By Bart Barry-

On Sept. 15, 2008, Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez defeated Japanese minimumweight world champion Yutaka Niida in Kanagawa, Japan, bringing Gonzalez’s first world title and Niida’s retirement. Whatever Niida expected in his eighth title defense did not include a career-ending fourth-round TKO in his hometown, right eye shut by Gonzalez left hooks and nose bleeding from all of it. What no one in attendance either expected was the pronounced disparity in size Gonzalez enjoyed; not all minimumweights are stitched from the same bolt, and as Gonzalez began to wing left-heavy combinations Niida’s reactions illustrated the physical disparity between the men – along with boxing’s standard optical illusion of the beater growing larger while the beaten shrinks quickly.

On the Nicaraguan telecast that evening was the late Alexis Arguello who praised Gonzalez’s tranquility above his other virtues and broke a selfimposed code of journalistic objectivity only after the match was stopped, whooping at his microphone “¡Viva Nicaragua!”

If winning a world title did not immediately improve Gonzalez by 20-percent, as lore says it should, his opponents didn’t know it and prepared for a fifth-better Gonzalez, especially Mexican Francisco Rosas who stood as Chocolatito’s first title challenger in a corner of Auditorio Guelaguetza five months later and at 105 pounds positioned beside a quite leggy Corona girl appeared more smurf than mature prizefighter. Like his country’s diminutive comedic genius Jose Rene Ruiz Martinez, beloved and feared as Tun Tun, Rosas took others’ opinions of his stature and turned himself spiteful over it. With none of Chocolatito’s handsomeness or charisma or physique – Rosas’ fatless midsection was broad as his arms were short – the Mexican brought a champion’s tally of spite with him in the ring and upon finding a subpar Gonzalez converted the match from athleticism to attrition and almost succeeded too.

Gonzalez’s first title defense was either a lesson in the economics of prizefighting or something worse and was not in Nicaragua but Mexico – Oaxaca, specifically, 5,000 feet higher than Chocolatito’s native Managua – and the difference told when Gonzalez’s mouth opened early and stayed that way. Chocolatito fought once in Nicaragua between his winning the title and defending it, but both the expectations and consequences were considerably lesser for that tilt than his Oaxaca match against a Oaxaqeño, and that was before food poisoning. Mexican altitude requires adjustment but its want of food inspectors requires much more, and while Chocolatito’s conditioning and craft might’ve overcome the altitudinal difference his inexperience with the Mexican craft of masking lost fish with spices served him well as a tourist should expect.

“I believe I outdid myself,” Gonzalez told La Prensa after his victory by split decision. “In the morning I ate eggs with beans, and at midday fish with potatoes and avocado. I don’t know, but I believe that food is what sent me to the toilet.

“Before the fight I emptied myself of the food, but just the same it gave me a strong pain. I had much fear because I felt I might soil myself in the fight.”

The diarrhea stilled for those 48 minutes but Gonzalez’s stomach did not, and he vomited in his corner between rounds and spit nausea’s salty offense off his tongue often as corner time allowed but showed naught to Rosas, and had the Mexican even a fractional inventory the champion’s maladies he’d have fought more fiercely than he did, even fiercely as he did, and he might well’ve stopped Chocolatito a halfdecade before Americans knew the Nicaraguan’s name.

Rabbited often and crumpled against a neutral turnbuckle while Rosas’ gumshield got replaced midway through their 12th round Gonzalez looked the picture of an underprepared athlete, one who mistook his attainment of a world title as an arrival at predestined showcases, but this was before the PBC: Gonzalez won his world title in a disappearing time when such an achievement marked a fighter more like a target than a corporate asset and Chocolatito knew it already and expected opponents to transcend themselves as Rosas did. Gonzalez was not the master Mexicans expected to take apart their man even as they swore they didn’t that night in Oaxaca but neither was he a lesson in the perils of illpreparation, contrary to Nicaraguan suspicions well-voiced by Enrique Armas, comentarista extraordinaria, imploring Gonzalez to remember his faith and country and raise himself higher than his obviously poor training camp prepared him to do.

Had Arguello been ringside with Armas that night he might’ve defended his prodigy protege but “El Flaco Explosivo” had demons of his own haunting him, and those demons may have been his countrymen, and Nicargua’s gentleman champion and sportsman ambassador would be dead of a gunshot to his chest in five months.

Tagged repeatedly by Rosas rights in the final rounds of his first defense Gonzalez ceded the bluemat uncharacteristically and wore an unlikely but appropriate look of apprehension while Mexican officials slowtallied their split-decision scorecards afterwards – a robbery narrowly averted, according to Armas, a robbery to shame Mexico for the ages. Gonzalez was gracious in victory but honest, too, speaking openly about his food poisoning and saying he would grant Rosas a rematch but not in Mexico. Mexican fans heard that as a concession to their man’s superiority of grit and execution and accused Gonzalez of inventing pretexts for his poor showing in Oaxaca.

Twenty months later Rosas got his rematch, this time in Japan, and Gonzalez was returned to Gonzalez, not his Oaxacan imposter, and Chocolatito belligerently dropped the Mexican thrice in round 2 and ended the rematch in its fifth minute – vindicated.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Boxing enters the year’s fourth quarter looking to make the kind of defining comeback that happens when it is at its dramatic best.

Just when the sport is down and written off in obits that have been written before, it gets up and recovers just in time for another Rocky sequel.

I’m not sure that another resurrection will be so easy or predictable this time around. But it’s always a mistake to underestimate the battered game’s resilience. It’s been inexhaustible. Other than broken jaws and slurred words, it also has been the only reliable commodity in a feast-and-famine cycle.

The famine is here, marked by a barren October full of only cancellations, including Tyson Fury’s sudden withdrawal from an Oct. 29 rematch with Wladimir Klitschko, reportedly for mental-health reasons. Fury’s rise to the top of the heavyweight heap was marked by erratic behavior.

It was also behavior often encouraged by media and fans. We were entertained. If stories about Fury’s mental health are accurate, we also might have been complicit.

We might have pushed him there, looking for a few more laughs. That’s a different story, perhaps.

But it’s also part of the context that has always drawn fighters and fans to a precipice as crazy as it is dangerous.

