Boxing Experts Blog

Golden Boy Promotions continued its world-domination strategy on Thursday when it announced that AEG, the arena-management company that operates facilities worldwide such as the Staples Center in Los Angeles and the O2 in London, had acquired a significant stake in the company.

The sale price was not disclosed. But Tim Leiweke, AEG's president and CEO, said it was a hard-cash investment that "was not insignificant."

While Golden Boy plans to promote boxing cards in AEG arenas around the world — and Schaefer spoke of promoting a pay-per-view card that would originate on three continents — Leiweke went to great lengths to point out that Golden Boy won't be exclusive to AEG arenas.

"We're committed as a partner to take the fights to the best locations," Leiweke said.

That means that the planned Sept. 20 rematch between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will remain at the MGM Grand Garden. Their first fight was at the MGM on May 5, 2007, and was the largest-grossing fight in history.

"We're really excited with the new opportunities this relationship brings to the sport for our fighters," Schaefer said. "With access to the best venues from around the world, this will allow us to showcase the talent we have here at Golden Boy. For the sport of boxing, to be able to bring an 8,000-pound gorilla when it comes to sports and entertainment to the sport of boxing is really a vote of confidence in the sport and in Golden Boy."

Schaefer said the relationship would allow Golden Boy to do such unique things as promote a pay-per-view show that had fights emanating from AEG arenas in Shanghai, London and Los Angeles.

Leiweke added that the UFC has reserved the AEG arena under construction in Berlin and plans to stage a card there later this year. Leiweke said the Berlin arena is expected to open in September.

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The welterweight fight between former champions Zab Judah and Shane Mosley that was scheduled for May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas has been postponed because of an injury suffered by Judah.

Richard Schaefer, the chief executive officer of Golden Boy Promotions, confirmed the postponement Thursday during a conference call to announce that AEG had acquired a significant stake in Golden Boy.

Schaefer said the situation is unfolding and he doesn't have details on when the fight will be rescheduled. Judah fell in his bathroom and received stitches in his arm.

"I'm going to be working on that this afternoon and tomorrow," Schaefer said.

Schaefer said Judah required 50 stitches in his forearm to close the wound and would be unable to train for four weeks.

Mosley was predictably irritated by the cancellation.

"I made 147 yesterday and I'm really disappointed, although I'm not shocked," Mosley said. "It's typical Zab. The only thing I have to say about it is, next."

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Floyd Mayweather Jr. was unable to duplicate his feat from his last boxing show, when his 2007 win over Oscar De La Hoya set a record for pay-per-view sales.

World Wrestling Entertainment announced its quarterly earnings on Tuesday and revealed that the Mayweather-headlined WrestleMania 24 in Orlando, Fla. on March 31, registered 1.058 million pay-per-view sales.

The show generated $31.3 million in gross revenue and an after-tax profit of $4.6 million, according to the report which is available on the WWE's corporate website.

Mayweather, the world's finest boxer, faced the Big Show in one of the two main-event bouts at WrestleMania 24.

Those numbers were a slight decline from WrestleMania 23 in 2007, which sold a wrestling-record 1.25 million pay-per-views. WrestleMania 23 generated $31.4 million in gross revenue and an after-tax profit of $6.6 million.

Mayweather's manager, Leonard Ellerbe, pronounced himself pleased with the pay-per-view showing, even though it failed to reach the record, as Ellerbe had earlier predicted it would.

"We're happy to be a part of another major promotion that did over 1 million homes," Ellerbe said Tuesday. "We're very, very pleased. It was a wonderful event, Floyd had a lot of fun and he expanded his fan base to an all-time high. It also gave him exposure in another demographic and enabled him to further extend the Mayweather brand."

