Follow all the action as Gennady Golovkin and Sergiy Derevyanchenko vie for the IBF Middleweight Title at Madison Square Garden

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Round 1 LEFT AND RIGHT AND DOWN GOES DEREVYANCHENKO..

Round 2 2 straight rights from Derevyanchenko..Left hook to the body from Golovkin..uppercut..Body shot from Derevyanchenko..Lead hook and body shot from Golovkin..Jab from Derevyanchenko..Blood around the right eye of Sergiy–Replays showed from a punch

Round 3 Body shot from Derevyanchnko..Right..Uppercut from Golovkin..Body..Body shot..Hook to head from Derevyanchenko..Jab from Golovkin..Hard right..Good body shots from Derevyanchenko..Right to head..

Round 4 3 punch combo from Golovkin..Body shot from Derevyachenko…Good combination..

Round 5-Cut is ruled from a headbutt…Doctor looking at the cut..jab and right hand from Derevyanchenko..Hard uppercut from Golovkin…Hard body shot hurts Golovkin

Round 6 Right from Derevyanchenko..3 jabs..Body shot..Right to side of the head..Right from Golovkin..Jabs..Right and left hook

Round 7  Good hook from Golovkin..Good jab..Hard right to body..right to body..uppercut..Body shot from Derevyanchenko..Body shot..Hook to the head…Hard right from Golovkin

Round 8 Golovkin jabbing..Right to head from Derevyanchenko..Left from Golovkin..Body shot from Derevyanchenko

Round 9 Good uppercut from Golovkin…Hard right from Derevyanchenko…jab from Golovkin..Jab…Jab and right from Derevyanchenko

Round 10 Big combination from Derevychenko..jab and right hand…Moving Golovkin back..Right from Golovkin…3 punches from Derevyanchenko..Body shot..uppercut..right..Hard combination..

Round 11 Right from Golovkin…Right

Round 12 Body from Derevyanchenko..Right from Golovkin…Uppercut from Golovkin

114-113 , 115-112 FOR GOLOVKIN

Round 1 RUNNING LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES BARRERA.3 Hard jabs..hard uppercut to the body

Round 2 Madrimov lands a hard right to the body..Exchanging hard rights..Hard right from Madrimov

Round 3 Uppercut from Barrera

Round 4  Good body work from Madrimov

Round 5 Hard left from Madrimov..Pot shotting..Body shot..Another body shot..Hard jab from the southpaw stance..hard hook..big left AND BARRERA IS HURT…FIGHT STOPPED

Round 1 Baranchyk lunges in and lands a right..Left hook..Big right..Right to the body

Round 2 Baranchyk lands a left to the body..Hook..body..Hook by Bracero..Counter Right..Left on the ropes..Baranchyk loading up on everything

Round 3 Hard hook to the body from Baranchyk..hard right..Body and head combination..

Round 4 Left hook fro Baranchyn and a hard right that hurts Bracero….Left to BODY AND RIGHT AND DOWN GOES BRACERO…FIGHT STOPPED

Round 1 BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES HERNANDEZ..FIGHT STOPPED

Round 1 Body shot from Ceballo..Right to body

Round 2 1-2 from Ceballo..Good flush right and uppercut..Good combinations on the ropes..Body shot..Nice Body shot..Right to head

Round 3 Straight Right from Ceballo..Counter from Amanov..Right and left to body from Ceballo…FIGHT STOPPED

Round 1 SzaeremETA LANDS A LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES CORTES
Round 2  BIG LEFT AND DOWN GOES CORTES…FIGHT STOPPED…49 seconds

By Norm Frauenheim-

The whispers are hard to ignore. Gennadiy Golovkin has surely heard them. He’s changed, they say. A different guy, they say.

But the only thing for certain is what we know from his birth certificate. He’s older, a 37-year -old fighter who intends to silence those whispers and reaffirm what he has always believed.

Pre-Canelo and Post-Canelo, Golovkin has always been a middleweight. It’s the division that defines him. It’s also a division he dominated.

It’s that domination, perhaps, that he intends to re-assert in a tricky bid to reclaim a major 160-pound belt against Sergiy Derevyanchenko Saturday at New York’s Madison Square Garden in a DAZN-streamed bout.

After all of the mind-numbing controversy swirling about Canelo Alvarez’ move up to light-heavyweight in decision to bypass a third fight with Golovkin, GGG says nothing has changed. He says he is back in the gym with the same work ethic and same vigilance.

 “You can’t underestimate your opponent,’’ he said during a conference call. “It’s kind of like a duel. If you underestimate it, it could be your last one.’’

GGG (39-1-1, 35 KOs) is sick of talking about Canelo, who said he was finished with GGG on the day his step-up to 175-pounds against Sergey Kovalev on Nov. 2 was announced. Ask the inevitable and you can almost hear a weary sigh. Hard to blame him. But there’s no escaping the questions

This time, he was asked if he feared that there might be a void in his career if he doesn’t get a third shot at Canelo.

“My biggest opponent is not a particular person,’’ said GGG, who is 0-1-1 against Canelo. “My career is about what I do.

“It just looks like he (Canelo) couldn’t or didn’t want to fight me. Sergey Kovalev was his only option. How can I be disappointed, looking at those people?’’

“I feel great, just like I always have. I always feel like I am a champion. For me, every fight is the same.’’

For now, he can look at what, who is in front of him. Derevyanchenko (13-1, 10 KOs) is a Ukrainian who put himself in the middleweight mix last October with a split-decision loss to Danny Jacobs, also at Madison Square Garden.

He went on to score a unanimous decision over Jack Culcay in April, a few weeks before Canelo scored a one-sided decision over Jacobs on the Cinco de Mayo weekend.

Despite a record that includes only 14 fights (13-1, 10 KOs), Derevyanchenko has the look of a fighter who is just beginning to figure out how good he really is. He’s 33 and a late bloomer.

His promoter, Lou DiBella, thinks the time and place are perfect for Derevyanchenko to spring a major upset.

DiBella believes the whispers. He says GGG is a step beyond his prime.

“At this point in his career, he’s not getting younger, he’s not getting faster, he’s not getting better,’’ DiBella said. “Sergiy Derevyanchenko is an incredible risk to GGG.” 

Prediction: GGG wins a unanimous decision against a tactically-skilled fighter aptly named “The Technician.’’

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Staples Center welterweight titlist
Errol “The Truth” Spence split-decisioned “Showtime” Shawn Porter and unified
the WBC and IBF titles in an entertaining tilt that exceeded expectations by a
margin that was not small.  In Saturday’s
comain former super middleweight titlist David “La Bandera Roja” Benavidez
sliced up WBC beltholder Anthony “The Dog” Dirrell, proving once more how
emphatically class tells over time.

If Benavidez indeed proved the most intriguing
talent on the card, Spence-Porter nevertheless exceeded expectations at least wildly
and maybe more than that.

Here’s the main criterion for such an assertion:
When the mainevent began my eyes were fixed on the favorite, but by round 3 my
eyes were fixed on the underdog, on whom they stayed for most of the next 27
minutes of combat.  That is attributable
almost wholly to Porter’s professionalism and savvy but partially, too, to what
matchmaking woes rendered Spence so vulnerable to a fellow welterweight who
knew how to fight.

For large parts of many rounds Spence didn’t have
much of an idea what the hell Porter would do next and was offended by such
unpredictability.  Most of Spence’s recent
foes were predictable or if not predictable so impotent their capricious attacks
meant nil to the champ.  Not Porter.  Showtime Shawn was big enough and committed
enough and schooled enough – in the crucible of meaningful competition – to
discomfit The Truth quite a lot.

Spence did every technical thing better than
Porter and probably hit harder, too, but he did not set the conditions of the
confrontation the way weak opposition recently accustomed him to doing.  Frankly Porter walked through nearly all
Spence’s best shots and was flashed to the canvas by a fully leveraged Spence left
in round 11 but never imperiled.

Spence did not look invincible Saturday.  Most of us predicted a lopsided, dull affair,
and most of us were wrong.  No, Spence is
not great as we thought; yes, Porter is better than we thought.  A blessing upon both men for being
professional enough to show us these things.

The comain went about as planned, with a result
most predicted, but showed David Benavidez, however-youngest and
however-many-timesest champion, remains a work in progress.

Before I go further, let me confess Benavidez
enchants me like no other prizefighter currently.  He doesn’t know how good he is or how bad he
is.  He’s cocksure more than confident;
he’s pretty sure, where men like Hi-Tech and Bud and Canelo are certain.  Sometimes his smile is not congruent to his
mood.  From his physique to his chief
second’s urban-combat-outfitters attire, everything about Benavidez is
fragile.  To watch him closely is to know
the entire Benavidez train could derail at any moment (it may have derailed
even as you read this, or just before, or just after, or just now) with a drug
test or arrest or worse.

But damn, is he fun to watch.  Such nonchalance, such patience, such willingness.  He didn’t do things all that technically well
against Dirrell, Saturday, in part because he never thought he needed to.  He saw Dirrell as a chatty victim from the
bell’s first tone.  He liked the idea of
Dirrell’s courage and loved giving Dirrell a chance to exhibit it: Go on and
show us how brave you are, Dog, while I go smirky sadist on your right eye.

Benavidez is a natural because you cannot teach
his level of relaxation in a prizefight. 
If you doubt this, go back and watch videos of Oscar De La Hoya’s
greatest hits.  Few fighters of the last
generation had De La Hoya’s natural gifts, but the dude never learned to
relax.  There he is, even in his very
best moments, jaw bulging like a cheeky walnut. 
Which is why the worst moments of De La Hoya’s prime were marked by late-rounds
fading.

Which is also why Benavidez, a guy with all the
upperbody musculature of a prepubescent gamer, doesn’t get tired of punching his
statuesque opponents till well after they tire of punching him. 

Then there’s Sampson Lewkowicz – whose presence in
the Benavidez stable is the main thing allowing a weathered, withered observer
like me to dare stake his afición on a project with future heartbreak’s every
hallmark.  Lewkowicz has had his misses,
sure, but he’s also had Manny Pacquiao and Sergio Martinez when no one else
wanted them.  Benavidez already has tried
to break Lewkowicz’s heart a twopair or better, but Lewkowicz was there in Saturday’s
ring, one of few Red Flaggers without a vest on, and it made you hope reason
might continue to prevail upon Benavidez.

Capitalistic sensibilities, on the other hand,
will continue to prevail upon Errol Spence. 
Saturday’s postfight weirdness proves it.  Danny Garcia – seriously?  A year removed from his loss to Shawn Porter
(yes, that Shawn Porter) Swift came down from grooming One Time to challenge The
Truth before our disbelieving eyes. 
Whose idea was this? is Spence that covetous of Garcia’s WBC silver
title?

Spence is an excellent prizefighter who wants to
prove it.  PBC ought to let him.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

LOS ANGELES — Only the judges disagreed.

There was no debate about the drama that began early and lasted throughout 12 rounds Saturday night in a split decision won by Earl Spence Jr. over Shawn Porter for two pieces of the welterweight title in front of roaring crowd of 16,709 at Staples Center.

Judges Rey Denescon of California and Steve Weisfeld of New Jersey scored it 116-111 for Spence. Larry Hazard, Jr., also of New Jersey saw it different. Hazard scored 115-112 for Porter.

The crowd? It was unanimous. There was no dissent about what a terrific fight was. There was a little bit of everything. Porter made it rough and repeatedly forced Spence to show he had some grit to go along with his reach, power and speed. Spence had poise, a jab and the wherewithal to control the center of the ring at exactly the moments he had to. In the end, Spence also had one quick counter, a left, perfectly timed and placed, to score a knockdown of Porter. It was the key to the fight.

It knocked Porter off balance in the closing moments of the eleventh round. Porter grazed the canvas with a glove. But the touch was like a torch to his chances at an upset.

“I think that knockdown was the difference,” Porter (30-3-1, 17 KOs) said “I couldn’t come back to the corner with my head down after that.”

No, he didn’t. He pursued throughout the 12th round, the bout’s final three minutes. He rocked Spence with a couple of lefts. But there was no way to knock victory out of the bigger man’s powerful grasp.

“Porter was throwing a lot,” said Spence, still unbeaten at 26-0 with 21 KOs. “I wanted to show I was the bigger and stronger welterweight.”

Bigger and stronger, however, doesn’t necessarily mean the best. That’s still up for debate. Spence hopes to further cement his claim at being No. 1 at 147 pounds against Manny Pacquiao. But that still leaves the unresolved question about when or if he’ll ever face the Top Rank-promoted Terence Crawford, who celebrated a birthday Saturday. He’s 32. There are stiil no signs that a Crawford-Spence fight will happen before his next birthday.

“if I can’t get Pacquiao and nothing happens with Terence, maybe Danny Garcia,” said Spence, who collected a $2 million guarantee and could wind with more depending on the pay-pe-view numbers for the Fox telecast..

A sign of what might happen next, perhaps, was there among those who rushed into the ring to congratulate Spence. Danny Garcia was there, perhaps the most prominent face in Spence’s future.

“I’ve told my team, you line them up, I’ll knock them down,” Spence said.

Meanwhile, there was little talk of a rematch, despite a split card scorecards that seemed to dictate a sequel. Porter had no argument with the scoring.

“For me to say it was robbery, no, that ain’t coming form me,” Porter said. “Did you all like the fight?”

Oh, yeah.

In the co-main event, 22-year-old super-middleweight David Benavidez (22-0, 19 KOs) became boxing’s youngest two-time champion, scoring a ninth-roundd soppage of bloodied Anthony Dirrell (33-2-1, 24 KOs). Benvidez claimed the 168-pound title that was stripped from him when he tested positive for cocaine last year

“There are so many emotions coming at me at once, said Benavidez, whose $1 million purse is the biggest collected by an Arizona fighter since Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal, also of Phoenix, cashed a $1 million paycheck for his rematch loss to Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez in 1994. “We put so much hard work into this training camp. We left home and were away from everything. But I had the dream to become the youngest two-time super middleweight world champion and I made my dreams come true.

“Everything just fell in place perfectly. From the suspension to all the big fights I’ve been in. All of that helped me out in this fight. I did not make a mistake or open myself up more than I needed to. I worked behind my jab and got the stoppage. Things are going to get better and get tougher and I’m ready for the challenge.”

Errol Spence Jr. meets Shawn Porter in a Welterweight Unification Title bout.  There will be two world title bouts that highlight the undercard.  Anthony Dirrell defends the  Super Middleweight Title against former champion David Benavidez.  Mario Barrios and Batyr Akhmedov meet for the WBA Super Lightweight Title.  Josesito Lopez takes on John Molina Jr.

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Round 1: Porter trying to work on the inside..Left from Porter..Left from Spence..Combination..

Round 2 Good right from Porter…Counter from Spence…Right from Porter..Right..Left from Spence..

Round 3 Left to body from Spence…Jab..Good right from Porter..Left from Spence..Spence warned for low blow…left from Spence

Round 4  2 hard rights from Porter..Good body shot from Spence..Good left..2 lefts from Porter..Bog left…Porter being aggressive..Left hook..Combination..Left from Spence..

Round 5 Counter left from Spence..Counter from Porter..Good left from Spence..Counter..Counter from Porter..Left from Spence..Left..

Round 6 Spence landing hard shots on the ropes..Nice right from Porter..

Round 7 Porter lands a jab..Right..Left to the body..Good left to body from Spence..left uppercut to body..Body shot and combination from Porter..Hard right to the body

Round 8 Good left from Spence..Nice right from Porter…Counter left and right from Spence..

