It's time to give N'dam.

N'Dam it ALL!

Hassan N'dam is a very pleasant fellow. American audiences will know him from his thrilling fight with "Kid Chocolate" Peter Quillin in October of last year. What they might not know is that fight against Quillin was the result of some curly-wurly high powered chicanery betwixt Goldenboy and the WBO. The kind of thing that would have made this guy proud -->

The moderator in WBO/Goldenboy negotiations 

Perhaps that's not giving Machiavelli enough credit. According to N'Dam's trainer, Mustapha Ouicher (who also trains Jean Marc Mormek), GB simply paid the WBO to make Quillin N'Dam's mandatory fighter whom he had to face by October 20th or lose the title. Quillin wasn't even on the top 5 contenders list at the time. Coincidentally, GB had booked the Barclay centre that evening for a big night of Brooklyn boxing. N'Dam was on vacation recovering from a gruelling fight with hard-nosed Ukranian Max Bursak and nursing a procedure he'd had on 6 of his teeth. Nevertheless, his former promoter, Sebastien Acaries, did a quick-fire deal with GB without submitting N'dam's medical paperwork to the WBO which could have afforded him extra time to recover and knowing Hassan wasn't in shape and would struggle to get a proper training camp together in time for the fight.  

Never speak tooth to Power

By the time the deal was signed, N'Dam had under a month to prepare for the fight.  In a swashbuckling performance, N'dam suffered 6 knockdowns, due, in no small measure to a procedure he'd had his mouth a few weeks prior. On fight night, he needed 3 injections just to get him to comfortably bite down on a mouth guard. Look, I'm a Brit, and we love to accuse the French of making excuses and generally moaning about how the world is against them even though they only work 3 hours a day with 2 of those spent at lunch, BUT, teeth are sensitive and I needed 6 lbs of hydrochodone the last time I had a filling done. However many pieces of silver Acaries made from the fight, it was the last he made off N'dam's travails as the native Cameroonian has now signed with Gary Hyde.

N'dam scraped off the ring rust with a fight in Ireland against unheralded Anthony Fitzgerald in December.  He is now fighting on Michael King's card at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on April 16th against Fulgencio Zuniga who has fought James DeGale, Tavoris Cloud, Lucian Bute and Kelly Pavlik. As 2004 Olympian for Cameroon and previously undefeated Middleweight champion. If Hassan wins convincingly on Wednesday at Barker's Hangar, it's time to start (last name pun I promise) giving N'dam.  

Here is an interview I did with Hassan on Monday. Sure it would be nice to embed it like a pro, but until we move to the new website, we will have to make do with Google Blogger's remedial coding. It's N'Dam shame is was it is. Ok that was the last one. 

My Ultimate Fighting Cherry

I have prolonged it for as long as possible but the inevitable can be delayed no longer. On November 16th, I will attend my first ever live MMA event and in truth, I am excited.

My relationship with MMA is akin to the Kubler-Ross grief hypothesis otherwise known as the 5 stages.

Denial: not just a river in Egypt. Ha. Ha. 

Stage 1: Denial. I wrote off MMA. It will never last, I declared. It’s rubbish. I won’t watch it. Waste of bloody time is what it is. Stage 2: Anger. Screw this UFC nonsense. Boxing has been around for three hundred years, what do we need this steroid ridden clinch-fest for anyway? It’s a thin strip of spandex away from being pornographic for goodness sake! Stage 3: Bargaining. Look the only reason the UFC is anything is because it is a centralized organization, well backed and well marketed. The product itself is garbage. Anyone who watches it is has been effectively conned by the Man. Stage 4: Depression. Well, I guess boxing has cannibalized itself do death and paved the way for this crap. Thanks a LOT Al Haymon. Last time I watch Friday Night Fights. Stage 5: Acceptance. You know what, there’s plenty of room for two kinds of mainstream combat sports and maybe the success of UFC is going to force boxing to up its game. Everything is going to be OK.

