By Norm Frauenheim-

Deontay Wilder is a predictable target on sociopath media these days. Anybody, which means just about everybody, with a keyboard and an insult is piling on in the wake of his one-sided loss to Tyson Fury.

Everybody, that is, but Fury.

The fundamental goodness in Fury has been evident throughout interviews this week in the UK. Fury beat him up. Forced his corner to surrender in the seventh round. Within the ropes, he showed no mercy. Outside of them, he has shown empathy for a fellow fighter struggling to come to terms with his first defeat.

In part, perhaps, that’s because Fury has already been trashed by the virtual vigilantes, who have buried Wilder beneath their malice for blaming his loss on the collection of nuts, bolts and batteries that were part of his armored costume. The 40-pound get-up weakened him in his walk to the ring, Wilder said before video surfaced of him saying he trained while wearing a 45-pound weighted vest.

There’s been no bunker deep enough, no armored suit protective enough, to shield him from what has followed.

Fury has been there, a target of public shaming, during dark days of drinking, drugging, eating and agonizing in the aftermath of his 2015 upset of Wladimir Klitschko.

He was the heavyweight champ with heavyweight mental issues, an accident in the making and always in the headlines. He was stripped of his titles and stripped of his sanity. But he made it back, came back with a unique understanding of the kind of adversity now facing Wilder.

Fury came into the ring to Patsy Cline’s country classic, Crazy. Fury knows something about crazy.

“I can understand where he’s coming from,” Fury told ITV’s This Morning. “In every fighter’s mind, there’s got to be a reason why they’ve lost. It can never be a simple fact (of) I wasn’t good enough on the night and lost to the better guy. It’s always got to be: ‘The camp was wrong. It was the trainer’s fault. It was my suit, it was my toe.’

“With me, if I’m injured or whatever the problem is, it’s like, ‘OK, the performance wasn’t great. But I’m going to move on and crack on.’ ‘’

The question is whether Wilder will be able to move on. He’s already exercised a contract clause for a third fight, tentatively set for July 18 at Las Vegas MGM Grand, site of the last bout. With an interim fight, Wilder might be able to restore some confidence, which figures to be shaky after the beatdown he suffered on Feb. 22.

But business is business, and Fury promises to subject him to another business-like beating.

 “I beat him the first time,” said Fury, who fought Wilder to a controversial draw on Dec. 1, 2018 in their first meeting. “I beat him the second time. I’ll surely beat him the third time.’’

Hard to argue with that.

However, it’s also clear that Fury and Wilder like each other. Throughout all the trash-talking exchanges at news conferences before the rematch, there were moments when that was evident. You could see it in their eyes and their body language. After shoving each other at the final newser, there was a break. They smiled, an acknowledgement that those were friendly shoves.

Fury was also careful not to spark any racial controversy. Race has always been part of boxing. After all, it’s the sport the created The Great White Hope. Wilder dropped some racial hints. February was Black History Month. Wilder said he wanted to turn Fury into a Black History Month trivia question.

But Fury wouldn’t go there.

“This is not a racial war,’’ Fury said when asked about Wilder’s comment a couple of days before opening bell.

No, it was not.

Is not.

It simply was about two men who happen to like each other despite the war that awaited them.

And still awaits them.

“The one thing I will say about Deontay Wilder is he’s a very worthy opponent, and he’s a very dangerous opponent,” Fury said. “He has that eraser power of 43 knockouts, only the one defeat, and you can never write a guy off like that. It’s always one punch away from disaster with Deontay.

“Like he famously says, ‘They have to be correct for 36 minutes, I have to be correct for one second.’

“And that’s so true.”

Nice to hear something so genuinely true, too.Attachments area

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: Chocolatito City
was a five-part series written in the doldrums of 2016.

*

Saturday in Frisco, Texas, Nicaraguan Roman
“Chocolatito” Gonzalez defeated Birmingham’s Khalid Yafai by ninthround
knockout to snatch Yafai’s WBA super flyweight title surely as he snatched
Yafai’s consciousness with a gorgeous 1-2 that might’ve been a 3-2, aiming as
Chocolatito did for Yafai’s lead hand much as his head, then putting his cross,
the 2, square on Yafai’s open chin.  If
it was the last great fight legend tells us remains within every great fighter,
well, it was just that.

Evidently the reports of Chocolatito’s demise have
been greatly exaggerated – even by sources
esteemed as this one.  Perhaps it was
a misplaced desire to put a neat bookend on an era or to justify not-traveling
a comparatively small distance to see a legend win another title fight,
especially after traveling a lot farther to see him washed and folded in
Carson, Calif.

Whatever it was it didn’t work, and worse yet, it
caused a tempering of joy for what did work. 
While picking against Tyson Fury a couple weeks ago did nothing to detract
from the emotion of watching him denude Deontay “Wardrobe Malfunction” Wilder,
oddly writing disparagingly of Chocolatito’s comeback detracted from the
experience of his prevailing in Frisco.  As
an underdog.

Somewhere it already must be written or said a
reliable mark of greatness is winning a match as a betting underdog.  The bookmakers know what they’re doing
because all they’re doing is balancing a ledger, and selforganization of those
who suspect themselves experts enough to wager zealously on a prizefight dictates
their balanced ledger comprises wisdom. 
The chalk, as it’s known, is right far more often than boxing
experts.  And the chalk had Yafai a
slight favorite.

The usefulness of the chalk in evaluating
greatness is how infrequently the chalk gets fooled by prefight gimmickry;
where socialmedia posts cost a few seconds and seek to game imagined popularity
metrics a man who places a wager with a bookmaker has a financial incentive to
ignore what promotional noise the rest of us feed on.  Some of us bet $20 to enjoy a fight more,
surely, but those sorts of bets don’t move the chalk.

Let’s treat Big Drama Show for a moment, here, as
his case is proper illustrative.  During
his “historic” reign as middleweight champion, how often did Gennady Golovkin beat
men favored to beat him?

Well, never, because, duh, everyone in the world
was afraid of him so he had no choice but to fight little guys whom bookmakers
knew had no chance of beating him!

What might’ve happened had he plied his wares against
men who weighed 168 pounds rather than 148? 
The chalk would’ve reflected that, making Andre Ward, for instance, a
comfortable favorite and likely making both BJ Saunders and Callum Smith narrow
favorites, because the chalk knew Golovkin’s power wouldn’t travel, whatever
the HBO hype machine screamed at us. 
Thus, had Golovkin dared to be great and challenged a super middleweight
titlist during his prime and beaten someone oddsmakers favored over him, his
legacy would be different from what it will be, no matter the outcomes of his subsequent
matches with Canelo – whom historians will place 50 or so spots above him.

Did Chocolatito deserve to be an underdog
Saturday?  Yes.  He got stopped right brutally 2 1/2 years ago
by someone, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, whom aficionados regard as excellent more
than unbeatable.  As Gallo Estrada showed
us a year ago, a prime Chocolatito should not be iced by any version of Sor
Rungvisai – hence the version of Chocolatito who did get stretched was not
prime.

If at age 32 Chocolatito is not quite ancient for a
former world minimumweight champion he is close, and he’s also matching
himself, at 115 pounds, with men who absorb punches multiples better than 105-pounders
do because, as we know, fighters gain weight on their chins more than their
fists.  Some of what happened Saturday, too,
was about styles.

Power punchers like Sor Rungvisai, who get foiled
often by defensive specialists, treat volume guys like Chocolatito much as a
threshing machine treats dry husks, while volume guys like Chocolatito tend to
overwhelm stylists like Yafai – which is why Sor Rungvisai’s decision to box
with a stylist like Estrada wasn’t wrongheaded as reported and neither was Yafai’s
decision to switch from cutiepie to enforcer when matched with a
volume-punching genius (whom he was never going to dissuade with defensive
precision).

Wait, but BK and Latin Snake told us a hundred
times each . . . Yes, yes, I know – Yafai is a former Olympian who foolishly abandoned
the strategy they scripted for him.  Well,
guess what, guys, if Gallo Estrada couldn’t foil Chocolatito with a jab,
there’s no chance in this iteration of the universe or the next Yafai could,
and to Yafai’s credit, he got that almost instantly and did what he calculated,
as a former Olympian, gave him the best chance.

Because it didn’t work doesn’t mean it was wrong; Chocolatito
in his prime, at, say, 108 pounds, cut guys like Yafai in half in five rounds;
seven pounds and seven years beyond his prime, it turns out, Chocolatito still
has enough to raze guys like Yafai in nine rounds.  Yafai might have boxed his way to a dull and
lopsided-decision loss to Chocolatito. 
Instead he made an entertaining gamble on his own size and
strength.  He lost his title but gave us
an unforgettable experience.

I’ll take more of that, please.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Mikey Garcia takes on Jessie Vargas in a welterweight showdown.  The action starts at 6 PM eastern with an undercard that features two world title bouts that will have WBC Flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez taking on Jay Harris; WBA Super Flyweight champ Kal Yafai takes on former champion Roman Gonzalez

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Round 1: Left hook from Vargas..Straight right..hook to body..quick hook…each land a jab

Round 2 Hard 1-2 from Vargas..Jab from Garcia..Hook from Vargas.Hook from Garcia..2 right to body from Vargas..

Round 3 Jab from Vargas..Jab from Garcia..Right from Vargas..1-2 from Garcia..Jab from Vargas..Jab from Garcia..Good right from Vargas

Round 4 Hard jab from Garcia..Counter left..Hook from Vargas..Hard left from Vargas..Hard right from Garcia..Jab to Body from Vargas..Right to body

Round 5 Right to body from Vargas..Jab to body,,,body and head…Blood from nose of Vargas..Hook from Garcia..Big right wobbles Vargas…RIGHT AND DOWN GOES VARGAS…Hard body shot from Garcia

Round 6 Uppercut from Garcia..Jab from Vargas..Good jab..

Round 7 Good right from Garcia..Hook from Vargas..Big right from Garcia..Big right wobbles Vargas again and in trouble on the ropes

Round 8 Right from Garcia…Left hook..2 jabs from Vargas..Right from Vargas

Round 9 Good Jab from Vargas..Chopping right from Garcia..

Round 10 Vargas lands a right to the jaw..Hard right from Garcia hurts Vargas..1-2 to the body..Body shot

Round 11 Right from Garcia

Round 12 Right from Vargas..Left wobbles Vargas..Vargas right eye swelled up..Right from Vargas

114-113, 116-111 twice for GARCIA

Round 1 Hook to body from Gonzalez..Body and Head

Round 2 Right from Gonzalez..Body and Head..Body..Body shot and uppercut..Body shot from Yafai

Round 3 Right from Yafai..Good hook to body from Gonzalez…right to head

Round 4 Good jab from Yafai..Right from Gonzalez..Good combination..3 punch combination

Round 5  Yafai lands a right to the body..Body shots..good action on inside..

Round 6 Gonzalez cut over right eye..Good uppercut from Gonzalez..Good body shot from Yafai..Right from Gonzalez..Good uppercut..Left hook..Bidy shot from Yafai

Round 7 Hard shot from Gonzalez..Gonzalez landing barrage..Yafai looking tired..Body from Gonzalez

Round 8 Uppercut from Gonzalez..Hook..Big combination..HUGE FLURRY AND DOWN GOES YAFAI

Round 9 BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES YAFAI…FIGHT OVER

Round 1:  Harris jabs..Good Jab..Hard shot and good uppercut from Martinez..Nice 1-2..Harris lands a good jab and right hand…Quick combination..Hook to the head from Martinez..Straight right and a barrage 

Round 2 Jab and Body shot from Harris…3 punch combination..Good right,,Martinez land a good right..1-2

Round 3 Good left from Martinez..Good left from Harris..Body shots from Martinez..Uppercut..Good right from Harris

Round 4 Hard body work from Martinez..Good body shots..Body and head..Right to body..Hard jab from Harris..Good hook to the body..Hook from Martinez..Blood around left eye of Harris..Good combination and right to head from Harris..jab and good right from Martinez.Good hook from Harris

Round 5 Hook from Harris…Hard body shots from Martinez..Body attack from Harris..Uppercut and body shot

Round 6 Harris doing well with body shots

Round 7 Hard power shots drives Harris back..3 punch combination from Harris..Hard jab drives Harris back..Good left..Good combination from Harris..Harris gets driven back from a jab..good body work from Martinez..Right from Harris..Right from Martinez…Harris snaps Martinez head back..Left hook and right

Round 8 Good combination from Martinez..Good right from Harris..Combination from Martinez..Good combination for Harris..Right from Martinez

Round 9  Hard right from Martinez..3 hard shots..Good back in forth..3 punch combo from Harris..Hook

Round 10 BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES HARRIS..Right from Harris..good hook..Body shot.Body shot and hook to the head

Round 11 Hard right to body from Martinez..Good right to body

Round 12 2 body punches from Martinez…5 punch combination

Round 2 Right from Parker..Chopping right..Nice hook from Winter..Good right..Hook from Parker

Round 3 HARD RIGHT AND DOWN GOES WINTERS

Round 4 Double left hook from Parker…Hook from Winters..Parker cut under the right eye…Body shots from Parker

Round 5 Big right from Parker..hard right..RIPPING 3 PUNCH COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES WINTERS…FIGHT OVER

Round 1: Good left hook from Madrimov..Solid right..Counter right from Navarro..
Round 2 Good left hook hurts Navarro..Nice Combination..Right to the head..Navarro holding his eye
Round 3 Counter right from Madrimov..Nice Jab..
Round 4 Overhand right from Madrimov…Combination…Good jab..Hard Hook..Hard right
Round 5 Good right to the body
Round 6 Right hook snaps the head back of Navarro..Body shot..Head shot..Jabbing to the head..HARD BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES NAVARRO..RIGHT AND DOWN GOES NAVARRO…FIGHT OVER

Round 1 Right from Pacheco
Round 2 hard right from Pacheco…3 more rights
Round 3  Pacheco continuing to land the right
Round 4 Straight right from Pacheco..Right to the face..Jab..
Round 5 Good right from Pacheco..Good hard right..3 punch combination
Round 6 Body shot from Riojas..Hard right staggers Riojas..2 more rights..Another right

By Norm Frauenheim-

Mikey Garcia has been called stubborn more than once. It’s a multi-edged adjective. There’s the good stubborn, as in the tenacious Garcia. There’s the bad stubborn, as in the obstinate Garcia.

Apply the good or the bad, it doesn’t make much difference. Garcia proceeds on his terms and always with his own idea of what he wants from an accomplished career that already includes titles at featherweight, junior-lightweight, lightweight and junior-welterweight.

