarily provide you with who won that round,” warned Lederman.

“I don’t see Compubox numbers until the start of the next round,” added Harold. “It’s a tremendous addition to the sport, though. Everyone can appreciate them but, you gotta remember, the guys who count the punches are subject to the same thing the judges are. The ref may get in the way and the guy might have his back to you. The aggressor… you can’t count what you can’t see. You have to take that into consideration. Compubox is really good but it shouldn’t replace the judge.”

Harold was equally opposed to a compromise of two human judges and a computer: “I like what we have now,” he maintained. “Three human judges.”

He concluded: “The situation is… the way we have it now is the best way.”

The three judges' scorecards for Williams/Lara. Credit: Mariano A. Agmi

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Alan Dawson – London

Darren Barker was an unknown quality to fight fans, analysts and commentators earlier this year but now, with his challenge to lineal middleweight champion Sergio Martinez mere hours away, he is the talk of Atlantic City as he attempts to dethrone the pound-for-pound contender at the historic Boardwalk Hall. Iconic judge Harold Lederman believes Barker’s undefeated tag carries an element of intrigue.

Direct link to article.

Lederman has been a part of HBO’s world championship broadcasting team since 1986. As a former ringside judge, he – in his distinctive New York brogue – offers his take on a fight after rounds three, six, nine and following the fight’s conclusion should the bout last the distance.

Depending on your bookmaker, odds of Barker causing the upset can be seen as little as 7-1 or as great as 25-1, however, Lederman recently told On The Beak editor Alan Dawson that “Barker being undefeated adds an element [to the fight].”

Barker (23-0-0, 14ko) is yet to mix with the world’s elite and, if he manages to do the unfathomable and trump the slick and swift Martinez then it would rank alongside Breidis Prescott’s first round knockout of Amir Khan in 2008 and Lloyd Honeyghan’s retiring of Donald Curry in 1986 as one of the biggest upsets in boxing history that involved a British fighter.

“To tell you the truth, I’m waiting to see what he’s got on October 1. I really hadn’t seen the guy before the fight was made,” Lederman added, alluding to Barker’s no-name value in the US.

Martinez (47-2-2, 26ko) was the 2010 recipient of the fighter of the year award for his bludgeoning of Kelly Pavlik over the 12-round distance and his highlight reel second round knockout over Paul Williams.

Martinez, a 36-year-old southpaw, was then aligned with Serhiy Dzinziruk, a fighter who was an unbeaten professional and had never been dropped in a career that included 300+ amateur bouts. Then he met Martinez. The Ukrainian was knocked down five times en route to a mid-bout stoppage earlier this year.

The unforgiving Argentinean will no doubt be looking to take another unbeaten fighter’s zero away from them come fight time. “Sergio Martinez is a really good fighter,” Lederman told me. “He’s on top of his game right now and he’s the third best fighter in the world. It’s an interesting fight and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Lederman will be ringside for HBO acting as the broadcast behemoth’s unofficial scorer.

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HBO’s ”unofficial ringside scorer,” Harold Lederman, celebrates his 71st birthday today. Since joining HBO’s broadcast team in the mid 80s, Lederman has become one of the most recognizable voices in the boxing industry. Every boxing fan has a Harold Lederman impression. Ledermanisms like “hehe, ok Jim” and “Jim I gotta tell ya something,” are phrases Lederman could probably trademark for the amount of usage they’ve gotten over the years.

Like any judge, we sometimes scratch our heads at Lederman’s interpretation of fights. But he always gives several points to justify his stance. If you’ve ever held a fight party and the bout is close, Harold Lederman’s scores almost always spark heated debate. And you have to know the fighters themselves, who can many times hear the ringside commentary, use his words as a barometer for how they may be doing in the fight.

Happy birthday, Harold. Below is the catchphrase we’ve all come to identify him with.

The Score Enlarged:http://fightnews.com/Boxing/mosley-mora.gif I don’t claim to know what machinations were going on inside the Golden Boy Promotions complex that added this match to an otherwise excellent night of knockouts that the boxing public clamors for.

Shane Mosley is a remarkable physical specimen for his age, but that’s the qualifier.

Defused Bomb

It’s his age and long career that has left him in a slower state of being that every fighter must face if they insist upon carrying on past their best form. It’s was guaranteed that a younger, faster, quicker, taller defensive minded boxer with a good chin was going to make a difficult night for him, so the question would be,

“What were they thinking?”