Round 9 Hard uppercut from Porter…Hard right inside…

Round 10  Good body shot from Spence..Hard flurry on the ropes..Good action on the ropes..Spence cut on right eyebrow from accidental Headbutt

Round 11 Good right hook from Spence…LEFT AND DOWN GOES PORTER..Toe to Toe action…Good right from Porter

Round 12 Right from Porter..Left hook from Porter..Big right from Porter..Good right…Both guys standing and throwing in the middle of the ring

221-172 Punches in favor of Spence

116-111 Spence…115-112 Porter….116-111 Spence

Round 1 Right from Benavidez..Right to body from Dirrell

Round 2 Right to body from Dirrell..Right from Benavidez..Straight right from Dirrell..Right…Jab from Benavidez..3 punch combination

Round 3 Counter right from Benavidez…Body/Head combination..Right on the ropes..Hard left

Round 4 Right from Dirrell..Hard combination on the ropes

Round 5 Benavidez lands a 5 punch combination..

Round 6 Body shot from Dirrell..Dirrell cut around his right eye…CUT FROM A PUNCH

Round 7 Doctor looking at the cut…Right from Benavidez..

Round 8 Body shot from Benavidez…2 lefts..left to body..2 hard head shots

Round 9 Jab from Benavidez..4 punch combination…Body shot..Benavidez battering DIRRELL AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1:Right from Akhmedov..Left uppercut from Barios..

Round 2 Right from Barrios…Left to body from Akhmedov..

Round 3 Right hook from Akhmedov..2 rights from Barrios..Body

Round 4 Barrios lands a straight right…DOUBLE HOOK AND DOWN GOES AKHMEDOV…Right from Barrios..Left from Akhmedov

Round 5 Right from Barrios…Left from Akhmedov..And another

Round 6 Body shot from Akhmedov..Counter right from Barrios..Left

Round 7 Left from Akhmedov..Right to body…Jab…Barrios cut over the left eye

Round 8 Right hook from Akhmedov…Jab from, Barrios..Jab to the body..Jab.Counter right

Round 9 Akhmedov comes forward…Left..Good right from Barrios..

Round 10 Counter left and combination from Akhmedov…left..Good Jab..God straight left..Big left drives Barrios back

Round 11 Double left from Akhmedov…left…Akhmedov pressuring..Another left..

Round 12 INSIDE RIGHT..DOWN GOES AKHMEDOV

114-112, 115-111, 116-111 FOR BARRIOS

Round 1 LOPEZ LANDS A RIGHT AND DOWN GOES MOLINA…Right fr4om Molina..Overhand right staggers Molina….BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES MOLINA..Big right

Round 2 Lopez lands a flush right..2 Rights…Left from Molina..Big right from Lopez..

Round 3 Right from Lopez..

Round 4 Left from Lopez..Hard jab..

Round 5 Right from Molina.Right hand…Right Hand/Left Hook..Right..

Round 6 Hard shots by both guys…Good right from Lopez..

Round 7 Left from Molina..Right from Lopez..DOUBLE LEFT AND RIGHT AND DOWN GOES MOLINA..

Round 8 Big right from Lopez…REFEREE STOPS THE BOUT

Round 1  Guerrero working

Round 4 combination from Thomas  Jab from Guerrero

Round 5  Jab from Guerrero  body combination left to the body  uppercut

Round 6 Guerrero lands a left

Round 7 Body work from Guerrero..Straight left..Guerrero outlanding Thomas 74-29

Round 8 Combination from Guerrero…1-2..Straight left..Inside left

Round 9 Thomas pushing the action..Has Guerrero on the ropes

Round 10 Inside right hook from Guerrero..3 Punch combination…Lett from Guerrero

Round 1 Spencer lands a left hook..BIG RIGHT DOWN GOES GANBERDELLA…BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES GAMBERDELLA AGAIN

Round 2  HUGE COMBINATION..LEFT TO BODY AND DOWN GOES GAMBERDELLA..Big live shot…Huge Barrage from Spencer.

Round 3 BIG BARRAGE OF PUNCHES AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

By Norm Frauenheim-

Shawn Porter is good with a microphone. He uses it to analyze. He uses it to comment. Predict and argue, too. He also uses it to deliver a few opening salvos in the opening rounds of the fight before the fight. Psychology always precedes the punches, and that’s where Porter appears to have gained a slight edge over the favored Errol Spence in their welterweight unification fight Saturday night at Los Angeles’ Center.

Porter, a Fox studio analyst when he isn’t in the gym, has spun all the rhetorical angles at Spence, who delivers more ounches from angles than one liners.

It’s been entertaining. It’s also been something of a diversion. It’s hard to tell if any of the talk has had any impact on Spence. He’s tough to read. Tougher to beat. Just ask Mikey Garcia, who came up in weight and appeared to be winning all of the news conference and media appearances. At opening bell in a ring at about the 50 yard line on the Dallas Cowboys home field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., last March, however, Garcia never had a chance in losing a one-sided decision. Porter, of course, has an explanation for that. He has said repeatedly that Garcia was a lightweight making a futile jump to welterweight.

“Truth is,” Porter said in repeated play on Spence’s nickname, “is that I’m a real 147-pounder.”

But, truth is, Porter rarely mentions a common foe who sums up the difference between the two: Kell Brook. Porter (30-2-1, 17 KOs) lost to Brook. Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) beat him.

Spence knocked him out in in 2017, scoring an 11th-round stoppage in an eye-opening upset in Sheffield, Brook’s hometown in the UK. Brook was coming off a loss, a fifth-round stoppage, to Gennadiy Golovkin at middleweight at a time when GGG was in his prime. The two-division jump up the scale was too much for Brook. He returned to his natural weight, which he had dominated. But he had no answer for Spence.

About three years earlier in 2014, Porter, a heavy favorite, lost a majority decision to Brook in Carson, Calif. The victory over Porter did for Brook what the victory over Brook did for Spence. Each went from interesting to the most feared welterweights of their day. In terms measured by physical dimensions, Porter will see and then encounter a fighter built a lot like Brook Saturday on Fox PPV. At 5- foot 9, Brook was a big welterweight. At 5-10, Spence is even bigger. Spence also has three more inches in his reach than Brook, 72 to 69.

Truth is, all of those numbers add up to tougher task for Porter, who is listed at 5-7 with a 69 1/2-inch reach. Porter’s argument is that Spence has never had to face the kind of adversity Spence has. Porter has had to fight his way out of trouble. Spence never has. But there’s a reason for that, one as simple of that tale on the tape and a common foe, Brook.

Prediction: Spence wins a unanimous decision.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday on a “FOX Sports is proud to present PBC
Pay-Per-View events” event in Los Angeles welterweight titlists Errol “The
Truth” Spence and “Showtime” Shawn Porter will vie for Spence’s number-one Ring
rating without jeopardizing Terence Crawford’s number-two pound-for-pound
rating in a match between two good guys whose disparity in talent should
preclude anything too thrilling from happening. 
Fans of thrilling talent should look to Saturday’s comain.

Because the most interesting talent on the card is
WBC super middleweight titlist David Benavidez, an uncharacteristically ascendant
PBC asset.  Spence may be the greater
talent, and well may not be, but he is not intriguing as Benavidez, not after getting
outdone by Benavidez in March.

We probably have seen the best of Spence.  While Manny Pacquiao (along with Floyd
Mayweather) is the greatest talent ever to fight on a PBC card – a sentence
likely to hold up, still, in 2030 – he is far too old to make someone of
Spence’s age and size improve.  Pacquiao
undressed Keith Thurman a few months ago, sure, but does anyone think Thurman
will be better for it?  Pacquiao wants no
part of Spence, either, because of the youngster’s physicality; Pacquiao, way
way smarter than we realized in his prime, knows someone big and vigorous as
Errol can do a lot of things wrong and still win, and there’s no dissuading him
with activity.

There’s dissuading Spence with inactivity, as
Mikey Garcia showed us at Cowboys Stadium (we go with birth names, round here) but
not with an attack.  It’s a reason Porter
hasn’t much of a chance Saturday, but we’ll be back to that below.

PBC hasn’t the stable or matchmaking acumen to
keep Spence on an upward trajectory. 
Spence would be improved by a fight with Bud Crawford, who’s small
enough to see his craft advantage offset, and an eventual move to 160 via 154,
but none of those things will happen in Spence’s prime.  Not while Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman and
Alfredo Angulo haunt the FOX Sports airwaves. 

Which is, in its way, a tragedy.  PBC didn’t really know what it had with
Spence, but soon as it did, it got cautious as could be, feeding him a b-level
vet, a hopeless lad named Ocampo and then a former featherweight.  Subsequently Spence has not felt a punch in
28 months.  That’s no way to season a
prime talent. 

Which is why Benavidez is the most interesting man
on Saturday’s card.  PBC still hasn’t
much of an idea what he is or what to do with him.  None of us has.  Benavidez is loose in the midsection, failed
a VADA test a couple years ago, and Dr?ma adorns his coat of arms.  But he is a natural, and sneaky-ascendant
because he doesn’t look the part.

Our beloved sport’s myriad of hyperbolists begin
their marketability prejudging with criteria borrowed from the late Hugh
Hefner.  Benavidez once was obese, and
extra skin is a mortal no-no.  In this
sense Benavidez is a bit like boxing’s version of golfer John Daly, whose obesity
and publicized vices allowed his sport’s hypemen to overlook Daly’s singular
athleticism.

Really, who the hell ever mistook a rotund
chainsmoker for a great athlete?  I
suppose I just did. 

Next time you see a golf club, or even a heavy
stick, try to get it to the place Daly gets his backswing while keeping your
feet planted.  Never mind maintaining
that balance long enough to hit a ball, never ever mind doing it the exact same
way at age 53 as you did at 23; just try to get your body in that position –
then imagine doing it drunk in front of 50,000 spectators.

Benavidez’s comain foe, Anthony Dirrell, is no
one’s idea of an ascendant asset, but he is a veteran prizefighter who is proud
and has spent his entire career at the same weightclass.  He’s not the better athlete in his family,
but he is the better fighter.  He will
test Benavidez’s will. And that is precisely the test a fighter like Benavidez
needs to improve.

Will Showtime Shawn test Errol’s will?  A bit, yes. 
But barring a sprained ankle or Fan Man type of event Porter hasn’t much
of a chance.  Which is too bad because
Porter is a guy to cheer for.  He’s joyful,
humble, buffoonish, happy, fun.  His
efforts to play an antagonist generally go nowhere because he likes the guys he
makes punches with (when he and Spence “trash-talked” one another before Pacquiao
embarrassed Thurman, Porter couldn’t stay in character long enough to get his
lines right, and both men came off more endearing than fearsome).

Which is a winding path to writing this:
Saturday’s mainevent won’t be very good. 
Styles make fights – have you heard? – and Spence and Porter have
similar styles.  And Spence is better at
every facet of that style, so much so that we miss how similarly he and Porter
are as stylists (too, Porter has been matched much less sympathetically than
Spence lately, which makes Porter look like a flailing volume guy while some
aspiring aficionados might’ve once mistaken Spence for a power-puncher).

I can forgive myself for admitting a year ago
I’d’ve picked Spence to ruin Porter in 10 rounds or fewer.  But Spence’s slap-and-tickle contest with
Garcia weighs heavily on such predictions now. 
Porter should look about twice Garcia’s size and girth swimming his way
towards Spence, Saturday, and we’re not altogether certain how well Spence
fights off his backfoot, are we?  But
lest we forget, boxing’s clown pauper, AB, dropped Porter flat in the final
minutes of their 2015 contest, and one must believe at 147 pounds Spence hits
much much harder than About Billions.

I’ll take Spence, UD-12, in a match not even Ray
Mancini can call a candidate for fight of the year.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Canelo Alvarez says and does whatever he wants these days. Money buys that kind of power and Canelo has plenty.

It’s hard to argue with his $365-million contract with DAZN. But money exerts its own price. Makes its own demands.

At some point that money is going to force Canelo to take the fight he says he doesn’t want.

In formally announcing a Nov. 2 bout with Sergey Kovalev at Las Vegas MGM Grand in a risky jump up the scale from middleweight to light-heavy, Canelo said he was finished with Gennadiy Golovkin.

Canelo, who still holds three middleweight belts, said he would go back to 160 pounds no matter what happens against Kovalev in his bid to win a fourth title at a fourth weight.

But, he told reporters at a news conference Wednesday at Los Angles’ Union Station, it won’t be against GGG, who is 0-1-1 against him. Both fights were close, close enough to beg for a third.

But, no, Canelo said.

“We are finished ,’’ he said.

I’d bet $465 million that they’re not. That’s the total DAZN has invested in exactly the bout he now says won’t happen. There is his deal, the lion’s share. There is another $100 million in a contract that GGG signed in the wake of Canelo’s landmark deal.

GGG advisor Tom Loeffler has said GGG signed with DAZN because he saw it as the fastest way to a third fight. But only social media are immediate these days.

From Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder to GGG-Canelo, there are no quick turnarounds. There’s just the waiting.

But DAZN has time and reason to wait on the one rematch that might allow it the streaming network to cash in on its investment. Demetrius Andrade is an interesting fight, but it doesn’t have the upside that third bout with GGG has. Take it the bank.

Canelo promoter Oscar De La Hoya continues to say the third bout will happen in 2020.

“Oscar says many things that make no sense,’’ Canelo said in a counter that raises some question about where the Canelo-Golden Boy Promotions relationship is headed.

But De La Hoya is right about his one. It makes sense. Lots of cents.

By Norm Frauenheim–

LAS VEGAS – Emanuel Navarrete

Is restoring an old-school definition to a term that has long been part of the boxing glossary.

Busy is today’s way of describing a fighter’s work rate. It’s a simple description for a relentless attack driven by fast feet, faster hands and inexhaustible energy.

Navarrete, a super-bantamweight from Mexico City, is all of those things. Just ask Isaac Dogboe, who got knocked off the fast track to stardom by Navarrete’s tireless assault, first by decision last December and again by an overwhelming stoppage in May.

Within the ropes, Dogboe could do nothing to slow down Navarrete. It’s outside those ropes, however, that Navarrete is making promoters remember what busy also used to mean.

Navarrete is back in the ring Saturday night on the Tyson Fury-Otto Wallin card on ESPN+ for a second title defense within one month. Navarrete, who scored a third-round stoppage of Phoenix fighter Francisco De Vaca on August 17, said yes to Saturday’s bout against Filipino Juan Miguel Elorde without hesitation.

“Your answer came quicker than your punch,’’ Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said to Navarrete Thursday during a news conference for a T-Mobile Arena card that is part of Mexico’s annual celebration of Independence on Sept. 16.

It was also an answer that must have been a trip back, way back, in time for Arum. Arum, 87, was there, in the last century when fighters would answer an opening bell every other month. Compare that to today when twice-a-year is thought to be busy enough.

But the 24-year-old Navarrete (28-1, 24 KOs) is seemingly ready at all times.  Ring rust has no chance against him.

“I just want to tell him I’ll fight in December too,’’ Navarrete said as an interpreter translated his Spanish into English for Arum.

Arum smiled at words that define an ever-ready fighter. Some fight for money, and if it’s big enough they’ll fight as seldom as possible. Why risk a big paycheck?

But at the heart of the craft, there’s passion that keeps a fighter restless and always seeking for a chance to punch in, punch out.   

“If you’re a fighter, you want to fight as much as possible,’’ Arum said. “If he could, this kid could would fight eight times a year.’’

During this week, at least, Navarrete isn’t looking past Saturday against the grandson of a Filipino legend. There’s more than one. Before Manny Pacquiao, there was Flash Elorde, the world’s junior lightweight champion from 1960 through 1967.

