Contender Season Number Four Contestants: The Favorites

Here’s our first set of Contender Season Four Contestant Info profiling the clear set of favorites in the best season ever (TM).

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Vadim Tokarev
boxrec.com ranking: #8
Record: 24-1-1 (17)
Age: 36
Nationality: Russian
Birthplace: Ekaterinaburg, Russia
Height: 5′10 1/2″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: Darnell Wilson, Win by 10-round Unanimous Decision, October 18, 2005
Notable Opponents: Marco Huck (L); Felix Cora, Jr. (W); Firat Arslan (D)
Titles Held: NABF Cruiserweight

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B.J. Flores
boxrec.com ranking: #9
Record: 21-0-1 (13)
Age: 29
Nationality: American
Birthplace: Chandler, Arizona
Nickname: El Peligroso
Height: 6′ 2″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: Darnell Wilson, Win by 12-round Unanimous Decision, February 8, 2008
Notable Opponents: None
Titles Held: USBA Cruiserweight

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O’Neill Bell
boxrec.com ranking: #10
Record: 21-0-1 (13)
Age: 33
Nationality: Jamaican
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Nickname: What The Hell
Height: 6′ 0″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: None
Notable Opponents: Tomasz Adamek (L); Jean-Marc Mormeck (L); Jean-Marc Mormeck (W)
Titles Held: IBF Cruiserweight, WBC Cruiserweight; WBA Cruiserweight; NABF Cruiserweight; USBA Cruiserweight

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Matt Godfrey
boxrec.com ranking: #14
Record: 16-1-0 (9)
Age: 27
Nationality: American
Hometown: Providence, Rhode Island
Nickname: Too Smooth
Height: 6′ 0″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: None
Notable Opponents: Rudolf Kraj (L); Felix Cora, Jr. (W); Shaun George (W)
Titles Held: NABF Cruiserweight; NABA Cruiserweight

Image details: Universum Champions Night served by picapp.com

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Johnathon Banks
boxrec.com ranking: #17
Record: 19-0-0 (14)
Age: 26
Nationality: American
Hometown: Detroit, Michigan
Height: 6′ 3″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: None
Notable Opponents: None
Titles Held: fighting for IBO Cruiserweight Title on 7/12/08

Image details: The Contender Challenge - UK v USA served by picapp.com

The boxing reality show The Contender has found a new home, a new weight class, and its most impressive roster of fighters yet. After one season on NBC, and two on ESPN, the showcase for up-and-coming fighters will now be shown on the Versus Network. Let’s hope it does better than their famously low-rated NHL coverage. The new season will begin in December.

In the past few months Versus has intermittently put its toes in the boxing waters; its most notable event being May’s Ricky Hatton vs. Juan Lazcano bout. The Contender solidifies the fledgling network’s dedication to the sweet science.

This year’s Contender crop will feature cruiserweights (200 lb.) rather than previous years’ middleweight contestants.

The result of frequent Contender title shots (Sergio Mora, Peter Manfredo Jr., Steve Forbes) means an even better set of fighters this time around. Among them are boxrec.com’s #8, #9 and #10 ranked cruisers (!) Vadim Tokarev, B.J. Flores, and (!) O’Neill Bell (last seen sleepwalking in Katowice against Tomasz Adamek) respectively.

We will be profiling all 12 Season Four Contenders in the near future. Until then, we here at www.jabandgrapple.com are very excited that The Contender has returned and even more excited at the terrific lineup of fighters.

One after the next The Contenders have come and gone. Unimpressive, overhyped and out of their league. Until tonight. In a startling but well-deserved victory Sergio Mora outworked Ring Magazine’s #1 junior middleweight and WBC super welterweight champ Vernon Forrest to earn a majority decision win.

Few gave Mora a chance. Conventional wisdom said he was a club fighter who got a chance against the two-time Shane Mosley slayer not because of skill but because of his marketability. For the first three rounds this standard line of thinking seemed accurate. But in the fourth Mora landed some punches, found his groove, caught some momentum, gained some confidence, and slowly began to assert his dominance.

Mora’s and the fight’s signature round came in a wild action-filled ninth when Sergio cornered Forrest and landed a barrage of punches. The last one minute of this round was Mora’s emphatic announcement to the boxing world: “I am here and I am the better boxer tonight!”

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Image details: Oscar De La Hoya v Steve Forbes served by picapp.com

Outside of the ring and in the business world Oscar De La Hoya is obnoxiously confident, he revels in the vicious venture capitalist role, he’s gleeful in his greed, and delighted by the power his money brings. While I’m watching HBO’s wonderful one-off documentary Countdown to Oscar De La Hoya/Steve Forbes and a pre-fight Oscar interview with boxing poet Larry Merchant I see a forthright De La Hoya who is proud of his conscienceless business kingpin role and enjoys its prominent display.

He giggles when he says “greed is good”, when he likens making money and gathering riches to an addiction, and when he announces his goal to be a billionaire. Oscar emits an air of general disingenuousness, a snake oil salesman banter. I don’t want to believe anything he says; I feel like he’s always suckering me into believing something that isn’t true. And just when you want to be repulsed by De La Hoya’s monetary ruthlessness and insincerity he flashes his wide smile, reminds you how he’s fought every good fighter and suddenly all is forgiven.

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Image details: St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital Benefit served by picapp.com

It’s really hard to get excited about Saturday’s 150 lb. bout between Oscar De La Hoya’s tired, pragmatic, money-oozing sheen and The Contender graduate Steve Forbes‘ pleading payday-grabbing genuflection. No one expects a good fight. No one expects Forbes to have much of a chance. Boxing fans will watch out of obligation, thank HBO for gifting us a non-PPV look at the Golden Boy, and beg in our most Tiny Tim-like voice: “Please Sir, can I have another?”

Forbes must be thinking the same thing. Why else would he accept a fight at a light middleweight 150 when he’s ideally a 140 lb. light welterweight. Of course it’s partially the money but what fighter wouldn’t want to bring De La Hoya away from his customary third-row ringside, center-of-the-TV-during-every-big-fight perch?

It’s plausible for Forbes to believe that de la Hoya won’t bring the A-game he faced down Floyd Mayweather, Jr. with last year. He might even be convinced that Oscar’s HBO-24/7-exposed plush pre-Soviet Union Rocky IV lifestyle is accurate and that the chest loads of promotion money have made the Golden Boy soft. Maybe he thinks Oscar might confuse him with the other Steve Forbes, the one that’s the editor of Forbes magazine (seen above). Maybe De La Hoya has prepared twelve rounds of investment questions rather than a fight plan.

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