Flash Jab

Perhaps they wanted to rest Mosley with a light puncher while testing his reflexes against a faster fighter, so by this criteria, they were successful.  It was otherwise a terrible complement to an otherwise exemplary card  of explosive proportions that the largely Mexican crowd was well pleased with.

The official result was a DRAW with cards reading 115-113 Mora, 116-112 Mosley, and 114-114, Even.

The outrage started with Jim Lampley and Harold Lederman of HBO who were sputtering into their microphones they were so incensed over Mosley being robbed. Yet on another broadcast, I understand Ring Magazine’s Doug Fischer scored the bout as a near Mora shutout, and on it went, passed around like a strain of the 3 day flu, which is about how long this “controversy” will last.

For the record, I found the bout interesting from a technical point of view, a classic boxer who couldn’t pop a soap bubble against an older volume puncher above his best weight. They both did the best they could within the strengths and limitations of their styles.

A Connection Has Been Established

Anyway, I did something about my own outrage many years ago by scoring bouts according to the fundamentals of the sport, which at it’s best is still a highly subjective exercise, so I dampened the subjectivity based on the scoring directives used by Nevada and other commissions, who “encourage” judges to never score even rounds.

The order of priority in modern scoring is generally the following:

1. Offense

2. Defense

3. Ring Generalship with 10 points to the winner of the round, 9 points to the loser, and one point deducted to a fighter knocked down x the number of times he’s knocked down in a round.

NO EVEN ROUNDS or find another part-time job.

Hmmmm, I thought to myself, why the prejudice against even rounds? By this time I had already tired of trying to pick out the difference between a hotly contested round with both fighters doing well or poorly contested round where both fighters looked clueless and was scoring even rounds.

BINGO, I unlocked the key to this hereto impenetrable maze of behind the scenes officiousness.

Simply put, invariably the number of even rounds I scored even coincided with the margins of the cards, meaning that the fighters either benefitted or were penalized by rounds that were even in nature.

The major sports, baseball, football, basketball, tennis, golf, and soccer only keep one score and have playoff procedures in place for when draws occur. Boxing is “different,” or perhaps “special,” because it keeps “3 scores” whose results are strangely combined after the competition ceases in prolonged ring huddles of whispers, head scratchings, and muted cries resembling rugby scrums.

The judges do their “judging” in street clothes, a very handy procedure that generally allows them to lose themselves in the crowd after the bout and successfully escape with skins, limbs, and teeth intact for those hotly disputed decisions.

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Let’s face facts here folks, with boxing’s “golden history” of association with gambling and various criminal syndicates controlling various “local” jurisdictions combining with the more obvious hometown favoritism, and the modern developments of assorted sordid ABC orgs of boxing and commissions, boxing fans have grown up expecting these scoring outrages, but seldom score bouts themselves much less consider the logistics or bureaucracies that create these latest scoring outrages, so scoring controversies get passed on seamlessly from one generation to the next much like war, death, and taxes.

Can You Feel Me Yet?

In the above Mora/Mosley scorecards with the point totals added together end up being 341 for Mora to 343 for Mosley of the 684 points awarded. That’s a 2 point advantage for Mosley, or 2 of 684 total points, or 0.003 fractional difference, or approximately 1/3^rd of 1% difference, not even pennies on the dollar, but potentially a huge windfall for the fighter for whom you’ve cast your bet, which perhaps is the origin as much as any for the outrage after scoring controversies.

Nobody likes to lose, much less lose their beloved wad.

One point happens to be the barest minimum that a fighter can win a bout, but the average fan seldom considers the margins of all the close decisions in history under modern scoring rules.

It should be added that HBO has become dependent on Compubox for the use of “punch stats” to form their analysis around. The Compubox “computer” tells them that Mosley threw 522 punches to Mora’s 508 punches and “landed” 161 punches compared to Mora’s 93 punches.

It strikes me that HBO could save a lot of money in these lean times for them by eliminating the broadcast crew, and just have a rotating cast of their marketing staff hype the round by round along side a running tabulation of Compubox numbers.

Need to make boxing a bloodless, knockout proof sport with fighters shadow boxing like the amateurs with the computer spitting out the results.

Lumpy

Remember, computers are infallible and man is but clay!

Maybe we could match up Jim Lampley with Doug Fischer and let the computer decide who gets to decide the results of Mora/Mosley, right?

Yeah, riiiiiight…………………..

This past Sunday we had on of our best interviews at OnThEGRINDBoXiNG.coM with Harold Lederman, and we also had a great conversation for the first hour of the show. I would like to focus on one of the discussions, which was about Sergio Mora, and whether he deserves to get a shot at Kelly Pavlik.

