By James Slater – BoxNation, the new channel from U.K promoter Frank Warren, really is fast becoming a must-have commodity for hardcore boxing fans. Yet more proof of this is the recent announcement of the fights the subscription channel will carry in the coming weeks.
There are three big heavyweight title fights already scheduled for this year – Vitali Klistchko-Dereck Chisora, Wladimir Klitschko-Jean Marc Mormeck and Alexander Povetkin-Marco Huck (forget the bogus “regular” belt that will be on the line, this fight will be exciting and well worth watching) – and BoxNation will exclusively televise two of them (leaving, we hope, SKY to show Wladimir-Mormeck.
Added to this, BoxNation will show the return fight between cruiserweights Steve Cunningham and Yoan Pablo Hernandez. With the Nathan Cleverly-Tommy Karpency and Ricky Burns-Paulus Moses fights also in the bag for the new channel, the need for the £10 a month subscription is clear. Simply put: fans will lose out on seeing great fights if they fail to sign on!
Talking of the Vitali-Chisora fight, the two recently took part in a fascinating Head-To-Head that went out on BoxNation. Well worth checking out, some of the highlights include: Chisora suggesting Vitali “juices up” – saying “I don’t juice myself like you, baby.” Chisora claiming he “swings both ways” and Vitali giving his pre-fight prediction “I will knock you out, six rounds at the most.”
Two vastly different personalities will clash in the ring in Munich, and both men seem utterly convinced they will win the fight. “How can you beat me?” Vitali asked. “You think you can stop me?”
“I’m coming for you and you know that,” Chisora shot back. “You’re definitely going down in the 8th! You’re a bully who likes fighting cruiserweights.”
Arguably the most interesting defence in a long while for the WBC king (Chisora has promised this will be the most exciting, most interesting fight of Vitali’s career), Chisora’s sheer self belief is making it hard for many fans to write off his chances.
But back to the Face-to-Face programme: why did host John Rawling fail to jump in and ask Chisora to explain/go into more detail on his “juicing” comment. Does Chisora believe Vitali Klitschko takes/or has taken, illegal stimulants? This brief, possibly off the cuff comment from the WBC title challenger should have resulted in far more attention than it actually got.
WORLD BOXING COUNCIL NEWS
January 16, 2012 – Mexico City.
From the office of WBC President Dr. José Sulaimán:
The following is one of the weekly “Hook to the Body” columns by WBC President Dr. José Sulaimán that are published in El Universal every Sunday. From January 15, translated from Spanish:
HOOK TO THE BODY
The 70 Years of Muhammad Ali.
I dedicate today’s column to Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer that my eyes have seen in and out of the ring, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, which will be celebrated in a grandiose ceremony and dinner next month at the MGM which is becoming the cathedral of boxing in the world today, just as Caesars Palace was last century.
I let my mind fly towards those great years of my youth, when I was still a resident in the province of Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico, when a young fighter, Cassius Clay, came out to the sport to win an Olympic light heavyweight gold medal in the Rome Olympic Games of 1960, the same medal that he threw into a river when he felt that far from recognition and applause of North American society, he had found discrimination and rejection. With his heart of a warrior and his pride hurt, he invaded professional boxing with a passion to fight for his race and show all that he would conquer glory as a social action to demonstrate the injustice thrown at him by this discriminatory sector of the society of his world – and do it with the power of his fists, the heart of a lion, and the satire of his tongue. This war of Ali against discrimination won me over immediately, as I had learned in my country the sense of human equality.
Muhammad Ali never fought only for victory in the ring; his ideal was his struggle for human dignity. He knew that it had to come from reaching glory through the masses, and built a controversial personality to fill arenas even when many would go to see him lose; he composed boxing poems to show the round of his K.O. and did it for the happiness of his followers and the hate of his detractors. The hate that was shown by many of the media in his country when he met Elijah Muhammad and became a Muslim with the name of Muhammad Ali, the religion that my hero Ali took with a passion of absolute faith and the depth of his heart, an authentic humanitarian Muslim at once. Being at my home in Mexico City, away from the outside world, he asked me for a lonely place for his prayers at noon looking at the East (The Mecca); my son Mauricio, an adolescent, showed him the place at home. Later on, we found out that he had signaled the north to Ali instead of the East, but we were too embarrassed to let him know.
To talk about Muhammad Ali, not only about his great boxing career, would take me pages, which was done eloquently by my friend Eduardo Lamazón, so I would rather ratify what was said before of a man that stood on his greatness to fight for equality and the good of mankind. One of his greatest victories was objecting to fight in Vietnam for being against his principles and for his religion, even when the abuse of power left him three and a half years inactive when he was only 25 years old; the fairness of American Law ruled him free that sent a message to the very poor people of the world never to give up even to the immense powers in the world.