Fury is named Tyson because his father admired Mike Tyson. Fury shares a name and perhaps a fate with a heavyweight, who in 1998 had to undergo a mental evaluation before he could get a license from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Every painful detail about that evaluation made it into the media. We knew when he was on Zoloft. We knew when he was on lithium.

It was unseemly. Yet, it was irresistible, mostly because editors demanded the dirty details that readers and fans wanted. Somehow, Mike survived, much to the media’s surprise and even his own. He’s a happy, doting dad today. I also suspect he recognizes where Fury is right now.

Fury’s uncle and trainer, Peter, told UK media that he would be back, sometime next year.

But Mike Tyson’s example is powerful enough to say he should just walk away. Walk, Tyson Fury, walk away for everybody’s sake, mostly your own. With today’s social media, he’ll be under intense scrutiny no matter what he does. A return to the ring would only further inflame the Twitter universe.

Imagine if Twitter had been around during Mike Tyson’s career. Multiply crazy by 140 and more, a lot more.

The business is already preparing to move on, no matter what happens to Fury. There’s already talk about the UK’s young sensation, Anthony Joshua, against Klitschko, who has been training and doesn’t want to let all of his work go to waste.

The guess is that Joshua-Klitschko would happen sometime later this year, which – with apologies to Tyson – will end in a fury.

After an empty October, November is loaded, first on Nov. 5 with Manny Pacquiao featured against Jessie Vargas in a Top Rank pay-per-view production in Las Vegas that is mostly interesting for the undercard. Oscar Valdez Jr.’s coming-out party continues against Hiroshige Osawa in his first title defense in a bout that should propel the emerging featherweight into a main-event attraction in 2017.

Then, there’s the biggie, Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward in a light-heavyweight showdown on Nov. 19 in a PPV bout, also in Las Vegas. Main Events, Kovalev’s promoter, has tempered PPV expectations. In a declining market, 300,000 would be a success. However, a great, competitive fight could set up a money-making rivalry and a PPV blockbuster in a rematch.

Then on Nov. 26, Vasyl Lomachenko faces Nicholas Walters for a 130-pound title. On paper, it looks like a great fight. The guess here, however, is that Lomachenko’s clever execution of his versatile skillset will be too much for Walters. It’ll be anoter reason to think that Lomachenko will be boxing’s next great, multi-weight champ with eventual titles at 135, 140 and 147.

Then, there’s December. There’s talk of Gennady Golovkin in a middleweight bout against likable Danny Jacobs, who has whipped cancer and everybody else since a loss in 2010. It’s not GGG-Canelo Alvarez. But it’s a projected fight with elements that might help a frustrated fan base forget about those futile GGG-Canelo discussions.

It’s a busy, intriguing run of fights, each with enough potential to restore a declining game in 2017. But will they? Will 2016’s fourth quarter plant the seeds for another comeback? Who knows? But I’m here, back at the precipice anyway, wondering whether those stories about Tyson Fury’s condition are accurate and wondering why I’m here all over again.

By Bart Barry-

As 2016 approaches its final quarter still enjoying a fine chance at being remembered like the worst year for boxing in the 21st century there is little reason to pile on since we already all know the culprits and hopelessness of our current state. There is even less reason to begin a monthlong countdown to our sport’s one superfight of the year. Better then to assume so few of us accessed foreign broadcasts of Nicaraguan master Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez’s early career that visiting them will prove fruitful while knowing even if it doesn’t a late-arriving effort to celebrate Gonzalez brings more pleasure than available alternatives do.

On Jan. 14, 2008, Chocolatito (16-0, 16 KOs) matched himself with Japanese light flyweight Hiroshi Matsumoto (17-7-4, 8 KOs) at Bunka Gym in Kanagawa, Japan. Gonzalez wore royalblue satin trunks with “Visit Nicaragua” on their seat, either in the hopes an English-speaking audience uncertain what to do with “Visita” might be watching or, just as likely, Japanese aficionados in attendance would fault no one from America who did not inscribe his country’s name in kanji or hiragana or katakana, and would be literate enough in English to appreciate the goodfaith effort of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Commerce or whomever.

While it is impossible for a fighter to turn pro fully formed it is nearly as inconceivable a fighter who wasn’t fully formed learned enough in his career’s opening 16 prizefights to be perfect as Gonzalez was in his 17th had he not come into prizefighting fully formed. In the first month of 2008 Gonzalez bore a remarkable resemblance to the fighter he was earlier this month, 30 prizefights later. His match with Matsumoto was noteworthy for being Gonzalez’s second appearance outside Nicaragua (also his second appearance in Japan) and for being the first match of Gonzalez’s th’t Chocolatito did not win by knockout. Matsumoto’s finishing upright was attributable to Matsumoto’s selfknowledge more than any shortcoming of Chocolatito’s.

What strikes first the viewer is Gonzalez’s detachment from the act of bludgeoning another man – in this Gonzalez is most notably Central American, not Mexican; he has Dinamita Marquez’s efficiency with none of the Mexican’s contempt for an opponent. Which brings the most delicious juxtaposition found in a Gonzalez match: He is calibrated perfectly to an opponent he seems to regard dispassionately as a target, not a man. How, one wonders, can Gonzalez capture so quickly and ably another man’s physicality without hating him or loving him or envying him or pitying him? Here he resembles his mentor, Alexis Arguello, about whom it was often said Arguello did not find other men’s weaknesses and exploit them so much as he found other men’s strengths and did those things better too – if you made your living with a 1-2 Arguello gave you jab-cross better than you’d ever given it; if other men feared your bodypunching Arguello was your man for that as well.

As Chocolatito has added weight to his tiny frame he has become admired for his incredible activity and stamina, but watch him against a career volume puncher like Matsumoto, a southpaw to boot, and see the ease of Gonzalez’s adaptation – how comfortably he waits for Matsumoto’s aggressiveness to undo itself by sending the Japanese’s weight tumbling over his front knee (Volume Puncher City, as it were) and landing himself on Gonzalez’s uppercuts, a disproportionate number of which the Nicaraguan fired in their match’s first five rounds.

Like most volume punchers Matsumoto hadn’t a backup plan because volume punchers generally don’t; contrary to others’ misperceptions of them, volume punchers are intelligent men who find the one fighting style that complements their talents and dispositions well enough to make their livings as professional athletes, gainful employments that surprise former coaches and trainers who told them they were too slow or fat or small for the better athletes they later disarm and unman.

