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Site Notes
Bad Left Hook Radio will be up at 10am EDT. It's a supersized show at just over 80 minutes this week. The Pick'em Game is up, as is the TV fight schedule.
Give It Up, Golden Boy
Before you start thinking I'm just giving GBP the business, listen, it's not that. I will explain.
The new chatter is that Golden Boy is hoping to possibly use Victor Ortiz to match Top Rank's $5 million, 144-pound catchweight offer that has been made to Juan Manuel Marquez. Marquez has reportedly accepted said offer, as Golden Boy's previous idea for a counter, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, cannot make 144 pounds.
But Ortiz probably can. Here's my issue with this -- it stinks because it's nothing more than Golden Boy trying to be in the way. Marquez is going to turn 38 in August and has been chasing Pacquiao for three years, ever since their second fight ended. That fight would have happened by now were it not for the war between Golden Boy and Top Rank. Now a free agent, Marquez is trying to land the fight, and Top Rank wants it. Everyone involved with the negotiations wants it, except Golden Boy can match the offer, so they're trying to.
Instead of actually focusing on Ortiz and Canelo, who could be their two biggest stars long-term, and developing their other young fighters, Golden Boy seems to be spending more time wondering how they can block a fight that Marquez wants badly. And for what? So they can feed him to Ortiz or Canelo, in a fight that won't be taken all that seriously? Ortiz and Canelo aren't Pacquiao, either -- Pacquiao fights are cared about because they're Pacquiao fights. The other two are just mismatches physically.
And does it really make any business sense to pay Marquez $5 million to fight Victor Ortiz or "someone else"? They didn't even want to pay Marquez to fight Erik Morales after trying to make that fight for months, and that was a hell of a lot less than $5 million.
Does Golden Boy really need to milk Marquez? Do they need to drag this out at all? And if they do manage to block Pacquiao vs Marquez III, who cares? Top Rank will just put on some other fight with Pacquiao (Timothy Bradley, Zab Judah, Miguel Cotto) and make money anyway. It's just bizarre to me that this is even something Golden Boy is sweating so much. And what if they do match it with Ortiz involved? Will Top Rank just drop the weight down again, and we wind up going around and around in circles about this?
"The Empire" Fighters Stick with Greg Cohen
When "The Empire" stopped promoting boxing, it left those fighters in limbo. Many have decided to stick with Greg Cohen, who headed the Empire's boxing division and in the past worked with Cedric Kushner and Duva Boxing, in the new Greg Cohen Promotions company. Included among those going with Cohen are Austin Trout, Joe Greene, Mikey Faragon, and James Toney. The language in the release is a lot like what I remember "The Empire" sounding like at first, and they never truly made any mark in boxing. Trout has a legitimate future, but Greene hasn't looked good in a while and Toney is a punchline at this point. They say they're going to be working with FSN, but we'll see.
After the jump: Your highly-anticipated Song of the Day
Song of the Day
The other day I was doing nothing much at all on Twitter, and Matthew Roth from SB Nation's kickboxing blog Head Kick Legend started going nuts about Bruce Springsteen. As I am also a huge fan of The Boss -- though I think Mr. Roth has me beaten -- I joined in a little bit. This is a bit past the era of Bruuuuce we were talking about, but a great song anyway. I've always been struck by the desperate power of the line, "For my 19th birthday, I got a union card and a wedding coat."