Frampton Fight Called Off After Bizarre Hand Injury
Carl Frampton won’t be fighting this weekend, because he injured his hand in a hotel lobby. Apparently, a giant ornamental column was knocked over, and landed on Frampton’s hand, breaking two bones. Obviously, it’s frustrating that he went through an entire training camp only to have this happen, but Frampton is well known. This is really crushing for Emmanuel Dominguez, the 26-8 Mexican fighter that was getting a shot to make a name for himself.While a surgeon comparison might be a reach, boxers need to be careful about hurting their hands as well. Hopefully, Frampton doesn’t become a brittle-handed fighter as a result of this freak accident.
Canelo Now Willing to Wait for Kovalev-Yarde Winner
This is getting absurd. After reports last week said that Canelo Alvarez was going to fight Demetrius Andrade because talks with Sergey Kovalev fell through, now Canelo is apparently willing to wait until after the Kovalev-Yarde fight (Aug. 24) to see if Kovalev wins, and is willing to negotiate a Canelo fight after.With “GGG” fighting Sergiy Derevyanchenko for Canelo’s old IBF belt on Oct. 5, Alvarez has apparently been informed Dazn would like him to compete in November, because it would keep the GGG fight, and his, on separate billing cycles. Had Canelo fought Andrade, and GGG fought Derevyanchenko, it would have made sense for GGG-Canelo 3 soon after. Now, with Canelo jumping two weight classes to face Kovalev, it’s unlikely that fight happens anytime soon.
While Dazn isn’t happy with Canelo, Canelo is apparently not very happy with Golden Boy Promotions. In response to being stripped of his title, Canelo put a quote on Instagram saying “I’m very upset and ashamed with my fans, to be unfairly stripped of my belt by the IBF, but specially when I did not have the knowledge of the agreement that GBP matchmaker had signed.”
Other Golden Boy fighters aren’t very happy with Oscar De La Hoya’s promotion, either.
This week, Ryan Garcia expressed his displeasure with getting offered a non-main event fight from the promotion and vented about it on twitter. Garcia was supposed to fight Filipino Romero Duno, in what would have been a solid scrap. However, if he fought Duno in September, he would have been the co-main event, so he will instead be fighting Avery Sparrow on Sept. 14, and hopefully fighting Duno in November.
Garcia didn’t like the idea of being a co-main event fighter, because he’s such a star that he’d be carrying the card. Or, as he put it on twitter:
The bottom line is, i deserve the right promotion for fights with the full time to promote and not be thrown into a fight and have my self do the whole promotion, knowing my fan base they will tune in no matter what but I deserve to have a full promotion fight with duno!
— Ryan Garcia (@KingRyanG) August 4, 2019
A huge part of Garcia’s marketing potential is his social media following. It appears that this week, Golden Boy learned that his digital openness can be a double-edged sword.
While he didn’t express any public anguish, Golden Boy’s 154-pound champion Jaime Munguia had a tough week also. He was supposed to fight well known former Pacquiao opponent Jessie Vargas, but while Golden Boy had the finances lined up, they couldn’t get Vargas to accept a 156-pound catchweight (Munguia has been teasing a move to middleweight, since he’s been struggling to make 154 for a while). With that fight falling through, Munguia will reportedly now face Patrick Allotey on Sept. 14.
Fascinatingly, with this week being so rough, Golden Boy is really going to need Vergil Ortiz to show up against Antonio Orozco on Saturday, or their week will take a turn from the bad to the disastrous.
Fury Disappoints with Next Opponent
Tyson Fury announced his next opponent, and it is a disappointing one. On Sept. 14, he will be facing undefeated Swedish Heavyweight Otto Wallin on ESPN Plus. Who is Otto Wallin? Well, he’s 28, 20-0 with 13 knockouts, but has been facing mostly Swedish competition. In April he fought Baltimore’s Nick Kisner on Showtime, but the fight was deemed a no contest because of an accidental headbutt.Ingemarr Johannsen was a great Swedish fighter in the 1960s. Badou Jack was from Sweden. So, its’ not like we can scoff at the idea of a great fighter emerging from the land of Abba and Ikea. Still, in his last fight Fury tried to sell us on an undefeated, unknown European fighter, and the fight was a farce. Now, he’s trying the same scheme, again.
Haney to Face Abdullaev in September
With so many looking to fight on Sept. 14, Devin Haney was smart enough to schedule his bout for a day earlier to beat the crowd. The undefeated 20-year-old will be fighting Zaur Abdullaev, a fellow undefeated boxer fresh off wins over Hank Lundy and Humberto Martinez. Abdullaev hails from Russia and has stopped seven of his 11 opponents as a professional. Still, Haney will be the solid favorite in that matchup.Other fights announced this week include Julian Williams-Jarrett Hurd 2 for Dec. 14 in Brooklyn, and Josh Warrington-Sofiane Tokoucht Oct. 12 in Leeds, UK.
One of the potential most exciting bouts of the year was confirmed this week, as Naoya “The Monster” Inoue and Nonito Donaire will be fighting on Nov. 7. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, for American fans, that fight is going to be in Tokyo, so if you want to see it you’re going to need to wake up early. That’s the bad news.
White is Hoping Zuffa Boxing Will Take Off in October
In case you forgot, Dana White has been selling “Zuffa Boxing” T-Shirts since 2017. What has Zuffa Boxing resulted in? So far, nothing but empty words. But while everyone else seems content to let “Zuffa Boxing” be an idea that (for whatever reason) just never came together, White announced this week that they’ve made some big hires, are building offices, a war room and that he hopes to have the whole thing running in October.It’s hard to see what place in the sport White could carve out for himself, but the sport is so disjointed it’s difficult to see him doing any harm.