Matsumoto was pure volume puncher in the sense his absence of discouragement was a tool for discomfiting more gifted opponents much as his fists. You struck him and struck him and calculus told you he would break, and when he didn’t and didn’t and didn’t it began to worry you. But it didn’t worry Chocolatito. His offensive purity, the perfection of his technique, left in him as much or more volume and activity as Matsumoto and thrice the accuracy.

Gonzalez neither took a wrong step nor allowed one from Matsumoto in Chocololatito’s ongoing pursuit of perpetual motion, the elusive machinery the very best teachers try to instill in students and rarely do: pulling the left shoulder, extended by the jab, powers the cross that extends the right shoulder whose return snaps the left hook that cocks the right uppercut and so on, all fired by the hips that turn and plant the driving feet. Many of us get told “the best combination has no end” but Chocolatito somehow absorbed it well enough to inform his every motion – even in the molten madness of combat’s crucible – till the fiber of who he is as a professional athlete became inseparable from it.

There is nothing not discouraging about being struck hard and often in the face by a man who knows how, but Matsumoto’s reaction to finishing his career’s 24th match in an upright position evinced something otherwise and deeper: the elation of a man condemned to die and pardoned.

And while the unanimous and lopsided decision got read in his opponent’s native language Chocolatito stood poised in his unmarked face evincing nothing so much as detachment.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim

So who is the A-side now?

In a not-so-surprising report, Canelo Alvarez’ crown as the reigning pay-per-view king got knocked sideways, if not completely off his redhead, with news that the PPV audience for his victory over Liam Smith last Saturday is not expected to be bigger than 300,000.

The Los Angeles Times reported the news, citing sources who blamed the disappointing number on mounting frustration at Canelo, who has yet to agree to a fight with Gennady Golovkin.

Meanwhile, Golovkin’s victory on Sept. 10 over Kell Brook, a British welterweight fighting at middleweight, was a PPV success in the UK with a reported audience of 500,000.

The Canelo-Smith fight was promoted as a way to showcase Canelo at AT&T Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys home field, during a celebration of Mexican Independence. The live gate was considered a success.

In terms of leverage in potential negotiations for Canelo-Golovkin, however, the key is in the PPV numbers. Golovkin appeared to gain a significant edge at London’s sold-out O2 Arena against a fighter, Brook, better-known in the hot UK market than Smith.

Meanwhile, chances of Golovkin-Canelo appear to be as uncertain as ever. Canelo suffered a fractured thumb during his business-like stoppage of Smith in a junior-middleweight bout. That means he won’t fight in December, as has been planned.

His next appearance could be in early May as part of the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration, but it’s safe to say it won’t be against Golovkin. Even before the thumb injury, talk was that September, 2017 was the chance for Golovkin-Canelo.

Now, who knows? Meanwhile, there are reported talks for an intriguing fight between Golovkin and Danny Jacobs, possibly on Dec. 10 in a middleweight unification bout in New York.

It could be another opportunity for Golovkin to add further evidence that he is boxing’s A-side. Or is that the GGG-side?

The championship belt is probably not going anywhere, but Oscar Valdez Jr., figures to retain it in Las Vegas instead of Tucson.

Valdez’ first defense of the WBO’s featherweight title against Japanese contender Hiroshige Osawa was officially added this week to the pay-per-view card featuring Manny Pacquiao-Jessie Vargas on Nov. 5 at Thomas & Mack Center.

Top Rank’s initial plan was for Valdez to make his first defense in Tucson, where he grew up, on a later date in November.

Valdez was in Tucson at Casino del Sol for a Univision-televised card featuring Juan Diaz on August 6, two weeks after he won the WBO’s 126-pound belt in a second-round stoppage of Argentina’s Matias Rueda.

Valdez signed autographs and his management team talked about whether to stage his first title defense at an outside pavilion or in one of the Tucson casino’s ballrooms.

But plans changed when HBO said no to the PPV possibility, forcing Top Rank to stage the Nov. 5 card at its own expense. It needs a fighter who can attract a PPV audience and Valdez (20-0, 18 KOs) qualifies. The two-time Mexican Olympian has emerged as one of Top Rank’s bright young talents.

In Osawa (30-3-4, 19 KOs), Valdez faces a fighter who has won eight straight bouts, yet has fought outside Japan only twice – once in Korea and then in General Santos City, Pacquiao’s hometown, in his last one.

Valdez-Osawa is one of three title fights on a card that also includes two-time Chinese Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming (8-1, 2 KOs) and Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym (39-1-2, 24 KOs) of Thailand in a rematch.

The third title fight features Nonito Doniare in a defense of the WBO’s 122-pound title against Jessie Magdaleno of Las Vegas.

At some point, Donaire said he would like to go back up to featherweight in a bid to regain a major 126-pound title. Victories by Donaire and Valdez could set up an intriguing featherweight bout in 2017.

By Bart Barry-

NOT ARLINGTON, TEXAS – Saturday Mexican junior middleweight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez toed the line against former Commonwealth super welterweight titlist, former BBBofC British super welterweight titlist, former WBA Continental super welterweight titlist, former WBO Inter-Continental super welterweight titlist, and reigning and defending WBO World super welterweight titlist, Liam “Beefy” Smith. Canelo prevailed by ninth round knockout, nevertheless, a result that suffered nary a moment’s doubting since their contract was signed.

Canelo selected Beefy, softened Beefy, slipped Beefy and stabbed Beefy – in a spectacle ending with a left hook to the liver and resembling more nearly a bullfight than a competitive athletic contest between men. The bullfight metaphor holds as a way to impart what our sport’s championship matches have become in the Mayweather and post-Mayweather eras, because if Saturday’s attendance figure in the former Cowboys Stadium can be believed, the real problem most of us had with Mayweather fights were not their lopsidedness or handicapping but rather Mayweather’s ineptitude at the estocada – an ungrateful and graceless unwillingness to risk himself slightly enough to thrust his sword in a hopeless opponent.

