Motoring through Detroit to catch a Super Fight

That would be the 140-pound title unification bout between Timothy (Desert Storm) Bradley and Devon  Alexander (The Great), which takes place Saturday night at the Pontiac Silverdome.

I've assembled a crew, secured a car and a place to stay, and Friday morning we head to one of my favourite cities to see an early candidate for fight of the year. 

As some of you know I spent six months of my rookie year in pro journalism interning at the Detroit News, so I have a huge soft spot for the city, even through the body blows it has suffered in recent years.

The economic downturn.

Kwame Kilpatrick.

The Lions.

It's easy to kick the city while it's on its knees, so I'm happy whenever a fight promoter decides to bring an important bout to an area that has contributed so much to boxing.

In this respect boxing is following the lead of the UFC, which could have brought November's showdown between Quentin Jackson and Lyoto Machida anywhere but chose to stage the event in Auburn Hills.

Likewise, a unification bout between undefeated champions, neither with ties to the area, is a coup for metro Detroit. Butfor me it's still bittersweet that, like Jackson and Machida, they'll trade punches 20 miles north of the city.

It's sort of like celebrating Toronto with a big party in Newmarket.

And let's face it, the suburbs don't have the same connection to boxing history that the city does. 

Joe Louis' home base. Sugar Ray Robinson's birthplace. Home of the legendary Kronk Gym.

The common thread there isn't Metro Detroit.

It's Detroit.

And let's face something else.

As accomplished and hungry as Bradley and Alexander are, they don't have the juice to sell out the cavernous Silverdome the way Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant did in 1987. In fact, the seating configuration for Saturday's fight reportedly will accommodate no more than 15,000 spectators.

But if you focus on everything Saturday's fight doesn't have, I don't have to be Black Milk to tell you you're losing out.

 

Both Bradley and Alexander bring a whole lot to Saturday's showdown to make it worth watching for both hardcore and casual fans.

1. The Stakes -- Somebody's "0" will go.

How often do we see undefeated champions butt heads with the stakes this high?

Not often, since these days the only thing more rare than an undefeated champ is an undefeated fighter willing to put his unblemished record in real danger with this size of challenge.

These days our guy Floyd Mayweather (justifiably) takes heat from critics who wonder if he's more concerned with protecting his undefeated record than defending it. But a decade ago he wasn't that guy. In January 2001 he was what Bradley and Alexander are now -- an undefeated champ risking his belt and perfect record against a fighter in Diego Corrales who was doing the same.

The bout turned into a whitewash, with Mayweather out-thinking Corrales and dropping him five times on the way to a 10th-round TKO, but heading into that bout few boxing experts could pick a winner. 

When sizing up a pair of fighters who matched up so evenly on paper the what became most clear about that fight was that win or lose both fighters deserved immense respect for tackling the challenge.

If there has been a more significant matching of undefeated champs in the decade since Mayweather-Corrales than the Bradley-Alexander bout, I can't recall it.

And if you can't pick a winner yet between Bradley and Alexander I can't blame you. 

2. Styles -- they make fights

Between the two men Alexander is by far the more stylish boxer, but he also packs plenty of power. If you don't believe me ask Colombia's Juan Urango, whom Alexander flattened last March.

 

Bradley, meanwhile, mixes relentless pressure with smart movement. As his knockout record (11KOs in 26 wins) attests, he doesn't possess Alexander's one-punch power. But he can sting you, and those shots add up. He's boxer enough to shut down foes who think they can outwit him, but fighter enough to bang with bigger opponents.

If you don't believe me ask Luis Carlos Abregu, whom Bradley decisioned last summer.

 

Their styles may diverge but they have an opponent in common: Junior Witter, a former world champ from England who will try to resuscitate his career iFeb. 19 at a United Promotions card at Mississauga's Hershey Centre.

If it helps you choose between these two, Bradley nipped Witter by split decision in May 2008, while the following summer Alexander outboxed Witter cleanly over eight rounds before their titled bout was stopped.

