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Former junior middleweight titleholder Yuri Foreman to undergo reconstructive ACL surgery | ESPN
Former junior middleweight titleholder Yuri Foreman will undergo reconstructive ACL surgery and have torn cartilage removed from his injured right knee on Friday, manager Murray Schpipples Wilson told ESPN.com on Tuesday night. Foreman will be out for about six months. The fact he continued to fight for two rounds after the injury was quite a display of guts.
Ballpark brawl generates big ratings | USATODAY.com
The fight between Miguel Cotto and Yuri Foreman generated a 3.9 rating (about 1.9 million homes), HBO's highest of the year.
Roy Jones Jr. does a sensational job as HBO analyst for Cotto-Foreman fight | Boxing News 24
Jason Kim thinks Roy Jones Jr. did a bang up job as a replacement for Lennox Lewis. I agree, and frankly, I think he did much better than Lewis. His commentary was actually useful, and pointed out things the viewer might not otherwise notice. For example, I thought his discussion of Foreman's corner not cleaning up water well was an especially pertinent point that I hadn't heard any commentator make before. It's a damn shame that HBO says this was a one-off, because frankly Jones provided HBO's best commentary - of ANY of their commentators - in years.
Bottom Line, Arthur Mercante Jr. Adhered To The Rulebook | The Sweet Science
NYSAC Rule 210.17 says towels are not to be used to indicate submission; so despite the uproar about Mercante ignoring the towel thrown in the Cotto-Foreman fight, he was well within the rules to do so. Frankly, I suspect Mercante had no idea about the rule, and if someone really dug, they could probably find a number of Mercante fights where he stopped the fight when the corner threw in the towel.
Mercante was 1st man in ring at Yankee Stadium, not 3rd | CBC Sports
Chris Iorfida provides a counterpoint, saying that Mercante was wrong not to stop the fight after the towel came in, and that he violated refereeing rule number 1: you're there to facilitate the action, not to be the action.
A lot of drama going on with Haye's heavyweight title. Audley Harrison has vacated his European title and claims to be negotiating for a fight with Haye. Haye says he's still going after Klitschko. Valuev pulled out of his title eliminator with Odlanier Solis, saying he'll exercise his rematch clause with Haye. And reportedly Haye has turned down a 50/50 deal with Vitali Klitschko with no options, although I frankly doubt the veracity of that report. All of this seems to lead to the likely possibility that Haye will take the easy route and fight Audley Harrison next.
Bika-Mendy IBF purse bid | Fight News
Golden Boy win a purse bid for a title eliminator between Sakio Bika and Jean Paul Mendy. The winning bid was a mere $30,000, so there's a good possibility the fighters just refuse and don't make the fight at all. This has to be a huge comedown for Bika, who was scheduled to fight Jesse Brinkley in a televised eliminator. Brinkley pulled out with an injury, and was rewarded by the IBF in being made the mandatory without a fight. In related news, Lucian Bute will no longer fight in Romania this summer as he was unable to find a suitable opponent, and he will be defending against Brinkley in Montreal in the early fall.
Booth wins world title shot | Sky Sports
Nottingham's Jason Booth has secured a shot at IBF super-bantamweight champion Steve Molitor in England on July 23. Don't be surprised if this is just the first of many U.K. fighters getting title shots. Rendall Munroe, Ryan Rhodes, Matthew Macklin, John Murray, Nathan Cleverly and Kell Brook, among others, are all in position to get title shots in the near future.