And what do you know? It’s true. This has indeed been the best one of boxing’s best years. The highest grossing fight of all time. Multiple candidates for fight of the year. The unending plethora of possible action fights in the most well-cultivated and well-stacked welterweight division in living memory! The HBO, Showtime, Top Rank and Goldenboy feud has even reached a sensible cease fire resulting in 2 competing brands each pushing the other to broker meaningful and entertaining fights!

Ok, I looked at the main event. Don't judge me. 

Now, here we are a fortnight before I schlep across the desert sands for my first ever MMA event in Las Vegas. I haven’t gone overboard and done something rash like check the fight card or anything. I’m not trying to win any awards here. However, I am going to drive the 4 hours, not complain, not crack wise, keep an open mind and report back in a fair and balanced manner when it is done. I think we can all indulge in a little round of applause for me for being so grown up about this whole enterprise. Now, I am not being funny but is a rear naked choke hold an actual thing or… 

From the Colosseum: Magomed Abdusalamov. Get well soon, son.

I tuned in to watch the GGG fight on Saturday expecting to see something special. It came to pass that I saw somethings specials.

Mike Perez aka "Irish" Mike Perez (charmingly discordant nickname) was to take on KO fetishist Magomed Abdusalamov. This fight was always going to be a terrifying prospect...for Roy Jones Jr who was hoping for an early knock out to avoid pronouncing the Russian's name on too many occasions. Jones actually acquitted himself very well, stumbling over his words only when the action was so ridiculous, it was ludicrous to say anything. This fight was....well stupefying. 

Heavyweight boxing really is no joke. I know it seems that way when you watch people like Seth Mitchell, Deontay Wilder or any of the recent Klitchkos fights (all different kind of jokes of varying degree of funniness). But when you get two well-matched, talented, granite chinned hard-cases it is pretty unbelievable to witness. I simply don't know the anatomical explanation for either fighter being able to walk through some of those shots. I stubbed my toe the other day and was close to giving up on life yet both of these gentlemen spent the best part of an hour getting BEANED in the face by another very large man who was well trained in the art of BEANING people in the face. 

And then, horribly, we learned that there is no possible anatomical explanation. The body cannot sustain that kind of brutality. Poor Magomed Abdusalamov is in a medically induced coma after an operation to remove a blood clot in his brain. The man has three daughters, the youngest of which is under a year old. He probably didn't make 6 figures for the fight and let’s face it – blood clots in the brain are not the sort of thing that fighters are known to easily come back from.

Humans: A History of Violence. 

I often wonder why I like boxing. I’m not alone in liking it. I’m not a weirdo for goodness sake. For centuries, humanity has had an enduring penchant for watching members of its own species fuck one another up. The Romans had the Colosseum,  the Aztecs played soccer with human heads and in the north of England, people play Rugby League. Savages. Someone even thought that boxing was too tame so they removed the gloves, introduced kicking and replaced the kindly elasticity of the ring ropes with a metal cage. What is wrong with us?

Are we all intrinsically violent entities hamstrung by unnatural social mores that irritatingly prevent us from concussing the nearest warm body? Does watching this violence alleviate the intensity of our own violent urges? Is watching combat sports a constructive nay necessary outlet? What would become of society if we didn’t have these outlets? Would every trip to the grocery store be like Gatti/Ward?  Damn, I think I just set myself a lot of unnecessary homework by asking the question: why are we violent? And since, shock horror, I don’t get paid to write this – I don’t fancy writing that thesis.

Irish Mikey Perez eats a White Russian

What I will say is this. For someone who isn’t paid to watch this sport (did I mention that already?), I am fairly well informed but I think I can be forgiven for not knowing too much if anything about either Perez or Abdusalamov. The division simply isn’t covered that well blah blah blah, Klitchkos blah blah no American heavyweight blah, David Haye’s toe...blah…Deontay Wilder’s opposition… blah…Tyson Fury is a cock end blah blah blah. Phew! Sorry about that! What I mean is, at the first bell of Perez vs Abdusalamov, I was not invested at all in either of the fighters but after the first minute of the first round, I was routing for both. I was wincing on every connection, beating the cushions of my couch in astonishment each time Perez walked through MONSTER  Abdusalamov shots, stamping with glee at Perez’s James Toney-like hand speed and wringing my hands as Perez connected with his own beastly shots. Jim Lampley was in tears in record time and Roy Jones was calling everyone around him “son” which typically means he’s having a fantastic time.  Madison Square Garden filled up quickly as word spread throughout the halls that the undercard was a barnburner.