Mayweather's May 5, 2007, split decision victory over De La Hoya in Las Vegas sold a record 2.4 million pay-per-view subscriptions. They plan to fight in a rematch on Sept. 20 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

De La Hoya's fight against Steve Forbes on HBO Saturday did a 4.7 household rating and attracted a peak of 2.1 million viewers. It was the most viewers for an HBO boxing show in 2008, surpassing the 1.891 million who saw the light heavyweight fight between Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins on April 19 and the 1.8 million who watched the heavyweight title unification bout between Wladimir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov on Feb. 23.

However, given that the show came on an HBO free weekend when the available homes was significantly higher, the number has to be viewed as a disappointment.

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Listen to Chuck Giampa talk about judging for, oh, 30 seconds, and you'll probably hear him use the word concentrate at least a half- dozen times.

On Nov. 6, 1993, he learned a serious lesson in the value of concentration. Giampa, who on Wednesday announced his retirement as one of the world's elite boxing judges after 24 years at ringside, was one of the three judges for the second heavyweight title fight between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

All three judges who worked the fight that night — Giampa, Jerry Roth and Patricia Morse-Jarman — had scored the first six rounds the same way. They also scored rounds 8-12 the same.

But each of the three had a different take on the seventh round. Roth gave it to Holyfield. Morse-Jarman had it even and Giampa gave it to Bowe, the reigning champion.

It wasn't because the seventh was a difficult round to score from a boxing perspective. But James Miller, a paraglider who would come to be known as "Fan Man" flew into the ring on a parachute, crashing into the ropes in Bowe's corner a little more than a minute into the round.

Chaos ensued. And Giampa admitted it was pretty difficult to remember who had been winning the round when action finally resumed.

"Experience teaches you a lot of things, but even with all the fights I had done up to that point, I had never experienced anything like that," said Giampa, 65, who hopes to work in boxing as a writer as well as a consultant. "You need to know at all times who you have ahead in a round. If the referee stops it for a low blow or because there's a cut he wants the doctor to look at, you have to remember how you had it."

Giampa had it right more often than not and became known, along with Roth, Duane Ford and Dave Moretti as one of the world's elite judges. 

He worked 120 world title fights and scored bouts in 10 countries on four continents.

He began working for the Nevada Athletic Commission in 1984, did his first title fight in 1987 and eventually became one of the commission's go-to judges. He worked bouts involving all the major stars of the time, including Bowe, Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya and Sugar Ray Leonard.

He finished his career by scoring the April 19 light heavyweight title fight between Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas for Calzaghe.

He said he plans to start a business in which he will advise fighters, managers and trainers on what a judge is looking for during a fight

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LOS ANGELES — Oscar De La Hoya officially became a local legend in an outdoor news conference at a ritzy downtown restaurant on Wednesday.

A life-sized statue of the six-division former world champion will be placed at Star Plaza in front of the Staples Center, joining similar works of art honoring former Los Angeles Kings star Wayne Gretzky and Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson.

De La Hoya, who fights Steve Forbes on Saturday at the Home Depot Center in nearby Carson, Calif., was visibly moved by the honor. It was engineered by his close friend, Richard Schaefer, the chief executive officer of his Golden Boy Promotions, and Dan Beckerman, the chief operating officer of AEG, which operates Staples. As he sat on the dais after he learned of the news, De La Hoya seemed stunned and mouthed "Wow!" to himself several times.

"I'm blown away by it," De La Hoya said later, shaking his head. "It's a huge honor. Richard got me on that one. And Dan Beckerman. I had no idea. "I'm going to drive by it every day, just to make sure they don't egg it."

Schaefer said it was a fitting honor for De La Hoya, noting how much he meant to the Los Angeles community. De La Hoya was born in an impoverished part of East Los Anglees, but went on to win a gold medal in the 1992 Olympics and become one of the biggest stars in boxing history.

The move got one of De La Hoya's business partners, ex-light heavyweight and middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins, thinking. Hopkins, who is from Philadelphia, said "I'm going to have to find a way to get me one of these in Philadelphia." Hopkins will have competition in Philadelphia, though. There is already a life-sized statue of a boxer on display in a prominent public place: Rocky Balboa, the fictional fighter played by actor Sylvester Stallone.