Juan Miguel Elorde (28-1, 15 KOs) was born about a year after his famous grandfather died in 1985. The grandson’s first chance at world title is a steep one, especially on a card put together in honor of Mexico’s Independence Day.

“It is my lifetime dream to become a world champion, and I think it is becoming a reality,’’ Elorde said.

Elorde best chance might rest on the tale of the tape. He is an inch taller than Navarrete, who at 5 feet 7 is usually bigger than most in the 122-pound division. But Elorde is also about eight years older than Navarrete, a young man who is as ambitious as he energetic.

Navarrete is seeking to unify the 122-pound belt, before moving up the scale. He foresees himself at junior-welterweight one day. For now, however, another super-bantam belt is on the agenda. Enter Arum, who says unbeaten Rey Vargas, a 122-pound belt holder from Mexico City will be at ringside Saturday.

“Thank you for bringing him,’’ Navarrete said to Arum. “He can see what he will face.’’Probably, sooner than later. 

By Bart Barry-

Latenight Saturday on ESPN+ lineal heavyweight
champion Tyson Fury will defend his strapless title against an undefeated
28-year-old Swede named Otto Wallin, a man BoxRec’s rankings place squarely
atop the formidable, fourperson Swedish-heavyweight heap (while allowing him to
crack the world’s Top 50 just barely). 
It will be shocking joyful if Wallin featherdusts Fury, and he won’t.

The Fury victory tour continues apace.  He rose from substance abuse to challenge
Deontay Wilder nearly a year ago and rose from Wilder’s wildness to win a
draw.  Those feats and promoter Top
Rank’s feat of finding its way back to a division in which its touch has not
been magical for a decade or two are the reasons we got served the June fight
with Tom Schwarz – ostensibly about a lineal championship (that traces all the
way back to Wlad Klitschko, who beat no one the previous generation considered
great but is brother to a man who gave Lennox Lewis a couple tough rounds). 

Aficionados rightly saw the Schwarz thing for what
it was.  In case they didn’t ESPN, more
camp than champ, saved its greatest enthusiasm for Fury’s ringwalk.

Saturday’s ringwalk better include live dinosaurs
accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Less than that mayn’t reinflate the seeping Fury
balloon.  Ratings and press releases and multiplatform
coverage from ESPN will imply something else entirely, of course, but trust
your gut on this, come Sunday morning.

Fury’s style is not conducive to playing the
overdog.  Had he completed his denuding
of Wilder by remaining upright for 36 minutes Fury and his enablers would’ve had
another 18 months of goodwill to tinkle on. 
Alas, “Wilder &” Wilder dropped Fury often enough to dissuade any
loose immediate-rematch chatter from the lineal champ and make Wilder’s standard-loop
claims of being avoided feel a touch credible. 
Wilder’s folks, obviously, are in no real hurry to see their guy tested
again, or they simply do not know what they’re doing – but Luis “El Viejo”
Ortiz is still a more meaningful opponent at 40 1/2 than either of Fury’s recent
foes (if that fight actually happens). 

Which is all a fairly direct route to saying over
and again: Thank heavens for Andy Ruiz!

Ruiz’s stamping CUR on the nearest thing the
heavyweight division had to an undisputed champion is the one gift heavyweight
prizefighting gave us in 2019.  When he
does it again in December he will fairly well cut Fury out of the conversation
altogether.  However much Ruiz’s manager sacrificially
fed him to a rival promoter in June he’s still a PBC asset.  That means when AJ taps out again a few weeks
before Christmas, PBC will have each heavyweight belt except Fury’s imaginary
one.

It will require no imagination whatever for PBC to
host a fullthroated superfight in 2020, crowning a WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO Heavyweight
Champion of the World in a genuinely intriguing unification match between Ruiz
and Wilder.  Fury and Joshua will play
footsie for a year or two about a British-contenders-unite match whose purse
negotiations will not be helped by their post-Brexit economy. 

While the rest of the world forgets who they
are.  ESPN+ will have full coverage of
the negotiations and quite a few features about Tyson’s dad, “Gypsy John”, and
Anthony’s dad, Robert, with the striking, unforeseeable conclusion these men
influenced their sons.  “Not since I
promoted Muhammad Ali . . .” will go many of Bob Arum’s colorful quotes about Fury.

While we’re on about Arum let’s use one of his
best verbs: To dissipate.  About 15 years
ago I had a chance to ask Arum a few questions at a media gathering in a
Phoenix supermarket.  One of those
questions concerned what qualities he looked for in a prizefighter before
signing him, and Arum listed but one: “Does he dissipate between fights?”

If Fury hasn’t dissipated fractionally so much as
expected between fights, interest in his rematch with Wilder sure has.  As goes its flagship division, so goes our
beloved sport.  If there isn’t less
collective interest in boxing in 2019 there most certainly is not more, and
that’s with the full might of late-boom economics driving network acquisitions
and broadcast calendars.

Storm clouds now gather on the American economy’s
horizon, and while a recession may mint a new generation of prospects it’ll do
nil to prod this generation’s fatted calves towards greatness.  Showtime will follow HBO, while Fox follows
DAZN and ESPN to boxing’s destination platform: App Store.  Circus barkers will contrive a new language
of YouTube likes and trailing-month replays, and what few of us still write
regularly about the sport will begin a fifth or sixth search for green shoots while
the BWAA hasn’t a choice but to award boxing’s best tweeters.  Floyd and Manny will make a desperate
cashgrab of a rematch, and the old salts’ll use whatever gaudy revenue number
comes along to do a 27th installment of the Boxing Is Not Dead serial.

Whatevs. 
We’ll always have and must always cherish what Andy Ruiz did to Anthony
Joshua on June 1, 2019.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Anthony Joshua is unbeaten at home in the UK. He’s winless on the road.

It’s hard to know whether his record serves as much of a roadmap, but it might be a signpost of why he’s headed to Saudi Arabia, a site as unlikely as it is controversial for a heavyweight title fight.

Joshua, 22-0 in the UK and 0-1 on the road, has yet to prove he can fight away from the UK’s adoring fans and media. He even won his Olympic gold medal in 2012 at the London Games.

He could no wrong until he answered his first opening bell on foreign shores where Andy Ruiz Jr.’s fast hands left him looking confused and his fans betrayed throughout a stoppage loss at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The futile journey to New York June 1 was supposed to represent his first step toward would-wide celebrity. It was designed to raise American awareness of a UK heavyweight who had been sold and packaged as a transformational athlete. All it did, however, was raise a red flag.

It’s not exactly clear what happened in New York to Joshua, who was bewildered by Ruiz combinations throughout six-and half rounds. The bewildering defeat was followed by strange behavior. Joshua celebrated with Ruiz. He smiled like a naive kid who didn’t look as if he exactly knew where he was or why he was there.

“There’s pressure, being an ambassador for boxing, to be bigger than boxing,” Joshua said Thursday in a return to New York in the second stop of a three-city tour for the Saudi Arabian rematch with Ruiz. “That’s my ambition and I have to deal with it.”

Boxing needs another ambassador like it needs a new Don King. A genuine heavyweight champ isn’t created by diplomacy, although some of today’s matchmaking might suggest otherwise. It’s just about skill and will, a couple of ingredients that were missing in Joshua’s last performance.

Whether a sense-of-self shattered in New York can be repaired a half-year later in Saudi Arabia is anybody’s guess. But the journey might be worth the risk. Might be the only option, too.

A lot has been made of the site fee. Saudi Royals reportedly are paying $40 million to Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn for the right to a fight that has been called part of a PR campaign to clean up the country’s image with “sportswashing.” Forty million buys a lot of bone saws.

The trip to Saudi, however, also is an opportunity for Hearn to control much of what can never be controlled in New York. There’s still no clear news on how the fight will be regulated. Or by whom. It’s not even clear how many seats will be available in an arena still under construction.

It’s hard to imagine Joshua’s UK fans will want to travel to a country where they can’t buy a beer. They might just prefer to watch the bout on DAZN at home where they won’t need a ticket or a visa. Then, at least, a stocked refrigerator will be nearby in the event Joshua’s journey fails to produce a victory that says this heavyweight can still travel onto much bigger things.  

By Bart Barry-

Saturday a Thames riverboat ride east of London, one
of the world’s five best prizefighters, Ukrainian lightweight Vasiliy
Lomachenko, outfought Yorkshire’s Luke Campbell to collect Lomachenko’s third
of four sanctioning-body titles and defend his (much more meaningful) Ring
championship by unanimous decision.  It
was another test passed by Lomachenko, another test administered by a proctor
much stricter than those subs who passed him so flatteringly at the lower
grades.

The inverse logic of things being what it is an
exodus from the Lomachenko bandwagon is probably underway just when the bandstand
ought be overflowing.  As Lomachenko does
things that fulfill what hyperbole greeted his debut six years back, the
hyperbolists, many now out of business with HBO’s welldeserved demise, turn
their miniscule attention spans to new kids who turn sensational feats against
hopeless opposition.

With each Lomachenko title acquisition the
hyperbolists see more wear, less sublimity, more exposure.  These lads yearn for some highlight-ready
stuff like GGG duly delivers whenever matched at middleweight with welters.  Lomachenko tried that route for a spell – the
Rigondeaux debacle – then took the very next offramp.  If the hyperbolists forget it, the historians
shan’t. 

Rather than stay at his natural weight, blast
journeyman for easy money while occasionally preying on a brandname from a
couple divisions below, Lomachenko went above his proper weight and began to
unify titles by beating men who acquired those titles someway or another.

Luke Campbell is by no means boxing’s most-feared
man but he sure as hell wasn’t a cherrypick either.

While the hyperbolists hop off the Loma bandwagon,
I find myself gradually lumbering on.  I
verily enjoyed watching Lomachenko make battle with a man who did not fear him
or have reason to, a man against whom even the most balletic footwork wouldn’t
forego Saturday’s attrition requirement. 
Just as happened in his other three lightweight matches Lomachenko had
to strike Campbell multiples harder to get any English out of him.  Campbell fighting at home before some of our
beloved sport’s best (if often delusional) fans, too, added another inch and
five or so pounds to the Brit’s dossier.

In the midrounds Campbell did something dastardly
stupid if daring: Throw a halfnaked backhand uppercut whilst moving
forward.  That’s not Boxing-101 verboten,
because you don’t get to learn how to throw uppercuts till Boxing 102.  But no sooner do they put you on the gym’s
uppercut sack than they tell you never to throw the punch moving forward.

History has its share of cautionary clips to
explain why, but let Buster Douglas’ halfnaked backhand uppercut lead against
Evander Holyfield suffice.  Campbell’s
wasn’t telegraphed as Douglas’, no, and for that reason Lomachenko’s counter
left didn’t get leveraged fully as Holyfield’s rightcross in 1990, but it was telegraphed
enough, and Lomachenko looked almost euphoric at Campbell’s plunging forward.

Lomachenko’s counter left chastened Campbell and
then Lomachenko’s professionalism nearly ended Campbell’s night.  Knowing his opponent was gone wobblewoozy
Lomachenko went HAM to Campbell’s body and delivered the Brit to his corner
scrunchfaced wincing.  Had the exchange
happened at even super featherweight Campbell’d’ve seen naught of the
championship rounds.

And we’d be hearing Lomachenko is a force of
nature never before seen with gloved fists. 
But because Lomachenko wants posterity to regard him differently from
his generational peers the exchange happened 10 pounds above Lomachenko’s debut
weight, and Campbell, a significantly larger man, had himself another half
fight to strike and be struck by the smaller champion.

This is why we ask fighters who are not
heavyweights to rise through weightclasses and why even history’s best
heavyweights are underrepresented on all-time lists.  The more the consequences of a Lomachenko misstep
grow and the consequences of a Lomachenko punch diminish the less any of us
cares to hear a 15th recital on Lomachenko’s time in the ballroom.

Lomachenko needs all his wiles, these days, to jab
a fellow lightweight in the first four minutes they share, much less mesmerize
Max and Jim.  And since his opponents are
no longer imperiled by his mere reputation, Lomachenko now finds himself
subjected to what elbows and shoulders lighter men hadn’t the wherewithal to
throw.  Campbell spent a fair fraction of
his Saturday night reminding Lomachenko how many questionable acts might be fit
in the foggy chaos of a championship prizefight, borrowing occasionally from
Siri Salido’s forgotten blueprint.

What Lomachenko did Saturday brought no one to
mind so much as Manny Pacquiao.  He’s the
last man we saw climb weightclasses and so dominate their titlists, even if
there was an occasional cherrypick thrown in. 
Pacquiao is also instructive for this reason: What Pacquiao did and
found himself forced to do against other great prizefighters are why Pacquiao
is thrice the legend for all but the last second of what he did in the sixth
round of his fourth fight with Juan Manuel Marquez than he’d be for icing David
Diaz a dozen times.

Lomachenko is not Pacquiao and won’t be – fortune hasn’t
given him the era for it – but he is now admirably earning the premature
plaudits bestowed on him some years back, even if he’s having to do so in
challengers’ arenas on a mobile app.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim–

It’s a debate looking for a few good arguments. For the last few months, there haven’t been any. The pound-for-pound title is vacant these days.

Vasiliy Lomachenko hopes to change all of that Saturday in an attempt to knock the dormant out of the old debate in an interesting lightweight title fight against Luke Campbell in London.

Lomachenko has as good a chance as any to re-invigorate talk about who has a leading claim on No. 1. Among a few good men, Lomachenko might be the best.

“I think I’m the best, pound-for-pound,’’ Lomachenko (13-1, 10 KOs) told the UK’s Daily Mail this week during the usual hype before opening bell at O2 Arena (ESPN+, 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT). “Terence Crawford thinks he is. Canelo Alvarez thinks he is.

“For me, Crawford is second, Canelo is third.’’

No argument with Lomachenko’s claim or contenders. From this corner, Japanese bantamweight Naoya Inoue and Dallas welterweight Errol Spence Jr. also belong.

Both are unbeaten and each has a chance later this year to further their own argument – Spence against Shawn Porter on Sept. 28 at Los Angeles’ Staples Center and Inoue against Nonito Donaire on Nov. 7 at Saitama, Japan.

Of the five, Inoue might be in the best position to deliver the most powerful argument. He’ll be in his home country against a clever, yet fading Donaire, a Filipino-American whose name recognition in the United States will further awaken American interest in the intriguing Inoue.

For now, however, the first shot in re-awakening the pound-for-pound debate rests in Lomachenko’s creative hands, which continue to introduce new angles to a brutal geometry sometimes called The Sweet Science.

The guess here is that the resourceful Lomachenko will prevail, but not with the convincing performance he’ll need to win the pound-for-pound debate in 2019.

Above all, Campbell (20-2, 16 KOs) has some skill of his own. He’ll also be in his home country and the city where he won Olympic gold in the 2012 London Games. Above all, he is bigger than Lomachenko, who can be seen looking up at Campbell in photos of the ritual face-off this week.

At 5 feet 7, Lomachenko is two inches shorter than Campbell, who is listed at 5-9. Another key dimension: Campbell has a five-and-a-half advantage in reach over Lomachenko.

Lomachenko is a featherweight fighting two classes above his natural weight. There’s risk in that. It was evident in Lomachenko’s 10th-stoppage of lightweight Jorge Linares. Linares knocked him down in the sixth.

More of the same would not be a surprise in a bout Lomachenko figures to win, yet not without at least one moment that leaves questions about whether he is pound-for-pound’s undisputed No. 1.

