KJ Noons: Boxing is next…
By Jim Murphy August 19th, 2008Unbelievable. “Nature Boy” KJ Noons is channeling early 1980’s Ric Flair trying to become the “arrogant heel” of MMA. In a conversation at FightHype he basically says that he’s run roughshod over the MMA world to such a degree that he’s thinking about turning his attention to boxing fulltime. Sure, he realizes that he’ll have to ‘pay his dues’ in ‘the sweet science’ and start by fighting the likes of..uh…Oscar De La Hoya! Of course he continues to to dismiss any talk of a rematch with Nick Diaz, suggesting that he’d rather rematch against Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett. Bennett, a wild swinging, hard hitting brawler who makes Kimbo Slice look like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, spends as much time incarcerated as he does in training.
KJ tries to make himself out to be somewhat humble with an audience of “smarks” but his premise that there’s no competition for him in MMA–particularly with the “screwjob finish” of his win over Diaz–is absurd. Vince McMahon couldn’t do a better job of making Noons a “heel” and turning Diaz “babyface”.
Noons says ‘boxing is next if nothing good comes up’ @ FightHype
For the Nick Diaz side of the “feud” check out the excellent profile of Diaz by a gentleman who *does* dominate both MMA and boxing, our Ralph Gonzalez:
September 14th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
“In a conversation at FightHype he basically says that he’s run roughshod over the MMA world to such a degree that he’s thinking about turning his attention to boxing fulltime.”
So he “basically” states that? In other words, that is not what he said. What KJ has said repeatedly is that he thinks Alvarez (a much harder fight than Diaz) is the #1 contender and that is who he would like to fight and who he feels deserves the title shot. Come on dude, journalism is your profession…and reading comprehension is your friend.
September 14th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Noons can spin it how he wants, but bottom line he wants to take his questionable victory over Diaz and go home. Not that I blame him–I wouldn’t want to tangle with Diaz either and particularly after doing everything possible to infuriate him over the past year.
With all due respect to Alverez–who is a hell of a fighter–he may or may not represent a ‘harder fight’ than Diaz. Besides, Noons’ job as champion is to fight whomever his promoters want to match him up against. If he wants to pick and choose his opponents based on how worthy he thinks they are he needs to start his own promotion. Noons also knew at the time he made this statement that Eddie had just suffered a nasty eye injury in the DREAM middleweight GP finale and wasn’t going to be able to fight for awhile. He’s also talked about a rematch with Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett being a priority over Diaz which is an insult to the intelligence of any MMA fan.
Noons’ suffers from a deluded concept of where he ranks in the fight sport world–as evidenced by his publicly stated desire to fight Oscar De La Hoya. If he wants to be treated like a champion he’s got to act like a champion and defend his title against whomever EliteXC wants him to.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I agree Jim. Noons is totally inulting the MMS fans by thinking Bennett is a priority over Diaz. Nothing more than dodging tactics in my book.
I also love how he states ” boxing is next if nothing good come up” By that does he mean Boxing is next if he doesnt get to fight another cupcake to improves his record? He can only dodge Diaz for so long. And after running his mouth for the last year, his cowardice is even more transparent.