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Things To Look At In Hibernation: The Ouma Movie, The Santa Cruz Saga And Other Candy

Perhaps it’s premature for me to write a headline like that, because it implies that we’re over boxing’s incredible March stretch. The month just keeps delivering dramatic, unexpected encores, the latest being last night’s surprising upset. At this rate, tonight’s ESPN2 card is can’t-miss, because it falls within the confines of what has been an astounding, even historic, month for the sport.

While we wait for the final battles of March, here’s some stuff to look at:

• There was some spirited back and forth in Sean’s piece and in the comments section on the boxing merits of junior lightweight (154 lbs.) contender Kassim Ouma, fighting tonight. But left out of the discussion was that Ouma, a former child soldier in Uganda, has a documentary about his life coming out. Check out the website devoted to it here, or if you have trouble looking at the trailer there like I did, here it is on YouTube.
• I wrote something over at TheSweetScience.com about the generation of exciting, young, slick-boxing fighters primed to take over for the aging Roy Jones, Jr. (light heavyweight, 175), Juan Manuel Marquez (junior lightweight, 130), Joel Casamayor (lightweight, 135) and their ilk.
• Speaking of lightweights: Maxboxing.com has this disheartening tale of promoter-manager squabbles holding back the career of Jose Armando Santa Cruz, who was flagrantly robbed a career-best victory when two judges somehow saw Casamayor beating him in 2007. I like Santa Cruz — he comes to fight, he’s awkward yet strangely appealing stylistically-speaking, and he’s got my sympathy vote. I think Santa Cruz’ team should’ve taken a Michael Katsidis bout when it was offered, but it looks like there’s plenty of blame to go around. Santa Cruz deserves another shot at a top lightweight, period.
• If all else fails, nothing beats dramatic chipmunk, below. I am constantly bewildered that people I know haven’t seen this.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 8:24 am and is filed under Devon Alexander, Kassim Ouma, Roy Jones Jr., Jose Armando Santa Cruz, Juan Manuel Marquez, Joel Casamayor, News Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.