BoxRec

English promoter Mike Hennessy has won the purse bid for the WBC middleweight semifinal between Howard Eastman and Jermaine Taylor, offering $252,000.

GOOD.

you can never find a rubber johnny when you most want one hmm?

Semi final?? This has to be a final eliminator no?

Anyone else see Taylor winning this?

I am just worried that Eastman sitting around fighting poor opposition will effect his ability to cope against Taylor.

HH

Taylor will almost certainly win for me, Eastman has been going nowhere for a while and cant forget how Joppy outworked him.

so the fight will be in the UK and on the beeb??

That is a very low bid. Did Taylors people bid for the fight at all?

I am surprised that that bid won it, thought that DiBella would have been bidding more than that, guess I overestimated what Taylor is worth.

Well done to Hennessy, he's pulled his bollocks out of the fire with this one.

It's a semi-final because Tito is #1, I guess the winner will fight Tito, who will fight someone else first, which gives them plenty of mileage for a middleweight tournament. Tito can fight soliman/sturm/vargas if he's able to fight, fight the winner of Eastman v Taylor, for which I am going to pick Taylor by close disputed decision, which I think may well be an unfair one.

How come on the WBC site they don't have Trinidad listed yet, is that just an update issue?

I can see Trinidad v Sturm, followed by Eastman v Taylor, Hopkins fits in one defence (soliman?) in the meantime and then we have the winner, and still undisputed champion, Bernard Hopkins..!

boxing central put the full rankings from the WBC.

http://www.boxing-central.com/modules.p ... e&sid=5052

According to Hopkins himself, Felix Sturm is the frontrunner to be defense no.20. Rumours of Trinidad-Cory Spinks are also circulating – add these to Eastman-Taylor and there's some fascinating fights at middle.

this is my hunch with the whole 'semi-final' thing.

WBC will be bastards and make Hopkins champion emeritis or whatever it's called. Then perhaps there will be another 'semi-final' with the winners fighting each other. Something crazy like that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

SEMIFINAL, this is pure bullshit from WBC.
The fight means nothing, and will never happen.

Oh fornicate me! I forgot about the dreaded, champion Emeritus thing! Not that again, please god no.

Presumably the 'champion emeritus' (what a fornicating stupid name), still pays them sanctioning fees for his bouts, as well as getting 18 months to defend against his mandatory...

If this fornicating happens I am going to be furious! If it does, I hope hopkins flings his belt in the trash, I very much doubt he will though, if a date with Trinidad is on offer.

adamiw wrote:this is my hunch with the whole 'semi-final' thing.

WBC will be bastards and make Hopkins champion emeritis or whatever it's called. Then perhaps there will be another 'semi-final' with the winners fighting each other. Something crazy like that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Without a doubt. Just look at Tszyu: One days he undisputed champ, then a little later we've got Gatti, Mitchell, Cotto and Harris all recognised as fellow world champs by the so called big four.

Leaving us with five world champs at 140. So when we get a unification fight, it just means we end up with an extra world champ.

Wonderful.

Hellephant wrote:SEMIFINAL, this is pure bullshit from WBC.
The fight means nothing, and will never happen.

Can someone illuminate this, do the WBC collect sanctioning fees for eliminator bouts?

Yes - others wise they wouldn't do them

Remember the meaning of Sanctioning body, they're basically 'sanctioning' this bout as an eliminator for their title and would there for want a 'sanctioning' fee.

I could be wrong but if this is wrong, its illogical given their love of the green stuff.

what they use the fees to smoke dope?

In seriousness its bad enough with all the bloody aplhabet belts without all this bullshit as well.


what a farce should it happen.

[quote="J"]what they use the fees to smoke dope?

quote]

Yep, then they all sit down and do their rankings.

Sounds about right.

I reckon Hennessy won the fight with a low bid, because Taylor and his team have no intention of taking the fight. Taylor has HBO backing, and he's been tipped to be a future star. So why would they come to Britain for shit money?

If this fight was gonna happen, more of an effort would have been put in across the pond.

DavidPayne wrote:Yes - others wise they wouldn't do them

Remember the meaning of Sanctioning body, they're basically 'sanctioning' this bout as an eliminator for their title and would there for want a 'sanctioning' fee.

I could be wrong but if this is wrong, its illogical given their love of the green stuff.

That's what I wanted to check, which Is why I was going to say, of course the semifinal WILL happen. 3 bouts all with nice fat sanctioning fees instead of one. Then they can declare Hopkins champion emeritus and begin the happy merry go round all over again....

Taylor doesn't have an HBO contract though does he?

It's a step up for both if he does come to fight Eastman. I definitely lean towards the American though.

I'm not sure the fight will go ahead.

As someone said....Taylor has some status and backing are they going to risk their heir apparent to the middleweight crown away from home against Eastman?

They could fight Soliman for the IBF mandatory and do it in America and be just as close to Hopkins as tackling Eastman for example.

Had to laugh at the little story on fightnews.com about the bidding. It reads:
By Alessandro Ferrarini
Promoter Don King has won the purse bid for the WBC light heavyweight clash between champion Antonio Tarver and Paul Briggs clash, offering $2,711,000.....English promoter Mike Hennessy has won the purse bid for the WBC middleweight semifinal between Howard Eastman and Jermaine Taylor, offering $252,000.

Eastman used to be promoted by Don King

apparently the semifinal tag is a misnomer, and that the fight is a'final eliminator' the question remains, to what?

Is Tito #1 or not, I'm finding all this a little perplexing.

Apparently the #1 ranking by Tito comes after the eliminator was agreed so therefore has no bearing on it.....

However of course, that doesn't mean that Taylor has to fight Eastman..