Ali and I became very good friends in the past and I sincerely love, respect and admire the man – he used to call me “brother.” I was at many of his boxing matches and have countless anecdotes, because he was never a dull individual but one of admirable extroversion as well as an unmeasurable charisma. He was the diamond among countless champions back in 1983 at the United Nations for the 20th year WBC anniversary. Once, at the bar of the coffee shop at Caesars Palace, three beautiful ladies at different times, dropped the keys of their rooms in front of him. He payed little attention, but asked me, smiling, if I wanted one of those keys.
He visited me many times in Mexico, one for the convention in 1980, when he met and played around with the late Cantinflas, the greatest Spanish-speaking comedian of all time, in photos shown in every meter of Mexico. One other time was at the convention of 1988 as well as other times in between, once when he came with his wife Lonnie to Ciudad Valles, the hometown of my sister Nelly, the area of the legendary millennium Mexican Indians, where he would take the children into his arms to show them his affection and respect, making all people crazy about his presence including my father, who still lived. One other time when Drs. Madrazo and Drucker saw him at my home for a medical surgery that was having success for the treatment and cure of the Parkinson’s syndrome, but which never took place, because a hundred of the media – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Televisa and so many others – were waiting for our car approaching the Humana hospital where the medical examinations would take place in an agreed absolutely secret and private visit. Ali just asked me to go back home. It would take me many pages and much time to describe the countless nice anecdotes about this glorious man.
During our times of closeness, Muhammad Ali used to like to preach to me. Once he told me that mankind was usually indifferent, ungrateful and uninterested about our own earth and who have built it. So for him to understand the time of our earth in the universe, he went to a desert where he considered every grain of sand as a year of our planet having been a part of the universe and concluded that he was an infinitesimal part of it. He thought of about 80 years that Allah would give him and decided that he would paint 80 grains of sand in such a brilliant way with his total devotion to live with heart, body, and soul for the benefit of others as an example of future generations. He would throw those grains at his feet on the desert until the wind of time would come to blow them into oblivion.
My dearest champion and brother, the 70 grains of sand that you will hold in your hands on the 18th will shine forever as a brilliant show of your passing through life. May Allah give you many, many more with happiness and pride for the people of the world who think of you as our hero.
Allentown heavyweight favorite William Miranda headlines February 25 at Rodeway Inn against Williams!
ALLENTOWN, PA (January 16, 2011) – Local heavyweight favorite William “Big Stuff” Miranda (4-4-1) of Allentown, PA will headline “Heavyweight Explosion” on February 25 at the Rodeway Inn in Allentown against David Williams (6-5-1, 2 KO) of Philadelphia. The six-bout card will be presented by King’s Promotions.
The 33-year-old Miranda will be making his second straight appearance at the Rodeway Inn, bringing with him a large following that is sure to create a partisan atmosphere on fight night. Miranda’s highly entertaining fighting style coupled with his magnetic personality have transformed him into the Lehigh Valley’s top ticket selling attraction.
“Part of the reason I connect with my crowd is that, I don’t look at them as my fans, but as my friends,” said Miranda, who works as a personal trainer at Lehigh Valley Isshin Ryu Karate in Catasauqua, PA, teaching striking for mixed martial arts fighters and boxing. “I believe the feeling is mutual and that the crowd genuinely roots for me and wants to see me do well.”
Miranda, who is originally from Queens, N.Y., came to Allentown five years ago when the Long Island-based warehousing company he worked at relocated to Allentown. He first started boxing at age 14 and won the New York Junior Olympic title and made it all the way to the National tournament in Marquette, Michigan. He competed in the New York Golden Gloves as an adult, making it to the finals at Madison Square Garden in 1995.
In the six-round co-featured bout, junior middleweight Keenan Collins (13-7-2, 9 KO) of Reading, PA will face Julio Cesar Lanza (7-17-6, 1 KO) of Managua, Nicaragua. Collins, a native of York, PA, is looking to get back on track after a competitive decision loss to world-ranked Philadelphian Gabriel Rosado.
Also on the card, undefeated welterweight Grayson Blake (4-0, 1 KO) of State College, PA will meet Corey Preston (1-7) from North Carolina in a four-round bout. The 29-year-old Blake was a former national amateur standout and was a member of the Pennsylvania State University boxing team.
In other action, heavyweight Eric Newell (3-1,1 KO) of Bethlehem, PA will face debuting Randy Easton, plus junior lightweight Frank Santos De Alba (1-0-1, 1 KO) of Reading, PA meets Corey White (1-3, 1 KO) from Ohio in a four-round bout.
Rounding out the card is a four-round junior welterweight clash between Cesar Gonzalez (0-1-2) of Reading, PA against Osahon Omo-Osagie (0-1-1) in a four-round rematch of their draw last May.
More fights will be announced shortly.
Tickets are priced at $65 (VIP), $50 (Ringside) and $35 (General Admission), and can be purchased at the Rodeway Inn (610-398-1629), King’s Boxing (610-587-5950) at Lehigh Valley Isshin Ryu Karate (484-554-8804) or online at eventbrite.com. Doors open at 6PM and first fight is at 7PM. For more information, visit www.kingsboxing.com
The Rodeway Inn is located at 1151 Bulldog Drive, Allentown, PA.