Boxing notebook: Andre Ward gets foe; Margarito Texas cancellation explained -- Los Angeles Times

By Lance Pugmire, Los Angeles Times

Showtime officially announced Monday that Allan Green (29-1, 20 KOs) will replace Jermain Taylor in the Super Six middleweight tournament and will fight unbeaten Andre Ward (20-0) somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area on April 24.

A Showtime official said Oakland's Oracle Arena is first choice for a venue to stage the bout.

Taylor dropped out of the tournament after suffering his fourth loss in five fights, a knockout by Super Six leader Arthur Abraham in October.

The Ward-Green fight will make for interesting unions involving Ward's promoter, Dan Goossen of the San Fernando Valley, who'll also stage a fight on HBO the same night: the heavyweight battle between Goossen-promoted Cris Arreola and his opponent, Tomasz Adamek, at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.

Ward-Green will be preceded on Showtime with tape-delayed action of another "Super Six" clash between Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler in Denmark. Green is scheduled to fight Kessler next, likely in the fall.

-- The remaining Super Six bout between Andre Dirrell and Abraham has been moved to March 27 at a site yet to be announced after Dirrell suffered a back injury last week. The bout will not take place at Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa due to a previously scheduled Doobie Brothers concert, a hotel spokeswoman announced Monday.

The bout will remain in the U.S., a Showtime official said.

Updated Super Six standings: Abraham 3, Ward 2, Froch 2, Kessler 0, Dirrell 0, Green 0.

-- A spokesman for fight promoter Top Rank said Antonio Margarito was pulled from a planned comeback bout March 13 on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight at Dallas Cowboys Stadium to avoid a possible cancellation that might upset pay-per-view carriers and fans.

"He wasn't licensed [in Texas] yet, and we felt we had an obligation for the show to get them the complete undercard information as soon as possible," Top Rank spokesman Lee Samuels said. "We didn't want to announce [Margarito] as being on the card if there was a chance he wouldn't be there."

Texas was considering Margarito's license application when the fighter's promoter, Bob Arum, told The Times he was taking Tijuana's former world welterweight champion off the Pacquiao card and replacing that bout with a fight between Humberto Soto and David Diaz. Arum said he wanted Margarito to fight in May in Mexico.

But the Assn. of Boxing Commissions, which oversees and advises state commissions, told Texas authorities in a letter obtained by The Times that it didn't approve of licensing Margarito less than 13 months after California revoked his license for allegedly nearly using gloves loaded with plaster-containing inserts tucked inside his hand wraps last January.

Samuels said Top Rank had not consulted the ABC to see what time of suspension would be appropriate in the U.S.

"If all goes well in Mexico, he'll fight again here soon," Samuels said.

-- Pacquiao is enjoying the celebrity that accompanies being considered the world's top boxer. He's been visited by actor Robert Duvall at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, is scheduled to appear on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" March 3, and is scheduled to be featured on CBS' "60 Minutes" and ABC'S "Good Morning America" later next month, according to publicist Fred Sternburg.

Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com

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Pop The Bubbly! Boxing Did The Right Thing -- The Sweet Science

By Ron Borges, The Sweet Science

Ken Hershman and SHOWTIME have managed to do the most unusual thing in boxing. They’ve done the right thing.

The right thing happens in boxing outside the ring about as often as Haley’s Comet passes by your window. These guys do the right thing about as regularly as Bernie Madoff invested his client’s money.

So when it was announced this week that Allan Green had been chosen to replace Jermain Taylor in SHOWTIME’s brilliant Super 6 Super Middleweight tournament the news was welcomed by any true fan of the sport not because Green was the only possible choice but because the plan all along had been for Green to serve as first alternate and the folks running the show actually did what they said they’d do.

After Taylor was knocked cold by Arthur Abraham, his fourth defeat in his last five fights and the third by knockout, speculation was that Taylor would remove himself from further participation. Although he seemed to balk at that initially, ultimately Taylor listened to his family and advisors and pulled out of the tournament. That’s when things began to go awry as they often do in this sport.

By the time Taylor pulled out, Green (29-1, 20 KO) was set to fight Sakio Bika, the former Contender participant, and there had already been calls from promoter Dan Goossen that Green should have to fight Edison Miranda in a box-off. At that rate, Green would have had to win a tournament to get into a tournament.

But the Bika fight went away as it should have (probably in exchange for a paycheck) and Green was added to the mix without having to even nod in Miranda’s direction and rightfully so, taking over Taylor’s scheduled April 17 fight against Andre Ward. Although one could make a strong case for the inclusion of the one major super middleweight champion not in the tournament, Lucien Bute, the fact of the matter is there have been three European fighters and three Americans involved from the start. When Taylor pulled out it opened an American slot and the guy who had been unofficially promised it actually got it.

More importantly, he should be in it. Green is a fearsome power puncher who will be competitive against Ward and any of the other combatants. He didn’t deserve to be made the victim of the usual boxing poli-tricks, as Lennox Lewis used to put it, of being forced to fight in some sort of half-assed boxoff that would have only served to muddy the waters.

Instead, for once, common sense prevailed. One American fighter was out. He was replaced by a guy who clearly is the next best American super middleweight fighting today. Bravo!

This made so much sense it’s shocking that boxing actually embraced it but it did and give Hershman the credit because, in the end, it’s SHOWTIME’s show and they can do what they will or may with it. What they did, one way or another, was replace a guy who probably never should have been in the tournament in the first place except for his name value with a guy who could very easily knock out Ward or any of the four other competitors, a fact that adds some spice to the entire affair.

Because of the fact Green will inherit Taylor’s empty scorecard he is at an obvious disadvantage but a knockout win, which is his specialty, immediately nets him three points. Do that twice and he’s as likely to reach the semi-finals as anyone.

More importantly, if Green wants to move on to the Final Four fights he will be forced to go for the knockout against Ward in his first fight and against Mikkel Kessler in his second. If nothing else the pointless position he inherits from Taylor should add some fire to a guy who normally comes to the arena with the intention of leaving someone unconscious anyway.

So, in the end, boxing got it right this time and deserves credit for it. It is a small step back from the abyss after the debacle of the failed Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao negotiations but we’ll take it in the hope Ken Hershman’s decision will open up a few more eyes to the way boxing should be run.

Source: thesweetscience.com