We didn’t mind Mayweather’s taunting the dimwitted creature in a corral beforehand just as we didn’t mind Mayweather’s attention to securing his traje de luces just as we didn’t mind Mayweather’s picador jabs to soften the flailing beast just as we didn’t mind a festooned decoy like Joe Cortez on standby in case things got unexpectedly competitive, none of it, but we were deeply insulted by Money’s failure to square his shoulders to a dying creature and give us our catharsis by taking its consciousness. Not even a billion-dollar purse would buy Mayweather that ear.

Canelo conversely thrusts his sword with precision and aplomb, and in an era when competitiveness is not demanded by consumers the Mexican’s habit of closing fights imperatively rather than dully or via his opponent’s trainer makes him an exceptional draw, along with Mexicans’ extraordinary appetite for a sport that is now much less than they deserve. Less explicable is Brits’ passion for a sport in which their exports fare so poorly at the international level; where the Mexican retains a still-justifiable belief his country’s best fighter in a weightclass may well be the world’s best fighter in that weightclass it’s hard to imagine a British aficionado who believes likewise very often.

But still we get Khans and Brooks and Smiths and Murrays served to Canelo and Gennady Golovkin because of their reliable fanbase and predictable fighting styles; they are toros bred to lose valiantly, not gore. No banderillero is needed in these bullfights because no bull is eligible for import to a corrida till figurative spears decorate his nape – it is best if he is slow of foot and quick to bleed but if not his chin should be suspect, and if somehow he is both nimble and durable he’s put in the ring with a man much too large for him to render unconscious.

“Brook landed some great combinations in that round!” we say; “Smith really showed valor when all was lost!”

All was lost for Smith throughout but he absorbed a beating gamefully and soon was distracted by futility enough to mistake Canelo’s retreating as opening, and Beefy remained so confused through three rounds and two knockdowns he’d still be tripping the Mexican’s every trap as you read this had Canelo not put his middle knuckle on the button, that quarter-sized opening to the liver that resides between the right hipbone and lowest rib, in round 9. Smith crumpled as every man does when struck there, and Canelo had another knockout victory that in another era would corrupt his legacy more than burnish it. Or as Saturday’s commentary crew might put it: What combination punching! what red hair!

We cloak fated mismatches like Canelo-Beefy with lore to obfuscate what we know they are, recollecting for our friends that time the underdog did this or the favorite broke his hand doing that or statistics showing, historically, being a torero is a dangerous trade whatever the fraternity’s record against its opposition. Our matadors play along best they are able – taking a backwards step every other round or bleeding every third or fourth fight – but ultimately their contempt tells, contempt for their opponents’ weaponry, mostly, but also contempt for their promoters’ embellishments and contempt for fans who would reward them so longly for such short risk.

Then we tell ourselves Canelo and GGG deserve their riches because any man who steps through the ropes blah blah blah without mentioning how complicit we’ve become in the brutalization of these victims trotted to the ring for b-side paychecks. Perhaps it’s better Mayweather was so professionally opposed to risktaking schemes, then, doing enough to subdue and humiliate his toros but nothing so personal or sadistic as clipping their consciousnesses.

This whole ugly flesh trade was more honorable, frankly, when promoters matched two men of equal ratios of talent and size then bought judges’ favoritism; spectators at least enjoyed 36 minutes of competition before getting outraged at official scorecards. Today’s opposite of that: Imagine for a moment promoter Oscar De La Hoya feeling desperate enough about Liam Smith’s chances Saturday to waste money ensuring a decision victory for Canelo by bringing, say, Chuck Giampa out of retirement. At long last we’ve come to the clean sport Oscar promised us a decade ago.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Liam Smith defends the WBA Jr. Middleweight title against Canelo Alvarez.  The action from AT&T Stadium kicks off at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT with a 3 fight undercard that will start with super bantamweight’s Diego De La Hoya battling Luis Orlandito Del Valle; Joseph Diaz takes on Andrew Cancio in a featherweight bout and in the co-feature, Willie Monroe, Jr. battles Gabriel Rosado in a middleweight clash.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED…THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY

Round 1: Hard right from Alvarez..Jab..Double jab..body shot..jab..

Round 2 Good right from Smith..2 jabs and hook from Alvarez..Hard right to body..Alvarez bleeding over his left eye..Left from Smith..

Round 3 Alvarez lands a body shot..Hard right..right to head..body shot..left right to body.Good left fro, Smith..right..Uppercut by Alvarez..Good uppercut from Smith..

Round 4 Smith cut above his left eye..Body shots from Alvarez..

Round 5 Smith lands a body punch…jab..double uppercut and body from Alvarez..good right from Smith..Hard right

Round 6  Good right from Smith..2 hard uppercuts from Alvarez..Body shot..Great right to the body

Round 7 RIGHT TO HEAD AND DOWN GOES SMITH..Big left hook from Alvarez..Smith lands a right..

Round 8 Counter right from Alvarez..Good left from Smith..HARD BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES SMITH..

Round 9 Body shot from Alvarez..another good body shot..HUGE LEFT TO THE BODY AND DOWN GOES SMITH…HE IS HURT AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Right hook from Monroe..2 jabs…

116-112, 118-110, 117-111 WILLIE MONROE JR

Round 1: Diaz lands a left..Left at end of round

Round 2  Cancio lands a left hook…Right from Diaz..Good body shot..Solid left..

Round 3 Cancio bleeding from the nose..Trading uppercuts…1-2 from Cancio

Round 4 2 straight lefts from Diaz..

Round 5 Diaz lands a combination..Jab/straight left…Good right from Cancio..Straight left from Diaz..And another 1

Round 6 Good body shot from Diaz..Good left

Round 7 8 Punch combination from Diaz

Round 8 2 rights from Cancio..Combination..Combination from Diaz,,Good left hook from Cancio..Good left from Diaz..

Round 9 REF STOPS FIGHT…TKO WIN FOR JOSEPH DIAZ JR.

Round 1 De La Hoya lands a right..

Round 2  Del Valle lands a left and right to chin..Jab from De La Hoya..Jab ..Straight right from Del Valle..Good right..Let to body from De La Hoya..

Round 3 Good exchange..Right from Del Valle..Solid right from De La Hoya…Good body shot from Del Valle..

Round 4 Del Valle lands a right..De La Hoya lands a right ..Good body shot…Good exchange

Round 5 Exchange of rights’..Hard right from De La Hoya

Round 6 Left hook to body from De La Hoya..Good left hook to body…Good right..