Recently on Friday Nights Fights, during the Margarito managed Miguel Vazquez match, Sergio stated that he believed Pavlik faked an infection to duck him, and also stated that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Many at OnThEGRINDBoXing believed that Mora shouldn’t even get this shot at Pavlik, and that Pavlik should go on to face someone like a Sergio Martinez or a Vernon Forrest. I think The Latin Snake deserves his shot for a couple of reasons. For starters there is the fact that he won the original season of The Contender, and beat a stable of good and established fighters (including my friend Peter Manfredo Jr.).

After he survived the show with his undefeated record intact, he went on to beat Vernon Forrest, in a match where it was obvious that he trained very hard, and outboxed Forrest. Many people still looked at this as a bad Vernon performance instead of a great Mora performance. Then Forrest came back, and defeated him in impressive fashion, and hats off to Vernon, but that has only evened the score cards, and does establish that one boxer is better than the other any more than the result of their first bout did. Showing that he can hang in there with somebody that fights at the level of a Vernon Forrest, he proved that he can hang with the best of them, and can possibly go on to beat Kelly Pavlik.

My final argument is a simple one… the match was done! Papers were signed, they had a venue, and the match was scheduled to take place, and it should take place. If Pavlik did not want this match he could of chose not to accept it in the beginning, but the match was a done deal, and it should happen.

Now, will Mora win or not? I don’t know. The answer to the question depends on the version of Kelly Pavlik we see come into the ring that night as much as any other factor considered in this fight that must be made.

(347)843-4293 Call in LIVE. OnThEGRiND BoXiNG RaDIo is LIVE Sunday July 19th at 8pm et/5pm pt and 1am gmt (Monday) with another classic boxing podcast. Scheduled to join the Team is Legendary HBO Unofficial Judge, Harold Lederman.

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Hurray for me! Alimony, liver problems and 7 addictions be damned! The Madcow is back for another round of low-blows, ear-biting and strip club clinching.

Bravo to HBO and Andre Berto and Luis Collazo for putting on a helluva show last night. Great, honest fight between two guys actually hungry for a win. I had Collazo winning, but it was close and I think a rematch would be a great thing for the divison.

Bill Clancy, 116-111 Berto? 9 rounds to 3, Berto? Billy Boy, do yourself a favor and stay home the next time you get the call to judge a fight. In other words…you suck donkey balls!

My one complaint is about the HBO crew. I know everyone’s on-air role, but is Harold Lederman neccessary anymore? He was never all that great, but what little he did have he’s lost. His analysis is wrong, his scoring is off and he’s just a flat-out bore. If HBO wants to save some money on  their boxing shows, let Lederman go off to a nice old folks home where he belongs.

The HBO broadcast team has become like a family to me: Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant are the angry, drunken uncles at the dinner table, Max Kellerman is the younger cousin who’s full of himself since starting his internship at Bank of America, Lennox Lewis is the befuddled brother-in-law who’s just trying to stay afloat and Harold Lederman is the Alzheimers-ridden grandfather who pisses his pants right before the main course.

Speaking of HBO, next week is the big Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley showdown. This has to be a classic and it will make the network 2 for 2 in ’09.

My prediction for Margarito/Mosley? Margarito’s gonna be the first to stop Shane and not all the Balco creme in the world is gonna make him young enough to withstand 12 rounds of Margarito’s canned-ham fists.

Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao are still having a hold-up over money issues. Manny wants a 60-40 split and Hatton wants 50-50. Pacquiao should just pull out and sign somewhere else and then see how much money Hatton can make fighting Andreas Kotelnik. Or, better yet, have Ricky and Manny take 40% each and suspend the remaining 20% in cash over the ring in a plastic bag. Then, as the winner is announced, the bag can be burst open and the fighter would be showered in 20′s and 50′s.

After months of rumor and near-misses, it looks as though David Tua vs. Shane Cameron is finally on the verge of being signed. Hurray! Apparently, this is some sort of Polynesian/South Pacific mega fight but, to the rest of the world, this is a battle between two meaningless heavyweights- one older, one younger- both worthless in 2009.

Amir Khan and Marco Antonio Barrera are all set to have it out in Manchester in March. I don’t know if Frank Warren has a title for this event yet, but I would humbly submit: Has Been vs. Never Will Be. I’ll be pulling for Barrera, although it’s hard to decide what will be for the sport’s greater good: Having an aged and weary Barrera put out of his misery or having an overrated Amir Khan further exposed and finally eliminated.