That stubborn streak has taken him back to the city and the weight he was at a year ago in a disappointing loss to Errol Spence Jr. at AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys home field.

Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs) will be nearby in Frisco at The Ford Center against Jessie Vargas (29-2-2, 11 KOs) Saturday night on DAZN. He says he has something to prove, perhaps as much to himself as to his fans.

“I’m here to do one thing,’’ he said at a news conference this week. “I’m here to take over. I’m here to show that there’s a lot more to Mikey Garcia. I’m here to show all my skills, here to remind everyone that I can be a serious welterweight contender.’’

He last time we saw Garcia in the ring, he looked like a fighter who had moved too far up the scale. He looked sluggish. Out of sorts. It was forgettable and perhaps it could have been forgotten altogether by a fight at a lighter weight that would showcase, instead of suffocate, a disciplined skillset that had put Garcia among the top five in the pound-for-pound debate. The talk was that Garcia would be best-served back at 140 pounds, perhaps in a big-money bout against Manny Pacquiao.

But Garcia hasn’t forgotten the performance against Spence. Or the talk. Time is one way to forget. But Garcia wants to knock out the memory with a stoppage of the bigger Vargas. Vargas hasn’t fought in nearly a year since his stoppage of Humberto Soto last April in Los Angeles. But Garcia hasn’t exactly been busy either. He hasn’t fought since Spence dominated him in every way in scoring a unanimous decision on March 16.

Vargas’ superior size and world-class resume at 147 pounds are factors that could remind Garcia of what happened to him a year ago.

“He has everything, all of things that people say about what I shouldn’t be doing and fighters I shouldn’t be fighting,’’ Garcia said. “That motivates me.’’

Motivates him to be as stubborn as ever.

By Kyle Kinder–

Violence and boxing are inseparable.  For some fighters, the violence boxing demands is omnipresent.  It already exists inside their being when they enter the ropes and remains with them when they exit the ring.  It’s an unshakable part of their existence, and left unchecked, can land themselves or others in early graves.

In Slaughter in the Streets: When Boston Became Boxing’s Murder Capital, the third offering of Hamilcar Publication’s true-crime Hamilcar Noir series, author Don Stradley unearths an astonishingly long list of 20th century Boston boxers who failed to escape the city’s long shadow of violence, each ultimately dying unnatural, gruesome deaths. 

Written in sixteen brief, fast-paced chapters, Stradley highlights the tragic ends of different ex-Boston fighters in each, though murder is hardly reserved for the chapter’s main subjects. Readers begin in Prohibition-era Boston where a former South Boston flyweight-turned mob boss winds up face down in a pool of his own blood in an attorney’s office two days before Christmas, 1931.  Stradley chronologically bookends his work in the final chapter where he details the 1999 killing of a former amateur standout; an unlucky recipient of a round bullets pumped into his body in broad daylight.  

In between the Prohibition-era slayings and the murder near the close of the millennium, Stradley writes about the final moments of former fighters of all fistic skill levels — from regional titlists to career journeymen to amateurs.  And though these Massachusetts

men willingly partook in sanctioned violence, it was their shared fate, brought on by unsanctioned, criminal violence that binds their stories together in the pages Slaughter in the Streets.

For a few fighters, their deaths were simply a matter of wrong place, wrong time.  But most of

Stradley’s subjects were men who sought out a violent lifestyle, drawn to the bright lights and false promises of Boston’s underworld, but rarely ever amounted to anything more than wannabe gangsters — bodyguards, henchmen, and low-level criminals.

While there is no shortage of literature on boxing’s ties to organized crime, most stories focus on the Northeast’s other two big cities:  New York and Philadelphia. In Slaughter in the Streets, Stradley uses the murders of ex-pugilists to delve into Boston’s underbelly.  Readers first journey back to 1920’s Boston where they’re introduced to Southie’s ruthless “Gustin Gang” and their Italian rivals.  Eventually, they wind up in Whitey Bulger’s realm and learn of connections between the sweet science and his infamous Winter Hill Gang.

The brutal stories brought forth by Stradley in Slaughter In The Streets will appeal to a broad audience, including history buffs and New Englanders.  But if nowhere else, this book belongs in the hands of every boxing fan and true crime aficionado, for it’s sure to quench the primitive thirst for blood shared by both.

Slaughter in the Streets: When Boston Became Boxing’s Murder Capital

By Don Stradley

144 pages. Hamilcar Publications. $10.99.

Publication Date: February 25, 2020

Follow all the action as Deontay Wilder defends the WBC Heavyweight Title in a much anticipated rematch.  The action begins at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT/2 AM in England with Charles Martin taking on Gerald Washington in a heavyweight bout; Emanuel Navarrete takes on Jeo Santisima for WBC Super Bantamweight bout and the action starts with Sebastian Fundora against Daniel Lewis.

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Round 1 Right from Fury..Right from Wilder..Good right from Fury.Jab…Left..Ripping jab..Fury outlanded Wilder 8-5

Round 2 Jab from Fury..another….Long right from Wilder..Jab to the body..Left from Fury..Right from Wilder..Right from Fury..Right from Wilder

Round 3 Jab and flush right from Fury..Right..Stiff jab..Good rightHUGE RIGHT AND DOWN GOES WILDER..Wilder is very hurt

Round 4 Guys tangle legs Wilder goes down..Body shot from Fury..Wilder looking spent already

Round 5 Huge right from Fury…LEFT TO BODY AND DOWN GOES WILDER..Wilder holding on..Big right from Fury..point deducted from fury for hitting on break

Round 6 Right from Fury..hard right to body..Clipping right..Straight right..Left from Wilder..Big left from Fury..left hook

Round 7 Left from Fury..Another big left..2 HUGE RIGHTS AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Left from Martin

Round 2 Left to Body from Martin

Round 3 

Round 4 Left to body from Martin..Straight left

Round 5 Right from Washington..Straight left from Martin..Lead left..Left to the head..Right from Washington..

Round 6  HUGE LEFT AND DOWN GOES WASHINGTON…FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1 Left to body by Navarrete

Round 2 Santisima lands a left to the body..3 punch combo from Navarrete..Jab

Round 3 Body shot from Navarrete..Another body shot

Round 4 Right from Santisima...Hard left

Round 5 Navarrete lands a series of rights..Left hook from Santisima….Hard right from Navarrete..he is starting to ramp up the attack..2 uppercuts and body shot

Round 6 Right from Navarrete..Body from santisima..Left hook from Navarrete..

Round 7 Left from Navarrete..

Round 8 Body shot from Santisima…Left and right from Navarrete..Jab..Santisima lands a body shot..

Round 9 Right from Navarrete…

Round 10 Combination on inside from Navarrete..Hard right to the head..

Round 11 Hard 11 punches UNANSWERED AND THE FIGHT IS TOPPED FOR NAVARRETE

Round 1 Right from Lewis..jab from Fundora..Right hook..Right to body..Uppercut from Lewis..

Round 2 Right from Lewis…Right to body from Fundora..Right from Lewis..Good right…Blood from nose from Fundora..Hard uppercut from Lewis..uppercut

Round 3 Uppercut from Fundora…Right..Right Hook..Right Hook..Right from Lewis..Lewis bleeding under the eyes

Round 4 Right from Lewis..Left from Fundora..Left…

Round 5 Right from Lewis

Round 6 Right from Lewis…Combination from Fundora..Right from Lewis…Left from Fundora..Straight left

Round 7 Body shot from Lewis

Round 8 Jab from Fundora

Round 9 2 lefts from Lewis…Left to body from Fundora..right to body…Straight left,..

Round 10 Straight left from Fundora.

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – There been a lot of talk about what — who — awaits the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury winner of a long-anticipated heavyweight rematch Saturday at the MGM Grand.

The winner moves on to a bigger fight and a bigger challenge against Anthony Joshua, who holds most of the heavyweight belts. At least, that the presumptive plan.

But Fury promoter Bob Arum thinks the challenge is overrated.

Joshua is not among the elite, Arum said in a reference to Andy Ruiz Jr.’s stunning stoppage of Joshua on June 1 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

“Any fighter that loses, not only loses, but gets knocked out by Andy Ruiz, who at best is a slightly above-average heavyweight, is not an elite fighter. Period,” Arum told a few reporters this week.

Arum also was not impressed with Joshua in a rematch victory over Ruiz on Dec. 7 in Saudi Arabia. Joshua decision was celebrated by fans and media, who called it vindication for the UK heavyweight.

“Secondly, when Andy Ruiz goes into the second fight obese – obese, not even really having trained – and Joshua doesn’t knock the guy out and destroy him, instead dances around for 12 rounds, he is not an elite fighter,” said Arum, who once promoted Ruiz.

Joshua scored a one-sided decision — winning 10 rounds on one scorecard and 11 rounds on each other two – with a cautious strategy.

Arum said Joshua fought scared.

“I think Joshua will fight all the rest of his fights in his career scared,” Arum said. “And you know what happens to scared fighters.”

If Fury wins and there’s no immediate rematch with Wilder, negotiations with Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn could get scary, too.

By Bart Barry-

“Playing to strengths delivers excellence; merely
fixing weaknesses does not.” – Paddy Upton, “The Barefoot Coach”

Saturday in Las Vegas, British heavyweight Tyson
“Gypsy King” Fury at long last rematches his 2018 championship draw with
American Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder. 
As the rematch will be a pay-per-view affair the next six days promise
an explosion of hyperbole to which this column will not contribute.

Because neither man is what one’d call “good” at
boxing.  In fact, to honor NBA All-Star
Weekend here’s an oldschool simile: Fury-Wilder 1 held all the aesthetic
delights of a threepoint shooting contest between Robert Parish and Mark Eaton.

Because he looks the part, probably we get
unfairly tough on Deontay here; while Fury fights very much like an obese gypsy
in recovery, Wilder does too, despite looking an Adonis dipped in espresso-gold.

As part of precolumn research that was not
exhaustive I partook of a video called “Deontay Wilder VS Tyson Fury
Highlight | The best Fight” – by virtue of its viewcount and pedigree the
video’s title appears unironical, and that is remarkable given how much
fighting it does not have in its 12 minutes. 
The video features someone’s honest effort to cross-stitch a
championship prizefight’s best 1/3, and there aren’t a dozen clean punches landed
the whole reel.

You’ve got Tyson doing his slap-n-jiggle thing, playfully
spanking Deontay’s cheek with his palm whilst his torso jiggles like it too was
playfully spanked, and you’ve got Deontay, decidedly less urgent, doing his
“Wilder and” Wilder thing, punctuating each quixotic tilt with a windmill
right.  It’s immensely entertaining in
its way, though, because of the men’s simple immensity.

I recall its being way more entertaining in
realtime, too, for the reason every heavyweight fight is suspenseful.  Knowing what didn’t happen after 36 minutes,
though, makes reviews tedious, in a way the rematch may prove.

It seems Fury outsmarted himself in this leadup as
well.  Much of his good scoring in the
first fight concerned universal doubts as to his mettle and durability.  He’d told us he was a miracle of regained
character and volition, and told us and told us, but knowing he’d be chased by
a giant lunatic for a halfhour or so few of us thought he’d pitch the perfect
game he needed.  Yet he almost did.  And every minute that went by with his
remaining upright favored him on every scorecard, official or otherwise; Fury
got a whole lot of credit for ring generalship and defense so long as Wilder’s
aggression remained ineffective and his punching stayed uncleanly.

But for this rematch Fury’s been running his mouth
about an early knockout.  He doesn’t plan
to do this – it’s too ridiculous of a prospect, even, to be a prefight chess
move – but in selling the fight in an unoriginal way Fury has changed
expectations.  You spend your
trainingcamp citing selfhelp literature and people mistake your every retreat
for strategy and in some cases courage, but you tell people you’re there to
snatch another man’s consciousness, and quickly, you’re getting a lot less
credit for not-punching.

Wilder, meanwhile, is a man of his word.  He’s there to bean you with a fastball, and
he don’t say otherwise.  What’s sometimes
lost in our promoter-induced squinting to see talent in Fury that absolutely is
not there (shrink him to 135 pounds, call Juan Manuel Marquez and administer
extreme unction) is what a specimen of conditioning Wilder is.

Until you’ve hurled yourself headlong at sea-level
air you don’t realize how tiring it can be. 
Wilder loads his life into half his punches, misses cleanly and then shoulders
the burden of stopping his right fist from sailing to the cheap seats.  Missing punches is physically fatiguing as it
is spiritually discouraging.  And yet.

Wilder had strength and selfbelief enough to knock
the dust off Fury 33 unsuccessful minutes after he started trying.  We spent an unfortunate amount of time
praising Fury for his lastround Lazarus, postfight, without commenting enough
on Wilder’s unexpected round-12 power; Wilder merely met expectations while
Fury exceeded them.

That quote at the top explains the success of Wilder’s career philosophy.  He began boxing too late in life to trifle with nuance.  The last American male to win an Olympic heavyweight medal, Wilder saw his marketing potential long, long before any of us imagined he’d be a unified titlist.  He saw the fear in other men’s eyes – including refs’ – when he went crazy, and he kept iterating his way to the most frightful competitor he could be.  That required an ability to cut a man’s lights with any punch he threw, no matter how early or late, and doing so requires great fitness.

Where an uncertain athlete might’ve found his way
to Wild Card or Kronk to learn footwork or head movement or conservation of
energy, by 2010, Wilder took only what he did best and committed to doing it
better.  If the holes in his style aren’t
any larger now than when he started, they are, surprisingly, no smaller.

But what, honestly, has any man done to exploit
these holes?  Fury got so flustered by
Wilder’s intensity he forgot to hook Wilder’s elbows on every clinch.  Be not fooled by Tyson’s opportune mugging
later; he was proper frightened for his first 10 minutes across from Deontay.  Which is proper absurd in its own right – nature
endowed Fury with a larger frame than even the top 1-percent of all men in
human history, but he sure doesn’t fight like it.

Saturday I’ll be cheering for one outcome as usual.  A knockout. 
Since Wilder is much likelier to bestow it, I’ll take him: KO-9.

*

Author’s note: This column will be on sabbatical
next week while its writer visits Mexico.

*

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Caleb Plant defends the IBF Super Middleweight title against mandatory challenger Vincent Feigenbutz.  The action begins at 8 PM ET with Austin Dulay taking on Diego Magdaleno.  Bryant Perrella takes on Abel Ramos

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY.

Round 1 Plant lands a right to the body..Right to body..