Round 7 Del Valle has a mouse under his right eye

Round 8 De La Hoya lands a nice right

Round 9

Round 10 Nice jab from De La Hoya..

100-90, 99-91 twice for DIEGO DE LA HOYA

By Norm Frauenheim-

In the political season, Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez are acting a lot like candidates.

Maybe, that’s because they have been campaigning longer than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for a fight presumably sometime after somebody finally moves into the White House next January.

The Golovkin campaign stopped in London last Saturday with a predictable stoppage over welterweight-turned-middleweight Kell Brook in a bout surprising only because of marks left on GGG’s usually unmarked face.

A week later, this Saturday, Canelo takes his turn in the bully pulpit against unbeaten, yet little-known UK junior-middleweight Liam Smith in a ring on top of the Dallas Cowboys home field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., in a pay-per-view bout (HBO 9 pm ET/6 pm PT).

For those reading the tea leaves – and that’s just about everybody, the bruises represent early signs of vulnerability in GGG. Then again, they also might only mean the feared middleweight champion can take a punch.

Safe to say, the 26-year-old Canelo and his partisans connected the abrasions and welts like dots in a progression that perhaps confirms what they’ve been doing all along. Time has begun to do what no punch ever could to a younger GGG. It’s inevitable. It’s also business.

Next year –say in May during the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration, Golovkin will be 35, late enough in his prime to attack early signs that had not been evident until Brook’s punches landed. Of course, a potential symptom might also be nothing more than a pimple.

Nevertheless, there’s good news in talk from Dallas that Canelo and his corner are finally beginning to see a chance at beating GGG.

It’s never been about the weight, although Canelo’s corner continues to insist he’s really a 154-pound fighter, still growing into a true middleweight.

Yet, he declined to step on a scale for HBO in his dressing room just before his crushing stoppage of ex-junior-welterweight Amir Khan last May for the WBC’s 160-pound title, which he subsequently relinquished amid mounting criticism from frustrated fans who only want to see him against GGG.

The guess here is that Canelo didn’t want any of those fans to know that he is in fact a true middleweight already and perhaps a division or two heavier.

Time is the only scale that really matters here. As long as Canelo stays at 154, Golovkin gets a little older and maybe a lot more vulnerable to big punches from a fighter entering his prime just as GGG is exiting his own.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday afternoon HBO broadcast the latest episode in its ungainly series of Gennady “GGG” Golovkin feature films against hopeless welterweight Kell “Special K” Brook, who won a minute of the fight’s first 12 then signalled his corner “anytime fellas!” and got the match towel-waved in round 5, before HBO redeemed itself Saturday night with the genuinely brilliant Nicaraguan Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez in a genuinely competitive championship match with Mexican Carlos “Principe” Cuadros.

The best thing to come of what has become a shameless promotional manufacture of Gennady Golovkin – whose handlers are inexplicably opposed to seeing him challenged – is the emergence of Chocolatito, a master prizefighter deserving of mention in the same paragraphs as other master prizefighters, unlike just about every one of his remaining contemporaries including Golovkin. Making Gonzalez a mainevent attraction may well be the only exceptional thing HBO has done with its sports budget in years, whatever it tells itself about itself.

Much as putting Gonzalez at the top of billings with Golovkin is a service to Gonzalez and his legacy and HBO subscribers, though, it is becoming more and more a liability for Golovkin’s legacy – as it becomes obvious to viewers which man seeks greatness and in a ratio, more alarming still to Golovkin apologists, inverse to viewers’ knowledge of our oncebeloved sport: While the aficionado has historical comparisons with which to delude himself about embarrassing mismatches like Golovkin and Brook – and, hey, look at the soldout arena! – the naif sees one man’s opponent frightened from the opening bell and wonders how this sort of entertainment sates any manly impulse save sadism.

Whatever the scales said the eyes told you Golovkin and Brook did not belong in a ring together much as Chocolatito and Cuadros did not, but whereas Golovkin-Brook fulfilled only the worst suspicions Gonzalez-Cuadros came stuffed with pleasant surprises as the significantly smaller man spun and wacked and maneuvered and pressured and absorbed the larger man’s aggression in a properly competitive spectacle that renewed albeit temporarily one’s passion for prizefighting.

Golovkin-Brook saw a fight in which one man was powerless to hurt the other whatever his technique and the other was powerless not to hurt the one – whatever, again, his technique; Golovkin’s technique has improved no more than his English since HBO’s biannual forcefeedings commenced in 2012, due to dreadful opposition and a trainer who’s three parts savvy selfsalesman for every one part sweetscience sage. Golovkin did more damage to Brook with his jab than Brook did Golovkin with a perfectly placed uppercut thrown in combination, a thing to tell you exactly nothing about Brook’s power or Golovkin’s chin or Golovkin’s power or Brook’s chin but everything about what farcical matchmaking now bedrocks the Golovkin legend.

Such is not an indictment of Golovkin so much as his handlers; one senses Golovkin is all-fighter and wants to mill with real opponents who might really improve him by really stretching him, converting his potential finally instead of merely growing it, but that cannot happen so long as the industry’s rapacity protects him, a lifetime middleweight, a man 40 pounds from the heavyweight division, with continuing nonsense about a dearth of suitable opponents (no one at 168 pounds will face him; only someone from 147 would) – risibly the same industry that once chided Floyd Mayweather, who made title fights in five divisions and climbed 24 pounds, for not challenging himself adequately and now wonders aloud when Chocolatito will jump to his fifth or sixth weightclass.

While Golovkin and his big payday Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, faces still CoverGirl fresh, unite to unify the welterweight division, Chocolatito wears the scars of a man who challenges himself properly in a pursuit of greatness by matching himself with increasingly larger men and narrowing dramatically his margins for error. Therein lies the insult of Saturday’s spectacles: Golovkin strode forward with an aluminum bat in a waterballoon fight while Chocolatito suffered each time Cuadros struck him and didn’t relent.

Put Golovkin in the ring with men large enough to hurt him or shut up until you do.

