Hats off for Hotstuff!

[TD]

Hey is Holly out to beat up the entire world or what!!!!!

She's on a streak that can't and won't be beat.

Who's in favor of having Halmich come to America and face Hotstuff on her turf?

I AM!

Way to go Holly! Keep fighting...and hopefully you are building a following in st. louie.

TD

[Dan Cucich]

I have some good news and a wee bit of bad news for Halmich fans.

As it stands, Regina is indisputably one of the best flyweights; and as Marcel correctly pointed out, even if she had lost on the scorecards in the three fights which most people agree she deserved to lose (vs Caples, vs Reid #1, and vs Delia Gonzalez) her record would still be extremely good.
And to her credit, and my great surprise, she gave Elena Reid a rematch.

I also fully understand that Regina makes more money fighting at home, and I don't begrudge her taking most all of her fights there.

However, let's be honest and stop kidding ourselves. One visit to the USA is not going to seriously harm her financially, or throw her into bankruptcy.

If she were to come to America just one time and defeat Melinda Cooper she would then have a very credible claim to being the best fly weight ever.

It would definitely silence any sincere doubters that she is THE number 1 flyweight all time. She has chance to make history; but she must dare to be great, and for once in her career, throw caution to the wind

As of today, she has a golden opportunity to etch her name into the history books- not just among the other greats- as she has already done.

But now she has an opportunity to establish herself as the number 1 flyweight ABOVE and beyond all the other great flyweights. But to do this she must take a chance and dare to be the greatest-and stop using money and spurious wt issues as an excuse.

Unfortunately, as it stands now, her matchmaker is curently shielding her from Cooper, by refusing to even convey Cooper's good faith challenge to Regina, based on the dubious assertion that even though Cooper can make the weight, that she might "blow up" in the ring, and hence gain some crushing wt advantage. (ever heard of a fight day weigh-in?)
IMO, that's a dubioius objection at best.

I don't wish be an archaeologist, (sp?) and would not dredge up all this old news , if Regina showed any signs of finally being open to the idea of coming to America to fight Melinda Cooper.

However...since she won't, I'll remind her fans that Regina has refused Kim Messer a well deserved rematch for asolutley no good reason, and instead challeged the LOSER of the Messer vs Jill Matthews fight. The loser! She challenged the freakin loser!

And she also refused an offer from Margaret Sidoroff, when Margaret was in in her prime.

By the way, since someone will surely ask this , that offer was communicated by Margaret to Barbara Buttrick in Missippi in the ring after the Sidoroff vs Brenda Burnside fight when Margaret was accepting the wibf intercontinenental title belt.

(I got that straight from a phone conversation with Margaret and Josh the week before Margaret's fight with Windy Rodriguez in Miami. so i know it to be compleytely true.)

BTW. it wasnt Ms Buttrick that nixed that fight-she told Margaret she would sanction it, if Margaret agreed to come in at 107. Mraget agreed to 107 lbs and her offer was communicated to Halmich's team by Barbara Buttrick and guess what? Margaret never heard back.
But that's herstory. [sic] so lets fast forward to the present.

If Regina would just once show some willingness to leave her lucrative cocoon for one truly formidable challenger like Melinda Cooper, any honest critics would be forever silenced.

Regina has the chance to dare to be the greatest.

But always playing it "smart" and "safe" will not answer the legitimate question that several gift decisions for her have raised:
Is she the best fly weigh ever?

So far she has turned down several opportunities to resolve any lingering doubts among even honest skeptics.

She should stop playing hard of hearing and answer Melinda Cooper's well publicized challenge.

I bet her fans decide to shoot the messenger instead.


dan

[Dee Williams]

Dan -

Nice to see you here again

The "news" is a little old, however, there have aleady been several previous threads on this. I've often said the same thing as you about Regina dodging Kim Messer - fighting the loser of Messer vs. Matthews was a low point in her matchmaking. Also Margaret Sidoroff was clearly ready to fight at flyweight and junior flyweight, and she proved that when she took on Jolene Blackshear, Para Draine and Wendy Rodriguez. So yes I agree completely - it was very disappointing that Halmich and her handlers ducked the rematch with Messer and a match with Sidoroff.

But that was six or seven years ago too - it's in the realm of missed opportunities long gone, not today's news.

The "new" call for her to come to the USA to fight Melinda Cooper strikes me as pure American-made apple-pie-in-the-sky. Like I said last time this came up

admin said:

Regina has been scrupulous about maintaining her weigh-in weight within a pound of 111 for the last several years (which speaks a lot for her discipline), while Cooper has only once fought below 113 as a pro and has fought at bantamweight (118) more often than not.

I'd take this "call-out" more seriously if Melinda was the #1 ranked American FLYweight, but she's not. She's calling Regina out from above in weight (her last fight was at 122.5). Regina's never shown much interest in fighting anyone who's any good above her own weight. She took on junior bantamweight Daisy Lang, who was her chief publicity rival in Germany at the time - but in a fight nobody thought she'd lose as Lang was a much more limited boxer. And that was a "catchweight" fight with a local rivalry reason, like Clampitt-Fiorentino was in Rhode Island.

If you add the fact that Melinda Cooper's pretty much unknown in Europe (and has done little to build her reputation there, her only fight in Europe was an undercard affair with Daniela David) then I just don't think the market is there for this one to happen, especially not from the German side, which is probably what counts.

Halmich's career has helped to launch real pro women's boxing in Germany by building TV audiences and making some real money for their fighters. It's frustrating that in the USA and other countries we have lots of equally good women "pro" boxers who still fight for peanuts while holding down full-time jobs - but the Germans have pulled off a trick we need to emulate to make the sport commercially successful here and promote our top fighters to true "pro" status.

I'll be surprised if she'll come to Vegas to fight Cooper at bantamweight, much as I would like to see the action if she did. The top American FLYweight is still Elena Reid, against whom Halmich is really 1-1, not 1-0-1, but would she fight Reid again on Reid's home turf? My guess is she will find "more important business" with good paydays in Europe before she retires, rather than take that sort of Vegas gamble.

But is that "bad news" for her fans? I doubt they give much of a hoot, as the USA is NOT the top market for women's pro boxing now, just one of many.

[marcel]

I have to keep it short, but I still don't understand why this goes for Halmich and NOT for Cooper? I had Ivanova ready to fight Cooper, when Cooper couldn't find an opponent. I never heard from them. And weight wouldn't be an issue there. There is NO excuse for Cooper to fight David or Hoppe. Fatuma would take it, Ashley would and Ivanova would. And all of those are competing in her, or close to her, weightclass.

You gotta be lala to think ZDF would be interested in letting Halmich go to the US. Let alone the promoter! She packs up the biggest arena's in Germany. Add the VIP tickets, commercial deals etc. There's a lot more to it than just packing it up and fighting in the US. A bantamweight on top of it...naaaaa Dan. I know you are a boxing purist, but this is out of line.

[Dee Williams]

marcel said:

I have to keep it short, but I still don't understand why this goes for Halmich and NOT for Cooper? I had Ivanova ready to fight Cooper, when Cooper couldn't find an opponent. I never heard from them. And weight wouldn't be an issue there. There is NO excuse for Cooper to fight David or Hoppe. Fatuma would take it, Ashley would and Ivanova would. And all of those are competing in her, or close to her, weightclass.

Indeed. While it's true that Cooper has trouble finding opponents in the USA now because of her reputation (and that's been true since she was an amateur), Alicia Ashley would be an excellent match for her and likely would be willing, as Alicia has never shrunk from tough fights. And the people pumping Melinda up for calling out someone two weight divisions lower than herself might well ask themselves why she isn't setting the other kind of example by calling out Kelsey Jeffries, Lisa Brown, Melissa Hernandez, Jeannine Garside, etc.