Speaking of misery, Jose Luis Castillo beat cardboard cutout, James Wayka in Mexicali, Mexico. From Fight of the Year to fighting in some Mexican Bingo Hall in the course of about 3 years…that’s a quicker descent than the plane that plopped into the Hudson River. Let’s hope Castillo dosn’t get within sniffing distance of a legit title shot.

Tommy Morrison makes another comeback on January 31st as he continues his tour of states with weak comissions and  disorganized medical requirements. Morrison will be fighting Boxing’s bravest 7-9-2 fighter, Corey Williams in Wyoming…Catch Tommy Morrison Fever- It’s Contagious!

Speaking of contagious, I have a date in an hour or so and I have to scrub down before she gets here.

Have a Jack and Water in my honor and I’ll see ya next Sunday.

Cool Max Kellerman was way more fiery than usual after Juan Diaz’s split-decision win over Michael Katsidis on Saturday night. Glen Hamada’s 115-113 card for Katsidis had Kellerman irked, and showed in his postfight interview with Katsidis and his trainer, Brendon Smith. Kellerman didn’t hold back in a show-wrapping diatribe, either, where he acknowledged the possibility that he and Harold Lederman (who scored it 118-110 for Diaz) and the rest of the HBO team could’ve been seeing a different fight than the rest of us–but then, with an emphatic transitioning “but” and dramatic change of camera angle–went on to call Hamada’s scorecard one of the worst he’d ever seen.

Diaz’s Houston crowd appreciated it. Board posters buzzed about it. I’d even say Kellerman’s straightforwardness was Atlas-like. (Though that’s merely approaching Teddy levels; Atlas is still the ballsiest broadcaster that we see on a regular basis.) But one of the worst ever–from a guy who’s seen thousands of fights?

No way am I questioning Kellerman’s sincerity or smarts, but it came off as a little bit showy. I’m guessing he might’ve been a disappointed that the fight didn’t live up to grand expectations that we’d all–but especially HBO–put on it. And I’m thinking that if Kellerman isn’t talking on the fly, he’s remembering just a handful of very recent, very bizarre scorecards.

- Almazbek “Kid Diamond” Raiymkulov SD over Miguel Angel Huerta, June 2007
It wasn’t anything near a megafight, but it was broadcast (on Versus), and it was for a minor belt (NABF lightweight). Top Rank’s Raiymkulov took a split decision on Judges Don Ackerman’s and Frank Adams’ 114-113 scorecards. (The third judge had it 116-111.) It played like a loss for Diamond, anyway: The Kyrgyzstanian went into an apparent exile and didn’t fight for over a year until he returned against a soft opponent last June. Huerta (also an Arum fighter) has gone 3-1 since. That one loss was a UD to Raiymkulov’s September 19th opponent, Javier Jauregui, now 53-15-2.

- Joel Casamayor SD over Jose Armando Santa Cruz, November 2007
It was a top-of-the-card fight for the WBC lightweight title, so it’s the one most of us probably remember. But by following up this stinker with a dramatic win over Michael Katsidis, Casamayor might have helped us forget just how unfair a decision the judges hatched–114-113, 114-113, 113-114–and the screwing they gave Santa Cruz in a fight in which he dropped Casamayor in the first round, controlled the tempo, and dominated statistically. Santa Cruz is working his way back and fighting what the WBC is calling a title eliminator on September 20th.

- Christian Mijares SD over Jose Navarro, February 2008
While Judge Hamada’s scorecard on Saturday was, well, wrong, it can’t even be called the worst judging I’ve seen this year. The worst? Got to be Doug Tucker’s 120-108 shutout for Navarro (even the oft-derided Adalaide Byrd had it 117-111 for El Diamante that night). Tucker seems to have been exiled, too. He hasn’t judged a professional fight since.

Judge Tucker’s card took a little of the shine off of an exciting bout fought well by both fighters–and really was insulting to Mijares, who was masterful that night. Still, as with Diaz-Katsidis, all was well that ended well. I know I’m in a strong majority that thinks Juan Diaz deserved the unanimous decision, not a split decision, last Saturday night. But the right guy got the victory, and if Diaz is satisfied with that and ready to move on, I sure am.
Santa Cruz and Huerta, fighters who trained and earned a win, instead took a loss and suffered the real-world consequence of diminished marketability and smaller paydays. Diaz, split-decision winner, walks away with the IBO title and presumably moves on to bigger money and a chance to reclaim the more significant belts.