To the suddenly empathetic souls who saw Brook motion for 20,000 spectators and one fellow combatant the very moment his right eye was hurt Saturday, actually waving his glove and pointing to his eye midround, a question: Can you imagine Gonzalez or Cuadros giving another man on earth the satisfaction of knowing he was injured? Then came the predictable perversity of cheering a premature corner stoppage for preserving future paydays the vanquished and his sympathetically complicit cornermen may enjoy in 2017 scams and one more at least in 2018. What sort of afficionado, exactly, feels compelled to celebrate the continuation of a career unremarkable as Brook’s in lieu of continued violence?

If you’re enthusiastically watching a fight for the middleweight championship of the world and fearful a man may lose his life in the opening 15 minutes you’re being disingenuous – either when you say you’re enthusiastic about seeing the fight or when you say you’re genuinely concerned for the loser’s health. Both are unseemly.

After their respective matches Golovkin gave himself a low score and likened his assault to sparring while Chocolatito, both eyes swelling shut, said he knew the perils of rising in weight but welcomed them because rising to challenges (rising for challenges) is what great fighters do. Credit both men’s honesty.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Roman Gonzalez tries to become a 4-division world champion when he takes on Carlos Cuadras for the WBC Super Flyweight title.  The action begins at 10 PM ET with a rematch of welterweights between Jesus Soto Karass and Yoshihiro Kamegai

Round 1: Cuadras jabbing to the body..left from Gonzalez

Round 2  Good hook from Cuadras…Right from Gonzalez

Round 3 Cuandras lands a nice right…Good pressure for Gonzalez

Round 4 Gonzalez stalking…Cuadras trying to land shots…Gonzalez left eye swelling..good uppercut from Cuadras..

Round 5  Good uppercut from Cuadras…Good right…combination..Good right from Gonzalez..Good body shot..Flurry from Cuadras

Round 6 Good hook from Cuadras..Gonzalez left side of face is swelling and now a cut over his right eye..Cut caused by a punch

Round 7 Flurry from Gonzalez..Big left hook from Cuadras..Good hook from Gonzalez..

Round 8 Good right from Gonzalez…Hard right….exchange left hook..uppercut flurry from Cuadras…Cuadras cut over right eye–From a headbutt

Round 9 Body shot hurts Cuadras…right over the top..Good body shot from Cuadras..left from Gonzalez…4 good rights from Cuadras..right uppercut from Gonzalez..good hook..Good right from Cuadras…

Round 10 Left from Cuadras..Body shot from Gonzalez..

Round 11 Right uppercut from Gonzalez..Gonzalez relentless…Good body shot from Cuadras and another

Round 12 Gonzalez landing straight punches…

117-111, 116-112 and 115-113 for Roman Gonzalez

Punch stats:  Gonzalez 323 of 985   Cuadras 253 of 895

Round 1 Hooks by Kamegai…Body shot hurts Kamegai….3 Body shots from Kamaegai..right to head..good right..Right uppercut from Soto Karass

Round 2 Uppercut landing uppercuts…body work..left to body from Kamegai..right to body..good left..Karrass lands body shots and upperuts

Round 3 Kamegai lands a left to body…good right

Round 4 Good over hand right from Soto Karass..Good right

Round 5 Right to body from Kamegai..Big left hook from Karass..Body shot by Kamegai..Right to body..good right from Karass..

Round 6 Kamegai lands a liver shot..Good left hook

Round 7 Kamegai  lands a right…Hard body shot hurts Soto Karass..Left hook from Soto Karras..another..left ..right..left to the body..

Round 8 Body shot hurts Soto Karas…HARD RIGHT AND DOWN GOES SOTO KARASS..3 hard uppercuts…Soto Karass lands a big right…SOTO KARASS WILL NOT CONTINUE AFTER THE ROUND

Follow all the action as Gennady Golovkin defends the IBF/WBC Middleweight title against IBF Wekterweight champion Kell Brook in a battle of undefeated world champions.  The action begins at 5:30 PM ET from the 02 Arena in London.

THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY–NO REFRESH NEEDED

Round 1: Jab from Golovkin..Right from Brook..Brook swelling around right eye…Hard body shot..Brook is hurtUppercut from Brook..Hard right from Brook..Left from Golovkin..Golovkin swelling around his left eye..

Round 2:  Great back and forth…Brook getting better…Lands an uppercut….

Round 3 Golovkin putting on pressure…3 punch body to body…Hard right…..Brook;s eye swelling badley…3 hard shots from Brook

Round 4 Counter right from Brook.Body shots from Golovkin..Jab,,Good left hook from Brook…

Round 5 Golovkin going after Brook….Hard right snaps Brook’s head back..BROOK’S CORNER THROWS IN THE TOWEL

 

 

By Norm Frauenheim-

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – He wrapped himself in the blue-and-white Nicaraguan flag before and after stepping on the scale. Roman Gonzalez, a man of his people, has also become his country’s lone symbol of sporting success.

Nicaragua didn’t win a medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics last month. Saturday at the Forum, however, Gonzalez enters the ring on boxing’s top pedestal. He’s alone, the consensus No. 1 in the pound for-pound debate. It’s a lonely place to be. Surprising and precarious, too.

Gonzalez, who goes after another title at another weight against WBC 115-pound champion Carlos Cuadras, is the lightest fighter to ever be at the top of The Ring and ESPN ratings. He’s been there ever since Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced his retirement more than a year ago. In other words, for a long time.

But this is boxing, which means that there is always an argument and a burden of proof. The prevailing theory is that Gonzalez is keeping the top spot warm for middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin, who faces Kell Brook Saturday in London in the first part of an HBO telecast (2:30 p.m. PST/5:30 p.m. EST).

Then, there’s the November clash between light-heavyweight Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward. It fair to assume that the winner of that one will have claim of his own. The assumption is that the bigger fighters, heavier hands will eventually sweep aside Gonzalez drop him to those rungs of that rating that once belonged to Ricardo Lopez, Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez.

But it could be a tough argument to make if Gonzalez (45-0, 38 KOs) continues to display his technical brilliance at more than one, two or even three weights.

Against Cuadras (35-0-1, 27 KOs), the former 105, 108 and current 112-pound champion goes after a fourth belt, also on HBO (7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST) on a portion of the card that includes a junior-middleweight rematch between Jesus Soto Karass (28-10-4, 18 KOs) and Yoshihiro Kamegai (26-3-2, 23 KOs).