Round 2 Right drives Feigenbutz back..Sharp Jab

Round 3 Right from Plant..Hard combination..Uppercut and hook..

Round 4 Body shot from Plant…Jab

Round 5 Combination from Plant..Uppercut

Round 6 Feigenbutz throws a barrage…Plant smiles at him..Jab to head and body from Plant..Plant outlanding Feigebutz 101-23

Round 7  Good body shot from Plant..Jab from Feigenbutz..Left to body from Plant..2 crisp jabs..

Round 8 Plant lands a left..Good hook from Feigenbutz..Uppercut from Plant

Round 9 Big right from Plant rocks Feigenbutz..3 punch combination..Hard right..Blood from Nose of Feigenbutz..Hard body shot from Plant..Another hard body shot

Round 10 Body shot from Plant..Good right..Feigenbutz taking a lot of punishment..Ripping body and head combo..Beautiful uppercut..Hrd 3 punch combination..Right from Feigenbutz..COMBINATION AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Left from Perrella…

Round 2 Blood from nose of Ramos..Body shots from Perrella

Round 3 Left from Perrella…Backing Ramos up

Round 4 Jab from Perrella..Left from Perrella hurts Ramos..Combination..

Round 5 Jab from Perrella…Right from Ramos..

Round 6 Combinations from Perrella..Jabs…

Round 7 Hook from Ramos…Good body shot..

Round 8 Ramos coming forward..uppercut from Perrella..Short shots inside..

Round 9 Perrella lands a left to the body..Good body shots…

Round 10 Good right from Ramos,..HUGE UPPERCUT AND DOWN GOES PERRELLA..BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES PERRELLA…THE FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1  Left from Dulay..Good combination from Magdaleno….Combination from Dulay..Hook from Magdaleno..

Round 2 Straight left from Dulay..Popping left..Good body shot from Magdaleno

Round 3 Good counter from Dulay..Good left..

Round 4 Jab from Magdaleono..Hard left from Dulay..Good combination from Magdaleno…

Round 5 Jab from Magdaleno…Dulay goes down from a low blow

Round 6 Good body shot from Magdaleno..Straight left…Combination..Uppercut from Dulay..Hard body from Magdaleno

Round 7 BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES DULAY..Hard body shot…Dulay goes down from a low blow..MAGDALENO DEDUCTED A POINT…Body shot hurts Dulay..Hard left to the head…Body shot..Counter left

Round 8 Left from Magdaleno..

Round 9 Combination to body from Magdaleno..Another body shot..Another..Yet another..Good left from Dulay…Left

Round 10 Hard left from Magdaleno..Good 1-2..Body shot..Another body shot..Uppercut from Dulay..Hard body shot..

97-91 AND 96-92 TWICE FOR MAGDALENO

By Norm Frauenheim-

Tyson Fury moves from profane to prophetic in interviews in much the same way he switches from orthodox to southpaw in the ring. It’s subtle, almost seamless, which makes it hard to detect. It also makes him dangerous.

He’s a man with many sides. He’s fighter with many styles. The idea is to keep everybody guessing, especially Deontay Wilder, who believes his singular power will be enough to knock down and knock out whatever version of Fury shows up from round to round in their long-awaited rematch Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

“I’m ready for war, one round or twelve,’’ Fury said during an international conference call this week.

Translation: It might — emphasis on might – mean that Fury is prepared for any eventuality in what many say is an extension of the 12-round fight than ended in a draw 14 months ago at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. This heavyweight rivalry could end in the 13th round or the 24^th round. But Fury is confident it will end in his favor. He’s also confident it will end in a knockout.

He likes his chances, in large part because he simply has more ways to fight than Wilder does. Fury has options; Wilder has only one.

“I learned that he can be hit quite regularly,’’ Fury said. “He’s one-dimensional, a one-trick pony, and on Feb. 22 I’m going to prove that.’’

Wilder’s dimension is in the power he possesses in a right hand that is delivered with leverage and astonishing speed. Wilder’s record speaks for itself. Forty-one stoppages in 43 fights is a formula to fear. But Fury isn’t afraid, in part because he has done something as singular as Wilder’s right hand. He’s the only one who got up from it, not once, but twice – first in the ninth round and again in an incredible twelfth.

“I felt the power,’’ Fury says. “Ain’t so bad, ain’t so bad.’’

Ain’t so good, perhaps for Wilder, who might be left wondering whether he has run into the one fighter resilient enough to survive boxing’s version of a weapon of mass destruction. If doesn’t work this time, what will?

“It’s not about getting knocked down,’’ Fury said. “It’s about what happens when you get up.’’ 

There’s controversy about whether the count from referee Jack Reiss was too long in the dramatic final round on Dec.1, 2018. Nevertheless, Fury got up in time to resume what was yet to be decided. He got up in time to work his body into even better condition. This time, there was no crash diet, no battle to a lose a reported 100 pounds over long year.  He looks to be in condition.

“You’re going to see the best Tyson Fury that’s ever been,’’ he said, promising still another version of a fighter who never quits re-inventing himself into someone Wilder never expected.

By Bart Barry-

Three Saturdays from now a comain at the Dallas
Cowboys’ practice facility will feature Nicaragua’s Roman “Chocolatito”
Gonzalez, the once king of our beloved sport. 
Chocolatito will challenge Birmingham’s Khalid Yafai for Yafai’s WBA
super flyweight world title.  It will be
the third time Chocolatito fights since what Srisaket Sor Rungvisai did to him
in 2017.  It likely won’t go well for
Chocolatito.

It’s the sort of return that appears to be financial-advisor-mandated
more than love-o’-the-game compelled.

How dare I? 
Well it’s the weight mostly.  In
some longlost video or other familiars of Chocolatito’s crowed after his second
and brutalest loss he’d been manipulated somehow or other to make fights at super
flyweight.

Now he’s back at that weight in a tilt with a
legitimate titlist who knows how to punch and be punched at 115 pounds, and
more troublesome still: Yafai made his prizefighting debut at 122 3/4
pounds.  Chocolatito’s own debut, 15
years ago, happened at 108.  No need to
bore you with the maths, dear reader, but 14 pounds on a man who weighs not
much more than 100 is an appreciable bit, and more appreciable still on a man
who invites contact the way Chocolatito does. 

If there’s a lasting strike against Chocolatito as
a stylist it lies in how much he allows and always has allowed opponents’
gloves touch him.  Chocolatito is a
proper prizefighter and showman, mentored by a modern master of the craft, the
late Alexis Arguello, and the craft until recently required a man be punched to
achieve celebrity and wealth.  That is
how Chocolatito learned to fight, then, before men learned to extend their
careers by specializing in defense and mic skills, igniting in ticketbuyers a frothing
lust to see them slept, and pundits adapted themselves to modern metrics, going
along with a charade the best fighter is he who fights least.

If Chocolatito, pre-Rat King at least, did not
often catch punches flush on his chin he nevertheless caught plenty on his
shoulders and wrists.  Even a novel
dissuasion technique of his – hanging the hook between an opponent’s right shoulder
and ear such that the opponent’s cross necessarily drove Chocolatito’s left
knuckles into the side of his aggressor’s head – required an opponent’s right
wrist at least to crash against Chocolatito’s upper left arm or shoulder.

Which wasn’t any problem when Chocolatito was
young and nimble and big as those who challenged him.  That stopped quite abruptly in 2016, when Chocolatito
made a successful if illadvised challenge for Carlos Cuadras’ super flyweight
title.  Chocolatito did what he’d always
done and well as he’d always done it but the effect it took on Cuadras was disproportionately
less than anticipated.  And that
anticipated what’d come next even while few of us did.

Srisaket Sor Rungvisai is an excellent and
bruising prizefighter but hardly the man we expected to unseat the world’s
best.  Sor Rungvisai did so with quite a
bit of skill but even more physicality. 
Just that suddenly the headbutts and whatnots that favored Chocolatito,
always, favored his opponent moreso.  If
Chocolatito looked a man threadbaring himself in his first match of 2017 he
looked worn and desperate by September of that year, when Sor Rungvisai’s
misses moved him round the canvas.  Sor
Rungvisai was happy to trade with Chocolatito, and a few minutes into their
rematch it was a mismatch.

Not since Roy Jones Jr.’s collapse did a man
considered invincible look so immediately vincible.  Since then Chocolatito has been semiretired,
fighting twice in 29 months against men with a cumulative 10 losses and four
draws on their dossiers, sparring partners honored to share a mat with
him.  Even so.

A couple months ago in Tokyo against Diomel Diocos,
a man of impeccable courtesy and a chin that floats, Chocolatito looked
initially dull, needing a round and a half too long to victimize a designated
victim.  Because at 115 pounds his
punches no longer pack, Chocolatito exerts more throwing them, both tiring and disbalancing
himself; even the feckless Diocos managed to get an uppercut in position for
Chocolatito to impale himself.  Luckily
for Chocolatito, of course, Diocos, in the homestretch of a 1-4 year and seven
fights since his last knockout, hadn’t a prayer of hurting Chocolatito, who
looked more sheepish than vicious in finishing him.

Unluckily for Chocolatito, the whole thing now
looks a setup, doesn’t it?  In Frisco,
Chocolatito will fight under a British promotional banner a man the BBC calls Britain’s
longest reigning world champion.  What do
you think that portends?

Hint: “A chance to justify a rubber match with Sor
Rungvisai!” mightn’t be the answer.

No, the purpose of Yafai-Gonzalez is to get the
Brummie a hall-of-fame scalp en route to a higherpaying affair with higherweighing
men.  Fair is fair, right, and it’s all
in the game, yes, but one hates to see it in realtime, a man once an example of
boxing’s best qualities made an example of a different sort altogether.

A couple hours ago, when I set about this column,
I believe I planned to name it “Why I’ll be in Frisco” – and now I realize why I
won’t be.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Gary Russell Jr . defends the WBC Featherweight title against undefeated mandatory challenger Tugstsogt Nyambayar.  the action kicks off at 9 PM ET with Jaime Arboleda taking on Jayson Velez.  Guillermo Rigondeaux tales on Liborio Solis for the WBA Bantamweight title.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED…THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY 

Round 1: Left from Russell..Left..Counter right from Nyamabyar..

Round 2 2 counter lefts from Russell..Jab…left..double jab

Round 3 Body and left from Russell..Triple jab..Right from Nyambayar..Right hook from Russell

Roun d 4 Left from Russell..

Round 5 Right from Nyambayar 

Round 6 Right from Nyambayar…Good right..Right..Jab…Left from Russell

Round 7 Body shots by Nyambayar…Left from Russell..Left to body from Nyambayar..Right to body..Left from Russell..Right to body from Nyambayar….Body work drives Russell Back,,

Round 8 Left to body from Russell,.quick combination..Straight left..

Round 9 Body shot from Nyambayar…Hard straight left from Russell..Right from Nyambayar..Straight left from Russell..Right from Nyambayar..4 Punch combination,,3 punch combination,,

Round 10 Long right from Nyambayar…Right in the corner.. Good straight left from Russell

Round 11 Russell works the body..Both working inside..Left from Russell..Quick combination

Round 12 Right from Nyambayar..Left from Russell…Body work from Nyambayar..Left from Russell..Right from Nyambyar..

116-112; 117-111; 118-110  FOR GARY RUSSELL

Round 1 Solis being aggressive lands a right..2 Hard lefts from Rigindeaux

Round 2 Left from Rigindeaux..

Round 3 Counter left from Rigindeaux..

Round 4

Round 5 Right from Solis..Left to body from Rigindeaux

Round 6 Right from Solis

ROUND 7 HUGE LEFT AND DOWN GOES SOLIS…Huge left..

Round 8 Left from Rigondeaux

Round 9 Good left from Rigondeaux..Counter left.

Round 10 Rigondeaux lands 3 hard lefts on the ropes..Left to body..

Round 11 Counter inside hook from Rigindeaux..Right from Solis..Left from Rigondeaux

Round 12 

115-112 Rigondeaux; 115-112 Solis, 116-111 Rigondeaux

Round 1 Arboleda lands a nice right
Round 2 Right and left from Arboelda…gHard right from Velez..Right from Distance
Round 3 Double jab and right from Velez..Double left to body..Jab from Arboleda..Left to body from Velaz…Jab from Arboleda…Right to body..Left…Left from Arboleda..
Round 4 Good body combo from Arboleda..Left and right…Right from Velez…Hard left hook from Arboleda…Good right from Velez
Round 5  Big right from Arboelda drives Velez to the corner..Left hook..Hard right..Solid right from Velez..Uppercut and right from Arboleda..Hard uppercut and right..God action on the inside
Round 6 Left from Velez..Right and left…Left from Arboleda
Round 7 Double jab from Arboleda..Jab..Good right..Jab..Right..Left hook..Straight right
Round 8 Jab from Arboleda…Uppercut…Left from Velez..Right…Left and right from Arboleda…Left from Velez
Round 9 Left hook from Arboleda..Left from Velez drives Arboleda back..Blood from Nose of Arboleda..Good right from Arboleda..Snapping left..Left…Good left from Velez..
Round 10 Right from Velez..Left from Velez wobbles Arbdela…Right drives him back..Right
Round 11 Good right from Arbodela..Right from Velez..Left from Velez
Round 12  Left hook from Arboleda..Hard left from Velez..3 punch combo..hard combination..BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES ARBOLEDA..Huge uppercut rocks Arboleda..Big right wobbles Arboleda again

115-112 Velez; 114-113 Arboleda; 114-113 Arboleda

By Norm Frauenheim-

The before-and-after photos are astonishing. The physical transformation of Tyson Fury continues. A couple of years ago, he made Andy Ruiz Jr. look skinny.

Now, he might be making Deontay Wilder nervous.

Come to think of it, that might be the reason for the photo of Fury looking fit and fight-ready for the heavyweight rematch Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. In an Instagram post this week, Fury poses with arms crossed and eyes focused directly into the camera and straight into Wilder’s eyes. 

It’s a pose intended for an audience of one.

A month ago, Fury predicted he would knock out Wilder in two rounds. Wilder laughed. So, too, did the media. Why would Fury even think about trying to counter Wilder’s singular power with power he has yet to deliver?

Tyson’s clever skillset had him ahead through eight rounds of their first bout in December 2018 at Los Angeles Staples Center. Then, he got knocked down, first in the ninth round and again in the twelfth. It ended in a controversial draw. Without the knockdowns, it’s a one-sided decision for Fury. So why-oh-why wouldn’t he just make a simple adjustment: Stay away for the full 12 rounds in the sequel.

