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Great, just what we needed - more belts. According to Fightnews, the WBC has announced that it will be giving out a new "diamond championship belt" for significant catchweight fights. Since this particular belt is being made with 18 karat gold, about 600 diamonds, and other precious stones, it's a way to ensure that the WBC will get exorbitant amounts of fees from fighters putting together catchweight fights. I needed to check my calendar to make sure it's not April 1. - Here's a sad story about former champion Genaro Hernandez. He's suffered from a number of malignant tumors recently, and between his illnesses and the bad market, doesn't have much left. A number of people in the boxing community, including Akihito Honda, Bob Arum and Antonio Margarito, have helped to kick in for his treatments, and he says he'd probably be dead if not for their help. At least it's nice to see his former promoters stepping in and doing the right thing. A recent interview with Hernandez is also available here.
- The rest of the Roy Jones Jr. card has officially been filled out. BJ Flores will be facing Epifanio Mendoza, and Jason Litzau will be facing Verquan Kimbrough. It must be a bit of a disappointment for Kimbrough, who was originally slated to fight in Namibia for Paulus Moses' title a few weeks ago before needing to pull out. And I just don't get Flores vs. Mendoza. Here's an opponent who was fighting at super middleweight not that long ago, and he's another opponent with a big punch, a good chin and a low workrate. I almost feel like Flores is intentionally trying to schedule boring fights. Already scheduled was Danny Green vs. Julio Cesar Dominguez.
- I really hope that all this jawing between Celestino Caballero and Juan Manuel Lopez actually leads to a fight. First, when Caballero's camp reached out to Lopez, they said they wanted a 7 figure payday, which is just absurd at the weight class (consider that Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez only got $1 million each for their third fight). Caballero fired back by calling Lopez an overprotected fraud, and saying he'd "break his mouth" and head to Puerto Rico for a fight. Lopez's manager fired back, saying he won't negotiate through the media. Caballero reloaded with a pretty well-reasoned response, and said that if Lopez wants to enjoy a legacy similar to that of other Puerto Rican boxing heroes, he'll need to stop avoiding people, and the path to glory goees through Caballero. I like Lopez a lot, but I have to agree here. It's really starting to look like either Lopez is ducking Caballero, or Bob Arum is trying to keep Lopez away from Caballero with a 10-foot pole. Either way, it's a shame, since this is probably one of the biggest and best fights that could be made in the smaller weight classes. Food for thought - there are three other fighters in Lopez's weight class ranked in the pound for pound top 20, and he hasn't even come close to fighting any of them.
- More oddities in the Gatti story - evidently he changed his will to leave everything to his wife rather than his children only a couple of weeks before his purported suicide.
- There's a rumor that Pavlik-Williams is a done deal, and that we'll have an announcement later today. We'll have a more complete story on this if I can confirm that the news is true.
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Friday Morning Notes: Hook City undercard finalized
By
Brickhaus
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