A fourth major title at a fourth weight would add up to a first for Gonzalez, Nicaragua and Central America. It would surpass the three-title achievement of Gonzalez mentor and Nicaraguan hero, the late Alexis Argyle.

“I dedicate this fight to Alexis,’’ Gonzalez said to Spanish media that gathered in The Forum’s parking lot for an outdoor weigh-in beneath the roaring path of commercial jets preparing to land at nearby LAX. “I feel very comfortable knowing that Alexis had success here.”

Arguello was 4-0 at The Forum, winning titles at featherweight and super-feather. In his fourth fight at the rebuilt arena, he beat Bobby Chacon in November 1979. Chacon, 64, died Wednesday.

In two bids for a fourth title, Arguello, who died in 2009, fell short, losing by stoppage to Aaron Pryor in 1982 and again in 1983.

“I know how badly he wanted a fourth divisional championship,’’ said Gonzalez, who Friday was 114.6 pounds, two-tenths of a pound lighter than Cuadras. “I want to do this for him.’’

And for his people.

By Norm Frauenheim–

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Roman Gonzalez is rapidly moving up the scale in weight, skipping seamlessly from belt to belt like a flat stone on a championship pond.

His ascendancy is what makes him the lightest fighter to ever gain pound-for-pound recognition on an unbeaten path that figures continue Saturday night at The Forum in his bid for a title in a fourth weight class against WBC 115-pound champion Carl Cuadras on HBO (10 p.m. ET/PT).

Gonzalez is considered the biggest little man ever in terms of skill and stature. But not in dollars. Nothing has changed at the top of the pay scale for the lightest weights in nearly a quarter of a century. Michael Carbajal and Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez are still there.

In a significant test of his marketability, Roman Gonzalez is the headliner on a card in the same arena where Carbajal became the first fighter lighter than 128 pounds to collect the $1 million milestone in a February, 1994 rematch that Chiquita Gonzalez won in a split decision more than 22 years ago.

It was supposed to be the fight that opened the door, or at least the vault, for fighters who had traditionally paid a bloody price for a chance at boxing’s version of the minimum wage.

A sign that a new, enhanced payday had finally arrived was in The Forum crowd. It was announced at 15,102. Magic Johnson was there. It was good day to be a Lord of the Flies. Nine months later, in November 1994, Chiquita got his seven figures, collecting $1 million for another close decision in front of an estimated crowd of 30,000 at a Mexico City bullring.

But in the years since the Lakers packed up Showtime and moved from The Forum to Staples, those paychecks have never be equalled. Not even close.

Make no mistake, Gonzalez (45-0, 38 KOs), who is favored to become the first Nicaraguan to win a fourth title against Cuadras (35-0-1, 27 KOs), has begun to make a very good living.

Over his last two fights, his cumulative income is a reported $550,000, $250,000 for a stoppage of Brian Viloria last October and a career-high $300,000 for an April stoppage of McWilliams Arroyo.

It’s comfortable, but still nearly half of what Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez collected in single fights against each other a lot of inflation ago. It’s also a wage not associated with the acknowledged leader in the pound-for-pound debate.

There’s been some serious deflation in money and expectations since casual fans headed for the exits in the wake of the disappointing Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao bout in May 2015. But not even the Mayweather-Pacquiao dud explains it. Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, second or third to Roman Gonzalez in pound-for-pound ratings, is reportedly getting $5 million against Kell Brook Saturday in London in an HBO-televised bout that will precede Roman Gonzalez-Cuadras.

Roman Gonzalez purse has yet to be disclosed, but it’s safe to say it’ll be a fraction of Golovkin’s purse and probably won’t equal the bar set by Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez in history’s richest 108-pound trilogy.

Both history and money lead to the same place. Roman Gonzalez still needs a rival, a business partner. Without one, he is Ricardo Lopez, perhaps history’s greatest little fighter, yet without ever getting a check that approached the kind of money collected by Carbajal and Gonzalez.

Maybe, Japanese prodigy Naoya Inoue is the other half of a partnership that can unlock all of financial potential evident in the pound-for-pound skill, poise and power that Roman Gonzalez has consistently exhibited in his ongoing introduction to the American market.

There were reports that Inoue planed to be at ringside at The Forum Saturday, a week after his 10th-round stoppage of Petchbarnghborn Kotietgym in Japan for a 115-pound title. However, there were also reports of injuries to Inoue, who appeared to hurt his right hand in his latest victory. Roman Gonzalez can only hope Inoue is healthy. For now, a healthy Inoue might be the only way he can also move up that pay scale.

By Bart Barry–

SAN ANTONIO – This city is named after a river.

Too, it’s nicknamed after a mission where a battle happened and Davy Crockett fought. Saturday the domed venue named after the mission where that battle happened and Davy Crockett fought, Alamodome, will play host to Mexican WBC Silver Caneloweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s decimation of British welter/middleweight Kell “Special K” Brook in a Cinco De Mayo HBO PPV extravaganza, “GolovKanelo,” that will also see HBO Middleweight Champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin make a homecoming hospitalization of British super welterweight Liam “Beefy” Smith in Kazakhstan.

“Kell Brook reminds me a lot of myself,” said an enthusiastic Oscar De La Hoya at GolovKanelo’s kickoff presser in April. “And Canelo Alvarez, obviously, reminds me a lot of myself. It’s like Oscar versus De La Hoya. Expect fireworks. Two champions. Both were undefeated before their primes.”

The Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation is on high-alert for Saturday’s premeditated assault. Despite reserving ringside seats for more than two dozen “medical officials” Commissioners expect to be powerless to stop the battery when Canelo brings more than two centuries of his countrymen’s grief, first with Spain and later with corrupt locally grown leaders, to the chin and ribs of hapless Kell Brook, a once-undefeated welterweight who ate himself to a handsome payday and vicious beating from Gennady Golovkin in September, a London match that went off lopsidedly even in the drunken betting shops of Brook’s hometown.

One of the Brothers Smith, apparently the one Canelo made a brutal “lesson in the obligations of independence” out of on Mexican Independence Day Weekend 2016, will make the second part of HBO’s split-venue / split-continents pay-per-view fiesta when he serves himself warm to GGG and 20,000 rabid Kazakhs in their country’s third-largest sports venue, Kazhymukan Munaitpasov Stadium, in a contest expected to satisfy any outstanding criteria for naming Golovkin the HBO Middleweight Champion of the Decade – an honorarium that precludes GGG from ever moving to 168 pounds, unless he wants to.