Conventional wisdom dictates that’s what he – in fact — will do. But the Instagram pose is there, suggesting that Fury has done the work he needs to have any chance at a stoppage in any round, much less the second.

Fury says he is at his optimum weight now. He’s at 270 pounds, which he says will be his weight at opening bell. He was at 256 ½ in the first fight. Thirteen-and-half more pounds suggest he’s attempting to put some additional force behind his punches. He jumped from trainer Ben Davison to SugarHill Steward, a Kronk student of the late Emanuel Steward’s power-punching philosophy. The idea, Fury said, is to augment whatever power he might possess with technique, practice-practice-practice and a few more pounds.

Will it work? Probably not. In big fights – and this rematch is as big as it gets – fighters become who they have always been. Fury, who calls himself a student of the game, knows that. In the first couple of rounds, however, he might do something unexpected in an early attempt to confuse Wilder.

He’s doing that now. Fury-being-Fury means lots of talk, head fakes and moves calculated to distract, enrage and entertain.

He says he’ll win within two. He says he toughens up his hands by dipping them in gasoline every day. He’s on fire. Maybe, Wilder is listening, but don’t expect him to call 911.

Fury sticks out his tongue. He rolls his eyes in clownish disbelief. He’s joking. Maybe, Wilder is laughing.

This week, Fury poses. It’s a good photo-op, another app in the psychological game. Maybe, Wilder is watching. But who’s winning? That’s a maybe, too, despite the promises, photos, posts, predictions, pounds and poses.

By Bart Barry-

Thursday in the co-comain event of a Super Bowl
week fightcard broadcast by DAZN from a shady Miami venue called Meridian at
Island Gardens – check out its Google reviews for a chuckle – super
bantamweight Danny Roman lost his WBA and IBF titles by split decision to Uzbekistan’s
Murodjon Akhmadaliev in a very good fight worthy of a rematch.

They were there to make history, history be
damned.  Akhmadaliev was to break Leon
Spinks’ record, a record few knew existed till DAZN’s promoter unearthed it, and
if that meant the benefit of most every scoring doubt need go the Uzbekistani,
so be it.  Thursday evening’s co-comain
fare was very good, again, but not historic, even if everything broadcast these
days must be.

WBA
Scores Analysis, which seems founded on innovative logic, got the score
right, Roman 115-113, by weighing the three official scorers against each other,
in an ode of sorts to selforganization.  There
are far worse analysis tools out there.

Writing of which, punch statistics, too, appeared
to favor Roman, even if prefight research should indicate Roman did not strike Akhmadaliev
nearly so hard as he got struck by him.  That’s
the thing about research, though.  What
evidence did the eyes perceive that Akhmadaliev hits so much harder?  His was the more marked face at final
bell.  His was the much more fatigued
body for three minutes before final bell. 
And most replays showed him flurrying like a teenager whenever at close
quarters, pepperdusting Roman’s elbows and wrists and collarbone.

Akhmadaliev was not the better prizefighter in
Miami, and Roman, the unified champ, did more than enough golfing Akhmadaliev
with uppercuts to retain his titles on a traditional scorecard.

A note about that. 
Close rounds traditionally get scored for the champ, not the challenger,
because that’s where the eyes fall before each engagement.  I’ve written about this a few times before,
but even if you’re tired of reading it, methinks, I’m not yet tired of treating
it:

A truly objective scorer should begin his eyes in
the neutral space between the fighters and return his eyes to that space often
as possible, too.  From that neutral
space he should track any punch that crosses the threshold and grade its effect
thereafter.

Impossible, you say?  Quite right. 
There are no truly objective scorers.

The fighter upon whose fists a scorer’s eyes most
frequently fall has an appreciable scoring advantage, sort of like, and for
much the same reason, the actor upon whom audiences’ eyes most frequently fall
has a scoring advantage at the Oscars. 
In performance arts they call it presence, and in prizefighting it be
the champion’s gree to lose.  Except when
marketing or gambling concerns make it otherwise.

Such was the case Thursday when the barely tested Akhmadaliev
entered the ring with marketing and gambling concerns in his favor.  Of those two, of course, the gambling
concerns always be more honest, and the chalk had it that Akhmadaliev was
probably something very special while Roman was already something a bit
journeyman.

Instead, Akhmadaliev was a cross between Ukraine’s
Vasyl Lomachenko and Armenia’s Vic Darchinyan, and not the right cross
exactly.  Were a man to mix successfully Lomachenko’s
form and Darchinyan’s aggression he’d be a historic entity.  Trouble is, Akhmadaliev more often mixes Darchinyan’s
form – back elbow cocked for telegraphing – with Lomachenko’s aggression,
ballrooming his way away.

There’s a whiff of autoheadline-reading there; Akhmadaliev
believes he is more than he is by virtue of his historic career, and for reasons
both financial and patriotic nobody round him has yet to say it isn’t so.  Danny Roman kinda said it in round 12,
though, didn’t he?  Whilst Akhmadaliev tried
Will-O’-the-Wisp-ing his way to winning a round without throwing a punch for
its opening 5/6, Roman did the needful, as they say, walking forward and
winning the closing round with classic boxing.

O, but look how much Akhmadaliev did in all the
preceding rounds!  Yes, do.

Thursday’s fight was a modernday Vazquez-Marquez,
was it not?  Larger money, lower stakes, poorer
form, lighter punching, less conclusive ending. 
They aren’t making 122-pounders like Izzy and Rafa these days, even if
they’re commentating like they are.

Still, as Super Bowl fightcards go, this wasn’t a
bad one.  Skipping the amateur boxing on
the card, half the televised matches were good and competitive.

Twelve years ago I covered a Scottsdale, Ariz.,
card the week of Super Bowl XLII and the week before that a local promoter told
me: “They always try to do Super Bowl week, and it never works.” 

That wasn’t the best quote, though – that came
from “El Machito” Hector Camacho Jr., on the card to supply a patronym fiftysomething
East Coast lushes might recognize and pay some slight fraction of what $10,000 the
card’s visiting promoter initially thought he might charge for ringside seats to
a Monte Barrett mainevent in a converted carny tent called 944 Super Village at
Stetson Canal.

“I’ve disrespected the sport of boxing so many
times I’m surprised they let me put gloves on,” said El Machito (44-3-1) at the
Friday weighin, by way of promoting his Saturday afternoon battle with Luis
Lopez (13-11-1).

The reason Super Bowl week fightcards generally
don’t work is because while the Super Bowl attracts men in shiny suits, they’re
bespoke suits, generally, and boxing is decidedly off-the-rack.  By the magic math of a visiting promoter
there are at least 10,000 guys in town who could care less about $10,000, and
if he can just find 20 of them he’s on his way, 50 of them and he’s the new Don
King (who posted a Super Bowl XXX loss of his own 24 years ago in Phoenix on a
card that included famed ticketseller B-Hop). 
Shiny suits and carnival barking.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Tyson Fury calls himself a boxing historian, which means more than a basic understanding of what it is to be the lineal heavyweight champion. Mostly, it means he understands deception.

He practices the art and even drops occasional references to Sun Tzu, an ancient philosopher quoted by Generals, cornermen, West Point professors and lineal heavyweight champs. Deontay Wilder calls Fury a con man and maybe he is. But a fighter without a good con enters the ring without a fundamental weapon. No feint, no chance.

“All warfare is based on deception,’’ Tzu said in his classic, The Art of War.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak,’’ he also wrote.

Those are quotes to remember as Fury’s rematch with Wilder approaches on Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in a Fox/ESPN pay-per-view bout.

Between sticking out his tongue and mocking Wilder with dancing eyes, Fury talks. And talks. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake, what’s true and what’s feint. But that’s the idea in the buildup, a series of news conferences that set the stage for the head games that precede any opening bell.

Fury is trying to confuse Wilder, who knocked him down twice with the most feared right hand in at least a generation. Wilder says there’s no eluding his power. Few have. His record includes an astonishing 41 stoppages in 43 fights. But the record also includes the draw with Fury Dec. 1, 2018 in Los Angeles.  In the twelfth round, Fury got up from the punch that landed with the concussive force that has finished virtually everyone else. But Fury got up, a singular answer to Wilder’s singular power.

Why Fury and nobody else? It’s a question Fury has been asking Wilder, again and again, in the face-to-face ritual for the cameras. Ask often enough, and maybe Fury plants a seed of a doubt, a crack in Wilder’s faith in his right hand.  Wilder shouts BOMB SQUAD and laughs at Fury, saying the right will keep Fury on the canvas this time. Maybe, it will. Maybe, there’s no way to avoid it. But Fury will continue to remind Wider that his resurrection on Dec. 1 is a reason to wonder whether that right is as all-powerful as he thinks. It’s a psychological feint from Fury, straight out of that Sun Tzu playbook: Appear strong when you are weak.

There’s also this: Fury promises to turn the tables on Wilder. He says he will knock him out in two rounds. He says he’s developing his own right hand in training with Emanuel Steward’s namesake and mentor, SugarHill Steward, of the Kronk school of power. Fury talks about a right he’ll deliver with Tommy Hearns-like leverage.

Wilder laughs at that one, too. How could he not? Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that Fury relies on his superior boxing skill to stay away from the right throughout 12 rounds. If he had done that in the first fight, there would have been no controversy. He would have won a clear-cut decision.

But Fury has never been conventional. Perhaps, he’s trying to confuse Wilder with a wild prediction. But think again. Fury goes into the fight with scar tissue from a cut above the right eye that required 47 stitches after a bloody decision over Otto Wallin on Sept. 14.

In the first of two news conferences in Los Angeles, he told www.boxingjunkie.com that he wouldn’t risk a further cut in training.

“If it ruptures, it’ll happen in the fight,’’ he said.

Translation: He might have to win an early stoppage. Nobody can be certain that the scar tissue can withstand 12 rounds. Repeated blows, even glancing ones, could result in a fight-ending rupture. Wilder believes that the fight with Wallin would have been stopped if not for the prospect of the February rematch.

Wilder has also looked into Fury’s face and sees what everybody else does. The scar is evident, a target if there ever was one. Wilder has joked that he intends to see how good Fury’s plastic surgeon is. It’s a signal he’ll go after the eye, early and often.

Fury seems to be inviting him to do exactly that. It’s as if he is urging Wilder to step inside in a head-long assault to bloody up a healing wound. Then and there, Fury might deliver his own right-handed power. The lure is that scar, also straight out of the Sun Tzu playbook.

“Hold out baits to entice the enemy,’’ he wrote. “Feign disorder, and crush him.’

Timeless advice from an ancient philosopher who could have been a corner man in any era.

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – In the center of this city there’s a
Greyhound bus station.  In the center of
most U.S. cities there’s a Greyhound station. 
In the center of most American cities, Anchorage to Patagonia, come to
think of it, there’s a bus station.  Put
a checkmark, then, in the box beside a line that reads: “Begin column with
mundanity.”

What follows might be a treatment of current
events – Danny Garcia or Kobe Bryant, the Honduran refugee crisis or “Dance of
the Clairvoyants” by Pearl Jam – or a treatment of timeless events, the poetry
of Billy Collins or “Emergence: From Chaos to Order” by John Holland, but it likely
won’t fixate on any of these subjects longly because a dissolution of fixation is
what its writer is after.

Back to the bus station.  The cruel events that led wave after wave
after wave of Central American refugees to crash on this Texas bus station have
succumbed to still crueler events that preclude an arrival of successors – we
used to help 50 families of women and children every Sunday and yesterday we
helped exactly one, which is our current government’s solution currently: out
of sight, out of mind.

If that’s a cliché it’s because those six words
gathered thusly have proved elastic and apt enough often enough to be recycled unto
the commons.

We’re still here each Sunday morning because it
satisfies, barely, a philanthropic impulse catalyzed by a karmic virtue like:
Work without expectation of reward.  Too,
because the lead volunteers on Sundays exemplify both wisdom and vocation.  Sister Sharon and I had some time Sunday
morning to discuss my ongoing compulsion re compulsion.  We talked past one another, mostly, like good
Shakespearean characters do; Sister Sharon spoke of a book about addiction
whose author she met at a community gathering Saturday while I made irreverent
if serious inquiries about persons of the cloth who feel compelled to control
events while professing faith in an omnipotent God.  Context is essential here as everywhere: After
20 months of such passing conversations neither of us is faithful nor faithless
as our uniforms imply.

The concentration muscles upon which we call for creative
endeavors are the very same that lead us into addictions.  A capacity for fixation on one’s algebra
homework, say, locking one’s mind away and forbidding distractions, other
thoughts, is a universal virtue the same way fixing oneself on a singleminded
pursuit of heroin, say, is a universal vice – but they’re the same muscles.

Context is essential there as everywhere, even if
only to pettifog (a wonderful verb resurrected last week).

As I type these words spontaneous Kobe Bryant tributes
outbreak everywhere.  These are
sincere.  Soon to be followed by obligatory
tributes, sooner to be followed by insincere tributes overlapped by profit-motivated
tributes.  Competitive grieving, as it were,
an expression of our species’ originality amplified by social media, a
manifestation of our species’ originality.

Danny Garcia fought in Brooklyn on Saturday.  The fewer words about that, the better.

What the Seattle band Pearl Jam just did with its
new single is inspiration remarkable.  Across
29 years and 10 studio albums, three decades, in other words, and five or six
hours of music, nothing anticipated the sound of its new song.  To reinvent a successful artistic specialty
so completely and effectively is a feat and a half.

Billy Collins, twotime American Poet Laureate, is
a wonderful man fully anticipated by his wonderful poems.  I met him in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas 18
years ago at a threeday literary festival headlined by the not-yet-Noble laureate
Mario Vargas Llosa (whom I met in the men’s room the first night, when he was
anonymous as me).  I was in Tampico to
get married, simply, but ever since I’ve enjoyed telling uninterested strangers
I met the American Poet Laureate while honeymooning at a literary festival in
an exotic locale.

A few months later I mailed Collins a letter, and
he replied immediately and graciously and generously.  I’ve been revisiting Collins’ poetry this
week, putting “Aimless Love” in my promiscuous rotation, and while his poems
were primarily humorous to me in 2002 they are quite a bit more than that to me
in 2020.  Of all literary forms poetry is
the one I read poorliest, I freely admit, but I recommend Collins nevertheless
(and I pretty much just got done recommending Pearl Jam, too, without ever
getting a useable note out any musical instrument in my life).

