Guzman will not win another belt tomorrow night

Former two weight world champion Joan Guzman 29-0-1 (17) has weighed in at an astonishing 9lbs over the 135lb lightweight division for his rematch bout against Ali Funeka 30-2-3 (25) tomorrow night for the vacant IBF lightweight title.

Guzman, who has been trained recently for this bout by Brit Lee Beard will still fight Funeka tomorrow night but there are  conditions.  Guzman will be weighed tomorrow morning and the fight will be off if Guzman weighs more than150lbs. Also Guzman has been fined 25% of his purse while Funeka is being paid another $25,000 to take the fight.

If Funeka wins the fight, he will be the IBF lightweight champion while if Guzman wins, the title remains vacant. The two fighters last fought back in November where it appeared that Funeka did enough to take the title but the judges scored it a majority draw. Funeka’s promoter Gary Shaw has called for the World governing bodies to take more note of this more increasingly common situation but has said that the fight will go ahead after much thinking.

The hunger (not in the eating kind of way)  of Guzman must now be seriously called into question. A big puncher in the lower divisions, Guzman has evolved into a slippery boxer with his moving up through the weights. However any chance of real greatness for Guzman now seems to have slipped away with his increasing lack of discipline.


Related posts:

  1. Joan Guzman to return at light welterweight
  2. Funeka fails drug test to complete Funeka-Guzman mess
  3. Maidana returns tonight on HBO but question marks over Guzman