15.05.06 – By Jim Amato: May 17th in Sydney, Australia Danny Green and Anthony Mundine meet in an important super middleweight bout. There is a lot of bad blood here. It seems like a good match up. This one has really peaked my interest. On May 18th, Ricky Quiles, a boxer with ties to Lorain, Ohio will meet former champion Julio Diaz for the “Interim” IBF lightweight title. I never fully understood this “interim” thing. It used to be called a box off for the # 1 contender spot. Anyway, Lorain had two other lightweights challenge for the lightweight title in recent years. Carl “Stuff” Griffith challenged Oscar De La Hoya for the WBO lightweight title. He was stopped in three. Carl’s brother, Mike, had an unsuccessful challenge against Paul Spadafora.
May 20th on HBO Marco Antonio Barrera meets Houston’s Rocky Juarez. This could be an interesting bout. Rocky is moving up in weight but he can bang. Barrera, at 61-4, is being touted as a potential Hall Of Famer. Everything favors Barrera but Rocky’s taking a chance here. A true “punchers” chance.
Finally on May 24th at the Hammerstien Ballroom in NYC, come backing Shannon Briggs will take on rugged Chris Koval who is from the Youngstown, Ohio area. Briggs has been making a lot of noise lately about deserving a title shot. By rights he is a former ” lineal ” champion. He beat Foreman ( disputed ) who beat Moorer who beat Holyfield who beat Tyson. He’s called out some of the top guys in the division. We’ll have to wait and see what happens there. In the meantime he’ll battle Koval who’s a pretty tough guy. An upset win by Koval would probably send Briggs into retirement and land Koval a nice future payday. Although I’m rooting for the Ohio kid, I just don’t see that happening.