It’s the kind of story that can make a casual sports fan form a rooting interest. Brooklyn’s Danny Jacobs is fighting for the WBO middleweight title tonight in Las Vegas just a few days after the death of his grandmother Cordelia Jacobs.
“I know my grandmother wanted me to pursue my dream,” said Jacobs (20-0, 17 KOs), who faces Dmitry Pirog (16-0, 13 KOs) of Russia. “She would want me to do what I have to do to win.”
That the fight will be on the undercard of a pay-per-view featuring a rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz is a bit of buzz kill. If Jacobs, a product of the Brownsville section that produced Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe, were fighting for a title at Madison Square Garden, it would have been electric.
Nevertheless, boxing needs any good story it can get these days, after the latest fiasco surrounding a much-anticipated fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. It has once again exposed everything that’s wrong with the sport and why it struggles for credibility.
Here’s the skinny: Mayweather supposedly ignored a deadline imposed by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who said he had been negotiating a deal with HBO sports boss Ross Greenburg working as an intermediary. Only Mayweather says there never were any negotiations going on. I’ll let you decide who you believe. Bottom line: The fight the world wants to see won’t be taking place in 2010.
If that’s not bad enough, Arum wants to match Pacquiao with another Top Rank fighter, Antonio Margarito, the guy caught with a hardened substance in his wraps before his bout with Shane Mosley in January 2009. Arum says the fight will take place Nov. 13 but doesn’t have a site yet because Margarito doesn’t have a license to fight in the United States after being caught cheating.
I believe Margarito should never be allowed to fight in the U.S. again. The last thing Margarito deserves is a big payday after being found guilty of one of the most egregious acts in boxing. But with the Las Vegas economy starved for a Pacquiao fight, Arum is hoping the Nevada State Athletic Commission will grant Margarito a conditional license. Otherwise Arum is threatening to stage the bout in Mexico.
And if that isn’t bad enough, Pacquiao-Margarito will be for the vacant 154-pound WBC junior middleweight title and promoted as the Filipino’s attempt to win a title in eight weight divisions. Only the fight will be fought at a catch-weight of 150 pounds, only three pounds over the 147-pound welterweight limit. That’s a joke. A 154-pound championship fought at 150 pounds? Bogus.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Arena hasn’t been built yet, but it already has locked into an “exclusive” agreement to have Los Angeles-based Golden Boy Promotions produce a monthly boxing card from roughly 2012 to 2015.
Not only did the Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment, which brokered the deal, thumb its nose to local promoters like DiBella Entertainment and Joe DeGuardia’s Star Boxing, who have kept boxing breathing in New York, it also has eliminated the kind of competition between promoters that would produce better fights. Golden Boy does a nice job with its Fight Night Club cards in L.A., but has no real roots in the East. It’s true Jacobs is a Golden Boy fighter, but he has fought just twice in New York in his nearly three years as a pro.
Maybe Jacobs wins tonight and returns a triumphant champion and defends his crown at the Garden, and maybe one day at the Brooklyn Arena. Maybe by then Mayweather and Pacquiao finally will have met in the ring and boxers will know if they cheat, they’ll be banned for life.