Degastan: Better than getting punched in the face. 

Abdusalamov thought he broke his nose in the first round, if anyone knows when they have broken their nose, it’s probably a heavyweight boxer. So he fought at least 9 rounds with impaired breathing and probable agony. Then something miserable happened to his cheek where it swelled up to the point of looking like someone had stapled a tenderloin to his temple. Yet he still came forward. Was it bravery? Desire? Instinct? He comes from Dagestan in Russia which sounds like a pretty dreadful place. It was a favored holiday destination of Tamerlan Tsernaev of Boston bombing fame. Commentators talk of Dagestan as if that explains why Abdusalamov could take that level of a beating and still be “in the fight”. Given the choice, I think he would rather have been in the hills of the Northern Caucasus with his daughters instead of seriously jeopardizing his chances of seeing them grow up. 

Chin up, mate and get well soon. #warrior

The sound of a heavyweight landing a punch is sonically unmistakable. I would take a blind hearing test on the sound from say…Pacquiao cleaning Hatton’s clock to Lewis cleaning Rahman’s. The pitch, the base, the reverb – it’s DIFFERENT and this fight was DIFFERENT; actually it was extraordinary, it was entertaining, it was special. But the result is a man fighting for his life. How do we get this kind of entertainment without the man fighting for his life part? Stop the fight. Just stop the damn fight. We didn’t need 10 rounds of that. Who cares if Abdusalamov was still in the fight?  He was losing after 8 rounds. Someone step in and stop the fight then, schedule a rematch. Give these men another deserved pay day and us another chapter of great competition. This is a sport, not an actual fight for life and death. It only becomes that when we get greedy and let a fight like that continue. I say “we” because, we are responsible. In our capitalist society the consumer is the enabler. Our reprieve comes from our ring-rust of great heavyweight fights. We were taken by surprise; the novelty of a fight like this in this fabled division transfixed and overtook us. We’ll be better next time. We promise. I hope there is a next time for Magomed Abdusalamov.

Don't hate, match-make.

Khan - a bloody entertaining fighter. 

This is an article I have tried to write many times. I struggled to finish it because 1: I procrastinate and 2: it's a touchy subject. The subject is Amir Khan.

If you don't like Amir Khan, I would love to hear of a convincing argument why. What is it about skilled fighters with lightening speed who are never in bad fights that you don't like exactly? Do you dislike drama, unpredictability and controversy? Maybe you should watch competitive composting instead of boxing. If you like being certain of the result before a fight then go and watch Wladamir fucking Klitchko for goodness sake. Because fighters like Amir Khan, who hit and are hittable, who rarely clinch and are willing fight in his opposition's back yard for no good reason should be treasured, lionized and continually given opportunities because this is entertainment. And Amir Khan is entertaining. He made a Julio Diaz fight interesting. Case closed.

"Khan in line to fight Floyd...it's not fair! Ahhhhh!!!!"

It has emerged that Amir Khan may be the next opponent for Floyd Mayweather. Cue 3 predictable    reactions from 3 of the interested parties in the boxing world.

1) Other boxers. They were outraged. Other fighters complain that Amir doesn't deserve the shot. Oh
boxing is a meritocracy now? Awesome. Andre Ward will be so pleased that he will soon be as rich as Floyd.

2) The British boxing writers. They blushed at the news and marvelled at their good fortune. They'll tacitly admit that Amir's record doesn't make him the obvious choice but won't beat that drum too loud because yay they will get to go to Vegas. They will pretend like the fight was inevitable and hype it up like Amir just might do the business.  