It looks as if Lomachenko’s best chance at a performance that sweeps away the doubt is at 126 pounds. But against whom? Mikey Garcia was taken off the pound-for-pound board in his equally-risky jump in weight to welter in a one-sided loss to Spence at AT&T Stadium in March.

Spence’s victory over Garcia marks a beginning of the troubling silence in the pound-for-pound debate, a popular pastime, yet also a significant marker in determining the state of the game.

A vacant pound-for-pound crown is just another empty seat, and there have been too many of those lately. The good news is that no vacant seats are expected at the O2 Saturday. It’s a beginning, perhaps, at filling that vacancy at the top the game. 

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Hermosillo’s practically named Centro
de Usos Multiples, Sonora’s Juan Francisco “El Gallo” Estrada made a
harder-than-planned first defense of his Ring super flyweight championship
against North Carolina’s Dewayne “Mr. Stop Running” Beamon, on DAZN.  Estrada dropped Beamon twice in round 2 and
punched him till no vim remained in round 9, and Panamanian referee Abdiel
Barragan interceded at the right moment. 
Between rounds 2 and 9, though, Beamon gave Estrada a proper fitness
test.

Estrada is sensational in this way: If you might
employ a hybrid rating system, a blind sampling, that removes size and
ethnicity and purse and broadcaster hyperbole – raw raw, in lieu of rah rah –
he’d be top 5 on any list composed by an honest hand.  He is distinguished by his losses, oldschool
style, much as his wins.

Since 2011 Estrada has lost twice.  His first loss came to Chocolatito Gonzalez
in a fight that helped burnish Gonzalez’s ranking as the world’s best
prizefighter in any weight.  Estrada’s
second loss came to the man who violently stamped the end of Chocolatito’s reign,
Srisaket Sor Rungvisai.  The second loss
narrower than the first, and the first narrower
indeed than scorers had it.  Estrada is
the only Mexican heir in his generation to the master Juan Manuel Marquez;
Estrada somehow fulfilled coach Nacho Beristain’s vision in Sonora, some 2,000
km north of Mexico City, whilst Beristain played celebrity slapntickle with Son
of the Legend and (ghost of) The Golden Boy.

Canelo Alvarez is, of course, Mexico prizefighting’s
greatest financial draw, but despite his admirable pursuit of able competition,
Canelo hasn’t Estrada’s class or mettle. 
After losing to Chocolatito in a world title match at 108 pounds Estrada
fought Brian Viloria for a world title at 112 pounds, five months later, and
won a title Estrada defended five times. 
Then Estrada got outworked by Sor Rungvisai, the man who put Chocolatito
in shavasana pose like a chocolate yogi – not outpunched or stiffened, mind
you, only outworked.  And in April when
the rematch happened with Sor Rungvisai, Estrada went directly at one of our
sport’s hardest punchers and snatched his title.

All of that is a hell of a throatclearing preamble
to writing this: Estrada didn’t look great Saturday against an otherwise-anonymous,
34-year-old Carolinian named Dewayne Beamon (whom the Spanish-language
broadcast assured us gave up promising careers in both basketball [5-foot-5]
and football [114 1/2 pounds] to pursue boxing).  Some of that was Estrada, but more of it was
Beamon. 

Here’s the part that was Estrada.  Making a first world-title defense in his
home state of Sonora since 2015 Estrada found himself subjected to all the
distracting ills of a homecoming – ticket requests, camp visits, interviews
with the local daily.  Those distractions
told in Estrada’s conditioning.  Estrada
would daze Beamon with a counter then unload on him with leads then spend a
bemused next round with his mouth open. 
The oftener that pattern happened, the infrequenter Estrada soldout the
attack.  Often as not after round 4
Estrada didn’t put it on Beamon until or unless Beamon pissed him off.

Beamon, frankly, was too savvy to do that very
often.  If Estrada’s conditioning was
suspect Beamon’s was not.  The Carolinian
trained for a world title challenge in the champ’s hometown and acted like
it.  He absorbed very fine punches from a
very fine prizefighter and didn’t wilt till well offschedule.  Class told eventually, but that eventuality
arrived later than aficionados expected and way way later than Estrada penciled
it in camp.

That tardiness was, in some part, a matter of
class.  Estrada is a masterful
counterpuncher accustomed to landing apex predators on his fists.  Which is to write the force of Beamon’s
attack wasn’t great enough to turn concussively against him – the same way a
hitter might drive an 80 mph fastball to the warning track with the same swing
he’d land a 100 mph fastball in the bleachers. 

Beamon never really got the angle calculated for
his righthand.  While we’re playing with
baseball metaphors, let’s go here: Beamon, accustomed to much lesser hitters,
didn’t hide the ball coming out of his windup. 
However it looked on flatscreen, something Beamon did gave away his
righthand, and Estrada perceived it early every time.  Sometimes Estrada went Mexican with that
perception and ate Beamon’s right glove to emasculate discourage the challenger
a bit.  Most of the time Estrada let the
punch flash over him by the narrowest possible margin.

The two or three times Beamon threw the
telegraphed righthand and neither of the above scenarios played out, the two or
three times Beamon put a sting on Estrada, the champ retaliated swiftly and
disproportionately.

But here’s the thing about Beamon.  He acquitted himself very well in his role of
designated homecoming opponent, giving Estrada far more than his paycheck
anticipated.  Beamon was not going to
decision Estrada in Sonora and he wasn’t going to knock him stiff either, and
if the rest of us knew that during the ringwalk, Beamon surely knew it a
quarterhour before he succumbed.  That
Beamon’s shoulders didn’t sag till round 9 speaks to Beamon’s character and
speaks of it well.  “Mr. Stop Running” –
no, that nickname doesn’t work any more elegantly in Spanish – went in on the
champion, one of the world’s best prizefighters, and got his money’s worth.  A good thing for Beamon, Estrada and the rest
of us.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Sunday represents a sad anniversary. John McCain, statesman and soldier, died a year ago on August 25 on his Arizona ranch, about 100 miles north of an NHL arena in nearby Phoenix where ESPN was about to televise a fight card.

An opening bell was followed by 10 bells, a mournful memorial for a former amateur fighter who was called “the boxing Senator” by Bob Arum. McCain’s death wasn’t a surprise. His battle with cancer was public. And painful.

Yet, the timing was almost haunting. He died, 81, at about the same time young fighters, kids, on the undercard began to make that long walk from the dressing room to the ring. McCain identified with them. He had been one of them at the Naval Academy.

Later in life, he fought for them, a powerful advocate for young men from tough streets who knew that only their fists would fight for them.

McCain wrote, lobbied and pushed through the Muhammad Ali Act, which was introduced in 1999 and enacted in 2000.

McCain is gone, but the Ali Act is still there. It’s a small part of McCain’s many-sided legacy, seemingly made more powerful 12 months after his death. McCain stands in stark contrast with a president who did not like him and has always been quick to rip him. In life. In death.

The unfathomable depth of Donald Trump’s anger – call it hate – for McCain often makes me wonder why he hasn’t tried to rescind the Ali Act, which includes an attempt to ensure some financial transparency.

After all, Trump pardoned Jack Johnson without ever mentioning McCain or his tireless leadership in pushing for one. Trump, too, learned a trick or two in the boxing business with Don King. King lied about crowds long before Trump ever did. Yet even with Mike Tyson on the marquee, Trump drove his Atlantic City casino into bankruptcy.

Maybe, Trump is just too busy, what with Greenland and all. The sad truth, however, is that the Ali Act just doesn’t matter much. It has never been enforced the way McCain hoped it would.

Early on, it did force promoters to open up their books to fighters, who have a right to know what the gross income is expected to be. They are only negotiating for their fair share of that projected pie. That financial transparency is one reason boxers still make more money than mixed-martial artists get from the UFC, which is not subject to the Ali Act

But everything else about the legislation – conflicts of interest, enhanced safety measures – have been mostly ignored. Like his pursuit of the Johnson pardon, McCain had hoped to further empower the Ali Act with patience and time. But there was never enough interest in it from McCain’s Congressional colleagues. It’s still a law, but it’s little bit like the speed limit. Nobody pays attention to it anymore.

Two deaths in the wake of McCain’s death, however, are reason to re-energize his pursuit of some rhyme, regulation and reason instead of the usual chaos. Two of the kids with whom McCain identified are gone, dead from head trauma suffered in bouts.

First, Russian junior-welterweight Maxim Dadashev died July 23, about four days after fighting in Maryland. Two days later, Argentine junior-welterweight Hugo Santillan died from injuries sustained in a fight in Buenos Aires.

A shocked game moved on, as it always does. The attention quickly turned to what Canelo Alvarez isn’t doing and what Gennadiy Golovkin will do. There’s always another opening bell, which is another way of saying it’s business as usual.

If McCain were still alive, however, it’s fair to say he’d be calling for a thorough investigation in Maryland and an update of the Ali Act. But the Arizona Senator’s voice is long gone. What he left, however, was a blueprint, still a pathway to ensure that death never becomes usual in the boxing business.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Trouble between Canelo Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions isn’t exactly a surprise. Seeds and signs of discontent have been circulating for at least a year.

It’s not clear how it will end. For now, Golden Boy is saying all is okay, meaning business as usual will continue despite news a couple of weeks ago that Canelo is unhappy.

That wasn’t a mere rumor. It came from him in a social-media salvo full of frustration at how he said he was kept in the dark by Golden Boy throughout the futility that led to the International Boxing Federation’s move to strip him of its middleweight title.

Canelo wanted answers.

A couple of weeks later, it’s not clear how many he got. There was a reported meeting this week about what to do next, or at least when to do it.

November 2 is the proposed date for Canelo’s next bout, his fourth since signing a $365-million landmark deal with DAZN. Golden Boy president Eric Gomez told ESPN Thursday that the first Saturday in November has been placed on the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s agenda for consideration at its meeting on Tuesday.

But there’s not much else about where or even against whom. There are only the questions.

Demetrius Andrade, who holds the World Boxing Organization’s 160-pound belt, still appears to be the most likely foe. But there’s also persistent talk that Canelo, who has a World Boxing Council “franchise belt” and the World Boxing Association’s title, is still thinking about a jump up to light-heavy for a shot at Sergey Kovalev, who fights Anthony Yarde on Aug. 24 in Russia.

Just a guess, but DAZN executive John Skipper’s preference might be Kovalev. Andrade could be a tougher challenge for Canelo. But Andrade is not as well-known as Kovalev, who generated headlines throughout controversial losses to Andre Ward, first in 2016 and again in 2017.

Kovalev also might be a perfect fit for Canelo in a PR battle to halt the erosion in the Mexican’s popularity. In boxing’s traditional good-versus-evil plot, Kovalev would play the bad guy. He’s a natural.

There are lots of reasons for fans to wonder why they like Canelo. Against Kovalev, however, he’d look good in comparison and perhaps even better in fact if he wins definitively. Winning, however, is the risk. Kovalev has proven to be resilient since Ward.

The Russian is still dangerous. For Canelo, however, there’s more danger to his career and public persona if he doesn’t try to halt a string of controversy that has left fans exasperated.

First, there were negotiations with just about everybody but Gennadiy Golovkin.  Then, there was the announcement that Canelo would forgo his expected bout on Sept. 14, a date that would coincide with Mexico’s annual Independence Day on Sept. 16. Then, there were failed talks with Ukrainian middleweight Sergiy Derevyanchenko and the IBF’s subsequent stripping.

Canelo apologized to the fans in the same message that asked Golden Boy for answers. But fans aren’t very forgiving. Guess here, they want Kovalev, more than an apology or an Andrade.

For a while, at least, a winnable bout at 175-pounds against Kovalev might make fans forget about Golovkin while also re-assuring DAZN that it made a good investment. GGG would still be there, waiting and ready for a third fight. For now, however, GGG is off the board. But Kovalev will be there, if – as expected – he beats Yarde, a UK prospect.

Kovalev and a Canelo victory over the feared Russian also might be the only way Golden Boy and Canelo can start over. It’s a risk, but business-as-usual poses even bigger risks.

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: For part 18, please click here

MEXICO CITY – Beautiful is a word I didn’t think to
associate with this city before visiting because I’d not heard anyone call it
that, and so perhaps I’ll be its first.  After
nearly a dozen encounters with its airport I am for a first time without its
airport, in La Condesa neighborhood specifically (11 kilometers west of Romanza
Gym), and nearly enchanted by the city’s beauty.

It is doubtful either the Brothers Marquez, on
their first trip to Romanza, or their mentor and trainer, Nacho Beristain, would
recognize very much of their city that I’ve seen and plan to describe.  This neighborhood is “fifí”; a playfully
derogatory Spanish term, like “spoiled” or “snobbish”, that invests its target
with a pride proportionate to its speaker’s envy.  It is Barcelona much more than Ciudad Juarez
and remarkably devoid of what dust and noise dominates most Latin American
capitals from here to Patagonia.

The people are more courteous, or at least less
numerous, than anticipated.  And about
them, here’s an observational parallel: The populations of Mexico’s two largest
cities mirror the populations of the United States’ two largest cities both in
appearance and mien.  Mexico’s
second-most-populous city, Guadalajara, has the beautiful people – just like Los
Angeles.  Mexico’s most-populous city,
this one, has the ambitious ones – just like New York.  There’s a quicker pace here than in Guadalajara;
one imagines it far easier to move from here than to move to here; if few
passersby could pass by beauty alone in Guadalajara, they come from a place
where no one passes by beauty alone.

This neighborhood is aspirational bohemian (a
redundancy in most cases, that) and traffics in the expected incongruencies of
the combination.  Lots of serious eyeglass
frames and fashion beards complemented by an inexplicable tendency to sit among
familiars and exaggerate to strangers – effectively, to care less about the
opinions of those you see daily than those whom you’ll never see again.  In the Massachusetts of my youth we’d’ve
called most guys here “faggy”, but the slur strikes me as entirely
inappropriate today for more than just the obvious reason.

Thirty-five years ago we called each other by gay
slurs in large part because we didn’t know any gay people, or if we did, we
didn’t know we did – I can confidently state I never called a gay classmate by
a gay slur because, by dint of inexperience and misperception, the guys I
targeted went on to have wives and children. 
We used gay slurs to imply something like fifí – delicate, preoccupied
by others’ judgments, unlikely to mate. 
And therein lies an irony one sees quite a bit in this city but especially
in Nuevo Polanco, with its art collections and homage plazas built by Carlos
Slim.

The only obviously mated folks are the gay
ones.  While their ostensibly
heterosexual peers engage with platonic hugs and fraternal banter, the men who
like men are kissing, the women who like women are holding hands, the only
couples anyone can say with confidence are coupled share the same gender.  It’s delicious ironic for an American raised
in the airhead morality of “family values” th’t in 2019 the only men in our
continent’s largest city secure enough in their masculinity to show public love
are those gazing longingly in other men’s eyes.

Dude, this is getting uncomfortable.  Can we get back to Juan Manuel or Rafael?

I thought of them a bit a few days ago in Papalote
Museo del Niño, this country’s largest children’s museum, as the young guides
doggedly presented their educational wares to father and son alike.  Unlike their lessinspired American
counterparts in San Antonio’s DoSeum, a sister venue with a video feed into
Papalote, coincidentally, Mexican guides do not allow failures in their
exhibitions.  You sit at a table, whether
to assemble from papercups a windtunnel-ready flying saucer or to repair a
deadbolt lock, and you do not leave till your work is complete – lest a guide
less than half your age lecture you on what a poor example you’re setting as a
quitter.  And it works.  You feel triumphant when you eventually win
that teenager’s stern approval.

