26.01.07 – By Wray Edwards: Photo © Wray Edwards. Back on February 4th of 2005 when the Super Bowl was held in Jacksonville, Florida, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions presented “Super Fight I” at the UNF Arena attempting a tie-in with the big game. In theory, there would be a lot of people in town who love contact sports that might be happy to have something to do on Friday or Saturday night before Sunday’s extravaganza. The main event was a bout featuring Librado Andrade and Nicolas Cervera in a Super Middleweight event. It was a great opportunity for the people of Jacksonville to see main-stream boxing. The turn-out was so-so and ODLH did not follow up.
Cut to this year’s Super Bowl in Miami and we find another Boxing mogul attempting a boxing-football weekend link. None other than Don King had arranged for not one, not two, but three world championship boxing matches to be held in the Miami Arena.
Unfortunately, the guy who was expected to back facilities for the event was unable to meet his financial obligations (according to an insider who spoke confidentially with ESB). Result…Don King’s able staff of Bob Goodman, Alan Hopper and Ed Keenan sprung into action to save the day. In a win-win deal for the Silver Spurs Arena in Osceola County and DKP the fight venue was switched to Central Florida.
The championship fights are as follows:
WBC LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
TOMASZ “Goral” ADAMEK vs. “Bad” CHAD DAWSON
Undefeated WBC Champion Undefeated NABF Champ-No.2WBC
Jersey City, N.J. (Zywiec, Poland) New Haven, Conn.
31-0 (21 KOs) 23-0 (15 KOs)
IBF LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
JESUS “The Matador” CHAVEZ vs. JULIO “The Kid” DIAZ
IBF Champion Interim IBF Champion
Austin, Tex. Coachella, Calif.
43-3 (30 KOs) 33-3 (24 KOs)
IBF JUNIOR MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
CORY “Next Generation” SPINKS vs. “Smooth” RODNEY JONES
IBF Jr. Middleweight Champion NABF Champion-No.1 IBF Contndr
St. Louis, Mo. Stockton, Calif.
35-3 (11 KOs) 37-3-1 (22 KOs)
Each of these bouts is a pairing which promises great action and should give Showtime plenty of happy viewers. Corey Spinks was there to greet the county officials and other interested parties. The Silver Spurs, venue under the able management of SMS’s Robb Larson, dished out a great lunch for everybody there at the press conference.
It’s probably better to have this event at a greater distance from the Football venue than was the case with Golden Boy’s previous effort. There is so much competition for accommodations in Miami that the fight officials, boxing team members and media staffs would have to pay five times what they otherwise would, given a little distance.
ESB will stick tight to the weigh-ins and whip y’all some pics after the face-offs. ‘Till then…see you at the fights.