Round by Round – Weekly Boxing Notes

Wrong Klitschko, But We’ll Take It
It appears that the longsuffering negotiations for a Sam Peter/Vitali Klitschko fight have ended, and though there is no official word on where or when, the fight is on. For now, at least, it’s on. Remember that Don King is involved, not to mention Vitali Klitschko, who’s pulled out of more fights in his life than this kid I knew back in middle school who we called Plucky. He was always pulling out of fights, that kid.

Anyways, I, like most fight fans with a pulse I suspect, would rather see a rematch between Sam Peter and Wladimir Klitschko, which would also be the first true heavyweight title unification fight in years. That said, I’m not unenthused to see Sam (The Nigerian Nightmare) and Vitali (Dr. Ironfist) throw down. It’s got the classic “Great Batman Villains’ Nicknames” thing going for it, and besides at the moment I’m pretty happy to watch Sam Peter fight anyone at any time. The guy is the most interesting heavyweight to come along in years, and he can’t box worth a crap really, which makes him entertaining as all hell. Cause though he don’t box, he do punch, Big Sam. Check him out below whaling away in his March win over Oleg Maskaev to win the WBC belt outright:

Slip Sliding Away
As you may have heard by now, the Shane Mosley-Zab Judah welterweight fight scheduled for pay-per-view on May 31st is off due to an arm injury to Zab, reportedly suffered after he slipped in his bathroom in Vegas and put his arm through a glass shower. Needed 50 stitches to close that up.

There are varying reports as to whether the fight will be rescheduled, with the odds leaning slightly towards the “not” camp right now. Which is fine by me. I’d like to see them mix it up, sure, and I’ve got mad respect for Sugar Shane after his Cotto donnybrook, but Shane/Zab is just one of those fights between dudes who are past their best where it seems like nothing much rests on the outcome. It also happens to be taking place in the best weight division in boxing right now. What exactly is going to happen to the winner that wouldn’t happen anyway? Fight Cotto? Dah, no, cause they’ve both already fought him, last year in fact, back to back, and they both lost. Zab’s already fought Floyd for that matter, and you know Money May ain’t gonna tangle with no Sugar Shane until he gets that Oscar cheddar and then builds up to a Cotto superfight. In short, there’s nothing really left for Shane and Zab to do on the big stage besides fight up-and-comers like Paul Williams or Andre Berto. If Margarito beats Cotto, Mosley would be an interesting opponent for him. The thing is, we don’t need to know who wins a Mosley/Judah fight for any of those fights to be worth watching. What’s more, we definitely don’t need to spend 50 bucks on it.

One thing we do need, however, is to know what really happened to Zab that he took those 50 stitches in his arm. Slipping in Vegas. My ass. Nobody slips in Vegas.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.