×
×
homepage logo
LOGIN
SUBSCRIBE

Heavyweight boxers are on path to doom sport

By Hector Longo - Staff Writer | May 23, 2019

Pro boxing is primed to knock itself out.

At a time where this world should be buzzing about the heavyweight division, the game is doing its best to implode.

American Deontay Wilder, fresh off his one-punch decimation of Dominic Breazeale, is now 41-0-1, the WBC champion.

Brit Anthony Joshua, the WBA, IBF and WBO champ, is now 22-0.

And his countryman, Tyson Fury, stands at 27-0-1.

All three are giant knockout machines. And none has the guts to face anyone with a pulse.

Talk about being sick to my stomach, only seconds after Wilder won Saturday night on showtime, there’s Cuban Luis Ortiz, at 40 years old, begging for a shot at the champ on national TV.

Look, I dig Ortiz. Look his story up, escapee from Cuba, fighting here to feed his family and build a life for his little daughter. He’s an inspiration.

He’s just out of the other guys’ class. Wilder proved that with a TKO just over 14 months ago.

Boxing has a shot to be special again. Not just Mike Tyson-Evander Hoyfield-Lennox Lewis special.

We’re talking Ali-Frazier-Foreman here. That is, if somebody would just fight somebody.

But they won’t. As tiny an island as Britain can seem, Fury and Joshua can’t find each other. They each bang out stadiums, facing tomato cans.

What a battle between those two could do for the game, right?

BELICHICK CHANGES

HIS WAYS

While the rest of New England sees it in his on-field machinations, I see greatness in Bill Belichick’s subtlety.

Case in point this week where the Patriots head honcho signed wide receiver Julian Edelman to a contract extension, setting the Pats’ top receiver up financially for generations in his family.

You see it as a reward. I see it as an acknowledgement of the mistake Belichick made when he turned Wes Welker out on the street. Take care of your people. Bill learned his lesson well. Big props to you, coach.

And while on the subject of the Pats, can one of you in Patriot Nation clarify of the Jamie Collins the Patriots just re-signed is the Jamie Collins that is the incredible athlete and playmaker or the Jamie ColCoCollins that freelanced way too much and would not listen to the New England coaches, because the latter is the one fans said good riddance to, when he couldn’t get paid here and fled to Cleveland.

Just wondering.

Contact Hector Longo at 594-1253 or hlongo@

nashuatelegraph.com.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Interests
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *