Round by Round: Weekly Boxing Notes

Money May Will Not Go Away
↵At least in the minds of the boxing public, or boxing promoters for that matter. After his thrilling last-second KO of Ricardo Mayorga, Shane Mosley found his promoter alluding to the infamously retired cash money millionaire as a hopeful next opponent for Sugar Shane. ↵↵Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer told Tim Smith of the Daily News and Robert Morales of Boxing Scene that to secure Mosley’s next fight, he planned to make “an indecent proposal to Floyd Mayweather.” ↵

↵↵Which is a strange thing to say for two reasons. First, Schaefer is a very savvy observer of the fight scene: Does he really think that if Mayweather is going to come out of retirement for a mega-fight, he’s going to do it against a 37-year-old increasingly irrelevant Shane Mosley?↵

↵↵Second of all, and this is the really strange one, doesn’t Golden Boy promote another fighter who is very interested in fighting Money May for untold gazillions? Like, um, The Golden Boy? You telling me Oscar is going to step aside so Shane can make a lot less money to fight Lil Floyd? Ninja please.↵

↵↵Maybe Schaefer was just joking. As for Mayweather’s camp, the word from them is that Money is not thinking about fighting anyone right now because he’s still busy counting his money and he’s not going to be done for a very long time, thank you very much.↵

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↵↵No doubt part of what is keeping Oscar’s flame burning is the promise of a ridiculous money/no risk bout next year against Ricky Hatton at Wembley Stadium. This bout Richard Schaefer has termed his “dream fight” and it’s not hard to imagine why. Money? Gigantic. Q factor? Stratospheric. Potential for loss of embarrassment? Zero. Can I just make the understatement of the year and mention right now that Oscar is not exactly distinguishing himself in the cojones department these days? Sheesh. Hatton would make four straight fights in which De La Hoya has fought a decidedly smaller man. I wonder how long it will be until Jorge Arce gets a crack at the Golden Goose.↵

↵↵Tres Joven Amigos
↵Nice card of “who’s got next?” on HBO’s Boxing After Dark tomorrow night, featuring two up-and-coming bangers who are generating a lot of excitement among diehards. The first is 25-year-old Mexican 154, Alfredo Angulo, who is 13-0 in the ring and more notably has been serving as sparring partner and apprentice to Tony Margarito for the last two years. Like Margs, Angulo has heavy hands and a ferocious will, and tomorrow night he makes a big step up in competition to face Russian-born, Bronx-trained Andrey Tsurkan.↵

↵↵Also on the card is maybe the most electrifying young fighter on the scene today, Cuban featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa. This kid carries himself like a young Tyson and has hand-speed like the vintage Meldrick Taylor, and if that combination doesn’t turn you on then you ain’t breathing. In his pursuit of artistic brilliance and jaw-dropping elasticity, Gamboa has been known to leave himself open to some big counters, getting unceremoniously dropped in his HBO debut by the hard-as-nails Dominican, Darling Jimenez. Of course, Gamboa’s high-danger-quotient Houdini routine only makes him that much more fascinating to watch. As far as the fight game goes right now, for a prospect he’s as close to must-see TV as it gets.↵

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