It made me wonder what Beristain told the Brothers
Marquez during their first week in his gym. 
Did he have to tell them the consequences of their new vocation? did he
have to invest them with the seriousness of their hoped-for craft? was Rafael
already the more physically gifted specimen? was it obvious to Beristain?

At Castillo de Chapultepec the next day I thought
of Marco Antonio Barrera, as I often do. 
Also a chilango – and that’s a loaded term, too, as Ciudad de Mexico is
no longer a federal district but recently a state of its own surrounded by a
state named Mexico in a country named Mexico, though a city-cum-state whose
residents may or may not still call themselves chilangos and probably should be
offended if you were to – Barrera somehow doesn’t belong in a boxing gym, in my
imagining of him.  While Juan Manuel
Marquez labors under Beristain’s tyrannical tutelage in Romanza, Barrera gazes
across his city’s extraordinarily large forest park from the ramparts of Maximilian’s
royal home and relies solely on contempt for opponents to prepare himself.

Did you forget Barrera and Marquez fought 12 years
ago?  I had.  Then it came to me while touring the castle,
in a memory of Barrera’s petulant scowl when he dropped Marquez on his gloves
at the end of round 7, paused for two full beats to line him up, and then
clocked his felled opponent with a right uppercut.  Cold contempt, not rage – an almost comical
contempt.

A beautiful city filled with aspirational
inhabitants incubated contempt, apparently, in one of our beloved sport’s
largest brains.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Two deaths within a few days in late July are part of a dangerous trend for fighters, whose safety was addressed with a sense of growing concern and urgency by officials throughout the sport this week at a convention of the Association of Boxing Commissions.

The Association (ABC) met for five days in Scottsdale, Ariz., for its annual conference in the wake of Russian junior-welterweight Maxim Dadashev’s death on July 23 in Maryland and Argentine Hugo Santillan’s death on July 25 in Buenos Aires from injuries sustained in the ring.

The deaths follow serious injuries suffered by Canadian light-heavyweight Adonis Stevenson, welterweight Zab Judah, Mexican bantamweight Felipe Orucuta and Christian Castillo, the son of former lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo.

Stevenson, a former 175-pound champion, underwent emergency surgery and was placed in a medically-induced coma following an 11th-round knockout loss to Ukrainian Oleksandr Gvozdyk on Dec. 1 in Quebec City.

Judah, a former champion at 140 and 147 pounds, was hospitalized with bleeding on his brain after an 11th-round KO loss to Cletus Seldin on June 7 in Verona, N.Y.

Orucuta, a two-time challenger for major titles, suffered a brain injury, also on June 7, in a knockout loss to Jonathan Rodriquez in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. He underwent emergency surgery to remove a blood clot.

Stevenson, 41, was able to walk and talk two months after surgery.

Judah, also 41, was “awake, communicating with his family and doctors and making progress,” Star Boxing promoter Joe DeGuardia told ESPN two days after the injury. Judah’s family asked for privacy, DeGuardia said.

Orucuta, 33, was awake and showing signs of improvement last week, according to reports in the Mexican media.

Castillo remained hospitalized late Thursday after suffering an injury last week while sparring for his second pro fight scheduled for last Friday in Tijuana, according to ESPN Deportes. His condition was complicated by pneumonia, according to the report.

“We are all concerned,’’ said World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman, who attended the ABC convention.

Symposiums on drug testing and safety dominated the convention’s agenda, including one conducted by Sulaiman, whose Mexico City-based organization is monitoring weight with periodic weigh-ins for its champions and leading contenders. Wild fluctuations in weight are believed to be a factor in ring injuries and fatalities.

“Weight is a key,’’ said Sulaiman, whose organization also sponsors VADA – the voluntary drug testing program run by former Nevada ringside physician Dr. Margaret Goodman. “There are many things we have to consider and research. It is a process. There are bad matches. Late substitutions are dangerous There are injuries suffered in the gym. Many things can happen and do.’’

It’s not clear what any regulatory agency or sanctioning body can do, however. Boxing is inherently dangerous, made more dangerous by a lack of uniformity in the regulations that govern it in from country-to-country, state-to-state. Despite the Muhammad Ali Act, there is still no single governing body in the United States.

The Ali Act’s author, Arizona Senator John McCain, died last September. A fan and advocate, McCain was seen as the last real proponent of boxing regulation in government. Without him, there has been little interest or energy to enhance or enforce the Ali Act. This year’s ABC convention honored McCain’s role in boxing. His son, James McCain, was the keynote speaker as the convention concluded its business with a banquet Wednesday night.

`

Still, the ABC has no real authority. It can only advise and educate. It has no real role in an expected investigation of the Dadashev death by the Maryland State Athletic Commission and its executive director, Patrick Pannella

“We will support Patrick in every we can,’’ said Brian Dunn, a Nebraska commissioner who was elected the ABC’s new president this week. Legal advice, whatever we can do. This happens in boxing.’’

Happens too often.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in a junior welterweight title-unification
match broadcast by the aficionado’s network, DAZN, California’s Jose Ramirez stopped
Texan Maurice Hooker midway through a wonderfully compelling fight that ended with
extraordinary abruptness.  Eighteen-and-a-half
minutes in, the men looked equally formidable. 
Eighteen seconds later, Hooker lay collapsed on the whiteropes, a blueshirt
his only protection from Ramirez’s ferocity.

Both men distinguished themselves by daring to
ratify their once-vacant titles. 
Promoters and their matchmakers are too good to be believed, and so the
winner of a vacant title is not credible till he’s fought a fellow titlist.  We now know Ramirez is the real thing.  And we know Hooker is the real thing, too,
though slightly less of that thing than Ramirez.

If neither man was allowed comfort before the
other, a minutely tally’d’ve found Ramirez acting as discomfitter, not
Hooker.  There was the promise of Hooker’s
substantial rightcross to keep Ramirez sober at every charge, a source of
instant anxiety for Ramirez to be sure, but it was a tool Ramirez solved and
dulled in the fight’s opening quarter.  Ramirez
did this with timing and footwork, somethings he doubtlessly learned before joining
trainer Robert Garcia’s stable.

If you have an amateur pedigree – which means
you’ve involuntarily boxed through your youth against every style and ethnicity
– before you pilgrim to Oxnard, Garcia takes your skillful foundation, puts it
in smaller gloves and commands you attack. 
If you haven’t a skillful foundation, Garcia nevertheless puts you in
smaller gloves and commands you attack. 
As we saw in his younger brother’s spring whitewashing contra Errol
Spence, Coach Robert carries no plans B to ringside in his spitbucket; any exam
question whose answer is not “more aggression” gets left blank for later – a generation
later.

Fortunately for Fresno aficionados Jose Ramirez,
an Olympian, brought skills galore to Oxnard when he arrived a year ago.  That meant Garcia’s plan A, more aggression,
was exactly matched to Saturday’s moment. 
It wasn’t necessarily that an Olympian like Ramirez couldn’t stay
outside and win a boxing match with Hooker, that was about a 40/60 proposition,
it was that there was no reason to try it. 
Hooker’s every advantage disintegrated once Ramirez was within his arms’
length of Hooker.  And Ramirez’s
advantages multiplied proportionate to every inch nearer after that.  Hooker knew this, Ramirez knew this.

Hooker outsmarted himself, though, figuring in round
5 he might do a little sabbatical on the ropes and let Ramirez get tired of
punching.  That was the lapse that cost
Hooker his title.  What happened in a
couple seconds in round 6, Hooker’s straightback headpulling that set his chin
on a tee for Ramirez’s left fist and the legs’ jellying and Ramirez’s swift
adaptation and Hooker’s utter defenselessness, all that, came of Hooker’s vanished
judgement the round before.

There are ways to discourage and fatigue volume
punchers like Ramirez, but none of them permits him to put knuckles on
you.  Knuckling you puts that breed of
man in his most comfortable place.  He’s
no longer burning calories at fractionally the rate you think he is, especially
if you’re a rangy puncher accustomed to throwing on your preferred timetable.

Ali rope-a-doped Foreman, remember, not Frazier.  You rope-a-dope a slugger, and he
autodiscourages by failing to harm you the way experience told him he
would.  You rope-a-dope a boxer, and he
retreats to the opposite ropes, and y’all feint at one another till the ref
starts deducting points.  But you
rope-a-dope a volume puncher, and you leave in an ambulance.

Too soon?

Let’s have a treatment of our beloved sport’s
deadly past week, then.  We are expected
to examine our collective conscience at times like these, I know, perform
public acts of expiation, and especially if we write for daily periodicals
whose pacifistic editors tsk-tsk our ways.

Good news, there.  In 2019 none of us writes for daily periodicals.

That means much of last week’s atonement was
habitual more than sincere.  We know this
because it all reduced to a massive shrug from the moral lowground, or else
niggling about pet safety issues – like tiptoeing a matchstick bridge across a
firepit licking.

Here’s an easier calculus for you, the aficionado:
Do you watch fights hoping to see a brainbleed or death?

No, you don’t. 
Then that’s that.  You’re not
obligated to justify yourself further. 
Those who would ban our sport are unserious; if they coulda, they
woulda.  Those who wish to make
prizefighting safer verily miss the point – our sport survives by dint of its
peril; safe prizefighting is oxymoronic. 

Some primal, though enduring (and thus still not vestigial),
human trait requires public acts of violence. 
In this sense the ban-boxing brigade recalls a Chris Rock joke about
needing bullies, because a couple decades of banning bullying in our schools meant
that when an actual bully showed up in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, no
one knew what to do.

Jose Ramirez would know what to do, and for that
matter so would Maurice Hooker, and if watching them punch one another doesn’t
quite tell us what to do it at least reminds us occasions for punching one
another still exist, however many millennia since our ancestors emigrated from their
caves.  There is real violence within
most of us, and it thrills the spirit. 
That isn’t a solution for prizefighters’ deaths and damages or even a
prescription for a solution.  It is an
amoral report of where and what we are – an act of acceptance, not contrition.

*

Editor’s note: This column will be on summer vacation
next week.

*

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Fraueheim-

Boxing has been called life in a shot glass. From tragedy to triumph, it’s all there all at once, 180-proof. It tests your limits, takes you for a dizzy ride and sometimes leaves you in the gutter.

This week is one of those times.

Two deaths – first Russian junior-welterweight Maksim Dadashev Tuesday from injuries sustained in a fight Friday in Maryland and then Argentine junior-welter Hugo Santillan Thursday after a bout Saturday in Buenos Aires — just days after celebrating a dramatic display of skill, guts, resilience and class in Manny Pacquiao’s split-decision over Keith Thurman leaves a hangover full of troublesome questions. Doubts about why we watch.

I had other plans for this week’s column. There was the 40-year-old Pacquiao and a legacy that continues to make history. There was Errol Spence Jr. and his hopes to maybe fight Pacquiao and his determination to one day face Terence Crawford.

But none of that seemed to matter after the deaths of young fighters known by few of us. Dadashev was 28. Santillan was 23. They were young guys who labored on undercards for small purses and in front of empty seats.

Nobody much cares about them as fighters. But we care about them in death, because, I think, of what it says about us. If the unknowns can die, the great ones can, too. There’s no immortality on either side of the ropes.

In that ever-present danger, there’s drama.

A dilemma, too, and it’s inescapable.

They give – make that gave – it all in game compelling because of what it takes to conquer the fear. Fighters accept that risk. Fans are there to see how they deal with it. Unlike just about any other sport in this universe, there’s no ambivalence about what we’re watching and perhaps why some watch and some won’t.

In another lifetime, I used to cover auto racing, mostly NASCAR in Daytona. Drivers died. I always believed many of the more than 100,000 fans jammed into the Speedway were there just because any race was always a blown tire away from a massive accident.

Death would happen. That was always a danger and, in fact, part of the tension that drew those fans to the track. But it was also a byproduct.

The drivers weren’t there to disable each other.

But boxers are.

There wouldn’t be boxing if not for each fighter’s intent to disable the other. That’s the difference and it’s a dramatic one. It is as honest as it stark, a reason why many people just won’t watch. Boxing’s abolitionists figure to repeat their demand that the sport be outlawed in the wake of this week’s deaths. I can’t argue with them. I can’t agree with them, either. That’s part of the aforementioned dilemma.

Much, perhaps too much, about boxing offends the reasonable people concerned about the long-term damage done to the boxers who do survive. I understand. But I also understand that young men will always fight in the ring or on the street. Unregulated or regulated, they’ll fight with intent and no doubt about the danger.

Over the years, I have learned to sit at ringside for every fight on every undercard, no matter how big the main event. I didn’t know Dadashev. I didn’t know Santillan. But I have watched fighters like them for years and my admiration for their courage has grown during the many rounds before Pacquiao, or Floyd Mayweather, or Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin.

I’m there because of what might happen, what did happen to Dadashev and Santillan. I’ll be there, at ringside, all over again and I’ll pray I won’t have to write about another ring death. But that’s hoping against hope. Life in boxing’s shot glass means death, too.

BALTIMORE – July 25, 2019 – Two-time super featherweight champion and Baltimore native Gervonta “Tank” Davis went face to face with mandatory challenger Ricardo Núñez Thursday at the final press conference before Davis defends his WBA title in his hometown this Saturday from Royal Farms Arena in an event presented by Premier Boxing Champions.

Also in attendance Thursday and competing in SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING action Saturday beginning at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT were former world champions Yuriorkis Gamboa and Roman “Rocky” Martinez, who compete in a 10-round lightweight showdown, plus rising contender Ladarius “Memphis” Miller and former champion Jezreel Corrales, who also compete in a 10-round lightweight affair.

Tickets for the event, which is promoted by Mayweather Promotions and TGB Promotions in association with GTD Promotions, can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com and at the Royal Farms Box Office Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. ET to 5 p.m. ET.

Davis vs. Núñez is the first world championship in Baltimore in nearly 50 years and Davis will become the first champion from Baltimore to defend his title at home in nearly 80 years. Davis has been fully embraced by his hometown leading up to his championship defense, including a ceremony at City Hall on Wednesday where Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young presented him the the Key to the City.

Here is what the press conference participants had to say Thursday from the Baltimore Convention Center:

GERVONTA DAVIS

“Coming back to Baltimore and bringing this big event to the city means a lot. I’m training with my brothers that I grew up with and I’m around family and friends. It’s exciting.

“The main reason why I wanted to come back home was because of people getting killed in this city. I want to be seen as one of the people who can bring the city together on a positive note. I fought in LA, London and New York, so it was about time for me to come home.

“Camp has been great. I can’t wait to put on a show Saturday night. I appreciate Núñez for taking this fight. This undercard has great fights and possible future opponents for me. I’m just soaking it all in right now.

“July 27 we’re going to put on a great show, me and Núñez. We both have big knockout power and may the best man win. I hope he’s ready, because I was born ready.

“I had a hard camp, so I don’t think it’s going to go past five rounds. I’m in a good space in my career and I’m excited to get in the ring.

“He’s a confident fighter with a lot of knockouts. We’re taking him seriously. It’s going to be a great night. He’s coming to take my spot. He’s coming up into my house, so I’ll be ready.

“People are going to see that I’m serious on Saturday. The rest of the division and everyone calling me out better be ready too. It’s all business on Saturday.

“It feels amazing to have this support from my city. I’m working my way up to being a big star and it’s unbelievable. I’m anxious and excited to get in the ring. I don’t want to rush the moment, because I should enjoy it. I’m soaking it all in.

“I know I’m facing a good fighter who can crack. I’m not taking him lightly at all. Mentally and physically I’m all-in. I have the whole city on my back and I have to come in there and show up on Saturday.

