Quick Jabs: Geale likely to fight Soliman next, Alexander-Brook postponed

Having defeated Anthony Mundine, Daniel Geale might face Sam Soliman next. (AP)

• IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale settled a score last week when he avenged his lone loss, winning a unanimous decision over countryman Anthony Mundine. Despite Mundine’s protests -- and who knows what fight he was watching -- it was a clean win for Geale, who was the more active and more accurate puncher. Geale’s promoter, Gary Shaw, would like to bring Geale to the U.S. next for a big fight but Shaw told SI.com that he received a letter yesterday from the IBF ordering him to begin negotiations with representatives for Australian Sam Soliman, who became Geale’s mandatory challenger after upsetting Felix Sturm last week. Geale isn’t going to give up that belt, so expect a fight against Soliman in Australia later this year.

• Hey Russell Crowe: Learn how to score a fight.

• Devon Alexander’s welterweight title defense against Kell Brook may be snakebitten. For the second time, Alexander-Brook has been postponed, this time due to a right biceps injury suffered by Alexander in training. Alexander-Brook had originally been scheduled for January 19th but was postponed until February 23rd. With Alexander-Brook off, Cornelius “K9” Bundrage’s junior middleweight title defense against Ishe Smith has been elevated to the main event of the Showtime televised card.

• While the middleweight title matchup between Gennady Golovkin and Nobuhiro Ishida on March 30th in Monte Carlo is a gross mismatch -- if that fight goes more than three rounds, I’ll be shocked -- the show does have an intriguing undercard. Super middleweight prospect Edwin Rodriguez (22-0) will take on Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna (19-0) while former light heavyweight champion Zsolt Erdei (33-0) will challenge former 168-pound title challenger Denis Grachev (12-1). The undercard fights will be part of the Monte Carlo Million Dollar Super Four. The finals of tournament will take place July 13 in Monaco, with the winner taking home $600,000, the loser $400,000.

• Think there is some interest in the May 25th rematch between Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler in the U.K.? Promoters of the event report that more than 8,000 tickets sold in the first hour and that the O2 Arena, capacity 17,000, is expected to be sold out. Froch, who said he would have retired if he lost to Lucian Bute last year, says he will likely quit if he loses to Kessler.

• Attention fellow media members: Reporting that someone is near death, as a British tabloid did with Muhammad Ali last week, is not cool. And it’s shameful when you’re wrong. According to an Ali’s daughter, May May, the 71-year old Ali, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, is not dying. The family released a photo of Ali in a Ravens jersey watching the Super Bowl. The reports stemmed from comments made by Ali’s brother, Rahman.

• According to super middleweight challenger Adonis Stevenson’s promoter, Yvon Michel, Stevenson will fight for a vacant IBF title sometime in June. Neither Carl Froch, the reigning IBF titleholder, or Mikkel Kessler, who will face Froch in May, has shown interest in facing Stevenson, and according to Michel the title will become vacant after that fight. In the meantime, Michel said Stevenson will face Darnell Boone in March in an attempt to avenge his only career defeat.

• Man, has Andre Dirrell wasted some prime years of his career.

• Kelly Pavlik continues to sound like a man who doesn’t intend to stay retired.

• We have a presumption of innocence in this country, but when it comes to performance enhancing drugs the assumption is that anyone connected with them through published reports is probably using them. That’s why Yuri Gamboa is going to have to submit to blood and urine testing for the rest of his career if he hopes to restore any credibility to it. Gamboa has yet to publicly respond to charges made in a Miami New Times report that linked him to an alleged PED peddler in south Florida. But regardless of what he says, Gamboa is going to have to prove, through testing, that he is a clean fighter.

-Chris Mannix