3) The internet. The ire on the boxing forums that Khan, another British "horizontal champion", would get the winning boxing lottery ticket to fight Mayweather was entirely predictable. But,  look, the internet is a bunch of silly unsubstantiated opinions mostly from quasi literate goombahs who are happiest when calling people words that rhyme with "trigger" and "maggot" instead of engaging in reasonable debate. So fuck'em.

Clench if you want to face Mayweather

Danny Garcia is the candidate who is touted as the more deserving candidate to face Floyd. He is undefeated, apparently that still matters, he beat Khan and....what exactly? He had a meaningless and frankly unconscionable rematch with old man Morales instead of a rematch with Khan and he bested Zab Judah who people like to forget was FUCKED UP by Khan. He did outclass Lucas Mattyhsse but if beating Matthysse gets you a payday with Floyd, Zab will be delighted to know that he is getting another shot at the big time. Poor Paulie Malignaggi will have to find another opponent. It certainly won't be Khan, because Khan BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF him. Then of course people will look at the Khan vs Garcia fight in which Khan got stopped. Watch that fight again. Tell me Garcia would have won that fight if Khan had exercised more caution. Tell me Garcia was faster, more accurate and dominant up until that punch. 

I'm not saying Garcia doesn't deserve to face Floyd. I'm saying it doesn't matter what he deserves. I'm saying boxing has never professed to be about who deserves what. Boxing is about aligning the most entertaining "match-ups" with what will make the most money. The ranking system is a self-confessed joke. Need I remind you that Vitali Klitchko is STILL the WBC heavyweight champion of the world?  He hasn't fought it a year!  Boxing is defined by short term economic gain.  It's the free-market and a grubby farce of a way to conduct a sport. But, sometimes the most profitable option coincides with the most desirable option - so they televise it and we watch it.

Floyd's biggest challenge at 147 pounds

We're getting off track. NEITHER of these kids has a chance of beating Floyd. But, do you really think Garcia is more capable of beating Floyd that Khan? HELL NO. Garcia is a very solid fighter but come on! He fights at a slow pace and doesn't move his head. Floyd has a name for that kind of fighter. "Target practice". Canelo got his ass whipped and so will Danny Garcia or Amir Khan or whoever they find. The only thing that's important is who will be the most entertaining and the simple truth is that if one half of a bout includes the name "Amir Khan", the bout is 50% more likely to be entertaining. He doesn't have boring fights. To prove it, try this simple exercise: insert any name as opposition for Khan. Victor Ortiz, Keith Thurman, Adrien Broner, Robert Guerrero, Andre Berto, Jesus Soto Karras, Lucas Mattyhsse, Cotto (oh Lord, make that fight) - you would watch all of those fights.  Now try the same drill with Danny Garcia or anyone else at 140 or 147. It just doesn't hold the same promise.  Face it, Khan could even make a fight against Devon Alexander look interesting; and there is no telling what Kell Brook would do to get Khan to return his calls. Ok, I think I may have gone overboard on that Devon Alexander thing, but you get my point. 

Get your nasty mitts off the Falklands, laddy!

Full disclosure here, I like Amir Khan. He's a nice guy. Boxing needs nice guys as much as it needs bad guys. How else can you build an engaging narrative for a fight? And the narrative for this fight would be exceptional. Nice guy Khan is the perfect foil to Mayweather who is an arse or at least plays an arse very well. Now compare the styles of these former Olympians. Khan is faster than anyone else in the sport. Mayweather is better than everyone else in the sport. Watching two athletes compete at an elite level doing something no other can do will be entertaining at least scientifically. Do we really need to see Danny Garcia get beaten to the punch until he retreats into a sad gun-shy cocoon of shame? Then factor in the British boxing fans who will descend upon Las Vegas with brass instruments and sun stroke making this a genuine event. Danny Garcia is of Puerto Rican stock but from what I've heard his Spanish isn't even better than mine. He won't be bringing a Cotto-level contingent of Boricuans with him. Khan on the other hand will be bringing at least 139,402 people, otherwise known as the population of Bolton. Let's be honest, what else do they have on?