What all this has to do with Santa Fe Institute
and John Holland – a Michigan professor of electrical engineering and psychology
and computer science, all three, amazingly enough – is next to nothing, which
is about how much it has to do with our beloved sport, too, in its winter
doldrums, but I’ve got at least four books on complexity currently colliding
with Collins and others in the aforementioned rotation, so in the name of
selforganization . . .

I’m reading this way, and have been reading this
way for 18 months now, I realize, to dissolve compulsion, an intermediate level
of anxiety one doesn’t come upon till he’s observed his way past a burning
stomach and garrulousness and financed consumption and moral judgment and
travel and some forms of achievement (but before he’s gotten past aesthetic
judgment), and dissolving compulsion currently requires challenging every
thought that endures more than 60 seconds. 
Which makes writing this column during the winter doldrums an admittedly
skittish happening.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Andy Ruiz Jr., who needs as many friends as he can find, fired the best one he had.

He fired Manny Robles.

The move isn’t exactly a surprise. It didn’t even surprise Robles. Let’s just say it was dumb, double-down dumb.

Ruiz, the first heavyweight champion of Mexican descent, has followed up his embarrassing rematch loss to Anthony Joshua with a public-relations debacle hard to explain and harder to excuse. A People’s Champ lost more than a title. He lost the people.

Those people will be harder to win back than titles. There are plenty of belts, even a few that might fit Ruiz’ expandable waistband. But loyalty, once squandered, is hard to regain. Ruiz grew up in a community where loyalty is a currency valued more than money. In Loyalty We Trust. You hear it from Canelo Alvarez in his criticism of Oscar De La Hoya.

Canelo delivered a stinging rip of De La Hoya in an interview with The Athletic before his Nov. 2 stoppage of Sergey Kovalev. He called him disloyal, yet he stays with De La Hoya, loyal to his commitment to the Golden Boy promoter. He stays with his original trainer and manager, Eddy and Chepo Reynoso. He has been with them and evolved with them from the beginning and throughout criticism of their work in the wake of a loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in September 2013.

Canelo is the reigning example of what to do.

Ruiz is the sad face of what not to do.

His fans would have forgiven him for his one-sided decision loss to Joshua in a rematch of Ruiz’ Rocky-like upset in June at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They would have even forgiven him for partying more than training for the rematch. Who wouldn’t? They would have partied like a lottery winner, too. They identified with him, each and every flabby ounce. But firing his trainer is unforgivable.

Robles is a convenient fall guy for what happened in Saudi Arabia. He got thrown under that proverbial bus, which happens to be something else fans understand. They’ve been there, tossed aside and into the expendable exhaust.

“It is what it is, I don’t know what to tell you,’’ Robles told ESPN, which broke the story.  “It’s not the first time it’s happened to me. I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened to other coaches.

“It happens time and time again. We always end up getting the short end of the stick. But it is what it is, you keep moving forward.”

Robles knows all about picking himself up. He did it after Oscar Valdez Jr. left him for Eddy Reynoso in August 2018. But the circumstances were different. Valdez moved on, still unbeaten and still a featherweight champion. He wasn’t coming off a loss and looking for a scapegoat.

Robles never expressed any anger at Valdez. Instead, he thanked Valdez. He called him friend and said he would always be a Valdez’ fan.

The split with Ruiz is different, both in proportion and style. Ruiz’ upset of Joshua and his subsequent loss were magnified, made bigger by untold multiples by a media captivated by an epic moment on a huge stage. In June, was the everyman, fat and fantastic all at once on an improbable night in New York. In Saudi Arabia, he was just a fat fool.

But Robles thanked him, too.

“Absolutely, look I’ve got to tell you I’m absolutely grateful and blessed to have been able to experience everything that I was able to experience in 2019,” Robles told ESPN. “I mean, we made history, and I have to be thankful for that. I have to be thankful to Andy and his dad for giving me the opportunity to be part of something special, to have made history — for him to become the first Mexican heavyweight champion of the world.’’

Thanks, Manny Robles, a good guy who got a raw deal.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Philadelphia’s Liacouras Center in a super welterweight title-unification fight broadcast by Fox, Dominican slugger Jeison “Banana” Rosario beat-down Philadelphia’s Julian “J Rock” Williams, stopping Williams in round 5 and snatching his WBA and IBF titles the right way.

In the beginning it had all the trappings of a
homecoming coronation – slick graphics, venue, dazzling biography, management
organization, Watson, sycophantic commentary team – and then a curiosity turned
up in the corner labeled Designated Opponent right about the time introductions
got made.

Sampson Lewkowicz. 
His is not a flawless eye for talent but it’s very close, and multiples
better than PBC’s.  Most famous for his
effective discoveries of Manny Pacquiao and Sergio Martinez, for seeing past
their blemished records, a few years ago Lewkowicz
saw which of the Hermanos Benavidez had the true upside, and when he was right
and promoter Top Rank wasn’t and tried to poach their ways out of such
shortsightedness, Lewkowicz went to the mat with them and won.  Lewkowicz, an Uruguayan, of all things, sees
qualities other talent scouts do not. 
His stable is not huge or assembled at premium prices but comprises a
type of prizefighter you’d be foolish to schedule for a homecoming showcase.

Which is exactly what PBC did, of course.  There’s more to this story, surely, depending
which lens you watch it through – a bout of flu in camp or a hellish style
matchup some sage or other warned somebody about – but there’s exactly no
chance the braintrust at Fox on PBC on Fox, “preeminent” though they be,
anticipated what befell Williams.

What told very early on and does not portend well
for Williams in the rematch is how little Williams’ flush punches affected
Banana.  Despite what trickeration drives
replay selection between rounds Williams’ technically proper rightcross
counters did nothing to shortcircuit Rosario’s attack or even much dissuade it.  Had Williams sliced open Rosario’s eyelid or
had Williams’ own eyelid proved more durable things might have gone differently,
but that’s all in a fight, and if Williams’ sight problems came via reopened
scar tissue, as explained during the broadcast, if in other words Williams was
already accustomed to fighting through blood in his eyes, he sure didn’t act
like it.

Let us not pile on Williams for the sins of his
management company, though; good people opine Williams is good people.  It’s hard to cheer against him as it is to
imagine his becoming a world titlist in a different boxing ecosystem – the
enduring lesson of Pacquaio-Thurman.

In his fascinating book “The Soul of the Ant” suicidal
19th-century South African poet Eugène Marais posits a termitary, the
laboriously constructed habitat of what termites Marais studied for a decade,
functions as an organism little different from the human body, stretching his
metaphor to include termites of ferocious mien acting like white blood cells
whilst constructionworker termites act as red blood cells.  Whatever modern reductionists have proved or
disproved about this metaphor in a century since its publication, it is
wellbuilt as it is imaginative, with cells, in the form of near-mindless
termites, racing through their termitary to ensure its health, like blood
racing through human veins and arteries. 
It calls to mind a similar if more modern metaphor of the world wide web
acting as our species’ brain whilst its billions of cells labor away oblivious
of our contribution to its thoughts or thinking.

So let us stretch these stretched metaphors to
include in our beloved sport’s ecosystem (ostensibly red) blood cells like
Sampson Lewkowicz and Jeison Rosario, cells scheduled for anonymity all their
days till an unscheduled tear happens in boxing’s protective membrane and
suddenly they burst out in violent spurts. 
Rosario, dropped thrice at Sam’s Town Hotel & Gambling Hall in 2017
by Nathaniel Gallimore a year before J Rock decisioned Nate the Great, was
essential as he was replaceable; boxing needs such men to make coronations for
other men but doesn’t expect them to be memorable to any but their friends and
family.

What do you know about, say, Herb “Gorilla” Siler?

He was a 20-12 heavyweight who died 19 years ago
and surely beloved to someone even while anonymous to all but a handful of
aficionados.  Too, he was the first
knockout of Cassius Clay’s prizefighting career – four years before there was a
Muhammad Ali.  Essential as he was
replaceable in boxing’s ecosystem, Gorilla is a permanent part of The
Greatest’s resume even though men like Tony Esperti and Jimmy Robinson were
just as likely to make the same history had their schedules properly coincided.

Let coincidence neither lose an idea like: At
26-1-1 eight months ago in Virginia, J Rock was the homecoming b-side for
undefeated titlist Jarrett Hurd, raised but 30 miles from the EagleBank Arena
where Hurd’s coronation was to happen.  A
less cynical scribe, then, should marvel at PBC’s marvelous matchmaking,
bestower of rich parity, rather than mock the organization for apparent
incompetence.

Well.  In my
defense I watched Saturday’s match live on Fox in the hopes of seeing J Rock do
something ultimately decisive in a competitive scrap.  The scrap was competitive and something
decisive surely did transpire.

I’m on the Banana wagon now, while we wait for
whatever Naoya Inoue does next.

*

Author’s note: Hearty congratulations to us!  As
announced late last week, 15rounds.com was the 2019 home of not only our
sport’s co-best exemplar of courage, Marc Abrams, but also our sport’s co-best
exemplar of benevolence, Norm Frauenheim. 
Two, more-deserving winners cannot be found.

*

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Julian Williams defends the IBF/WBA Super Welterweight titles against Jason Roario.  The action kicks off at 6:30 Pm ET with Vito Mielnicki; Also Jorge Cota faces Thomas LaManna.  The main undercard is featured with the WBA Junior Lightweight Interim title bout between Chris Colbert and Jezreel Corrales.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED. THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY.

Round 1:  Jab from Williams..Uppercut..
Round 2 Williams lands a right to the body..Jab..Counter right..1-2..2 body shots..Right from Rosario..Jab..Good counter right..Body..Right and body..Williams cut around the right eye
Round 3 Right from Williams..Right from Rosario..Right..Hard right from Williams..Right to body..straight right
Round 4 Right from Williams..Double jab from Rosario..Good counter right..Hard body shot..Jab
Round 5 Good body shot from Williams..Left by Rosario..Williams is hurt and hurt badly..He holds..hard shot ..FIGHT IS STOPPED…ROSARIO BY TKO

Round 1 Right from Colbert
Round 2
Round 3 Right from Colbert..
Round 4 Left shakes Corrales..Left to body from Corrales..Good right from Colbert..
Round 5 Colbert switching southpaw
Round 6 Right from Colbert..Right to the body..Quick hard right..Left to body from Corrales..
Round 7 Good straight left from Corrales..Left/Right from Colbert
Round 8 Ripping left from Colbert..Hard counter right…
Round 9 Right from Colbert..Body shot from Corrales..Right hook..
Round 10 INSIDE LEFT AND DOWN GOES CORRALES..Hard left from Colbert
Round 11 Good right from Colbert..Good body shot..Jumping right..Good exchange…Corrales knocked out of ring but ruled a slip
Round 12 Left from Corrales..Right from Colbert..Left from Corrales..Right to body by Colbert..Left

117-110 twice and 116-111 for Colbert

Round 1:  Spencer lands a right
Round 2 Quick right from Spencer..Hard counter left..left hook
Round 3 Left from Spencer…
Round 4 Left from Spencer
Round 5 Body combination from Spencer…Right from Spring..Right from Spencer..
Round 6 Right from Spencer..Hard right rocks Spring

Round 1 Cota coming forward…Right from Cota…2 body shots..Hard right..Jab from LaManna..Good right

Round 2  Good right from LaManna…Straight right..Left from Cota..2 lefts..Good right from LaManna..

Round 3 Left from Cota..Combination..2 rights from LaManna..left from Cota..Counter right from LaManna

Round 4 Cota landing hard shots…Good uppercut

Round 5  Cota walking right in…Landing on the ropes.  Blood from LaManna’s nose…FIGHT STOPPED BY THE CORNER…COTA WINS VIA TKO

Round 1:

ROUND 1 CRUZ LANDS A LEFT TO THE BODY THAT SENDS GARCIA DOWN..Left From Cruz..HaRD LEFT AND DOWN GOES GARCIA..THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

By Norm Frauenheim-

The hyperbole is already underway. Insults, expletives and exaggerations were delivered, exchanged and countered this week in downtown Los Angeles, just across the street from where Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury fought to a controversial draw more than 13 months ago at Staples Center.

More words, a lot more, are inevitable throughout the five-plus weeks before the rematch on Feb. 22 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. It’s show biz, entertaining and redundant all at once.

But it’s also boxing, unpredictable on any scale but never more so than at heavyweight. That unpredictability, of course, is a double-edged dynamic. Dangerous and dramatic. It can end faster than an accident, a violent collision created more by power than skill.

The Fury-Wilder sequel figures to get more interesting as the opening bell gets closer, mostly because both like the bully pulpit.

Wilder is over-the-top noisy. Bomb Squad, he screams at a window-rattling volume.

Fury is quick-witted. Jokes are as much a part of the Fury skillset as the jab.

Both are profane.

If you’re scoring the early rounds of press conferences, these two are exactly where they were after 12 rounds at Staples. It’s a draw, Wilder scoring with energy and Fury scoring with stinging counters. From this corner, the guess is that the exchange will continue without either getting much of a psychological edge before the first punch.

A fight of many words and promotional angles, however, might hang on a thread. Forty-seven of them, to be exact. That’s how many surgical threads Fury needed to sew up a wound above Fury’s right eye after Otto Wallin cut him during a Fury victory by decision on Sept. 14 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

The stitches are gone, removed just a few weeks after the bloody bout. But a question remains about whether the wound has healed enough to withstand a punch, or punches, delivered with Wilder’s kind of power.

The scar is evident.

For Wilder, it’s a target.

For Fury, it’s a risk.

Fury conceded the risk when asked about the scar this week at LA Live. He said he would be careful not to rupture it in sparring at his Las Vegas’ training camp.

“If I’m going to get cut, it’s going to be in the fight,’’ Fury said.

He was also asked how it felt when a punch landed on the scar. Fury made it sound as though he would not take any test blows on the scarred tissue.

“I can’t risk it,’’ he said.

Neither Fury nor Wilder wants a postponement. Nobody does, especially the promoters and networks, ESPN and Fox, which have joined together in rare cooperation for a pay-per-view telecast expected to do big business.

For Wilder, news of Fury’s caution must be welcome. Wilder is also happy that the Sept. 14 fight wasn’t stopped because of blood that poured down the right side of Fury’s face and into his eye. In just about any other fight, Wilder believes it would have been stopped. But the prospect of a rich rematch made this one different. The stakes were big enough, Wilder said, to let it go on.

It went on — and on – leaving Wilder with an opportunity to finish the bloody job. Maybe, that’s why he’s so confident. In a fight full of unpredictable factors, one thing is certain: Wilder won’t exercise Fury’s caution. He’ll go after that scar, targeting it early and often, in a simple tactic that might say it all.