3. The Bigger Picture

After negotiations between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao collapsed last December, and before Mayweather signed to fight Shane Mosley, rumours swirled that Money was looking for a 140-pounder to lure to welterweight for "superfight" and a seven-figure payday.

At the time I remember thinking I'd boycott any such bout on principle -- unless that 140-pounder named Timothy Bradley.

While Mayweather waits on the sideline as his legal issues play out, the winner Saturday night gains the credentials and publicity required to enter the Mayweather/Pacquiao future opponent lottery. 

And if not, both men remain in the middle of a frighteningly intense round-robin at 140 pounds, and in the running for yet another massive matchup -- an eventual showdown with Pacquiao stablemate Amir Khan.

Either way, Saturday's fight is both the culmination of a unification process that began when Bradley claimed his first world title in 2008, and the beginning of what looks like a long run of high-skill, high-stakes matchups in one of boxing's hottest divisions.

And I'll be ringside, giving you the details on the blog and on twitter.

So load the car and cue the Slum Village (RIP Dilla and Baatin) because we're headed to Detroit.

Or at least through it on the way to the superfight.

 

Walker's return no gimmick but Strikeforce needs the attention

A year after his pro MMA debut, NFL legend Herschel Walker is set to make his second appearence in the Strikeforce cage (Saturday, 10 p.m Superchannel).

And while the 48-year-old isn't sure how long his MMA career will last, he's positive  he'll devote himself fully to the sport for as long as it holds is attention. To some people Walker's MMA venture might look like a publicity stunt but Walker insists he's as serious about fighting now as he was about football in the 1980s and 1990s.

"This isn't a gimmick for me. This is life," said Walker, who won his MMA debut by lopsided stoppage last January. "This is nothing but hard work. I've never turned down a challenge and i don't do it now.

Still, you have to forgive anyone who concludes that Walker's return to the cage is a desperate play for attention from a faded football star and a sanctioning body that's struggling to remain relevant.

The last time a Strikeforce event received this much attention was the last time Walker competed. Since then the UFC gobbled up an even larger share of the MMA market by absorbing the WEC, while Strikeforce has increasing become a minor league for fighters the UFC no longer wants (see Diaz, Nick; Daley, Paul).

Last summer Strikeforce relentlessly hyped a network TV appearance by its marquee fighter, uncrowned heavyweight king Fedor Emilanenko, and he repaid that investment of time and effort by crumbling quickly beneath the fists of Fabricio Werdum.

With Emilianenko scrubbed clean of the lustre his decade-long unbeaten streak imparted, and with the rest of Strikeforce's roster populated with fighters unknown outside MMA's community of hardcore fans, Walker stands out as the only fighter in the organization capable of attracting the attention of mainstream media and fans.

Nevertheless, Strikeforce president Scott Coker swears the company's not using Walker that way.

The truth, Coker says, is that if Walker wasn't a real fighter he wouldn't be fighting, period, and that Walker's football fame skews the public's expectations.

"The MMA media at times is too hard o n Herschel," Coker said in Monday's conference call. "I feel that's just because of who he is."

For his second trip to the cage Walker will square off against Scott Carson, a light-heavyweight by trade who will gain a little weight to face the 225-pound Walker. He's a little more accomplished than Walker's first opponent, but a look at his record tells you he's spent most of the last decade outside formal competition. Between the two men you could argue that Walker, a lifelong martial artist, actually has less "ring" rust.

The bout was originally scheduled to take place in late 2010, but Walker suffered a cut over his eye in training, forcing Strikeforce to move the bout this weekend.

But Walker says he didn't even have a return to Strikeforce in mind when he re-entered serious training last June.

Instead he says he re-immersed himself in MMA training strictly because he wanted to improve as a martial artist, and that the opportunity to face Carson simply arose.

But he also trains because in a few years he hopes to become the George Foreman of football, returning to the NFL at age 50. And he says training in MMA is the best way to prepare his body for that challenge.

