Mike Afromowitz from Strikeforce sent this out this evening.
As has been speculated on various websites, Brazilian Carina Damm is having difficulty obtaining the necessary visa to travel to The United States for her participation in the STRIKEFORCE Challengers event on Friday, Aug. 13 where Damm is slated to compete in the women’s welterweight (135 pounds) tournament in Phoenix, Ariz.
STRIKEFORCE is working diligently to help Carina secure a visa in time to make the trip for next month’s event. In the event that she is unable to acquire a visa, however, we have identified a qualified replacement for the tournament and will release her name if Carina is officially forced to withdraw from the event. This prospective replacement has been in training camp for several weeks and is prepared to take on the task at hand.
Stay tuned for further information. If you have any questions, please call me at 917-566-8754.
Do you remember the build up to Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya when Mayweather brought out a rubber chicken to further taunt De La Hoya by calling him “Chicken De La Hoya”?
Well, according to Kevin Iole, it’s Mayweather who is running scared. I don’t know if I buy that Mayweather is scared at all of Pacquiao, but I do sense that he knows that the second his zero is gone from his record, so is much of his drawing power.
It all started last year when negotiations between the two camps stalled because of Pacquiao’s unwillingness to meet Mayweather’s drug testing demands. Just last month, it seemed like the fight was nearing a go as Bob Arum and Oscar De La Hoya both made public statements that hinted at it being near finalized.
Bob Arum set a deadline for for negotiations to be finalized or else Pacquiao would go on to negotiate with either Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito. Mayweather himself, who uses Twitter and Facebook to communicate with his fans, said nothing through either medium.
During a conference call Arum scheduled at the end of his deadline, he mentioned that he didn’t deal directly with Camp Mayweather. Both camps supposedly used HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg as the middle man. The fact that both camps couldn’t even talk to each other seemed odd, but because this is boxing, and there’s a lot of resentment between Top Rank and Mayweather’s people, it was just business as usual.
Mayweather Promotions CEO, Leonard Ellerbe released a statement two days later that flat out said either Bob Arum or Ross Greenburg was lying.
Al Haymon, Richard Schaefer and myself speak to each other on a regular basis and the truth is no negotiations have ever taken place nor was there ever a deal agreed upon by Team Mayweather or Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao on November 13. Either Ross Greenburg or Bob Arum is not telling the truth, but history tells us who is lying.
I didn’t know that a documentary about Jon Fitch existed until just recently, but thanks to Jonah Tulis, Philip Frank and Jesse Osher, there will be one officially released soon. When I heard about it, my first thought was, “Why Jon Fitch?” You’d think that film makers would want to create a movie around a fighter with a notable personality like a Rampage Jackson.
But from the looks of the trailer, it’s more than just about Fitch. It’s about the AKA gym as a whole and how they had to prepare their guy to face the best welterweight in the business. It also seems to be a movie that highlights the struggle of a fighter, showing two lower level fighters from the same camp identified as Matt Major and Nathan Moore by Ariel Helwani, talking about who they want to become.
I’m all for more documentaries about MMA. People know how hard it is. But people also have to know how hard it is to be successful at it.
With SummerSlam just a few weeks away and the story lines actually being halfway decent and making some sense, I had a couple of ideas where the top two story lines could go.
I think that by the end of this PPV, they can have made one person completely, and continue their strong Nexxus angle. During the last week of build, they need to establish that while John Cena may have been making a team, the Nexxus is a team strengthened because of help from one person. Since they are all still rookies, they took some advice from a particular person and that guy has been helping them all along.
This will create further distrust in the Raw group as they point fingers at Chris Jericho, Edge, and John Cena wondering who is the leader of the Nexxus. The night of the show, the Nexxus eliminates one person early on (Bret Hart?), and the Raw team either has to find a new partner, or go in at a disadvantage.
During the Randy Orton vs. Sheamus match, The Miz has to cash in. It’s the best chance to get him over huge and make it feel like a big deal. To me, it doesn’t matter who he cashes it in against because if Orton wins, he’ll have to pin Sheamus and then lose to Miz. And if Sheamus wins, he’ll have to pin Orton and then lose to Miz. Or, if they want to protect Orton, they can have him win by DQ, be upset about it and lay out Sheamus which sets it up for Miz to cash in the briefcase before the 7 on 7 match. Continue Reading »
Anderson Silva says that he’s going to put on a great performance against Chael Sonnen at UFC 117. He’s going to have to or else everyone from Dana White to fans who fork over $45 bucks to watch on PPV will be even more frustrated than ever.
I decided not to attend the show live in Oakland partly because I didn’t want to be disappointed watching a Silva main event. Here’s hoping he makes me regret that decision.
Last weekend on his conference call, Bob Arum said either Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito would be Manny Pacquiao’s next opponent if they couldn’t work out a deal with Floyd Mayweather.
Manny Pacquiao will fight Antonio Margarito on Nov. 13 for a vacant super welterweight championship, either in Las Vegas if Margarito can get licensed or in Monterrey, Mexico, if he can’t, promoter Bob Arum said.
Arum cited that he didn’t think people would buy Cotto as a worthy opponent based on Pacquiao already having beat him.
Margarito himself though won his comeback fight in unimpressive fashion, and that was after losing by knockout to Shane Mosley and getting suspended by the California State Athletic Commission for having a hardened substance in his hand wraps.
But still, it’s probably the right call between the two options. There are other fighters like Timothy Bradley and Paul Williams who would be more interesting fights to the boxing crowd, but Arum doesn’t think they have a big enough name to fight Pacquiao at this time.
There could be backlash for this fight because of choosing Margarito, who casual fans could see as an unforgivable cheater. I don’t see it doing more PPV business than Pacquiao’s last fight with Joshua Clottey. The key to the marketing would be in creating Margarito as the bad guy in the fight, but neither guy speaks English very well which could hurt that idea.
Hosting the fight in Mexico might add to the intrigue if Margarito can’t get sanctioned in Las Vegas.
With SummerSlam just a few weeks away and the story lines actually being halfway decent and making some sense, I had a couple of ideas where the top two story lines could go.
Loading ...