"The Contender" Season Four Announced

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“The Contender” Season Four Announced

Filed on September 29th, 2008 in Boxing ⋅ ⋅

The fighters participating in “The Contender” season four have been announced, and the tournament is currently being filmed in Singapore. Since being dropped by ESPN this year, the reality show is getting new life on the Versus network. There will be 11 episodes, concluding with a two-hour live finale on February 19.

Not only have the 16 fighters been announced, but perhaps more importantly, there is a new host. Out is that Sugar Ray Leonard guy. In is legendary television personality Tony Danza.

Not only is Danza a Hall of Fame caliber actor, but he was also once a professional boxer. Having compiled a 9-3 record, Danza left the fight world to appear on Taxi, when apparently he just got too good at beating people up. Only two brave fighters ever got in the ring with Danza and dared survive to fight a second round, except for the three guys that beat him. Hell, even two of his three losses were first round knockouts.

You can see why this guy with such an accomplished boxing career 30 years ago would replace Sugar Ray Leonard. It’s almost like they said “find us somebody who knows about boxing, but speaks worse than Sugar Ray.” That leads you to Mike Tyson and Danza. Tyson probably asked for real money, while Danza is doing it for eight bucks an hour and the chance to be on television.

I can only hope he takes it upon himself to nickname some of the fighters. Imagine Rico “Tony” Hoye, or Darnell “Tony, the Ding-a-Ling-Man” Wilson. How about Ehinomen “Tony” Ehikhamenor. You get what I’m saying.

Anyway, season three was much better than the first two, and Versus promises to also show the fights in their entirety, in addition to the edited episodes as ESPN did with season three, so I’m in.

The season begins in December.

The fighters competing in “The Contender” season four are (courtesy of Boxing Scene):

• Mike Alexander (34, Columbus, Ohio, 12-2, 8 KOs).

• Felix Cora Jr. (28, Galveston, Texas, 18-2-2, 9 KOs).

• Ryan Coyne (26, St. Louis, 9-0, 3 KOs).

• Ehinomen “Hino” Ehikhamenor (28, Queens, N.Y., 12-3-0, 7 KOs).

• Deon Elam (28, Van Nuys, Calif., 9-0-0, 5 KOs).

• Alfredo Escalera Jr. (28, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 15-1-1, 11 KOs).

• Tim Flamos (41, Brockton, Mass., 20-4-1, 8 KOs).

• Richard Gingras (27, Claremont, N.H., 9-1-0, 5 KOs).

• Joell Godfrey (27, East St. Louis, Ill., 9-0-1, 5 KOs).

• Rico Hoye (33, Detroit, 20-2, 15 KOs).