Virgil Hunter. Look it up and tell me otherwise. 

Khan is also Muslim which guarantees Floyd Jr or Sr saying something atrocious which is always good for a headline or two. Speaking of trainers, are you really telling me you want to hear more out of that wheezy nit wit, Angel Garcia across 4 All-Access episodes. I would rather floss my ears with a corkscrew whilst being kicked in the nuts. No! We want to hear the sinister murmurings of Virgil Hunter who definitely reminds me of that terrifying youtube video Salad Fingers.

So for all these reasons, get behind Khan vs Mayweather. You know you'll enjoy it. For as long as it lasts.

Bam Boo Rising: A Young Man in Macau

Chapter 2 

“The Sino-Portuguese Declaration” Brandon whispered to himself as he scrolled through Macau’s Wikipedia entry. “’da fuuuuck is that yo?”

After the team had touched down in Macau from Shanghai, Robert had instructed everyone to go immediately to the hotel for rest. Brandon pleaded with him to allow an hour for a brief reconnoiter. After the stupefying scale of Shanghai, the young fighter was anxious to see the resplendent neon pomp of Macau. “Don’t you fuckers want to look around?” But the trainer held firm. “No Brandon. Rest. No buts.”

The flight had been a mere two hours but Robert had good reason to call for repose. The Asian media had been tirelessly sticking microphone tipped jabs into Brandon’s face from the moment they had arrived in the East and he was concerned. Every time Brandon stepped into public, it was an all-out assault, with hoards of journalists straining to hear from the man who was here to face their hero, Manny Pacquiao. Even through their foreign accents and idiomatic misfires, Brandon understood that he was being viewed crassly as a lamb being led to the slaughter. 

There was also word from back home that the American announcers, who wanted endless access, selfies, retweets and whose children Brandon had signed gloves for, had publicly derided his chances of victory. In professional prize fighting, the brutality inside and outside of the ring compete readily for top billing. And yet, Brandon seemed unperturbed.  “Fuck Max Kellermen and his herpes, man. I don’t give a shit!”

Whether Brandon had been effected or not, Robert thought rest after a day’s travelling couldn’t hurt despite Brandon’s bright-eyed supplications for exploration of this historic city. Still, after the trainer bid goodnight to the young man, he saw the dull glow of Brandon’s tablet illuminate under his covers. Robert retreated down the hall of the hotel apartment with his now customary wry roll of the eyes. “The boy is incorrigible.”

“The Sino-Portuguese Declaration…..Fuuuuuck..that’s like that Hong Kong shit the Chinese did with the British”. Brandon was reading about Macau’s ancestry and the treaty that was signed between the Portuguese and Chinese over the transfer of power from the former colonialists to the colonials. He peeled back the bed sheets and looked out his window. What he saw made a savage mockery of Las Vegas. The spectacular lights of the Grand Lisboa Casino flickering against the seventeenth century façade of the ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral, he could resist no longer. He slipped on his training gear, at least if Robert caught him he could claim he was venturing out for a moonlit jog, and padded down the hall and silently left the apartment. The night was his.

    

Bam Boo Rising: The Brandon Rios story

Chapter 1

It was autumn in Shanghai. Through the dusty grey drizzle, high up in his 35^th floor hotel room at the Mandarin Oriental, Brandon took in the spectacle; progress in motion. The cranes snarled, growled and clattered as they wielded the building blocks of the world’s newest emerging  super-power. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the Chinese defiant march towards dominance. “Look at those motherfuckers!” He gestured  toward workers balancing nonchalantly on scaffolding high above the ground. “They got balls those motherfuckers. They don’t give a shit! That one looks like Pacquiao!”