"(MMA) is human chess and that's why I want to be involve with it," he said. "I think I'm a better conditioned athlete (now) than I was when I was playing."

 

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Molitor set to defend title in South Africa

Looks like the Canadian Kid is finally headed to South Africa.

Tuesday afternoon ESPN's Dan Rafael reported that Steve Molitor's new promoter, Top Rank, lost a purse bid to South African promoter Branco Milenkovic for the right to promote Molitor's mandatory title defence against Takalani Ndlovu.

That means the third -- and hopefully final -- installment of the Molitor-Ndlovu series will likely take place in South Africa, even though it had tentatively been scheduled for March 19 in Montreal on the undercard of Lucian Bute's Showtime debut.

The bout is also the latest chapter in a long history between Molitor, a Sarnia native who lives and trains in Mississauga, and South Africa.

If you followed Molitor's initial ascent to the IBF 122-pound crown then you'll remember his first title shot was scheduled for August 2006, when he was slated to face Gabula Vabaza in Johannesburg. Molitor and his team even traveled to South Africa for final pre-fight preparations before learning that Vabaza had failed a pre-fight blood screening.

That bout was canceled and Vabaza would never fight again.

Less than a year later, after jetting to England to finally claim the IBF title, Molitor debuted at Casino Rama, systematically dismantling Ndlovu over nine rounds before knocking him out to retain his belt.

After dropping his title to Celestino Caballero and working his way back to the top of the IBF's junior featherweight rankings, Molitor and Ndlovu at Rama once again in March 2010, with Molitor pounding out a unanimous 12-round decision.

That win should have freed Molitor to move on to bigger challenges, but the stubborn Ndlovu wouldn't go away. While Molitor defended his belt successfully in England Ndlovu quietly won a title eliminator and positioned himself once again as Molitor's manadatory challenger.

After lopsided results in the first two bouts between Molitor and Ndlovu, local interest in a third fight was understandably low. But Ndlovu was a mandatory challenger, so Molitor had to face him or vacate the crown.

Enter Cameron Dunkin, the U.S.-based manager tasked with finding a home in North America for the bout, lest Ndlovu's promoters put up the promotional fees, move the show to to South Africa and force the champ to fight in the challenger's hometown.

Placing the bout on the Bute undercard seemed like a reasonable solution, but that deal was contingent on Top Rank winning the purse bid.

Which it didn't.

Which means Molitor now faces the scenario his team had hoped to avoid -- a second-straight title defence overseas against a hometown fighter.

No fighter wants venture into another man's lair if he can avoid it, but neither can any fighter deny that cash rules everything. 

For most of his 10 bouts at Casino Rama Molitor pocketed roughly $100,000, but according to ESPN's report he will gross $240,000 for the upcoming Ndlovu bout.

More than anything, boxing is a business and Molitor understands that.

And right now business is good.

Even in South Africa.

 

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UFC contender requests his next opponent: Barack Obama

Rough week for Republicans in the UFC.

First, arch-conservative and middleweight menace Chael Sonnen complete his journey from stardom to oblivion by pleading guilty to money laundering in a real estate fraud scheme.

That judgement earned him a one-year suspension from the UFC, which effectively extends the year-long ban imposed on him by the California State Athletic commission when the urine sample provided after his near-dethroning of Anderson Silva came back positive for elevated testosterone.

A man simultaneously so sanctimonious and so crooked might fit in well at the head of the Tea Party, but is a poor spokesperson for a sport still trying to debunk the notion that it's full of roided up thugs who pummel people for fun.

And this week UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann made that task a little tougher, using his post-fight interview at UFC 125 to challenge U.S. President Barack Obama to a fistfight. 

Constitutional expert that president Obama is, he understands better than anyone Volkmann's first amendment right to say ignorant things, and the final minute of the video below drips with absurd statements.

 

So Volkmann wants to "knock some sense" into Obama over health care reform?

Interesting, but two thoughts instantly pop up in my mind.

