NO HOLDS BARRED

by Eddie Goldman

Only because I was already up and doing things -- a rarity for me on a Monday or any other morning -- I watched the live stream of the Anthony Joshua-Kubrat Pulev press conference.

Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs), who turns 28 on October 15, defends his IBF and WBA heavyweight belts against the IBF mandatory Pulev (25-1, 13 KOs), who turns 37 on September 19. This fight takes place October 28 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, U.K., where this press conference also took place.

Basically it was quite a civil and non-eventful press conference. No chairs or tables were tossed, no punches were thrown, and the language was quite fit for both newspapers and TV.

They will no doubt fill the building, which hosts rugby, football, and other events, has a retractable roof, and has a maximum capacity of 74,500. They will also do well on the U.K. pay-per-view on Sky Sports Box Office, without the staged hysteria and theatrics typical of those combat sports events which imitate the sordid W"W"E.

There were a few interesting things, though. Promoter Eddie Hearn, in touting Pulev as a worthy challenger for Joshua, said, according to The Ring, whose nickname he noted as "The Bible of Boxing", Pulev was ranked as a heavyweight only behind Joshua and WBC champ Deontay Wilder. I didn't bother to check this propaganda sheet for Golden Boy, but if that is true, where do they rank former Golden Boy fighter and unbeaten WBA mandatory Luis "King Kong" Ortiz? If you aren't already a non-believer, or at least a boxing atheist, this should make you one.

Also, so far there is no official word on if or when Showtime, with whom Joshua is contracted, will show this in the U.S. A live telecast from Wales would mean it would start on Showtime in the U.S. in the afternoon, about 5 PM EDT. But as of now, the schedule for Showtime's main channel lists a marathon of their series "Shameless" for that time. Perhaps, since it is still Monday morning here, they are still asleep.

And if you must see it, although it apparently isn't on the Sky Sports Boxing web site, a video of this press conference is already on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/UAUOwnjeQ8M

Now it's time for me to catch up on watching last night's episodes of "The Orville", "Insecure", and "Ray Donovan".

Labels: Anthony Joshua, boxing, Eddie Goldman, Kubrat Pulev, No Holds Barred, press conference