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LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Athletic Commission is getting proactive in its bid to stop the use of anabolic steroids and drugs of abuse among boxers and mixed martial artists.

While the commission has long conducted post-fight drug testing, the commission earlier this month conducted surprise drug tests on two high-profile boxers and a big-name UFC star.

Boxers Shane Mosley and Zab Judah, who meet in a welterweight bout at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on May 31, as well as UFC lightweight champion B.J. Penn, were randomly tested earlier this month.

"I'm very pleased to tell you that all of their tests came back clean," Kizer said.

Sean Sherk, who fights Penn for the title on May 24 at Mandalay Bay in Vegas, was tested, though he was aware he would be tested. Sherk, who recently came off a lengthy steroid suspension in California, is required to provide a clean test before he can be licensed in Nevada. 

His results have not come back.

Mosley, Judah and Penn passed the random tests for anabolic steroids, diuretics, amphetamines, marijuana, cocaine, opiates and phencyclidine. Mosley gave his sample on April 12, Judah on April 15 and Penn on April 17, Kizer said.

Random drug testing was a recommendation to the commission by the Committee on Boxer Health and Safety, which was created by former Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn after a pair of in-ring deaths in Las Vegas in 2005.

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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Kermit Cintron added a little spice to an otherwise hum-drum weigh-in on Friday at Caesars Palace when he made a throat slash gesture toward Antonio Margarito.

All four of the welterweights on the HBO-televised card on Saturday from Boardwalk Hall easily made weight. WBA champion Miguel Cotto looked ripped at 146 ½, while his challenger, Alfonso S. Gomez, was 147.

Cintron, the IBF champion, and Margarito, the only man to have beaten him as a pro, both weighed at 146 ½. Margarito appeared in the best physical condition he's been in in years.

As Cintron and Margarito posed for photographers, Cintron made a point to step closer to Margarito, who stopped him in the fifth round of a WBO title bout in Las Vegas in 2005. As the fighters were broken up, Cintron said something to Margarito and then made the throat slash gesture.

Margarito was laughing and Cintron kissed both of his fists and wagged his right threateningly at Margarito. Margarito turned to the crowd and pretended to be crying, a jab at Cintron, who cried in the ring after losing his crown to Margarito.

"For him doing that, I'm going to make him cry a second time," Margarito said. "It's not like he scared me or anything. He's the one who ought to be scared."

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Boxing's heavyweight division reeks of mediocrity — or worse — these days. Though IBF-WBO champion Wladimir Klitschko is widely recognized as the premier heavyweight in the world, there is no one man who inspires passion among the sport's fans.

That wasn't always the case, however. And in compiling the Yahoo! Sports' readers' list of the 10 greatest heavyweights ever, it was clear that was the case.

No active fighters made the list and only one, a very near the end Evander Holyfield, came close.

It should come as no surprise that the most well-known fighter ever, Muhammad Ali, was chosen as No. 1 on the list. And there are staples on the list such as long-reigning Joe Louis at No. 3, unbeaten Rocky Marciano at No. 4 and legendary heavyweight Jack Johnson at No. 6.

But there were also plenty of surprises, which is sure to spark debate.

Quite frankly, I was surprised that George Foreman was ranked No. 2 in the poll. I would have included Foreman in my all-time top 10, but nearer to 10 than to 1.

I also think the poll's inclusion of both Lennox Lewis, at No. 7, and Mike Tyson, at No. 9, is sure to spark debate. I wouldn't have included either man on the list if the poll were mine, but there was a very strong amount of support for Lewis as the last great heavyweight.

Lewis retired in 2003.

So take a look at our list — your list — and let us know what you think. What changes would you make to it? Are there any glaring omissions or is there anyone on there that you think has no business in such elite company?

Debate it with the world's largest community of boxing fans by posting your thoughts below.

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