Boxing Breakfast: Gary Shaw Talks Timothy Bradley, HBO Could Expand Boxing Coverage, and More

Gary Shaw on Timothy Bradley

Promoter Gary Shaw says that despite Bob Arum's denials of tampering, he feels that his fighter Timothy Bradley had Top Rank "all over" him when he attended the Pacquiao vs Mosley fight on Saturday. Michael Marley spoke with Shaw about the matter:

"I had (attorney) Leon Margules hit him with a tortious interference legal warning letter a day or so ago," Shaw said. "I know Tim went to see Mosley against Pacquiao and I know they (Top Rank) were all over Bradley."

Shaw also gives further details about the deal he tried to get Bradley to sign to face Amir Khan on July 23, but doesn't get into Bradley's contract, which is said to expire on June 30. There does remain the chance that Bradley could re-up with Shaw and is trying to strengthen his negotiating power, but expect both Top Rank and Golden Boy to make serious plays.

As for Bradley, those who believe the $1.2 or $1.3 million paydays he had guaranteed to fight anyone HBO approved ($1.2M) or Khan ($1.3M) are out of line, remember that Shaw got Bradley $1.1M to fight Devon Alexander in February. Despite that show's disaster at the gate in Michigan, the fighters were both paid very handsomely. Part of that is because of HBO. Let's talk about HBO boxing.

HBO Could Introduce New Series This Fall

Steve Kim of Max Boxing reports that a new boxing series could start this fall. It would be a monthly project on HBO2 with Top Rank involved. That's an interesting idea, but I'm sure many are as hesitant about getting excited over any monthly Top Rank series as I am after their garbage show on Versus a few years back that mostly exposed the world to Tye Fields, and their current mediocre-but-better-than-Versus "Top Rank Live" series on Fox Sports Net. One-promoter series generally strike gold about once every five shows if there's real effort put in, and as much as I love the idea of another boxing series featuring young fighters, I could also live without something that winds up resembling the abysmal Fight Night Club from Golden Boy.

Speaking of being hesitant, I should have done that yesterday. The Epix deal for the 5/21 UK card with Braehmer vs Cleverly and DeGale vs Groves won't air on US TV until 6/18, so it's basically worthless in the modern world. Maybe that sounds harsh, but a fight that happened a month ago that is targeted at an audience that will go out of their way to find it live is really worthless.

Fight Chatter

• Let's stick with Steve Kim. I'll even link him again (and you should read that for a profile on Seth Mitchell, too). Mikey Garcia will be opening the 6/4 show on HBO (Zbik vs Chavez) and could be facing Miguel Beltran Jr (24-1, 17 KO). Beltran was knocked out in the tenth round last year by Joksan Hernandez. At 21 years old, he does have a win over Mickey Roman, and could still have some real upside. It's not a bad idea for a fight.
• Christy Martin will be on the 6/4 Zbik vs Chavez card, too, in a rescheduling of her fight against Dakota Stone. Martin is going for her 50th career win. I'll leave it at that.
• The return to Philly of Mike Jones on June 25 is one you can not bother to concern yourself with, as the tall welterweight will face 35-year-old Raul Munoz (22-13-1, 16 KO). Munoz has fought twice this year after getting knocked out in 1:01 by Alfonso Gomez back in 2009, but this is a pure club fight tune-up for Jones (24-0, 18 KO).
• If you missed it, Kell Brook also has a June 25 opponent. He'll be facing Lovemore N'dou. That's a lot better than what Jones is doing. N'dou is old, but still tough as all hell and isn't a bad fight for Brook as the UK prospect/contender starts making a play for something big.
• Edgar Sosa is fighting on June 2 against Uruguay's Julio Paz. The world (well, a few of us) anxiously await the part of this story where Sosa and Pongsaklek Wonjongkam stop tuning up and just fight each other already.
• Mzonke Fana's June 11 fight with Argenis Mendez is off.

After the jump: Your unbelievable and shocking Song of the Day!

Song of the Day

Neil Diamond's "Love on the Rocks." This song came to mind two days ago when I watched Donnie Brasco again, as it features in a great scene with Paulie and Nicky playing gin and having a wonderful argument. "How 'bout from now on, I just put the cards down and you say gin whenever you feel like it?" It's also a song that played on my late uncle's jukebox in his downstairs billiards room/bar area at the house where I spent a bulk of my summers and Christmas breaks as a child. I didn't know it at the time, but that jukebox was stacked with absolutely classic music. Instead I played this song a lot and ignored all the Sam Cooke. What the hell did I know? I was like 8. But I still love this song to this day because of that.