“I believe that Núñez is excited to be a part of this. He’s not scared and he’s enjoying the moment like I am. Hopefully he’s at his best Saturday night, but he won’t know how good I am until he gets in the ring. Right now it’s a game to him, but we’ll see Saturday night.”

RICARDO NÚÑEZ

“This is my first time in the United States and Baltimore is a beautiful city. I’m excited to bring a great fight to these fans. It’s my first time fighting for a world title and I’m happy to take advantage of it.

“I’ve had a strict diet and strong training camp. We’re going to give the fans a great party on Saturday night and it’s going to be a great fight.

“I have a high knockout percentage and I know that I can knock Gervonta Davis out. When we get in the ring, we will see who’s the best. He’s the champion, but I’m here to take the victory. I’m here to win.

“Losses make you stronger. The loss I had made me more focused on the sport. I’ve worked harder in my training camp since then.

“We’re a few days out from the fight and I’m ready to knock him out and win the title. Anything can happen in the ring, so I hope he’s ready. The world is going to know who I am after this fight.

“I’m very confident about this fight. It’s going to be a great fight but I will get the victory. I’ve been in the gym working harder than I ever have. I can’t speak for him, but I hope he’s worked hard too.

“My style is to wait to see how my opponent fights and then adjust from there. No matter what, I’m a hard puncher.

“Saturday night it’s going to be a big spectacle. My entire country is going to be watching. I think we are going to see a knockout, not sure in what round, but we may get one.

“Hardship led me to boxing. When my first daughter was born I was unemployed, I worked construction to make ends meet. I found boxing soon after and here I am.

“We’ve watched tape on Davis. We have studied him, broken his style down and we have a solid game plan. He’s not going to see me coming.

“My idol in boxing is my fellow Panamanian Roberto Duran and I want to do be able to do the things he has for our country. I’m here to make a great name for myself and my country.”

YURIORKIS GAMBOA

“This is a wonderful fight and a wonderful opportunity for me. We’re ready and Team Gamboa has made great efforts to prepare for this fight. I’m ready to get this victory on Saturday night.

“My focus is completely on Martinez. After this fight, we’re definitely looking to fight Gervonta Davis next. We’re going to be prepared for that fight too and we’ll be ready to come out with a victory there too.

“The difference with this fight has been the excellent preparation. In my previous fights I was not able to prepare with the proper time frame that I usually get for a fight. For this fight I have had excellent preparation.

“I think he brings a lot of experience to the table but so do I. I think it is going to be a very good fight because we’re two boxers with great experience. On Saturday, we’re going to find out who is the best.

“I am not in the prediction business but I have prepared and I am going to give my best on Saturday.”

ROMAN MARTINEZ

“I’ve had a very good camp for this fight. I’ve been working hard since my last fight. I’m facing a good fighter in Gamboa, but I have everything I need to take the victory back to Puerto Rico.

“I know that Gamboa is a well-rounded fighter with a lot of experience. But I have a lot of experience as well and that’s going to help me get this victory.

“I’ve kept getting stronger and kept in good shape since my loss. I think all of that work will show itself in the ring on Saturday.

“We’ve sparred with people who move and have similar styles to Gamboa’s. I think that’s going to help me expose some of the defensive flaws that my opponent has.”

LADARIUS MILLER

“I had a great camp. I’m prepared to fight a former world champion and a warrior. Jezreel is a tough competitor. He’s done something that I’m trying to do, which is become a world champion. He’s a great stepping stone for my career.

“On July 27 I’m ready to showcase my skills and talent. I’m here for a reason. I come from a rough background but I’m here now. Whatever it takes to come out victorious on July 27, I’m ready.

“I feel like I have the power to stop Corrales. His chin has been suspect his whole career. He’s gone down in a few fights. I respect him because he’s a true champion, but I feel like his chin is suspect. I want to go out there and test it out.

“I know that Corrales is here trying to make his presence felt. What he’s done, doesn’t mean anything to me. I know what I’m capable of. This is nothing new to me. He’s going to be in for a rude awakening Saturday night.”

JEZREEL CORRALES

“I want to thank everyone who made this opportunity possible. This was a great training camp and I worked hard to perform at my best on this stage.

“We’re here to fight and I’m well prepared to take the victory home on Saturday night. My power and my preparation is going to be the difference in this fight.

“I have everything that I need to beat Miller on Saturday. He’s never faced anyone like me. My experience and the strength will be like nothing he’s ever seen.

“In the ring, anything is possible. When you have heart and go into the ring, you can make anything happen. I’m more than ready to leave it in the ring on Saturday.”

LEONARD ELLERBE, CEO of Mayweather Promotions

“Thank you for everyone coming out. Baltimore is a city that has raised world champions and the city continues to prosper with this very special homecoming this Saturday night featuring Baltimore’s own, Gervonta ‘Tank; Davis taking on Ricardo Núñez.

“This is more than two fighters going head to head in the ring. This is an inspiration to Gervonta’s hometown, and his fans and peers coming behind him, that anything is possible, even when the odds are against you.

“This is an event where we all get to witness what a historic and iconic city Baltimore is, and one that hasn’t seen a world title defense from one of their own in almost 80 years. It is a homecoming for our two-time world champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and Mayweather Promotions is really looking forward to promoting our first boxing event here in this city that has birthed a star with a fight of this magnitude.

“We’re rolling out the red carpet at Royal Farms Arena, and ladies and gentlemen, I promise you from top to bottom that this will be a very very entertaining and exciting card.”

STEPHEN ESPINOZA, President Sports and Event Programming, Showtime Networks Inc.

“Let me start off by asking a basic question. Why are we here? We’ve got a really strong three card fight, that’s obvious. We’ve got a little of everything. We have an Olympic Gold Medalist, we have three former world champions, we’ve got six quality fighters in the lighter weight divisions and we’ve got great match-ups.

“In Ladarius Miller vs. Jezreel Corrales we have an up-and-coming contender against a former 130-pound champion. The co-feature battle is between two former 130-pound champions. Cuban Gold Medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa is long known as one of the most exciting fighters in boxing, and he’s up against three-time champion Roman Martinez.

“The two fighters in our main event have a combined record of 44 fights and 39 KOs and I know they’re both looking to make Saturday a short night. This is the first time ever for SHOWTIME in Baltimore. This is the first Baltimore world title fight since 1970. Gervonta is the first Baltimore native to defend in his hometown in almost 80 years. But how did we get here? It’s really due to two men: Calvin Ford and Gervonta Davis.

“Coach Calvin is reserved and quiet. He certainly doesn’t talk about himself a lot. I am glad to see that he is getting the recognition that he deserves, not just as a boxing trainer, but as a trainer of young men, because that is what is at the heart of what Calvin Ford does at his gym. It’s not about building world champions in boxing, it’s about building world champions in life. This is a little taste of the spotlight for coach Calvin and I’m happy to see him get it because he does 99.99 percent of his work outside of the spotlight with no one watching and no one giving credit.

“The other reason we’re here is because of Gervonta Davis. The story about Gervonta starts for me in 2014 when Leonard and Floyd Mayweather first brought him to my attention. Obviously Gervonta and Calvin had been working together well before that and as long as I’ve known ‘Tank’, he’s talked about coming home to fight in Baltimore. But what’s really impressive about that is that this is not just about fighting at home, it’s not just about doing it for fans, it’s not just an ego thing. This is about giving back to his community because the reality is, this is not just a fight.

“This is an entire event that will produce massive financial benefits for Baltimore. We are all here because of these two men’s’ desire to be here. If ‘Tank’ hadn’t insisted to do this, then none of us are here and the community is not reaping any of the financial benefits that come along with this.”

# # #

ABOUT DAVIS VS. NÚÑEZ

Davis vs. Núñez will see two-time super featherweight champion and Baltimore native Gervonta “Tank” Davis become the first fighter from Baltimore in almost 80 years to make a homecoming title defense when he defends his WBA title against mandatory challenger Ricardo “Científico” Núñez live on SHOWTIME Saturday, July 27 from Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore in an event presented by Premier Boxing Champions

SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING begins at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT and will feature former world champions Yuriorkis Gamboa and Roman “Rocky” Martínez battling in a 10-round lightweight attraction while lightweight contender Ladarius “Memphis” Miller meets former world champion Jezreel “El Invisible” Corrales in a 10-round showdown.

For more information visit www.sho.com/sports, follow on Twitter @Gervontaa, @ShowtimeBoxing, @SHOSports, @MayweatherPromo, @TGBPromotions, @PremierBoxing and @Swanson_Comm or become a fan on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/SHOSports and www.facebook.com/MayweatherPromotions.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday on Fox PPV in a match for the PBC’s
emeritus welterweight championship at MGM Grand undefeated titlist Keith “One
Time” Thurman got dropped and fairly decisioned by a 40-year-old Filipino
senator, Manny Pacquiao, who struggled to call Thurman even “a good fighter” immediately
afterwards.  Not the always gracious
Pacquiao’s fault, that.  Different era,
different priorities, different metrics.

No sooner does one imagine things going
differently in Thurman’s career were he with different management than he
recognizes different management overlooked him, didn’t it?  If manager Al Haymon plucked fruit from the
Olympic tree – some wellseeded like Errol, most misshapen like Rau’Shee and Terrell
– he discovered Thurman differently, howsoever he did it, which is to write
Haymon outbid the likes of Top Rank and affiliates, almost certainly because
they didn’t bid at all. 

Why is this relevant?  Because at the time Thurman turned pro
(nearly 12 years ago) most every great fighter a young aficionado today can
name got developed by Top Rank, starting with “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather,
the patron saint, emphasis on patron, of today’s PBC stable. 

Whither this rehashing?  It crossed my mind muchly during Saturday’s
match, as it certainly crossed Coach Freddie’s mind and “Money” Mayweather’s
mind, too, at ringside.  Accustomed to
what large-pursed, pillow-gloved, athletic-contest exhibitions PBC bubblewraps
its champions in, Thurman hadn’t an inkling what suffering must traditionally
be endured for a man to call himself champion. 
He knows about it now, though.

Over and again one marveled at how alien a figure
Pacquiao cut on the sanitized island called Premier Boxing Champions.  Like an aged tiger parachuted in the middle
of a clover sheep farm populated only by sheep and clover, Pacquiao, red of
tooth and claw, fists wrapped in Mexican horsehair, not foam, thrilled at
violence as his profession’s only point – not an ancillary unpleasantness to be
got through while doing fitnessy things for large paychecks.

Three times the absurdity of it all manifested on
Thurman’s face: When Pacquiao knocked him asswards, when Pacquiao mashed his
nose through his face, when Pacquiao touched him properly on the button.  First was the look of disbelief then the look
of disgusted betrayal then the look of offended fright.  Thurman collected a righthand and dropped
like he’d been tripped then he spit the yucky taste of his own blood at his
corner en route to his stool then he wheeled away, gumshield in glove, selling a
Pacquiao bodyshot like the foulest of things. 
The last was the caketaker; it was the act of a man unable to imagine in
his 30th prizefight such pain might be delivered by a legal blow.

And all this from a version of Pacquiao five years
past its expiration date, a version of Pacquiao unable or unwilling to contest
more than 45 seconds of a round, a version of Pacquiao much more an ideal of
selfdefense than a predator.

There was Thurman, chastened completely by getting
bluematted in round 1, tentatively pawing and countering through much of the
match, while Fox’s contracted narrative-maker tabulated hundreds of “power
punches”, knowing there was a needle he must thread: Hit Pacquiao enough to
score points but not so much as to make him mad.

Then in your mind flashed Juan Manuel Marquez,
sucking his own noseblood through an open mouth and goading, prodding, goading,
goading, prodding, goading Pacquiao till he lured him, after 125 minutes and 58
seconds of misery and conflict and fear, in the master’s trap to end his era in
ecstasy.  How even do you word such a
contrast between the sinewy savage Pacquaio faced Dec. 8, 2012, and the fatted sheep
he’s seen in 2019?  They are not sportsmen
of the same species, surely. 

O, be not so hard on gentleman Keith; after all,
he comported himself nobly in defeat and gives generous interviews and he’s
telegenic and loves his wife.  Fair
points, yes.  If you are going to lose
there are more ignoble ways of doing it, as Adrien Broner reminds us annually.

O, to hell with that.  This is bloodsport, this is men making their
livings hurting other men. 

Pacquiao just reset the hands on the clock of
PBC’s fraud.  Don’t let Pacquiao’s
reluctance to face Errol Spence blind you. 
Spence is an outlier – PBC doesn’t know what to do with him either.  Thurman was PBC’s champion, Thurman won the
PBC welterweight Super Bowl in 2017, two months before PBC even knew what it
had in Spence, Thurman was the coddled prodigy, Thurman represented PBC’s
post-Mayweather future.  And that future just
spent round 10 with his white tail in the air, skittering away from a
40-year-old.

Because decisioning Thurman this late in the day
marks only about the 27th best moment of Pacquaio’s career, Saturday was not
about Pacquiao.  Saturday was a
fullthroated indictment of the P in PBC.

Be glad “The Truth” was ringside to see it, too,
for the future of our beloved sport.  Now
Spence knows, as Mayweather knew, the PBC on FoxTime belt is a participation
trophy, the glassencased product of a minorleague affiliate, a way to bamboozle
venture capitalists and network programmers. 
Spence now knows if he doesn’t make his manager make a match with
Terence Crawford while both men are still prime Spence’s championship lineage
will run through “One Time” and “Swift”, not “Sugar” or “Sugar”, and a
halfdecade from now some young bodysnatcher will properly coin him “The Fiction”
like Spence properly coined another man “Sometimes”.

Bart
Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – There were three legends and one who wants to be one. They were there to talk about a legend and one who promises to be one.

Manny Pacquiao, already a longtime legend, and Keith Thurman, the man seeking to make his own, are at a compelling crossroads. It’s young lion versus old. It’s legacy versus wannabe. Pacquiao-Thurman Saturday night at the MGM Grand and on Fox pay-per-view television is loaded with all of the elements for a potential classic.

It’s anybody’s guess whether all of those pieces fall together into picture of anticipated drama or simply fall apart. There are lots of questions. Can Pacquaio’s 40-year-old body hold together against a younger and bigger Thurman? Can the 30-year-old Thurman battle through the injuries that have put his once-promising career on hold? Only the moment after an opening bell can provide those answers.

For now, however, there are platy of opinions about a welterweight bout that looms as the biggest fight of the summer, especially in the wake of Wednesday’s announcement that reigning middleweight Canelo Alvarez will postpone his planned Sept. 14 bout because of futile search for a suitable opponent.

For now, at least, there is a good fight that sets up further possibilities at 147 pounds. The PBC path leads to a welterweight unification bout, probably early next year against the Pacquiao-Thurman winner and the Errol Spence Jr.-Shawn Porter winner on Sept. 28 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

In part, that’s why Porter was there Thursday, part of round-table at the Grand Garden Arena alongside former middleweight champion Winky Wring, and ex Pacquiao foes Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales.

For the record, Porter was one of three who figures he’ll be facing Pacquiao. No reason to ask whether he thinks he’ll beat Spence. He wouldn’t have agreed to the fight if he didn’t think so.

“Pacquiao by decision,’’ said Porter, the World Boxing Council champion who did offer a disclaimer, saying that Thurman’s confidence and power could force the Filipino Senator into retirement.

Morales and Barrera agree with Porter. Barrera picks Pacquiao to win a decision. Morales says the Filipino wins, by knockout or decision. Both faced Pacquiao when he was near or at his prime. Morales fought him three times, winning the first and losing the next two.