By Bart Barry-

CHARLOTTE – This city is its state’s largest by
quite a bit, and some years ago the Associated Press offended Charlotteans, if
not all Carolinians, by not-allowing this city to stand without its state’s
abbreviation, “N.C”, so today we’ll remedy that if only because Charlotteans,
if not all Carolinians, seem an increasingly prickly lot.  This has naught to do with prizefighting but
an explanation for why this column isn’t being written with its home byline on
the first week in many it might’ve been.

Because Saturday in San Antonio the weekend’s
biggest match happened at Alamodome – Tijuana’s Jaime Munguia stopping County
Cork’s Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan – and I wasn’t there.  But I was here, in North Carolina, and
haven’t regrets about it, which is odd not because of Munguia-O’Sullivan but
because of missing a chance to converse with Munguia’s chief second, Erik “El
Terrible” Morales, who might well hold a fortuneteller’s insights for Munguia.  As I once wrote quite a bit but stopped doing
years ago, El Terrible is half the reason I began writing about our beloved
sport 15 years ago, and his nemesis, Marco Antonio Barrera, is the other.

As El Terrible’s softened, rounded face flashed
across DAZN’s broadcast I felt a quick if small pang of regret at being
stationed 1,200 miles eastwards, a pang assuaged by a question like: What,
actually, would you ask Morales?  Not
much.  The last thing an interview should
be is an exercise in thanking its subject for the joy he brought the
interviewer, and so there are no regrets at missing a chance to converse with
El Terrible.

What, then, might El Terrible fortunetell for
Munguia?

“Just because you can no longer make junior-[weightclass]
does not mean you are now a proper [weightclass].”

Munguia got the stoppage Saturday when an attritioned
O’Sullivan relented too much and fell to the wrong side of the decisive point,
yes, in a match well officiated by local referee Mark Calo-oy, but a quick
glance at O’Sullivan’s face after being struck regularly by Munguia’s hooks and
crosses for a halfhour and change tells you Munguia hasn’t brought the sum of
his powers from 154 pounds to 160.

About 15 years ago, after losing a controversial
decision to Barrera and winning an extraordinary fight with Manny Pacquiao (it
would take seven years and 15 fights for anyone, much less Morales, to turn the
feat again), Morales ate his way directly out of the super featherweight division
and into a staybusy, vacant WBC International Light Title tilt with a featherfisted
Philadelphia cutie named Zahir Raheem, who conclusively denuded El Terriblemente
Gordo, stopped all his momentum and got him remanded to fatcamp by promoter Top
Rank to prepare for consecutive knockout losses to Pacquiao and a definitive
end to the serious part of Morales’ career.

Munguia is obviously in a different place in his
career than El Terrible was back then, and very much younger in years and
experience, but physical freaks who rely on freakish physicality do not age
well, which is why an inability to scale a lower weight is verily the end of
comparisons betwixt Munguia and his trainer – who was roughly thrice the boxer
Munguia is.

Munguia has improved, though.  His head movement is worth noting because
head movement of any kind influences opponents disproportionately more than it
looks to onlookers.  Any head movement at
all is multiples more effective than no head movement because it can stay an
opponent’s combination fractionally long enough to cancel it altogether.  At any level, but especially professional,
boxing is a sport of rhythm and timing, and if you can make your attacker pause
to reconsider, his reconsideration often as not becomes paralysis.

Coincidentally the way round this paralysis is an
offensive quality Munguia also possesses, something like a burn-the-boats
commitment to whatever combination one decided to throw before his opponent
started moving about.  When Munguia
decides the time has come for 3-2-3 (hook/cross/hook) he throws it and keeps
throwing it till he’s done.  Why is this
anything but stubborn and stupid? 
Because if you can start the third (or more-th) punch in a combination,
you generally can land it.  The reason
most guys do not land the hook in the 1-2-3 or the cross in the 1-3-2 or the second
hook in the (admittedly odd) 3-2-3 is because they abandon the combination
after its first two punches miss. 
Munguia does not.

That’s a winning quality when you are the much
larger man with the greater punch. 
Trouble is . . . well, you get the picture.

Let’s close with a few observations about what can
best be called deep-red states, like this one and Texas, and deep-blue ones,
like Massachusetts, these days.  The red
ones are moving at an accelerating pace towards unfriendliness.

I spent 10 days in North Carolina in 1995, and it
was the friendliest place I’d ever been. 
I grew up in Massachusetts, 1974-1992, and it was the unfriendliest place
I’ve ever lived.  I moved to San Antonio
in 2010, and it was the friendliest place I’ve ever lived.  In the last three months I’ve returned to
Massachusetts and North Carolina and found they’ve swapped places on the
friendliness spectrum.  And San Antonio
is at best 30-percent friendly in 2020 as it was a decade ago.

Some of that is migration: The Northeast has
exported its retirees to the taxfree South, flushing the toilet as it were, landing
population density on cities whose infrastructures and mentalities were
illprepared for it.  But more of it, I
suspect, is about what happens when a state goes halfassed libertarian, cutting
funding for every social service save “public safety” – the population becomes
fearful and tribal, regressing towards a downward spiral of selfjustifying
desperation, wherein a fearful and less-productive populace sees its fears confirmed,
over and over, and commits more and more of its dwindling budget to public-safety
measures that do little but make its populace more fearful and less productive.

Finally, you get what you pay for.

*

Editor’s note: The accompanying photograph is the
painting “Dance Around a Flower” by North Carolina artist Haywood Rivers – part
of an intriguing permanent collection at Mint Museum Uptown.

*

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Top Rank’s roster got deeper and its reach grew farther with Thursday’s surprising announcement that it had signed Josh Taylor, the Scottish junior-welterweight whose imminent stardom was evident in his majority decision over Regis Prograis for two of the 140-pound belts in late October.

It was the second signing of worldwide significance for Top Rank, which signed bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue on the same day in November when he beat Nonito Donaire in a Fight of the Year performance.

From Japan to Scotland, the sun never sets on Top Rank’s promotional empire these days.

The top of the pound-for-pound debate provides a pretty good look at a promotional roster that is long on substance and name recognition. Among the top five, the order changes, but three are Top Rank fighters – Terence Crawford, Vasiliy Lomachenko and Inoue.  Canelo Alvarez of Golden Boy and Errol Spence Jr. of PBC complete the elite five.

There’s a chance, a good one, that more Top Rank fighters will begin to climb into pound-for-pound consideration on Top Rank’s ESPN schedule throughout 2020. There’s light-heavyweight Artur Beterbiev, junior-welterweight Jose Ramirez, lightweight Teofimo Lopez, featherweight Shakur Stevenson, junior-featherweight Emanuel Navarrete and now Taylor.

For Taylor, it all depends on how he does against Ramirez. Taylor’s new deal opened the door for a Taylor-Ramirez fight for all of the relevant pieces to the 140-pound puzzle. Look for that one later in year. First, Ramirez has a date against Viktor Postol on Feb. 2 in China.

On several levels, Taylor’s move is intriguing and controversial. It further stoked the fires of an already hot rivalry between Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn of the UK and Top Rank’s Bob Arum. Hearn in early 2020 is to Arum what Don King was to a younger Arum late in the last century. They just don’t like each other.

Arum is not shy about Hearn’s move into the United States. He threw verbal bombs at Hearn for Matchroom’s Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Danny Jacobs fight in Phoenix on Dec. 20 before fans threw beer bombs at Chavez when he decided not to continue after five rounds. Less than a month later, Arum moves into Hearn’s backyard and signs Taylor, who is Top Rank’s answer to Matchroom’s signing of Mikey Garcia last month.

The controversial side to Taylor’s move to Top Rank involves Barry McGuigan, who fired off a statement to UK media Thursday, saying Taylor was still under contract to Cyclone Promotions.

Taylor quickly countered with a statement of his own, saying he had ended the deal with Cyclone.

“I terminated my promotional agreement with Cyclone as a result of various breaches of contract including, in particular, breaches relating to a conflict of interest on the part of the promoter,” he said. “That allowed me to search for a new promoter, which I have found in Top Rank. I wanted to part ways amicably and without resorting to court proceedings [and] I thought and hoped the McGuigans would feel the same way given the litigation they are involved in with other fighters.’’

Cyclone Promotions has been in and out of court with Carl Frampton, a former featherweight champion from Belfast who is recovering from hand surgery in hopes of fighting junior-lightweight champion Jamel Herring in May.

The controversy figures to continue. But boxing wouldn’t be what it is without turmoil. On both sides of the ropes, the business is always fighting, yet always resilient enough to recreate itself with bouts worth watching. Taylor-Ramirez is one of them.

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: For part 1, please click here.

*

Cowboys Stadium be an immense edifice and not
until you are suspended in its gravitational force, postevent, do you realize
the immensity of what inconvenience sportsfans endure to see their teams play –
an hourlong drive and wait to park, a 45-minute exit map, an hourlong drive and
wait to depart – and if you pay yourself only minimum wage that adds $20 or so
to the absurd price you pay for admission and the absurder-still
sustenance-n-libations tariff levied upon you, and it serves mostly to help a
nonfan experience etymology in realtime: “Fan” origin “fanatic”.

Errol won himself no new fans by slap-and-tickling
Mikey in March; those who were his fans already stayed positive, and nigh
everyone else exercised his own selfinterest in evaluating the man and his
performance.

I didn’t drive to the mediacenter hotel Saturday afternoon
and didn’t take the mediacenter bus to Cowboys Stadium (remembering what an
abortive episode that brought during my second time in Cowboys Stadium, after
Manny Pacquiao broke Antonio Margarito’s face, and the busdriver got lost in the
stadium’s catacombs and added an hour to the aforementioned hour) and didn’t
partake of what swill writers get fed – while television eats its a-list spread
– and after collecting a credential I assumed was auxiliary I went for lunch and
skipped much of the PBC undercard’s inevitably dull fare.

Everyone who gathered at Cowboys Stadium assumed
Mikey would fight till unconsciousness if pressed and likewise assumed Errol
was exactly the man to press anyone he faced to that choice, and all of us were
wrong and disappointed.

Saturday afternoon I pressed the Jag’s 510 horses
into action on a freeway onramp that had a seam of sorts, and the Jag hit that
seam a little wrong, and “stepped out” as they say of rearwheel-drive automobiles,
and in the 10 or so milliseconds it took for the car to fishtail and right
itself, I frightened the bejesus out of myself: Kid, this is a luxury racecar,
and you are not a racecar driver, luxury or otherwise.

We’d not read enough volition in The Truth’s
resume before his Mikey match in March, we’d sort’ve figured Spence knew only forwardpressing
destruction, and that lack of imagination told after Mikey landed some defensive,
retreating counters, and Errol performed an obvious calculus (Value of taking
Garcia’s consciousness = Reward for doing so – Personal cost) and relented
quite obviously during the championship rounds.

Time was, were I ever to attain a credential to attend
a prizefight and arrive later than the opening bell of the card’s very first
match, no matter how many halfdays before its mainevent, I’d’ve banished myself
from ringside a year or more, no joke, and yet, there I was in March,
sauntering in the arena four or so hours after my mediabus peers, wearing what
I assumed be a credential to sit in the attic of Cowboys Stadium (for
Pacquiao-Bradley 2, my back was to the wall; a few years after sitting near scorers’
tables round the land, I was remanded to the geometric end of MGM Grand Garden
Arena, a place so far from the action its participants danced below like
electrons in a microscope), and I was rather wrong.

Mikey was what we expected him to be, ultimately.

Nothing about Cowboys Stadium felt electric during
the mainevent, though in the comain David Benavidez stole the show, waltzing
through J’Leon Love way quicker than expected, and it made you wonder how good
Benavidez might be if he were under the same promotional banner as his older
brother, if he were being developed by matchmaking experts in lieu of publicity
ones, but then you thought about how Bud Crawford’s career stalled for want of
available competition and you thought about where Jose Benavidez’s career went
after an incredibly promising open, and you decided, as boxing writers are not
wont to do, you don’t know any better than anybody else where the hell anyone’s
career will go.

After treating his first pay-per-viewers a bit
like rubes Errol turned from charming countryboy to rube himself by the end of
the year, rolling his own luxury racecar several times and being arrested for DWI
in an episode that implied nothing so much as an athlete whose body had
outpaced its mind.

The credential wasn’t auxiliary after all, and when
I was through Cowboys Stadium’s layers of security and riding an elevator downwards
to the floor, the vestigial remnants of professionalism still swimming in my dilletante’s
cells began to fire with horror: I’d not bothered even to bring a stageprop chromebook
to ringside with me, and so there was nothing to be done but lend Norm unneeded
moral support and tweet.

Mikey has done absolutely nothing since Keep Away
with Errol, though he’s scheduled to decision narrowly Jessie Rodriguez at the
Cowboys’ practice facility next month.

Jerry Jones is no rube, so if he keeps hosting
one-off prizefights in his stadiums there must be a larger strategy at work, or
more likely he’s just a gambler with resources to burn.

The Truth won’t fight Bud anytime soon, and it’ll be
a bigger shame than past-their-primes Money and Manny not fighting in 2010 (or
11 or 12 or 13 or 14), but it won’t receive fractionally so much coverage because:

I know we’re supposed to multiply the number of
boxing’s 2019 platforms by the purses fighters now win and declare how healthy
our sport is, but it ain’t so: Boxing’s disinterested media is worse than
decimated by an absence of access and remuneration, it no longer has even
2010’s infrastructure for attracting and uncovering young talent, and that
means its ecosystem is unhealthy – not an obituary but a warning.

Scorecards be already filled for Garcia-Vargas in
Frisco; unless Jessie shows more mettle than Errol, we’ll get a similar fight
with an opposite result and be told it’s all quite a statement.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Fights we want to see.
Fights we won’t see. It’s that time of the year. Old is supposed to give way to
the new. But boxing is a business that has seen it all, or almost all.  We still haven’t seen Terence
Crawford-versus-Errol Spence Jr. and I have a hunch we won’t see it in 2020
either. Hope springs eternal, but old habits make the world go ‘round.

Bob
Arum, who has seen it all, told The Athletic that boxing is poised for a terrific
year. All the fundamentals are there.

“It’s
going to be off the charts,’’ Arum said.

But
then there was the caveat. The if.

“If,’’
Arum said, “everybody doesn’t bleep it up.’’

Bleep
is a boxing habit. For whatever reason, it won’t stay in the spit bucket. It
always seems to be there just when you begin to think the battered game is
about to get up and off the canvas. Let’s face it, 2019 was forgettable.

Sure,
there were some moments. Canelo won at a fourth weight, winning a
light-heavyweight title in a 10^th-round knockout of Sergey Kovalev.
But did anybody really think that wasn’t going to happen?

It’ll
be a night remembered more for the delay in the opening bell. In a misguided
attempt to boost the DAZN audience, the logistics around a good Las Vegas fight
featuring boxing’s biggest draw waited until a UFC card in New York ended. It
was embarrassing and a sure sign that boxing’s place in the market and the
public imagination had further eroded.

That
slide will continue this year without a serious attempt at breaking out of the
same old bleep. The Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury rematch on Feb. 22 looks as if it
could be a pretty good beginning, a launching pad to what Arum hopes will be an
off-the-charts year. I’d settle for a year that puts 2019 in the rear view
mirror.

Here
are a few predictions, all with the caveat in mind and the tongue in cheek.

• Wilder knocks out Fury. Fury, already a
  betting favorite, promises that Wilder won’t touch him. But the real question
  is this: Can Fury hurt Wilder? Fury is clever, yet he lacks power. Wilder lacks
  skill, but he is tough. He can withstand punishment. The longer the fight, the
  more likely it is that Wilder’s lethal right lands. This time, Fury doesn’t get
  up.
• Canelo, who gave up his light-heavyweight
  belt, fights Gennadiy Golovkin for a third time. DAZN’s investment mandates the
  bout. Canelo agrees, knowing it will generate significant income. There’s no
  debate about the result this time. Canelo wins a dominant decision.
• Mikey Garcia is again reminded of why there
  are weight classes. Garcia faces welterweight Jessie Vargas on Feb. 28, nearly
  a year after Spence easily beat him in a performance that said –round-to-round
  – that Garcia should have stayed at 135. Vargas keeps it close. But Garcia wins
  a narrow decision in a performance that suggests he’s vulnerable. Manny
  Pacquiao sees the fight—and the vulnerability. Pacquiao and Garcia agree to fight
  later in the year.
• Gervonta Davis fights for the second time at 135
  pounds. Misses weight for a second time, too.
• Jose Ramirez blows away Viktor Postol in China
  on Feb. 2 in a junior-welterweight bout. That sets up a unification title fight
  with Josh Taylor in either the UK or Las Vegas. Ramirez shows he can win
  anywhere, unifying the title and then looking to move up the scale to
  welterweight in a fight with Crawford.
• Anthony Joshua talks, talks and talks about
  Wilder-Fury, yet struggles against Kubrat Pulev in a mandatory defense of one
  of his titles in a spring bout. A bout with Wilder gets delayed until early
  2021.
• Emanuel Navarrete defends his
  junior-featherweight title two more times and moves up the scale to 126 pounds.
  But none of the featherweights will fight him. They’re afraid of him.
• Naoya
  Inoue comes back from eye-socket fracture sustained in Fight of the Year
  victory over Nonito Donaire. Inoue re-asserts his pound-for-pound credentials
  and adds another bantamweight belt against either Nordine Oubaali of France or Filipino Johnriel Casimero sometime in
  mid-year in either Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

• Fury fights MMA,
  wrestles, writes another book and gets a television series, The Furys, A Kardashian Look at a Boxing
  Family.

• Floyd Mayweather Jr. says
  he’s coming back. Then says he’s not coming back. Throughout the next year,
  there will be as many rumors about Mayweather-Pacquiao 2 as there are pages in a
  calendar.

• Teofimo Lopez finally
  gets a shot at Vasiliy Lomachenko late in the year. He pulls off a stunner. He
  fights to a controversial draw with Lomachenko, the pound-for-pound No.1 in
  most ratings. But a rematch dictated by the draw never happens. Lomachenko is
  injured in the fight. Then, he decides to move back down the scale to a more
  natural eight, 130 or 126

• Bleep happens. That’s
  the only sure thing in this year or any other year.

By Bart Barry-

We were back at Cowboys Stadium in March to see two
of the world’s best prizefighters scrap with one another in a captivating match
if you overlooked weightclass disparity – if you did tequila shots then
backflips on a trampoline, donned promoter goggles and saw Sugar Ray Leonard outclassing
Marvelous Marvin Hagler on the thirtysomethingeth anniversary of that disappointment
– but I was there only to see colleague, mentor and friend, Norm Frauenheim.

Errol Spence, a countryboy raised a halfhour southeast
of Cowboys Stadium (or whatever they’re now calling it) and a halfhour southsoutheast
of Texas Stadium, looked to be the goods, the one special fighter from Team
USA’s none-too-special 2012 squad.

There is something immediately liberating about
declaring yourself a dilletante among writers – all pressures be eased, all
bylines be forgotten, any insights you make on craft be happy accidents;
barriers needn’t be felled for being never erected.

Mikey Garcia had long since proved himself a
special talent with a talent for selfsabotage, having lost 30 months from
exactly his prime, skwabbing with promoter Top Rank, unknown for losing such tiffs,
and was making battle with a much larger and dangerouser opponent than usual
because the casement window of Garcia’s legacy cranked steadily shut.

There’s a wonderful trust-economy app called Turo,
an Airbnb of cars as it were, that empowers you to rent cars from people, not faceless
and gouging agencies, and it helped me discover a proper travelbudget algorithm
– allocate 70-percent to car rental and 30-percent to accommodations – that arrivaled
me at Dallas Love Field to retrieve my 2010 Jaguar XKR (510-hp / 5.0-liter
supercharged V-8 / 21,000 miles on its odometer) and drive it to a Motel 6,
where the Jag was, ahem, out of place.

Whatever else we opined of Spence we saw The Truth
as a proper finisher, a southpaw who appreciated physicality and its effects
and went through smaller men easily and would go through Garcia, quite
probably, like he went through undefeated Carlos Ocampo nine months before,
when Spence aced his tryout at The Star, Cowboys’ practice facility, en route
to his League debut beneath the Jerrytron.

My first time at Cowboys Stadium, exactly nine
years before, when Manny Pacquiao punched Joshua Clottey on the gloves for 36
minutes, I’d’ve called myself anything but a dilletante: I’d recently cowritten
a book with another mentor and friend, Thomas Hauser, and moved to San Antonio
and joined its esteemed San Fernando gym, and arranged my life mostly round producing
words for a living: For a large bank I was a contract technical writer who was 250,000
words into his weekly column gig and about to begin work on his eighth novel.

Mikey was basic in the best sense of the term, heading
into his pay-per-view match with Spence: He threw the sorts of combinations one
learns his first week in a gym; he was in a way what you’d get if you took a
great athlete at age seven and made him constantly throw 1-2-3s at increasingly
larger men till he was 32 years-old.

Dallas is not enchanting, though it has fine a
skyline as our country boasts, but Fort Worth, its neighbor to the west, supplies
cultural highlights – like Tadao Ando’s Modern Art Museum, an architectural
masterpiece that nearly always outshines its contents, and Louis I. Kahn’s
Kimbell Art Museum, an architectural masterpiece that would outshine most any
collection in the world but the one it comprises (its endowment 40 years ago
was in oil stock, which is to write its budget effectively is infinite, and it
acquires whatever it wishes) – that make quarterly trips northwards worthwhile
in a way Dallas alone could not.

The Truth began “the main event of the first Premier
Boxing Champions on FOX Sports Pay-Per-View event” slowly stalking his much
smaller prey and then continued stalking his much smaller prey and then
continued to continue stalking his much smaller prey.

Friday night I found Norm alone in the media
center well before dark, and it portended institutional interest in
Spence-Garcia, as the same sort of media center in Las Vegas for a Pacquiao
fight, or in the same Metroplex for a Pacquiao fight nine years before, would
be boisterous and filled with folks you only know from television, but in March
was small and empty.

Mikey did what he must to keep Errol off him for
the match’s first half, and eyes began to wander towards Mikey’s corner and his
older brother, Robert, a man The Ring named 2011’s best trainer, and what
adjustments Robert might make as a tactical mastermind or not-make as just
another middling trainer mistaken for a mastermind during his lucky run.

Saturday I attended breakfast in Dallas with an
old friend and confidante and then drove to Fort Worth in the Jag to sample The
Modern’s forgettable collection, and when we walked from the forgettable
collection to the unforgettable automobile, she remarked quite astutely: “This
car is the greatest work of art on the property right now.”

The Truth made his professional debut in
California, 130 miles east of Los Angeles, in November of the same year Team
USA posted another 0-for in its medal count then made his way gradually
eastwards till making his first professional fight in Texas at a collegiate
gymnasium in San Antonio so small its university, Our Lady of the Lake, rents
an eastside rodeo coliseum for graduations.

Friday night Norm and I collected Dylan Hernandez,
a Los Angeles Times columnist who despite his penchant for penning boxing
obituaries is wonderful company, and made our way to a Mexican restaurant in
Arlington, where we sat at the bar and told enchanting stories about Michael
Carbajal and Andre Ward and especially Manny Ramirez, and if there’s any lingering
regret about the evening it’s that we took Norm’s dreary rental instead of the
Jag.

What happened in Mikey’s corner was very little
but a catalyst for considering the difference between Errol The Truth and Bud
Crawford: Errol comported himself as a gentleman should, endangering no one in
La Familia Garcia, when Bud would’ve looked Robert’s way at the end of every
round and promised him: I am going to torture your little brother till you use
that white towel, old man.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Gervonta Davis and Yuriorkis Gamboa vie for the vacant WBA Lightweight title.  The action kicks off at 6:45 ET with a four fight undercard that will be highlighted by Jean Pascal defending the WBA Light Heavyweight title against Badou Jack

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Round 1 Left from Davis..Straight left..Hard left..Counter from Gamboa…

Round 2 Left from Davis…Jab..Right hook to the body..DOUBLE-JAB AND LEFT AND DOWN GOES GAMBOA..Gamboa seems to have hurt his leg..Gamboa complaining about his shoe

Round 3 Counter right and left from Gamboa..Left and right from Davis..Left to body

Round 4 Counter left from Davis…Jab..Good body shot..left

Round 5 Left from Davis..Another left..Hard uppercut and another..Big left..More big lefts.Another left and a right hook..

Round 6 Jab from Davis..Jab from Gamboa..Left from Davis..Right..Good body shots

Round 7 Good exchange..Combination from Gamboa..Right

Round 8 Right from Gamboa..Hard right..uppercut…LEFT AND DOWN GOES GAMBOA

Round 9 Jab from Davis..Counter right from Gamboa..Body shot..Sharp jab from Davis..Right Hook..Straight left..Counter left..Left uppercut..

Round 10 3 punch combination from Gamboa…2 lefts from Davis..Big left

Round 11 Good left from Davis

Round 12 Hard combination from Davis..Short right hook..HUGE UPPERCUT AND DOWN GOES GAMBOA..AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1 Pascal working the jab..Good 1-2 from Jack..Body punches from Pascal..Good right from Jack

Round 2 Pascal lands a left hook and right

Round 3 Left hook from Pascal..Jab from Jack..Good right..Body shot from Pascal

Round 4 Right from Jack hurts Pascal..Right to the body..Good 1-2..Nice left hook and uppercut from Pascal..Right uppercut from Jack…HUGE COUNTER FROM PASCAL AND DOWN GOES JACK

Round 5  Good right from Jack..Counter right from Pascal..

Round 6 Good jab from Jack..Hard right from Pascal..Jack jabbing again..Double jab..Body shot..Double jab/Right..

Round 7 Pascal lands a right to the body..right uppercut..Right from Jack..Lefts from Pascal…Counter from Jack

Round 8 Jab and right to body ..left to body..left from Jack

Round 9  Combinations from Jack..Left hook from Pascal..Jab from Jack..Right uppercut from Pascal..Good combination from Jack..Pascal lands a double jab..Nice jab from Jack..Body shot from Pascal

Round 10 Right from Pascal..Right..Body…Jab from Jack…

Round 11 Double left from Pascal

Round 12 2 rights hurt Pascal..hUge upperCUT AND DOWN GOES PASCAL.Big right from Jack…Jack continues to unload..Big right..Body shot from Pascal,,Right from Jack

114-112 Jack…114-112 Pascal…114-112 for PASCAL

Round 1: Right from Uzcategui…Jab to body from Thompson..RIGHT HAND AND DOWN GOES UZCATEGUI..

Round 2 Jab from Uzcategui….Right..Sweeping ;eft hook..Jab from Thompson..

Round 3 1-2 from Thompson..Good hook from Uzcategui..left hand..left hook to body..sharp jab from Thompson..Jab..Right to the body..Thompson cut over the right eye..Right..Counter right from Uzcategui..

Round 4 THOMPSON DEDUCTED A POINT FOR HOLDING..Right from Thompson

Round 5 Nice left hook to the body from Thompson..Jab..Right from Uzcategui..

Round 6 Hard left from Thompson..Good right..Lead right..right..

Round 7 Jab from Uzcategui..Left to thr body…2 jabs from Thompson..Nice right uppercut..left..Sharp right from Uzcategui..another right..Left to the body..Jab from Thompson

Round 8 Lead left hook from Thompson..Hard left..Uzcategui looks hurt..Good lead right from Uzcategui..Right uppercut from Thompson..Straight right from Uzcategui..Left to the body..right..Jab to body from Thompson..Jab from Uzcategui

Round 9 Sharp jab to body from Thompson..Combination from Uzcategui..

Round 10 Thompson boxing

Thompson outlands Uzcategui 124-75

95-94, 96-92 TWICE FOR THOMPSON

Round 1 Jab from Leo..Good left hook to body from Juarez..Right to body from Leo..Good right…Good right and left hook
Round 2 Combination from Leo
Round 3 Good right and left hook from Leo..Left and right
Round 4 Overhand right from Leo..Good body work..Good left hook..Blood from right nostril of Juarez
Round 5 Good left hook from Leo..Good jab..double left hook to the body
Round 6 Right from Leo..HUGE LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES JUAREZ..Uppercut rocks Juarez…COMBINATION AND JUAREZ DOWN AGAIN..Big left hook and a right..Big rights shakes up Juarez..Left hook from Juarez..Big left hook from Leo
Round 7 Overhand right by Leo..Right to the body..
Round 8 
Round 9 Right from Leo..Right to the body
Round 10 Left hook to head from Leo..Body shot..Right and left
Round 11 BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES JUAREZ…THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Jab from Price..Right..right from Hawkins
Round 2 Good right from Price..another right..Hawkins lands a big left hook to the body..Jab and right from Price..jab and right
Round 3 Double jab and right from Price..Jab and right..
Round 4 Good right from Hawkins..Big right from Price and another…chopping right..Big right hurts Price..Big right and left..
Round 5  Good right and Price is hurt…Hawkins all over Price..Price is complaining of a leg injury…FIGHT IS STOPPED

By Norm Frauenheim-

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is No. 1 on the list that really matters to him. After all, he calls himself Money for a reason.

