I did not see evidence of Marcos Maidana biting into Floyd Mayweather's glove during the multiple replays of last night's fight. His jaw is not moving at all, there is only Mayweather's glove in his face.

I did see referee Kenny Bayless break the fighters before they even came close to a clinch.

Clearly there were behind the scenes, pre-fight conversations with Bayless to be on the lookout for any dirty tactics on the part of Chino. But I thought that giving Mayweather the Magic Johnson treatment throughout was a bit much.* Maidana was penalized a point without any warning and when he suffered his own low blow Bayless seemed reluctant both warn Money and give Maidana a break.

Kudos to Brian Kenny for calling out Bayless for what he termed to be a “horrible job.” The announcing crew argued whether or not it would have been a different fight had Maidana been allowed to fight inside but that is clearly academic.

Maidana gave a flat performance as did Mayweather.

Mayweather put on his dancing shoes and did what he does best...Control the distance and the pace. But he never landed any multi-punch combos like he did in the last rounds in his bouts against Miguel Cotto or Canelo Alvarez. He was content to land the pot-shot right and do just enough to win the rounds.

Maidana did not throw punches with the same fire he had when he fought Broner or Mayweather the first time. Nor did he appear to have the same bull-like strength.

Alex Ariza, where have you gone?

It was a boring affair save for a few minor exchanges. At the end of the third round, Maidana appeared to have shaken Mayweather with an overhand right when the bell sounded. Mayweather grabbed the top rope as he made his way back to his corner...Really hard to tell how hurt he was, if at all.

That punch was really the only major highlight of the fight aside from the alleged bite. Aside from that one punch, it was all Mayweather with pot-shotting right-hands.

Ironically, Mayweather won the rematch by a wider margin than the first but looked more vulnerable this go around.

During the post fight interview, Mayweather conceded that he felt “dry and dead” (gotta lay off the strippers/sugar babies before fights) and gave the same non-committal answer regarding a Manny Pacquiao fight.

I read a couple of on-line reports and the conjecture is that he will face either Amir Khan or have a rematch with Miguel Cotto. I see both fights being a strong possibility. Mayweather would want to add Cotto's middleweight title to his legacy while a Khan fight as been proposed for a long while now. The announcing team discussed the prospect of a Keith Thurman fight and I see that as unlikely as a Pacquiao match. Thurman's name recognition does not extend beyond the hardcore base. “One Time” would be less money and a harder fight.

*For 1980s NBA fans...I'm referring to how Magic Johnson used to get to the free throw line for every foul, real or imagined.

Floyd Mayweather Sr., father and trainer of pound-for-pound king Floyd “Money” Mayweather (46-0, 26 KOs), is predicting "another easy victory" for his son this Saturday night when he takes on Marcos Maidana for the second time. 

Both Senior and Junior compared Maidana to an MMA fighter in the first bout. He claims that they have a plan for Maidana if he decides to start fouling again. 

“Maidana is going to get his butt whooped again, just in a more fashionable way this time around," Floyd Sr. said. “Floyd beat Maidana in the first fight and there’s really nothing else to say. I am going to have Floyd do a lot of things differently in this fight than he did during the first fight.

“I am going to tell you something, something was on Floyd’s mind that day and the lord is my witness. He finally came around and told us all what it was about. Floyd is going to give Maidana a boxing clinic this time around."

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MARCOS MAIDANA DVD COLLECTION

Floyd “Money” Mayweather (46-0, 26 KOs) says the first fight with Marcos “El Chino” Maidana (35-4, 31 KOs) was not a competitive affair. The victor via majority decision, one judge scored a 114-114 draw, while two others had scores of 116-112 and 117-111 for Mayweather.

"Well, I think nine rounds to three rounds is a shutout. Whoever is on the phone right now I'm pretty sure you can go to YouTube and watch the fight," Mayweather said. "Just look at the fight. The fight is not close. But he came out, he won the first round, I won the second round, he won the third and the fourth, and from the fifth on he lost every round."

"So, like I said before, I'm going to go out there and I guess get a knockout, win twelve rounds, and look impressive, but also be exciting."

Mayweather concedes that Maidana won the early rounds but that he dominated the rest of the fight. 

"If I could just recall, I won the second round. He won the first one, but I won the second round, and he won probably the third and fourth, because I know one of those I got headbutted and couldn't see; I was just mainly in survival mode until I got back to my corner to Rafael, the great cutman, Rafael Garcia. So I gave [Maidana] three rounds," Mayweather said.

