By James Slater: “Magic Man” Antonio Tarver may have picked up only the lightly regarded IBO cruiserweight title with his 9th-round retirement win over Australia’s Danny Green, but the amazing 42-year-old has to be praised for the way he traveled all the way to Australia to dethrone a man a fair deal younger than him – and a man who had never before been stopped, at that.
And, fresh off his career-revitalizing win, former movie star Tarver is confidently stating how he now aims to unify the belts at 200-pounds – one at a time.
“I’m going to unify this championship one belt at a time,” he said shortly after his win over Green. “I’ll go anywhere in the world to win, because when you’re in that squared circle, that’s my home.”
If Tarver – who also enjoys a successful and appreciated role as a commentator for the Show Time network – is serious about carrying on and facing the other champs in the division he himself has just added some excitement to, there are some good, possibly exciting fights out there for him.
IBF king Steve “U.S.S” Cunningham is seen by most as the top dog of the division right now, and a fight between the Philly veteran (age 35) and the near-legend from Florida would almost certainly prove attractive to the fans. Both guys can bang, both have good boxing skills and neither guy has ever been stopped. The problem may be that Cunningham is looking at doing what Tarver did a while back, and make a move up to heavyweight. Hopefully, “USS” can be persuaded to stick around for one more fight at cruiserweight before he jumps ship!
26-year-old Marco Huck, the World Boxing Organization (WBO) boss, is next in the rankings behind Tarver (according to Boxrec), and this too would be a fascinating match-up. Huck, beaten only by Cunningham, hasn’t shown too much interest in travelling to the U.S to fight, preferring to do his stuff in Germany (the venue for his last 16 fights) – but as Tarver said, he himself is willing to go anywhere to rumble. This one would be a classic youth Vs. experience encounter.
WBC 200-pound champ Krzysztof Wlodarczyk isn’t too well known amongst U.S fight fans, but he is a fine fighter nonetheless. Perhaps best known for his two fights with Cunningham (a split decision winner and then a majority decision loser, both fights taking place in Wlodarczyk’s native Poland in 2007), the 29-year-old has not lost a fight since (8 wins and a draw) and he has retained his WBC belt twice in recent months. Would Tarver risk taking this fight? And would he go to Poland?
There are currently two claimants to the WBA cruiserweight strap: with Panama’s 39-year-old Guillermo Jones being the “real” champ, and Cuba’s 26-year-old Yoan Pablo Hernandez being the interim champ. Ideally, Tarver would fight the winner of these two and then go for the legit WBA crown. I’d expect that winner to be the much younger Hernandez. A fight between the Cuban (like Tarver a southpaw) and “The Magic Man” would also prove interesting.
Time, as we know, is not on Tarver’s side – despite the good a job he is doing in defying it’s ravages – and it would take a whole lot of time setting these fights up. But the 200-pound weight class sure would be an interesting place if even two or three of the above match-ups got off the ground.