He was far from home where he had always been comfortable and never thought once of leaving. The sun-baked Californian tarmac, the bleached shop fronts replete with friends and well-wishers. As he cast his mind back to Oxnard he couldn’t recall a single meal where the server hadn’t smiled and called him champ. But in this thriving, pulsating metropolis he was gripped with an electric thirst for adventure that was foreign and exciting. “Let’s get the fuck outta here and tear some shit up, motherfuckers. There’s a chicken house downstairs with my fucking name on it. Robert, let’s posse up. Shit!”. Robert, Brandon’s world-weary trainer looked up from the pile of equipment he was arranging for the evening’s workout: “Champ, your weight. We have to watch your weight.” Brandon scoffed and wrung his hands, turned away and then smiled. “I was just testing you, coach, you know. Fuck that making weight the day of the weigh-in shit.” Robert looked over his shoulder and admired his young charge. His zest for life, his impudent disregard of adversity, his energy. “This kid has what is takes” he whispered to himself. “Huh?” Squawked Brandon “Can’t barely fucking hear you esse”. “Nothing” grinned Robert. "Let’s get some lunch."

David Haye is in-FURY-ating

Haye drove me to laundry

 I’ve been trying to write an article about David Haye for the last week but it’s infuriating; just like Haye himself.  It’s impossible to pin down the dichotomy of disappointment and promise that characterizes Haye’s career without getting so angry you have to stop writing and fold some laundry. So I am going to say this just to get it out, move on and do my washing another time.

Haye is really likeable but has let me down with that nonsense Audley Harrison fight and that bullshit toe excuse after the Wladamir fight. I mean… honestly. Then after all that talk just to quit because you turn 30 and THEN “comeback” in that soap opera of a Chisora fight. Good Lord.  Even if Haye did cap that debacle with an impressive knockout of the solid chinned Chisora – the palaver leading up to it was ludicrous. I love a bit of scandal and press conference 

Haye bottling it.   

brawls are meat and drink for boxing but it was all a bit pathetic. It even seemed choreographed. Haye cannot possibly have gone to that press conference to challenge Vitali. He had precious little credibility after the Wladimir fight and his infamous toe excuse. Anyway, it was a fight that Haye had already talked himself into and out of so many times, would Vitali have been obligated to take the bait yet again? Absolutely not. Maybe Chisora was in on it, maybe not. Either way, Haye knew something would come from that press conference that would make him lots of money – no matter how cheap a move it was. Haye is an explosive puncher and a great talker. He even managed to make the show: “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here” watchable. I hope and expect him to grind that squeaky voiced Scouser, Tyson Fury, into dust and then actually use that momentum to get himself a credible fight with Deontay Wilder, Seth Mitchell, or even Tony Thompson. Then will be able to actually deservedly ask  Vitali Klitchko to fight him or get a Wladimir rematch. Deserving...hmm. Let's talk about that.

Great shot of Ruiz there....wait...uhm....

When John Ruiz fought Haye, the Londoner made fun of him in quite a catty, personal and rather unnecessarily  unsavory way. “He’s boring, he’s been rejected by both Americans and Mexicans” he said about Ruiz. That was douchey. Brits would have bought that fight regardless such was the euphoria and excitement of having a domestic world champion once again; Haye’s trash talk  wasn’t necessary. The truth was Ruiz deserved to be there. He was a number 1 contender and former world champion who had done it the hard way. 36 rounds with Evander Holyfield, 12 with Roy Jones Jr, 12 with Hasim Rahman, 12 with Andrew Golota, 12 with James Toney and 24 with Valuev. This was someone who deserved his shot. Haye gave an impressive performance but Ruiz showed real guts and at 38 – the heart of a champion getting up after several knock downs to keep coming forward. Haye was also guilty of a number of rabbit punches that British fans like to overlook.

That's the spirit, David!

Now in this latest comeback, Haye has already pulled out of a Manuel Charr fight because of an injury and then very soon after announced this Fury fight. I wonder if it has anything to do with how much more money he will make from a wilfully deceived British public. Again. Against a fighter he should easily beat. Again. There is nothing wrong with choosing more lucrative fights but the excuse was cynical and it all adds to the legacy of short cuts and bullshit Haye will leave behind. Unless he’s serious this time. A commanding win over Fury, another win over a legitimate, hopefully American heavyweight and then another stab at the Klitchko’s and he’ll have done enough. Don’t do it for us, David. Do it for yourself.