FLOYD MAYWEATHER DVD COLLECTION

MARCOS MAIDANA DVD COLLECTION

Hall of Fame trainer Nacho Beristain is not in favor of sending  Juan Manuel Marquez (56-7-1, 40KOs) over to the United Kingdom to face IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook (33-0, 22KOs).

Marquez is looking to capture another crown at welterweight but is not interested in facing Manny Pacquiao again. A rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr is not in the cards either. Newly crowned Kell Brook, however, would be an interesting challenge for the Mexican legend. 

But the last time Beristain traveled to the UK he left with a bad taste in his mouth. Working the corner of Julio Ceja, he felt his fighter was robbed in a majority decision loss to local favorite Jamie McDonnell. 

Beristain wants a neutral venue if the negotiations between Marquez and Brook begin. 

JUAN MANUEL MARQUEZ DVDS

BoxingScene is reporting that Josesito Lopez is in the running to be Amir Khan's opponent in December.

Lopez has won two fights against marginal opposition since suffering back to back defeats against Canelo Alvarez and Marcos Maidana.

Lopez fights this Thursday against the dreaded "to be announced" opponent.

Khan was impressive in his last ring appearance against Luis Collazo. Lopez looks to be another confidence builder for the Brit. 

AMIR KHAN BOXING DVD SET

JOSESITO LOPEZ BOXING DVD SET

"I remember Chappie saying, 'Don't go for the knockout yet. Keep jabbing him off balance so he can't get that right in, and for God's sake keep your left arm high.' I wish I had listened to him." --Joe Louis after his first fight against Schmeling, 1936.

Jack Blackburn...notice scar on left side of face

Born in Versailles, Kentucky in 1883, Charles Henry Blackburn was the son of a minister. He was known as Jack to most and as "Chappie" to his friend Joe Louis. He moved with his family to Terre Haute, Indiana, where he first began boxing. One story suggests that he was hired as a sparring partner for a day and nearly knocked out his opponent. He then headed to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to continue his ring career. He was quick, had a fine jab, and a powerful left hook, and though he weighed only 135 pounds, often fought much larger men. He made good showings against such greats as Joe Gans and Sam Langford (who outweighed him by 45 pounds), and he gave Philadelphia Jack O'Brien all he could handle in a no-decision bout in 1908.

In January 1909 an argument about his common-law wife escalated into a shooting...he killed three people, including his wife. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten to fifteen years in prison. Blackburn, who gave boxing lessons to the warden and his children, was released on good behavior after four years and eight months. The incident left him with an ugly scar down the left side of his face. In his first fight following his incarceration, Blackburn won a decision in six rounds, but age caught up to him.

Sparring in the gym with Jack Johnson, Blackburn managed to give the future heavyweight champion a bloody nose. Although he won much more than he lost, his career as a lightweight was frustrated by his inability to secure a title fight. He retired in his mid-thirties, then made a failed comeback attempt two years later, retiring for good in 1923.

Blackburn finished with a final record of 99-26-19. He later became a trainer, most notably of heavyweight champion Joe Louis, Sammy Mandell and Bud Taylor.

Blackburn at first expressed skepticism about Louis, predicting that a black heavyweight would not have many opportunities. Nevertheless, Blackburn worked tirelessly with Louis, schooling him on every aspect of fighting, such as balance, stepping forward when throwing a punch, and hitting with accuracy. According to Hall of Fame trainer Eddie Futch, Blackburn changed Louis from a "box and move" type to a more aggressive fighter. Though Blackburn was tough on Louis, the two grew close and called each other "Chappie." Louis later said, "Chappie made a fighter out of me. He was my closest friend.".

Blackburn prepared Louis for each of his fights, explaining each opponent's strengths and weaknesses. In his corner, Blackburn would pace the fight, telling Louis when to bide his time and tire the other boxer and when to go for the knockout. Louis learned the fine points of boxing technique -- balance, accuracy, and strategy -- from his trainer. Blackburn also taught Louis the psychological aspects of boxing. Raising a brick at Louis, the fighter naturally ducked. "See what I'm trying to teach you?" Blackburn asked. "Pretend you have a brick in your fist. Naturally the guy's gonna duck, then you hit him with the other hand.".

Despite his success as a trainer, Blackburn continued to drink heavily. And he still carried a gun. Louis remembered a visit to Louisiana when Blackburn brought a gun to the fight. "This is the South," he told Louis. In 1935 Blackburn was arrested again after allegedly shooting at another man following a brawl. Two bystanders, an elderly man and a young girl, were shot; the man died from his injury. Three months before the first Louis-Schmeling fight, Blackburn was found not guilty.