“When I beat him, I was at my technical best and that’s what Thurman will have to be if he hopes to have a chance,’’ Morales said.

Pacquiao went 2-0 against Barrera — an 11^th-round knockout in 2003 and a unanimous decision in 2007.

“Psychologically, it’s tough to fight Pacquiao, because he keeps that pressure on you,’’ Barrera said.

Only Wright picked Thurman. But that was no surprise. Wright was a mentor a to young Thurman in gyms around the Tampa Bay area, where both grew up. Thurman was there, then a 16-year-old amateur, when Wright stunned Felix Trinidad, scoring a unanimous decision over the heavily-favored Puerto Rican on May 14, 2005, also the MGM Grand.

“Bobble-head night,’’ Thurman said of a bout he remembered for the way Wright’s deadly-accurate jab made Trinidad’s head bounce around as though his head were attached to his body by a spring.

Wright admires Pacquiao. But, he says, not even legends can beat the clock.

‘’Only Father Time is undefeated,’’ he said. “Over the many years and fights, it might take away just a split second from his speed. But that might be enough. How fast is this Manny as opposed to the Manny we knew in the day?’’

By Bart Barry-

Saturday on Fox Sports pay-per-view Keith “One Time” Thurman defends his WBA “Super World” welterweight title against Filipino legend Manny Pacquiao in a Las Vegas match with world’s-third-best-welterweight ramifications. That is, whoever wins Saturday will almost certainly deserve a higher ranking than whoever next loses to Errol Spence or Terence Crawford.

When last we saw Pacquiao he was paddlepurpling About Billions Broner en route to a dull pay-extra-to-view decisioning of boxing’s clown pauper, a man whose schtick in the ring and otherwise has gone wanting since. Pacquiao has that effect when he’s right. He delights, sells tickets, makes lots of money and wins easily without employing any of the brandbuilding antics his PBC stablemates require. If he hasn’t made quite Floyd Mayweather’s career earnings he’s come exponents closer than his stablemates, without having to reinvent himself nearly so often. There has been no one like him since his debut in 1995, and that phrase may hold-up still in the year 2050.

Pacquiao went to PBC because promoter Top Rank ran out of highpaying b-fighters to feed him; if Pacquiao didn’t blame his former promoter for the decision that befell him Down Under two years ago, he didn’t forgive the outfit either. He forewent what desperate warnings Bob Arum surely imparted and handicapped properly the other side of the dial: Yes, PBC on FoxTime has Errol Spence to swerve someday but not till I’ve touched that crew for tens of millions of dollars in peril-less sparrings.

By all accounts Pacquiao is way smarter than the berry-appy mascot he plays in prefight previews and postfight pressers; if he didn’t tell PBC to start heavypursing him with Broner it’s simply because he didn’t have to – his new promoter was benighted enough to think Broner might have him. Time to ringup Thurman next, and after that, win or lose or draw, do a cashout dance with Spence, who’s likely to get softened harder by the tactically limited but physically expressive Shawn Porter than Mikey Garcia’d’ve done him in 100 rounds.

All of this assumes Thurman hasn’t the punch or malice to end Pacquiao’s career Saturday. Five years ago, assumptions might’ve been different. Thurman looked to have skills and temperament enough to bend the next era his way. Boy, was that a long time ago.

Six years in the past Thurman looked awesome in San Antonio, twice, and whetted aficionados’ imaginations. Then he effectively took 2014 off. Then he couldn’t ice little Robert Guerrero at the beginning of 2015, which was a problem. Four months later Thurman collected the WBA’s welterweight belt by giving Luis Collazo his seventh career L, and that was that. He squeaked past Shawn Porter in 2016, squeaked past Danny Garcia in 2017, honeymooned and ashrammed in 2018, and squeaked past little Josesito (Little Jose) Lopez in January. It has been a primesquandering historic for One Time.

But now Thurman takes dead aim at an eighth L on Pacquiao’s resume, a feat for which he’ll garner little praise from aficionados but lots of hyperbole from PBC propogandists and a fat check to cash.

“It’s called prizefighting, dummy” – as Money Mayweather once told Shane Mosley. Thurman gets that in a way generations of prizefighters before him did not. Get the cash and get out, posterity be damned. As a fellow man, few among us could blame him. As customers, of course, we’re entitled to an alternative view: If Thurman wants to make his living nonviolently, he can open a yoga studio, something more befitting his recent mien.

But he’d better not plan to play boxing with Pacquiao. Probably Manny will play boxing back with him, doing something that complements the 60-seconds-per-round workrate Pacquiao has perfected since Juan Manuel Marquez showed him absolute darkness interrupted by a single warm light, but maybe not. Pacquiao knew no exertion was worth extra for icing Broner – if Pacquiao even knew who Broner was before their match. But Thurman is PBC’s welterweight champion emeritus, and snatching Thurman’s 0 should mark at least the 30th-greatest accomplishment of Pacquaio’s career, even if it doesn’t crack his Top 25.

Would stretching Pacquiao 6 1/2 years after Marquez did it mark the highlight of Thurman’s career? Yup. Thurman has never shared a ring with anyone whose greatness is the square root of Pacquaio’s.

More than halfway in his 41st year, Pacquiao hasn’t the reflexes he had while racing through prime Mexican legends 14 or 15 years ago, but he recognizes patterns better than he did back then for having seen so many of them so craftily presented. Stylistically, Thurman is bargain-basement-basic beside Erik Morales or Miguel Cotto, much less the aforementioned Mosley, Mayweather or Marquez. Worse yet, Thurman ain’t that much younger than Pacquiao, and if his reflexes haven’t atrophied with age they’ve certainly rusted with inactivity.

Thurman hasn’t the derringdo to make war on Pacquiao, we know, but he has the tools to keepaway his way to a sympathetic decision, and that’s what he’s best suited to do. Thurman probably has pop enough to put Pacquiao in easymoney mode, the way Mayweather did, but Pacquiao won’t believe that till he feels it, which means Thurman may have to fight Pacquiao off him at some point, a point likely to represent the match’s only entertaining half-round – at the midway point of its fifth or sixth. After that, expect drama and suspense to leak gradually from the ring, punctuated by a forget-me-not flurry in the final 30 seconds of the 12th round.

A week from today, we’ll read Pacquiao has nothing left to prove and ought retire and Thurman has so much left to prove and ought use this narrow victory to springboard his way in a ring with Spence or Bud Crawford. Next year, we’ll read about Pacquiao negotiating a farewell war with Spence or Bud Crawford while Thurman demands a rematch with Lopez or Garcia.

This Saturday, anyway, I’ll take Thurman, MD-12, in a close, dull match one Vegas judge has already scored 117-111 for One Time.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Keith Thurman has lots to say, more than enough for Manny Pacquiao to pick and choose whatever he might need for just the right amount of motivation before their welterweight fight July 20 at Las Vegas MGM Grand.

“Never been more focused,’’ Pacquiao said Wednesday during a media workout at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles and again on Thursday during a conference call.

Never more grateful, either.

Pacquiao has heard it all over nearly two decades at the top of a very noisy game. At this point, the Filipino Senator, boxing’s humble elder, knows what to use and what to discard. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It just matters if it works. Enter Thurman, who is providing a whole menu of rhetorical options.

Want outrage? Thurman can do that. In the early news conferences, he promised to “crucify” Pacquiao, a deeply religious man.

Want cocky? Thurman can do that, too. Throughout subsequent media days and conference calls, he said he had the most complete resume in the welterweight division. Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. are the consensus best at 147 pounds, but they don’t’have the bully pulpit this week or next.

For now, that stage belongs to Thurman, a many-sided personality who is doing his job. Big fights are about salesmanship, and Thurman is delivering it fearlessly and relentlessly. That’s a dangerous combination. But it is endlessly fascinating from a fighter who has also called himself an entrepreneur. He understands risk and roles. He has taken on both in a difficult challenge of Pacquiao, who has always played the good guy.

That’s Pacquiao’s natural role, his only role. Guess here, Thurman knows that and has filled the only role left to him. He knew he was the bad guy the day he signed for the fight. The black hat fits him well. But does it define him? I don’t think so.

“I bring entertainment,’’ Thurman said this week in a conference call. “If I win, I bring entertainment. If I lose, I bring entertainment.’’

If that stretch of canvas between the ropes is theater, Thurman might be the most versatile actor of them all. There’s a fair question as to whether he has as many punches as he has sides to his personality. But his bold salesmanship is bound to attract an audience full of Pacquiao fans who want to see him silenced and another crowd wondering whether he can in fact back it up. For now, it’s a pick-em fight

After it is all over, however, it would be no surprise to see two fighters more alike than different. Many-sided often means inherent contradictions, and there were plenty of those on display in Thurman throughout the build-up for the Fox pay-per-view fight. Thurman practices yoga. There is a spiritual side to him, just like Pacquiao.

There’s a practical side to him.

I asked him last week if he envisioned fighting at 40. He’s 30; Pacquiao is 40.

“Hell, no,” he said. “At 35, I’ll pick up a book and maybe go to college.

“At least now, I can afford a college education.’’

Oh yeah, he’s funny, too.

Mostly, however, there are repeated reasons to believe he really admires Pacquiao, despite all of that over-the-top trash talk. Thurman watched Pacquiao beat Adrien Broner at the MGM Grand in January, his first fight after he turned 40 in December. Thurman had a fight a week later against Josesito Lopez, whom he beat in a so-so performance on Jan 26 in Brooklyn.

But Pacquiao inspired him.

“I went out for a run at 1 a.m. the week before my own fight because of what Manny did,’’ Thurman said. “I was inspired by what I saw in him, by what he wants to do now at 40.’’  

Now, Thurman is in a role to stop who, what inspired him.

By Kyle Kinder-

On Saturday night at the Armory in Minneapolis, Bryant “Goodfella” Perrella (16-2, 13KO) looks to inch closer to a title shot when he squares off against Domonique Dolton (22-2-1, 13KO) in a ten round clash between two welterweight contenders.

Perrella, a 30 year-old southpaw from Fort Myers, FL, last fought in February when he scored a lopsided unanimous decision over veteran Colombian slugger Breidis Prescott (31-17, 22KO).   But what may have looked to spectators like an easy night’s work for Perrella, was in reality, anything but. “I actually hurt my left hand in the second round so I had to take some steam off the left and use it kind of more as a popping shot, more of a scoring blow,” said the 6’1” Perrella.  “Basically I just stuck to my right hand, moved to my right laterally, and kept using my jab to dominate.”

The Prescott bout came six months after Perrella dropped a majority decision to former WBA World Welterweight title holder Luis Collazo (39-7, 20KO) on Collazo’s home turf in New York.  It was the second career defeat for Perrella, the other coming via stoppage two years prior against former welterweight title challenger Yordenis Ugas (23-4, 11KO). While losses are never part of any fighter’s script, Perrella was intent on extracting the positives from those experiences. 

“You know, that’s kind of how it goes,” he said.  “When you’re striving for something you’re going to have setbacks…or I just call them learning lessons.  It’s brought me to a whole other level as a fighter and a person…it’s made me a tougher individual and better in all aspects.”

Perrella bounced back from both defeats with impressive victories.  

And in a year when boxers with blemished records have snatched titles from previously unbeaten fighters (Tony Harrison, Andrew Cancio, Julian Williams, Andy Ruiz), fighters like Perrella have taken notice.  “It’s motivating to see other guys doing it [fighters with losses capturing titles],” Perrella said. “It gives me more belief in myself that I can do it and will do it as well. You know, that’s what boxing’s all about…it’s a lot more than just the “O”.”

With regards to Saturday’s contest against Detroit’s Dolton, which will be broadcast on FS1 prior to the night’s main event which will feature welterweights Jamal James (25-1, 12KO) and Antonio “Tony” DeMarco (33-7-1, 24KO), Perrella is well aware that his career trajectory will be greatly influenced by the outcome of this fight. He also knows he’s facing a fighter who needs a win as much as he does. 

“Dolton’s been around the block, he’s a known name,” said Perrella.  “I’ve watched some film on him, but not too much. I’m not trying to get caught up in what he may try to do.  I’m just going to go in and do my own thing. But I’ve got a good general idea of the way he fights and the way he’s going to try and go about things.”  

With the stakes as high as ever, Perrella and head trainer Michael Nowling have been working non-stop at Fort Myers’ Syndicate Boxing Club.  

“Camp has been amazing, I feel great,” Perrella said.  “I’ve been working like an animal, so I’m ready to go…I’m just training around the clock like a well oiled machine and I’m ready to go put this car on the raceway.” 

With a cautious eye on the future, he added, “Obviously, after this fight, and I can’t look past Domonique Dolton in any way, but I can see myself being in contention at the very least, if not fighting for a title fight by the end of next year.” 

And with the PBC flush with welterweight titleists under their promotional banner, that’s certainly a possibility.  

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: For part 17, please click here

SAN ANTONIO – This city’s McNay Art Museum, which
has figured heavily (for an art museum) in this ostensibly-about-boxing column,
since 2010, recently opened an exhibition, Andy Warhol: Portraits, that appears
to have no tie-in whatever to our beloved sport.  I revisited the exhibition a few hours before
writing this, unable to imagine a suitable subject, and sat so long at a lobby
table afterwards a friendly security guard came over to tell me I looked tired.  Let that temper what you expect of this.

Nearly a decade ago The McNay had a different
Warhol exhibition that opened round about the time “Son of the Legend” Julio
Cesar Chavez Jr. put the wood to “Irish” John Duddy in Alamodome, in what would
be Duddy’s final prizefight.  The editor
of a boxing magazine asked me to pitch him a unique idea for a story –
“anything out of the ordinary” – and I complied with an idea about this Warhol
exhibition, a visual dissection of Warhol’s fascination with celebrity and its
effect, being open in the same city at the same time as boxing’s greatest beneficiary
of celebrity.  The pitch went nowhere, a
destination shared by the story I wrote instead for the magazine, and I made a
column of the idea.

(Actually, a quick search through the archives
reveals barely half of what’s above is accurate; “Andy Warhol: Fame and
Misfortune” opened in February 2012, not June 2010, and since by then Chavez
Jr. had beaten Duddy and Sebastian Zbik and Peter Manfredo, perhaps a story
attributing the whole of Chavez’s fortune to name recognition wasn’t the crackerjack
idea memory recalls.)

Out of the parenthetical but influenced by it: Memory
is many parts imagination, something confirmed by most adult accounts of childhood
that begin “I see myself . . .” as if that’s what children do when, say, riding
a bike – look at themselves, instead of their front tire or whatever terrain it
touches.

If Warhol never directly addressed memory’s inaccuracy,
and perhaps he did somewhere, prolific as he was, he understood part of the
appeal of his portraits to their subjects lay in a capacity for overwriting
memories.  Warhol was a favorite
portraitist of aging celebrities because his minimalist approach to depicting
facial skin removed wrinkles and most blemishes (except for his Dolly Parton
portraits, which are better than the Marilyn Monroe portraits precisely because
Parton’s face had more imperfections). 
Warhol very much made art for life to imitate and prophesied our
contemporary socialmedia obsession in any of his dozens of commentaries about
Americans and fame.

Floyd Mayweather would look good in a Warhol
portrait, methinks.  I happened on a Fox
Sports promotional movie about Manny Pacquiao last week by accident and tried
to see Mayweather through his fans and commentators’ eyes, being removed as we
are now from the relevance of Mayweather’s schtick.  What I looked for was elegance; what little I
recall of his victory over Pacquiao was Pacquaio’s unwillingness to throw
punches and subsequent inability to strike Mayweather, our defensive wizard.  But what I saw instead of elegance was skittishness.  Not during or after Mayweather got hit but
when the prospect of his getting hit happened: Confident-to-flinching-to-confident-to-flinchyflinching.  It was not elegant.