That reason turned up big – as in $915 million – on top of the Forbes’ list of the top-earning athletes of the decade. From this corner, at least, it is further confirmation of his place in boxing over the last 10 years.

There’s a reasonable argument for Canelo Alvarez and Manny Pacquiao. But he beat them both. There’s a better argument for Andre Ward, but it’s eroded by the controversy over the scoring in his decision over Sergey Kovalev in their first fight. Ward clearly won the rematch.

But there was really no argument about what Mayweather did in the ring for the last 10 years. There’s plenty of argument about what he did outside of those ropes. Within them, however, he won. He only won. There wasn’t much drama attached to any of the victories. But there was the money, suit cases full of it. Mayweather posed with the Benjamins more often than he did with opponents.

For 10 years, his defensive skill had no equal. But it was the money – all that money – that separated him from everybody else. It brought – and bought – drama often lacking in his bouts. It also brought – and bought – worldwide attention. Bottom-line, he is The Fighter of the Decade for not losing a fight while earning unprecedented money. Risk-to-Reward, he had no rivals in this decade or any other.

He has talked about coming back in the decade that will begin in a few days. Then again, he has also said, no, he won’t be back. Maybe, maybe not. Guess here: He’ll try. Remember, money is his motivation. Eighty-five more million and he’ll be billionaire.

I’m not sure he could earn $85 million in today’s market. It began to shrink in 2019, although Canelo was still earning $35 million-a-fight. In the Forbes annual list of top earners last June, Canelo was No. 4 at $92 million and Anthony Joshua No. 13 at $55 million.

I’m also not sure what Mayweather’s place a top the decade’s money list will mean to his place in boxing history. From jets to Ferraris, it’ll buy him a lot of toys. But it’ll only buy a Legacy if it’s made and named by a high-end car maker. His boxing legacy will be judged and re-judged throughout the forthcoming decades.

He has tried to influence that historical view with T-shirts and caps that are inscribed with his official record: 50-0. That includes the money-making show against a boxing novice, Conor McGregor, an MMA star who had about as much of a chance against a pound-for-pound best as an amateur would have had. History, it says here, won’t look kindly on that bout, or whatever it was.

Meanwhile, Mayweather risks his historical claim on the 50-0 milestone if he ventures back into the ring against just about anybody other than another MMA star or perhaps in an oft-rumored rematch with 41-year old Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather is 42. He’ll be 43 on Feb. 24. Mayweather’s dates with McGregor and Pacquaio paid him more than $500 million, according to Forbes.

He’ll be tempted. In fact, it sounds as if he’s wrestling with that temptation now. That’s why we’re hearing that, no, he’s coming back on one day. Then the next day, he reverses himself, saying, yeah, he’ll be back 2020.

Who knows? I’m not sure he knows. But know this: Mayweather caps and T-shirts proclaim him to be the best ever with the acronym TBE. But it really means: The Best Earner. Ever. If you don’t believe, read Forbes.  

By Bart Barry-

And our king returned on the final days of the
decade to save us.  Exiled 31 months since
a highpaying debacle of a battle for Mexico, Son of the Legend marched on
Phoenix with an army of 12,000 and merely 11 days to go in his decade, to restore
our kingdom with a panache none before him has brought. 

Son of the Legend (VADA ID#:
214371) fought 15 times in his decade, 15 times in 7 1/2 years, 50-percent
more frequently than Money May, mind you, and remained true to himself every
time he blessed a bluemat with his sacred boot. 
Highbrows can argue who was the decade’s best fighter (Roman Gonzalez is
the answer to that riddle), but no one can claim to have been a more apt
metaphor for our beloved sport.

A modern entity whose popularity is fully derived
from his predecessor’s accomplishments, Son of the Legend comported himself
always with an arrogance inexplicable to others.  The way the NHL looks at revenue from Mayweather-Pacquiao
is how 95-percent of the decade’s prizefighters looked at Junior: “Wait, how
much did he make for his pro debut?”

*

We interrupt this homage for some hard reporting.

When Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. faced Ireland’s John
Duddy in Alamodome to christen the new decade, June 26, 2010, some questioned
whether a suspended drug cheat had the necessary mettle to wrest from vacancy
the WBC’s prestigious middleweight Silver title.

For years, Chavez Jr. had waged a reign of terror
on Midwesterners – “kicking the Big Ten’s ass” as one scribe put it – and he
promised to do the same to Europeans if given a chance.

“They want to make money off my name and fame,”
Chavez Jr. said, without a hint of irony in his voice.

Chavez Jr. won impressively against Duddy and Lyell
and Zbik, Manfredo and Rubio and Lee – his record stood at an astounding 46-0-1
on Sept. 15, 2012 – and then he went for the real middleweight championship
against an Argentine named Maravilla.  He
lost every second of the fight’s first 34 1/2 minutes before delivering the
most exciting 30 seconds of boxing’s last 15 years.

Chavez Jr. was too exhausted to complete the
upset, of course, but by surprising everyone, he re-adorned his father’s name
with credibility for years to come.

Chavez Jr. collected a big gift decision against
Brian Vera then ratified it massively back at Alamodome a halfyear later before
stumbling a wee bit against somebody named Fonfara.  The people got displeased, failing universally
to credit his subsequent and huge wins against Reyes and Britsch, and demanded
Junior be fed to Canelo Alvarez, who subsequently refused to sit down, even,
between rounds of their sparring session.

Canelo went on to riches in the United States while
Chavez quietly gathered and perfected himself in their native Mexico.  After squaring off against another highly
regarded prospect in Evert Bravo, Chavez treated Las Vegas drug testers with a princely
contempt then commanded a princely sum to finish his decade in a fight with Daniel
Jacobs.

An influencer every step of the way, Chavez Jr. entered
Friday’s ring in Phoenix sporting a blue birthmark-like stain on his otherwise
platinum head.

After missing weight effortlessly at his Thursday
weighin, Chavez Jr. fought five rounds bravely till his nose got broken then
instructed his chief second to end the match. 
When that didn’t happen, Chavez Jr. made the sort of resounding decision
that separates champions from challengers, calling the referee over and stopping
the fight his own damn self.

An unappreciative Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. buried
his face in his hands.

As Chavez Jr. exited the ring Friday, his appreciative
if rambunctious fans in Arizona showered their returned king in gold.

Chavez Jr. departs his decade having defended
titles valiantly in the following divisions: 172 1/2, 171 1/2, 170 3/4, 164,
175 1/4 and 172 3/4.

*

As the decade in boxing draws to a close we are
right to reflect upon what metaphors Son of the Legend affords us.  Rumor was, Junior once cared about his craft,
whatever we opined of him.  His craft was
enriching himself and financially supporting his father’s retirement by doing
something he was not naturally endowed with a power to do.  He tried to escape boxing at nearly every
interval.

No truer moment in his career happened than when
he snapped at his ringside father’s advice from the stool of his Thomas &
Mack Center performance, yelling at him “¡Ya, Ya, Ya!” before collecting 100
more direct blows to the head from Sergio Martinez.

For beginning 2010 as a grifter, making whatever
promises were needed to keep the grift going, enduring massive and traumatic
abuse from his peers, lying to his fans over and again, cheating on drug tests before
simply failing them, scoffing at every traditional discipline, changing the
rules whenever convenient, and finally fleeing in 2019 his own paying customers
as they pelted him with beer and fought one another like savages, “Son of the
Legend” Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is boxing’s well-deserved Fighter of the Decade.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Photo By Ed Mulholland

Follow all the action as Tony Harrison defends the WBC Super Welterweight title against Jermell Charlo.  The action begins at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT with US Olympian Karlos Balderos in action.  Also Undefeated Heavyweight Efe Ajagba will take on Iago Kiladze

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Round 1:  Right from Harrison

Round 2 Good left-right from Harrison..Charlo lands a right..Good body shot..BIG LEFT AND DOWN GOES HARRISON..

Round 3 Charlo winging wild shots…3 hard shots from Charlo..Good uppercut from Harrison  and 2 rights..Hook..Hard right…Harrison bleeding from nose..Good body shot..Head and body..

Round 4 Hard shots on the inside..Hard hook from Charlo..body shots..2 hooks from Harrison..Uppercut and right hand.. Combination from Charlo

Round 5 Good body work from Charlo…Right from Harrison

Round 6 Good exchange…Body shot from Charlo…Right from Harrison..Right..2 great body shots..

Round 7 Good combination from Charlo…left hook..2 rights from Harrison..Right

Round 8 Right from Harrison..Jab..2 rights from Charlo..Hard right from Harrison..jab from Charlo..

Round 9 Good 3 punch combo from Harrison

Round 10 Popping jab from Harrison..Right..

Round 11 Charlo coming trying to land something big..Harrison showboating..Body shot from Charlo…HARD LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES HARRISON..HUGE LEFT HOOK…HARRISON GOES DOWN AGAIN…FLURRY ON THE ROPES…FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Jab from Ajagba..Hard right..Nice Right
Round 2 Right from Kiladze…Good right..Right and left..Right from Ajagba..HUGE RIGHT AND DOWN GOES KILADZE..Hard shots at the end of round
Round 3 Right from Ajagba..Jab..Hard right..Hard right wobbles Kiladze badly…WOW..KILADZE LANDS A RIGHT AND SEND AJAGBA DOWN
Round 4 Hard right from Ajagba
Round 5 Huge uppercut from Ajagba..Right from Kiladze..BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES KILADZE..Right from Kiladze…HARD COMBINATION ON ROPES..KILADZE IN TROUBLE AND FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Jab from Balderas..Good left hook..Good Jab..Nice 3 punch combination..Good right..Hook..Good body work
Round 2 Good left from Balderas..Good exchange..Giron lands a body/head combo..Right from Balderas
Round 3 Good right from Balderas..Body shot..Hook from Balderas..Wicked combination..GIRON LANDS A LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES BALDERAS..BALDERAS FALLS BACK IN THE CORNER BUT HE LETS BALDERAS CONTINUE
Round 4  2 hard hooks from Giron..Low blow from Balderas..Good uppercut by Giron
Round 5 Body shot from Giron..Good body shots..
Round 6 Good left hook from Balderas..Jab..Right hook and Jab from Giron…Balderas lands a hard right..Hook to body from Giron..BIG LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES BALDERAS…HE DOESNT BEAT THE COUNT

Follow all the action as former middleweight champions Daniel Jacobs and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. square off in a super middleweight clash.  The action kicks off at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT with bouts featuring former world champions Maurice Hooker and Liam Smith as well as the WBC Flyweight title bout between Julio Cesar Martinez and Cristofer Rosales.

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Round 1: Left to body from Chavez..Body shot from Jacobs..Right to the body..Right and hook from Chavez

Round 2 Hook fro Chavez..Jab from Jacobs..

Round 3 Body work from Jacobs..Jab..Right from Chavez..Uppercut from Jacobs..Double jab..

Round 4 Hook from Jacobs..Hard right from Jacobs

Round 5 Right from Chavez..Uppercut and right from Chavez…CHAVEZ QUITS IN THE CORNER

Round 1  Martinez lands a left..Right from Rosales..Good exchange.Good jab from Martinez..Combination..Body..exchanging of hooks..Rosales landsa hook

Round 2 Martinez lands hard hook..Big right from Rosales buckles Martinez..Good body shot..Combination from Martinez..Right from Rosales..Body shot and combination from Martinez..Martinez cut above the right eye..Caused by a headbutt

Round 3 Hook from Rosales..Good hook from Martinez..Winging hooks…hard right from Rosales..Right and jab from Martinez..Good jab from Rosales..

Round 4 Hook from Rosales..Uppercut from Martinez..Body shot and right hand from Rosales..Hard body shots from Martinez..Right and uppercut..Combination..Good uppercut from Rosales..

Round 5 Martinez lands an uppercut..Body shot..Hard body shot..Vicious body shots

Round 6 Good exchange..Combo buckles Rosales..3 hard shots

Round 7 Hard body shot from Martinez..Jab…Uppercut to the body..Right to the body..Hook to the head hurts Rosales..Right to the head..

Round 8 Hard barrage from Martinez…Uppercut..Good counter from Rosales..

Round 9 Nice combo from Rosales….Hard BODY SHOT…BIG COMBO BY MARTINEZ AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1: Hooker Jabbing..Perez hooks to the body…BIG FLURRY DROPS PEREZ IN THE CORNER…HE GETS TO HIS FEET AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1 HUGE BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES JOHNSON..RIGHT TO HEAD AND DOWN GOES JOHNSON AGAIN…RIGHT TO HEAD AND HOOK TO BODY AND DOWN GOES JOHNSON...RIGHT DROPS JOHNSON FOR A 4TH TIME AND FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1:  Good Body shot from Smith..Left hook..Uppercut..Left Hook..right to body
Round 2  Good left hook from Smith..2 lefts to the body
Round 3 Smith jabs to the body..Good counter from Garcia..Right to the head..2 jabs from Smith..Good body shot from Smith..Left to the body
Round 4 2 Lefts from Smith…another
Round 5 Garcia landing combinations…Body shot from Smith.Combination from Garcia
Round 6 Good body shot from Smith..Left hook
Round 7 Garcia swelling under the right eye..Right/left jab from Smith..Body shot
Round 8 Right to body..left to body. from Smith..Good uppercut from Garcia
Round 9 2 good shots from Garcia..Right from Smith..
Round 10 Good action…Smith pressing the action

99-91 TWICE AND 98-92 FOR SMITH

Round 1 Kelly Cut over the right eye.. Cut caused from a punch
Round 2 Left and right from Kelly..Nice uppercut
Round 3 Left from Kelly..Good action as they are trading
Round 4 Right from Kelly
Round 5 Good body shots from Kelly..Good exchange..Good body punching from Campos
Round 6 Hard Combination from Campos
Round 7 2 rights from Kelly..Good left from Campos
Round 8..Kelly Landing
Round 9 Good right hook from Campos..Good left hook from Kelly..Uppercut
Round 10 RIGHT AND DOWN GOES CAMPOS

99-91 TWICE AND 98-91 FOR KELLY