After Schmeling handed Louis his first professional defeat, Blackburn told reporters, " got believin' all you newspaper boys say about him -- that he ain't human. Schmeling learned him something." Privately, he shed tears in Louis' dressing room. Schmeling remembers a visit after the fight: "Jack Blackburn, his face serious, came into the room and elbowed his way over to me. He was very down about his man losing, but he shook my hand and said, 'You were great, Max!'".

Louis eventually won the heavyweight title and defended it successfully twenty times, with Chappie in his corner.Blackburn had problems with drinking and with arthritis during the time he trained Louis. In 1935, he was indicted for perjury and manslaughter in a case that was later dropped. In 1942, Blackburn fell ill and was in the hospital for the twenty-first title defense; his assistant, Mannie Seamon took his place. Not long after that victory, Blackburn died of a heart attack. Louis was devastated: "I guess I thought I'd be heavyweight champion forever and Chappie would always be with me. Chappie had been another father, a teacher, and a friend, so when you think about it, I lost three people, not one." Louis and his wife named their first child -- Jacqueline -- after Chappie Blackburn.

Reference

Jack . (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/fight/peopleevents/p_blackburn.html.

Jack Blackburn. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Blackburn.

Jack Blackburn. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/nonparticipant/blackburn.html.

PHILLY BOXING HISTORY. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://www.phillyboxinghistory.com/nonboxers/nonboxer_blackburn.htm.

jackblackburn.html. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://www.harrygreb.com/jackblackburnbiopage.html.

The Cocoa Kid, aka Herbert Louis Hardwick was born in the City of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico to Maria Arroyo, a native of Puerto Rico, and Lewis Hardwick, an African American Merchant Marine. In 1913, his father was on leave and left the island without knowing that Maria was pregnant with his child. It was only upon his return several months later, that he found out that he was a father.

The Hardwick family moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was still a child and his father renamed him "Herbert Lewis Hardwick." Tragedy struck the family when his father and the rest of the crew of the USS Cyclops disappeared during World War I. The loss of the ship and 306 crew and passengers without a trace sometime after March 4, 1918, remains the single largest loss of life in U.S. Naval history not directly involving combat. The cause of the ship's loss is unknown. Hardwick was only four years old.

Shortly thereafter, upon the death of his mother, Hardwick went to live with his maternal aunt Antonia Arroyo-Robinson. Arroyo-Robinson raised Hardwick and he came to identify more with his Puerto Rican heritage.

Hardwick began to box in Atlanta when he was fourteen years old under the tutorship and management of Edward Allen Robinson (Antonia's husband). He fought for the first time as a professional at the age of fifteen, on May 27, 1929 at the Elks' Restaurant, in Atlanta, against a boxer who went under the name of "Kid Moon" and was victorious in that encounter.

The boy sprouted into adolescence like a reed reaching toward the sun. He turned fifteen in 1929 and was already fighting as a professional featherweight in segregated boxing clubs in a segregated city. His arms were like whips. Battles royal were on the undercards. At seventeen, he earned fifty-cent purses in West Palm Beach, Florida. He owned one shirt and wore his boxing shoes on the street when he was discovered by Harry Durant, a state senator from Connecticut. Durant brought him north where the real action was.

It was in New Haven that Lewis began to call himself Luis. Reporters couldn’t get two syllables out of him, though when given the opportunity to speak on his own terms in radio interviews or from the ring, blacks and whites in the audience raised an eyebrow; he would speak Spanish, as if trying to connect with those he identified with, as if trying to win their affection.

Senator Durant was impressed with Hardwick and sponsored his trip to New Haven where Hardwick began to fight under the name of the "Cocoa Kid." The name printed on his boxing license was that of "Louis Hardwick Arroyo." Hardwick used various names during his boxing career, besides using "Louis Arroyo," he would also fight under the name of "Louis Kid Cocoa". On April 4, 1932, he scored a win in his first fight in Connecticut, against a boxer named Joe Miller.

The group was known as the "Black Murderers' Row." This group was made up primarily of African-American highly rated boxing contenders in the 1940s and 1950s, who competed around the Middleweight and Light Heavyweight divisions. Hardwick was the only Hispanic of African descent in the group. Renowned for their toughness and great boxing ability, they were feared throughout the boxing world and were the most avoided fighters of their generation. According to boxing pundit Jim Murray, the Murderers’ Row was the most exclusive men’s club the ring has ever known. They were so good and so feared that they had to have their own tournament. The term "Boxing Murderers’ Row" was coined by writer Budd Schulberg, screenwriter of On the Waterfront.