Of course this was a movie to sell us Pacquiao’s
upcoming tilt with Keith Thurman, and it behooves nobody at Fox to concede
Pacquiao is diminished from the man who got whitewashed by Mayweather, a man
who was fractionally potent as the one who dashed through Barrera and Morales
and Marquez.  Still.  In hyperdefinition, Mayweather’s
squinchyfaced pullback looks nigh bitchy.

Warhol would remove that.  If Warhol was not quite enamored of money as
Mayweather claims to be, he was doubly enamored of money’s effect, and Mayweather’s
selfstyled fixation on money might’ve enchanted Warhol with a question like: If
a man who is by no means the world’s best at making money allowed the last 1/3
of his career to be consumed by making money, a man who was the world’s best at
his actual craft, does that make money omnipotent or the man cynical?

This is why I looked tired in the lobby.  A different range of thoughts happened on the
short, slow drive from The McNay to The Pearl, where this column got wrote: Is
the racing line elegant? is the racing line what Henri Matisse was after? is
Matisse better than Warhol, for eliminating pathways to imitation, or is Warhol
better, for spawning generations of imitators? how much should even a column
such as this be dedicated to a concept, the racing line, you understand at best
partially?

The racing line is a way automobiles may go
fastest round curves.  It’s not the
shortest distance, as that would be the inside line, and it’s not a good way to
go at a constant speed.  Rather, it’s
effectively the straightest way to go round a halfcircle – start wide, cut the
apex, end wide – and by being the straightest line it is the route that allows
the earliest moment of maximum acceleration. 
If you regularly take the racing line against fellow motorists on your
local freeway you will pass most of them so long as you do not use cruise
control (which renders the racing line counterproductive).

The racing line is almost elegant the way Warhol
is almost elegant.  Neither the racing
line nor Warhol is elegant as a Matisse line; the racing line and Warhol do
something worth doing more quickly than other approaches.  The racing line kept through a full circuit
is nearer Matisse than Warhol came; Warhol was the racing line through a single
curve, maybe two.  The Matisse line,
though, is the racing line taken through an unknown circuit drawn but a moment
before.

Tire, tiring, tired.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as it happens as Jon Jones defends the UFC Light Heavyweight title against Thiago Santos.  Also Amanda Nunes defends the Bantamweight title against former champion Holly Holm. Jorge Masvidal takes on Ben Askren in a welterweight showdown.  Former middleweight champion Luke Rockhold makes his light heavyweight debut against Jan Blachowicz

THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY. NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED

Round 1: Santos lands a kicks that stumbles Jones..Leg Kick by Jones..Inside leg kick from Santos..Leg Kick..Leg Kick..Leg Kick..Left hand from Santos..

Round 2 Santos lands a kick but hurts his foot and lands a punch..Jab from Jones..Body kick from Santos..Big kick from Jones drops Santos..Left to body from Santos..Head Kick..

Round 3 Good leg kick from Jones…3 shots from Santos..Hard kick drops Santos..Big Knee..Knee to the body..Leg kick..Good leg kick from Santos..Santos is cut on hairline..Good kick from Jones…Kick to the body..Leg kick from Santos..another..

Round 4 Left from Santos..Leg kick from Jones…Leg kick..Inside leg kick from Santos..Body shot from Jones..Santos left leg is hurt but he keeps on fighting..

Round 5 Body kick from Santos..Right hand..Inside leg kick..2 hard kicks and a right hand…Body kick..Body kick from Jones..Left from Santos..

48-47 SANTOS; 48-47 JONES; 48-47 JONES

Round 1: Holm lands a left..Inside leg kick from Nunes..Knees to the body..Take down by Nunes but Hold gets right back up..Side kick from Holm..Front kick from Nunes..Right hand..Body kick..HUGE KICK TO THE HEAD THAT SENT HOLM DOWN…2 PUNCHES…FIGHT OVER

Round 1 MASVIDAL LANDS A FLYING KNEE AND KNOCKS OUT ASKREN…2 PUNCHES ON THE GROUND AND THE FIGHT IS OVER IN 5 SECONDS…THE FASTEST KNOCKOUT IN UFC HISTORY

Round 1: Rockhold lands a front kick and left hand..Rockhold trying to get a front choke..Elbow from Blachowicz..Hard Elbow..Left hand….Left kick from Rockhold..Blachowicz lands 2 leg kicks..Nice right..Blachowicz lands a big kick to back of head at the bell…

Round 2 Rockhold gets drilled with a right..Kick from Blochowicz…BIG LEFT AND DOWN GOES ROCKHOLD…HE IS HURT …2 MORE SHOTS ON THE GROUND AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1: Sanchez tries to take Chiesa down; Chiesa reverses..Tries for an Armbar..Take down for Chiesa..Chiesa lands some punches from the back..Chiesa has a triangle choke; Sanchez gets out of it..Chiesa lands elbows from the back…Sanchez slips out..

Round 2 Hard uppercut from Chiesa..Elbows on the ground..Body Triangle…Hard punches with on the Ground And Pound..Sanchez gets out of a choke..Spinning take down by Chiesa

Round 3 Chiesa gets Sanchez down..Elbow from Sanchez..Chiesa on Sanchez back

30-26 ON ALL CARDS FOR CHIESA

Round 1: Allen jabbing..Nice kick..Allen landing sharp punches…Straight left..Elbow from Melendez..Uppercut and body shot from Allen..Straight left

Round 2 Head kick from Allen..Big combination..1-2…Leg Kick..Combinations..Sharp combination..Straight left/Uppercut..Check hook..Body Kick..Straight left to the body.Melendez lands a right..

Round 3 Allen lands a left to the head..Allen takes Melendez down..Good left from Melndez..Leg kick from Allen..Nice straight left..Left from Melendez..Right..Leg kick from Allen..High kick..Good Kick

Round 2 Great Head kick from Hernandez..Vera lands a hard kick that puts Hernandez on the ground…VERA HAS HERNANDEZ BACK…REAR NAKED CHOKE AND HERNANDEZ TAPS

Round 1:  Left hook from Gadelha..Counter..Inside leg kick..Left head kick..Nice right..Good exchange..Markos swelling around left eye..Good right from Markos

Round 2 Head kick by Gadelha,,Combination from Markos..Nice Jab…Gadelha lands a left..Knee From Markos..Nice right..Kick from Gadelha..Right uppercut from Markos

Round 3  Uppercut and left from Gadelha..Nice Leg kick from Markos..Counter from Gadelha..Good right

30-27 on ALL CARDS FOR GADELHA

Round 1  HUGE RIGHT HAND BY YADONT LANDS PERFECTLY ONLY THE CHIN AND PEREZ IS BRUTALLY KNOCKED OUT at 2:04

Round 1: Hard standing ground and pound by Shahbazyan..Shabazyan all over MARSHMAN –REAR NAKED CHOKE AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED AT 1:!2

Round 1: Nice elbow by Naurdiev,,,Nice kick..Rencountre on top of Naurdiev..

Round 2 Rencountre has Naurdiev’s back..Rencountre is landing ground and pound from the back

Round 3 Rencountre keeping Naurdiev on his back 

29-27, 29-28, 30-27 for Rencountre

Round 1: Avila lands 2 high knees..Left hand from Kianzad..High knee From Avila..Elbow lands..Left..Kianzad lands a right..Left hand..Good right hand..Uppercut by Avila drives Pianzad back

Round 2 Avila lands an elbow over the top..Good leg kick from Kianzad..Take down..Right hand..Good right from Avila…Avila is cut over the right eye…Hard right hurts Kianzad..Good combination..Good front Kick..Avila gets the back on the ground.

Round 3 Avila lands a knee to the body…Hard right knocks Kianzad down..Ground and pound..Avila gets Kianzad’s back..Kianzad bleeding from around her right eye

30–27, 30-26 twice for Avila

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s a fight hard to pick, mostly because Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman are welterweights fighting to recreate themselves or perhaps re-discover who they were.

The guy who wins the identity crisis wins the fight. That’s one theory, anyway.

Sixteen days before opening bell at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, there’s only one familiar trait. Pacquiao’s likability is unchanged, un-eroded by time and controversy. His popularity has been evident ever since the Filipino Senator arrived back in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago for his final stretch of training at the Wild Card Gym.

Social media is full of photos of Pacquiao doing his roadwork on LA streets. Crowds of runners follow him in scenes straight out of Forrest Gump. At a couple of levels, Pacquiao is little bit like the Gump character. The Senator has done it all in an unlikely rise from crushing poverty to international celebrity. But like the Gump film, there’s also that line about a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.

That sums it up for just about every 40-year-old fighter. Pacquiao is beyond his prime, yet still has muscle memory that can recapture legendary moments. For one night at least, he could be the younger guy. Then again, he could be just another old guy trying to extend his career with one more paycheck. The reviews for Pacquiao’s last two outings have been good.  Power was there in a stoppage of Lucas Matthysse in 2018. Speed was there in a decision over Adrien Broner in January.

But Matthysse was shot, a hollowed-out version of the feared puncher he had been. Broner was there to outrage, insult and entertain. He did all of that and more. He did everything, however, but fight. His punch output barely registered on the CompuBox meter.

Neither Matthysse nor Broner provided enough opposition to really get a fair look at what kind of fighter Pacquiao really is at 40. Maybe, it won’t matter against Thurman, who is called One Time yet has looked Past Time over his last few bouts. Perhaps, injuries and inactivity help explain his forgettable performance against Josesito Lopez.  Or, perhaps, he is exactly the fighter he has appeared to be.

 That said, he is 10 years younger than Pacquiao. He should be at his prime and he promises to be there – or back there – against a middle-aged fighter whose name is still as current as ever. There’s a better chance that the younger man can recapture his edge more readily than the older man. Thurman is still young enough to be the welterweight he has always been projected to be.

For Pacquiao, it’s not that easy. A lot of it just depends on what his aging body feels like when he wakes up on July 20, fight day.

Guess here, the odds will remain even until opening bell. Pacquiao might be a slight favorite, simply because of his enduring popularity. Those guys running behind him in those roadwork photos will bet on him too.

 Meanwhile, don’t be surprised if Thurman attempts to do what a forgotten name did to Pacquiao in Australia a couple of years ago. Remember Jeff Horn? Horn roughed up Pacquiao in a punishing fight in Brisbane in July 2017. Horn won a controversial decision before hometown fans. In Vegas, it is fair to say the scoring would have gone the other way in a decision for Pacquiao, a longtime Vegas favorite.For now, however, Horn’s performance provides a tactical blueprint for Thurman, who like the Aussie can use his strong upper body to tie up, slow down and perhaps beat Pacquiao. It all depends on who shows up.  

By Bart Barry-

There were recent fights aplenty with which a
grateful boxing writer might fashion a column, and this writer should be
grateful as any, writing weekly columns, as he did, through yesteryear’s summer
famines.  But important as it is to write
well about great fights and the courage that makes them so is how difficult it
is to write well about poor fights and the mismatchmaking that makes them so.

One of the Brothers Charlo iced a two-sentence-Wikipedia
opponent a couple Sundays ago, the other Brother Charlo decisioned a
multi-sentence-Wikipedia opponent Saturday, and Demetrius Andrade kept his
resume spotless by keeping away from a featherfisted Pole.  Surely 80 minutes of prizefighting affords
material enough for 1,000 words of opinion. 
Or surely not.

I plead ignorance from the top.  I don’t know enough about either Charlo to
tell one from the other.  Both fought in the
last calendar week, both were defending a title of some sort because the
Brothers Charlo are PBC veterans enough to be titlists, though I can’t say
which Charlo beat whomever to attain whichever title or if either Charlo has
changed weightclasses anytime recently or really was defending a title
(Editor’s note: Actually, never mind).

Full disclosure: The closest I ever followed a
Charlo fight was when one of them sparred writer Kelsey McCarson for charity.

I expected the Brothers Charlo to be fighting on
Fox these days – didn’t they both do so a while back? – but I couldn’t find either
of them on my local Fox affiliate, and I haven’t had Showtime since December.  I watched their joint postfight
pressconference Saturday night on YouTube and came away feeling like I’d missed
not a thing since losing interest in them many years ago during a Houston
undercard or two.

The usual: Everybody respects us, nobody respects
us, the world is going to respect us; we’ve done so much, we’re just getting
started, wait till you see what’s next; nobody knows us, everybody recognizes
us, the people who know us best don’t know us at all; lions only, lions Only,
Lions Only!  If this were an effort to be
mysterious or conflicted or even controversial it would mean something more
than all it actually means, which is the standard and tired marketing fare of
being all things to all people, this time with a scowl of some sort.  One of the Brothers Charlo implied he
might’ve sold so many more tickets if he’d put himself in a larger venue, which
seemed an odd swipe to take at himself or his promotional partner, the other
Brother Charlo, sitting next to him and apparently in charge of booking.

What everyone realizes by now is the Brothers
Charlo and many of their PBC brethren are hamstrung by management.  They can dominate whomever PBC’s network of
matchmakers conjures up and wear whatever belts complicit sanctioners cobble
together, but they’ll not unify anything or attain universal recognition.

They wear the PBC on ShowFox belt, while an ESPN
champion makes war on his network’s nonentities, and a DAZN champ has a modicum
more respect, or much more respect, for having beaten a known opponent – read:
an opponent whose name you knew before the ESPN or ShowFox pressrelease – sometime
and somewhere in the last two years.

This shouldn’t be read, or at least not precisely,
as an indictment of PBC champions.  Most
of their safetyfirst exhibition title defenses happen before unenthusiastic
crowds and overly enthusiastic television crews, perhaps, but at least they’re
getting paid way more than fairmarket value for their efforts.  DAZN champions, meanwhile, are getting
overpaid, too, but with the very real chance they may be upset, through poor
fortune or tournament whimsy.  ESPN
champions get paid about the least and contend with the anxiety of a mercurial
boss and ingenious matchmaker; keep Bob happy and Bruce’ll get you opponents
that make you better, but make Bob unhappy and Bruce’ll get you beat by
Christmas.

Which all adds up to what?  About half a column, according to the count
in the bottomleft corner of this screen.

Then let’s dive shallowly into Demetrius “Boo Boo”
Andrade, the nearest DAZN has to a Brother Charlo of its own (unless you count
Danny Jacobs, whom you probably shouldn’t count because, after all, Jacobs has
tested himself by narrowly losing to his division’s two best men).

So much potential, that Boo Boo!

Literary critic James Wood once wrote, and I could
swear I once quoted but Google does not confirm, that potential is only potent
so long as it goes unused.  Nobody muses today
about Roberto Duran’s potential as a lightweight or Floyd Mayweather’s
potential as a pay-per-view attraction.  Potential
is what we assign teenage prospects, not 31-year-old middleweight titlists.

Andrade gets this. 
If you were to ask him about his potential this morning, probably he
would take it as the insult it intends and tell you how many tickets he just
sold in Rhode Island of all places.  He
should add but wouldn’t: “It’s 20-percent more tickets than Charlo sold in his
hometown the same night, and Charlo’s hometown is 12 times the size of mine.”

The reason he should add that is the reason he
won’t: Charlo, not Canelo, is whom Andrade should target as his breakthrough
opponent.  Who would win that match?  Nobody knows. 
There are potential-fetishists on either side of the debate.

The proper broadcaster for the match, however, be doubtless
– “ShoBox: The New Generation”.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry