Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes

Wherefore BHop?
Nowhere, if Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones are to be believed. After his upset shutout of Kelly Pavlik last Saturday, the ageless warrior Bernard Hopkins made it clear that he wants the winner of the Calzaghe/Jones fight on November 8th. But if Jones and Calzaghe are telling it straight, neither of them has much interest in fighting Hopkins.

Calzaghe at least has a good excuse -- he just fought Hopkins, and beat him, in a pedestrian fight from last April that no one is exactly clamoring to see repeated. But the 43-year-old Bernard’s utter domination of the 26-year-old Pavlik has some feeling like he may have stumbled upon the fountain of youth, and that a rematch with Calzaghe might prove to be a much more interesting event than the first go-round. Calzaghe, however, thinks Hopkins was the exact same fighter against Pavlik that he was against him, the difference being that Calzaghe is a much better fighter than Pavlik. “Hopkins beating Pavlik in the style he did actually gives my victory over Hopkins more credibility,” the Welshman said, and as for the possibility of a BHop rematch, he was categorical, saying, “I don’t do rematches.”

For most of the week, Roy was adamant that it never will happen, claiming that Bernard has backed out of several opportunities to fight him in the past and the time for the fight has past. Today, though, in a self-written blog entry over at the Worldwide Leader, he suddenly changed his tune, writing, “I beat Bernard 15 years ago and I will do it again if we fight. I’d like that fight and if it makes sense and we come up with a good deal, for sure I will do it.”

Roy, of course, is Mr. If It Makes Dollars It Makes Sense, and so if he does get by Calzaghe somehow (Vegas likes the Pride of Wales in that one to the tune of -360), one would imagine that the budget that would be floated for a Roy/Bernard pay-per-view donnybrook would squelch whatever hurt feelings he harbors and get him in the ring. If Bernard wants another meaningful fight after his Pavlik masterpiece, he better hope so, because other than Calzaghe and Jones, there’s no one credible and bankable enough left out there for him to tangle with in a marquee affair.

Wherefore Margo?
While the rest of the boxing year will be dominated by two very big but ultimately inconsequential fights, Jones/Calzaghe and De La Hoya/Pacquiao, the die-hard boxing acolyte has only one question on his mind -- when is Tony Margarito going to fight next, and who is he going to fight? With his stalking, punishing, heroic victory over Miguel Cotto this past July, Margarito has become the serious fight’s fan’s serious fighter, and such fans are eager to see their man back in action.

Shane Mosley is the name that is on everyone’s lips right now, although that talk may be dissipating at last in the face of the economic reality. The date being floated for the fight is late January, early February, but for a while the word has been that HBO doesn’t have the money in their budget to shell out for such a big-name fight during those months.

For his part, Margarito doesn’t seem to think that Mosley actually wants to fight him anyway, that it’s all talk. In this piece over at Boxing Scene, he says that though he doubts the bout will come off, “If he fights me, I won’t just be the first fighter to knock him out ... I’ll be the fighter to send him into retirement.”

In that same piece, Boxing Scene writer Rick Reeno says that the much-anticipated Margarito/Cotto rematch, which most believe will take place next summer, could potentially happen in February. That’s news to me and I think it’s next to impossible given the logistics. The more likely scenario that Reeno outlines, provided the Mosley plans fall through, is a Margarito rematch with Joshua Clottey, the IBF champ at 147, in early 2009, with the Cotto rematch taking place in the summer months.

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