Sunday, May 08, 2011

Cat Zingano turns down fight with Tonya Evinger

Some of you may be familiar with Colorado based fighter Cat Zingano. Her record is 5-0 and she holds a regional title belt that she will defend next Saturday in Denver. That's the poster over there. But the 800lb gorilla in the room is that Cat Zingano has been accused by several fighters of cherry picking fights for most of her career even going back to her amateur days. These accusations seem to always surface when rankings come out and she's ranked #4 in the 115-25lb weight class. Her usual fighting weight is 125. I don't pay attention to rankings. I only know her ranking because I looked at it a few minutes ago for this article. But there are fighters who believe she shouldn't be ranked because of her cherry picking. Aisling Daly has said this. I don't think that sort of thing is considered when compiling rankings. I've seen her. She's a good fighter. But these kind of accusations are very unusual. And it's not like I've only heard this once. I've heard it several times. Supposedly Cat is headed for a showdown with Tara LaRosa in Shark Fights. But the Shark Fights president quit last week so Tara isn't so sure. She has been chasing Cat for a while. So the original opponent for next week's fight was Angela Samaro. She's an odd opponent for a title fight because most fans haven't heard of her. Her record is 3-1 and that one loss was to...Cat Zingano. She dropped out last week due to injury. The original opponent Casey Noland was supposed to face Cat in Feb. but it was rescheduled for next week. But Casey was TKOd and couldn't do it. So Angela was signed. The promotion was also contacted by Takayo Hashi's manager Shu Hirata. They told him he was too late. But they got back to him when they needed a replacement at short notice. Hashi's record is 11-3 but she performed poorly in her Strikeforce title match against Sarah Kaufman. And I didn't like her performance against Tara LaRosa last Nov. She's actually not ranked anymore. I didn't know that. I just looked at it a few minutes ago. She was a good fighter a few years ago but she doesn't seem to be good anymore. It appears the promoters were aware of Hashi's recent poor performances and tried to find another opponent. They asked Michelle Ould if she was interested in the fight at 130. Michelle has a final on May 14 and she already has a fight scheduled for June. She also told me she would want a full camp to prepare for Cat. So she asked her partner in crime Tonya Evinger if she was interested in the fight. Tonya agreed and even agreed when the contracted weight was changed to 125. She is currently under contract to Raging Wolf but that hurdle was cleared. So both fighters were offered to Cat. The promoter favoured Tonya because win or lose, Tonya always fights to win and is very entertaining. These days, Hashi seems to fight to lose by unanimous decision. They chose Hashi. I don't know if she thinks Hashi is an easier opponent or she just doesn't want to fight Tonya. I think Cat will win but she'll be very annoyed with Hashi by the end of three rounds. Does anyone have some No-Doz? I may need it for this fight.

No comments:

Post a Comment