He craved recognition and fought over 250 times to get it. For eighty-one months between 1933 and 1947, he was a serious contender in the lightweight, welterweight, and middleweight divisions, a reed reaching number one but never quite touching the sun. No champion dared face him—not Barney Ross, not Henry Armstrong. Long after his skills had declined with age, a prime Sugar Ray Robinson ran out on a contract to fight him—twice.

He made four defenses of the title. On September 22nd of that year at the same venue, he defeated Jackie Elverillo on points in 10 rounds. On 11 June 1937, at the Coliseum Arena in New Orleans, Hardwick fought his old nemesis Holman Williams, prevailing in a close fight, winning a decision in the 12-rounder. Ring Magazine had donated a championship belt for the bout.

Hardwick successfully defended his title against Black Canadian boxer Sonny Jones at the Valley Arena in Holyoke, Massachusetts on 15 November 1937, in a bout refereed by former world heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey. Hardwick scored a technical knock out in the sixth round of their 15-round bout. He had devastated Jones in the third with a right to his jaw and opened a cut over Sonny's left eye with another right. Eventually, Sharkey stopped the fight as Jones could barely see.

Hardwick lost the title to Charley Burley on 22 August 1938, at Hickey Park in Millvale, Pennsylvania. Burley won a unanimous decision in the 15-round bout, knocking Hardwick to the canvas three times and defeating him decisively, taking his title. Burley never defended the title, probably out of a desire to get a title shot with Armstrong. To fill the vacant title, Hardwick and Holman Williams met in a rematch on 11 January 1940 at the Coliseum in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1944, a controversy erupted between Hardwick and a boxer named "Oakland Billy Smith." When the fighters met on November 24, in the Civic Auditorium of San Francisco, California, the betting odds favored the Cocoa Kid over Smith by 2 to 1. When Hardwick was knocked down four times, referee Frankie Brown became suspicious and stopped the fight, declaring it a "no-contest." During an investigation carried out by the California Boxing Commission, Hardwick claimed his poor performance was due to personal anxiety about his “sick mother” (meaning his aunt Antonia). According to the Oakland Tribune, the commission felt that Hardwick threw the fight. In addition to withholding his earnings, the commission fined him $500, and suspended him from boxing for six months.

That same year of 1949, Hardwick was Robinson's sparring partner at the welterweight king's training camp in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Robinson was training for a fight with Steve Belloise and was at his peak. In one session, Hardwick landed a short overhand right to Robinson's chin and dropped him in the second round.

After retiring from the ring in 1950, Hardwick found himself homeless and penniless in Chicago. Marguerite Winrou, his wife, divorced him and gained the custody of their children. According to the Naval Record Management Center in St. Louis, Missouri, Hardwick had served in the United States Navy during World War II. He was honorably discharged after being diagnosed with pugilistic dementia by military doctors. He kept his diagnosis a secret during his days as a boxer in order to continue boxing.

He wasn’t sure of his name anymore, this tattered figure wandering Times Square. “Heriberto Harwitz” was as close as he could get. He’d shuffle over to the general delivery window at 33rd and 8th and mumble to the clerk. benefit check was his only income, but he’d often lose his service papers and had to find his way to the local veterans office and fill out an application for copies. Staff had a fine time trying to sort through the misinformation he provided—he forgot where and when he was born. 9, 1916” in “Mexico” he guessed on one application. He was actually born on May 2, 1914 in Puerto Rico.

Due to his long and difficult boxing career, Hardwick suffered from pugilistic dementia in his last years. In 1955, he wrote to the Navy asking for a copy of his discharge papers which he claimed were stolen with his Social Security card and was later admitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital in North Chicago. He died there on December 27, 1966 and is buried in Wood National Cemetery, section 36a, row 11, site 3, located in the state of Wisconsin. In 2011, Hardwick was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2012.

Reference

A Reed Reaches Toward the Sun: Cocoa Kid. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://www.boxing.com/a_reed_reaches_toward_the_sun_cocoa_kid.html.

Cocoa Kid. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/modern/kid_cocoa.html.

Herbert Lewis Hardwick. (2014). Retrieved on April 27, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Lewis_Hardwick.