First, as my good friend and mentor Gary "Gee Free" Freeman pointed out when he first sent me the link, any world class fighter who challenges an obvious non-pugilist to a fight is about as close to a coward as a pro fighter can be. And if he's not a coward, he's at least a bully. Either way, his challenge feeds right back into the stereotype MMA advocates are trying to dispell (see above about thugs and pumelling for fun).

Second, if Volkmann was as really politically aware he'd realize he could hardly give Obama a worse beating than the one disenchanted voters delivered during mid-term elections in November. As I type the new, republican-dominated congress is convening for the first time and their chief objecttive is to cut the legs out from under the health care reform Obama fought so hard to achieve.

So relax, Volkmann.

Soon enough the American citizens priced out of decent health care in the past will be priced out once again. And when that happens you can go back to finding a way to crack the 155-pound division's glass ceiling, and leave the half-baked political rants to the professionals.

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter

 

 

Fans win, Pettis loses in Edgar-Maynard draw

So nobody won Saturday night's thoroughly entertaining UFC main event between lightweight champ Frankie Edgar and challenger Gray Maynard, but one guy loses:

Anthony Pettis.

At the last-ever WEC event on Dec. 16 Pettis dethroned 155-pound champ Ben Henderson, a win that was supposed to guarantee him a shot at the Edgar-Maynard winner once the UFC absorbs the WEC and all its weight classes. But the New Year's Night draw means a title shot for Pettis and his Matrix Kick will have to wait until the UFC settles the dispute Maynard and Edgar couldn't quite resolve in the Octagon.

For 25 minutes Edgar and Maynard traded strikes, takedowns and respect, and their entertaining main event put officials back in the spotlight by presenting the question that dogs anybody judges a fight anywhere:

Who do you favour -- the guy who wins more rounds or the guy who wins rounds by more?

Two weeks earlier the issue popped up in the boxing ring, when 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins battled back from a pair of early knockdowns to earn a draw against Montreal's Jean Pascal in a bout many people (including me) thought Hopkins won.

Saturday night judges stared down the same dilemma when Edgar weathered a first-round Maynard onslaught many spectators (including me) thought would do him in.

Midway through the first round Maynard, who decisioned Edgar in 2008, dropped the champ with a left hook and spent the rest of the round battering Edgar with his fists, bloodying his nose and keeping him  woozy until the final bell.

But when the second round started Edgar emerged from his corner refreshed, punctuating his comeback by nailing Maynard with a powerslam that would make Davey Boy Smith proud.

From there Edgar spent the remainder of the fight chipping away at Maynard, stopping the takedowns that made Maynard so successful in their first fight, whiplashing the challenger's head with crisp combinations and earning a split decision draw at the end of five rounds.

Post-fight shots of Edgar in the locker room showed him looking despondent, but this result didn't feel to me like a robbery.

It felt like a relief.

When we learned Hopkins and Pascal had drawn you felt a slight sense of injustice. Pascal's first knockdown, after all, came when he landed an illegal blow to the back of Hopkins' head and thus should have earned him a warning and not a reward. And Hopkins' body attack gutted Pascal, sapping the champion of all his early speed and forcing him into full retreat by round eight.

Hopkins won more rounds and won them convincingly yet could only salvage a draw. Given Pascal's massive early lead you can't say Hopkins was outright robbed, but he sure was jobbed and now will have to wait for a rematch that may never happen.

Edgar, meanwhile, appeared certain to lose by first-round TKO, and earned a moral victory by simply surviving until the second frame.

He spent the final four rounds of the fight gnawing away at Maynard's lead but in a five-round fight you weren't sure if he had time to overtake Maynard on the judges' cards.

One judge said Edgar did it, giving him a win by two points. A second judge scored it 48-46 Maynard, while the third sealed a split-decision draw by calling the bout even.

That third scorecard also all but ensures Edgar and Maynard will add a third chapter to a series in which the stakes and skill levels rise with each bout.

In that scenario fight fans can't help but win even if Pettis loses.

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter