The world of boxing is mourning the sudden death of “The Sniper” Corrie Saunders (42-4, 31ko’s) who was shot and later died from the mortal wounds he received during an armed robbery at an establishment he was celebrating at in far away South Africa. He had an impressive career including winning the South African Heavyweight title, participating in a fight of the year candidate vs Hasim Rahman back in 2000 and scoring an upset over Wladimir Klitchko to seize the WBC title all before retiring in 2008, boxing is grateful for all the great fights and memories he gave. In another black eye for the same division, the WBA staged a farcical heavyweight contest between interim champ Alexander Povetkin against an obviously shot and over the hill Rahman weighing in at 256 pounds, needless to say the scrap lasted two shocking and disgusting rounds underscoring how meaningless and pathetic of a match up it was. WBA please get your house in order, anybody who watched that fight knew Rahman was most undeserving of that title shot, you are becoming a Joke of a sanctioning body – Michael Amakor 9/30/12
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