According to an unnamed source in the otherwise unreadable “Official GolovKanelo Blog” the enmity betwixt Alvarez and Golovkin was too much for one continent to sustain after what insiders now call The Incident. As reporters have hashed and rehashed since September: Budgetary restrictions precluded Golovkin’s handlers from booking a direct London-to-Dallas flight after Golovkin’s near decapitation of Brook, which caused Golovkin to land in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles and drive to Texas where he arrived 37 minutes too late to see Canelo break the stream of electricity to Smith’s brain in the fifth round of their woeful mismatch.

According to De La Hoya, Canelo’s earnest promoter, Canelo might’ve stopped Smith in round 3 if he’d had a proper warmup but instead spent the final private moments of his prefight routine before a restroom mirror practicing a new speech and glower he intended to deliver to Golovkin immediately after another successful defense of the WBC Caneloweight Silver title (Alvarez also holds the International title, the Gold title and the Americas title in this division).

“The only thing that held Canelo back from scoring the fastest knockout of a British fighter in Mexican history,” De La Hoya explained in Part 4 of a riveting blog, “was me telling him to rehearse his lines for after the fight. He won’t do that again.

“Now he’s going straight to the top.”

When Golovkin was not yet in the city limits of Arlington, Texas, at the time of Canelo’s important announcement, the fiercely proud Firehaired Horseman of Jalisco stated flatly:

“Mexicans do not tolerate the disrespect. We do not fight a man who disrespects us, because that means respecting a disrespectful man and that is not how he learns to respect. Wherever he is, tell that guy he will not share a ring with me until he learns respect, and since these things take a year to learn, at the very least . . .”

Whatever applause then burst from the partisan-Mexican crowd at AT&T Stadium in September – a crowd De La Hoya estimated “between 20,000 and 100 million but definitely more than 10,000” – a terrible rift opened between the two champions’ promoters, HBOGBP and HBOK2, time alone may heal but may not – not as proud as these two men are, not as proud as they are of their respective fighting traditions.

Further complicating matters was Canelo’s refusal to pay Golovkin step-aside money for Canelo’s expected match with David Lemieux, whom Golovkin blasted apart some years ago, and about whom Canelo later said, “For what would I beat a guy Golovkin beat after many years when I can broil (asar) more English beef the other guy tenderized Saturday?”

Tweeting from the bed to which doctors consigned him after his match with Golovkin, Special K eagerly accepted Canelo’s challenge, promising to bulk up to 190 pounds by March in the hopes of cutting a pound a day in April.

“With no chance of Canelo and Golovkin now fighting one another in 2017,” an HBO representative said, “we decided to give fans a truly innovative experience. We call it the HBO Virtual Scorecard. This way our subscribers can watch Canelo against Golovkin’s most recent victim and Gennady against Alvarez’s most recent opponent, and score who would win each round if Canelo and Gennady were fighting each other.

“Max has been doing this for years!”

By Norm Frauenheim-

He appears to be a mere prop in Canelo Alvarez’ long-term design on creating a legend that still awaits a defining moment, perhaps against Gennady Golovkin. He’s another Smith.

He’s the brother of Paul and Stephen, who are about as forgettable as any other Smith who has fought in the United States.

Betting odds, which opened at 11-1 and are about 10-1 in the UK, suggest that this Smith Brother, Liam, won’t last longer than a cough drop on Sept. 17 against the heavily-favored Canelo on Sept. 17 in a ring on top of the Dallas Cowboys home field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex.

Liam Smith and his management have other ideas. No surprise there. It would be a bigger upset than a Liam Smith victory over Canelo if they didn’t, of course. But they, like Canelo, also have plans on making history, both for the Smith family and the UK.

Unlike Canelo, however, their plans are more immediate. The unknown Liam Smith and his well-known promoter, Frank Warren, are talking about an upset that would be one for the books.

Warren put it this way during a conference call Thursday when asked if Liam Smith would fight in November after a predicted loss to Canelo:

“No, that’s not possible, because he’s going to win.’’

The one-sided odds say otherwise. So, too, does the Texas location and the September date that coincides with the celebration of Mexican Independence.

Canelo, who has taken back the Mexican holidays in May and September since Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s retirement, is hugely popular in Texas. He has fought in front of big crowds in Houston and San Antonio.

Now, he fights for the first time in Dallas, where he intends to further cement his claim on being the face of boxing while also gaining leverage in negotiations for a GGG showdown in 2017.

Translation: All of the pressure is on Canelo to deliver a dominant performance in a fight that will happen one week after GGG faces Kell Brook in London on Sept. 10. If all goes as predicted, the two performances will be a reference point in analyzing who would win and how in a GGG-Canelo bout.

An intriguing footnote is that Canelo is a bigger favorite over Smith at 154 pounds than middleweight champion Golovkin is against Brook, a welterweight champion who is jumping from 147 to 160. GGG is a 7-to-1 favorite.

Liam Smith, the WBO’s 154-pound belt-holder, feels he has as good a shot as Brook has.

“Yes, I like my chances,’’ said Liam, whose brothers were beaten in their last trips to the U.S.

Paul Smith, a super-middleweight, lost to Andre Ward last year in Oakland, Calif. Stephan Smith, a super-featherweight, lost to Jose Pedraza last April in Mashantucket, Conn.

Warren suggested Thursday that Liam is the best of the Smiths, one whom he says will record an upset as big as any in UK boxing history.

“So often, people go over to the States to fight, thinking that they have nothing to lose,’’ said Warren, who said a Liam Smith victory would place him alongside Joe Calzaghe’s upsets of Jeff Lacy, Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. “But Liam has something to lose: His pride.’’

So, too, does Canelo, whose own brand of fierce pride is just one of many things at stake.

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: To commemorate his 543rd Monday column for 15rounds.com, we asked Bart Barry to interview Bart Barry about the current state of our craft.

BB: When we began, thought was write for free a while and enjoy access then eventually make some money, if not a living enough to travel enough to enjoy access, and then, even if we didn’t get money in the end, we’d always have access, right?

BB: Now there’s no access. It’s worse than indifference; it’s a model built on going round print media.

BB: When did we first notice?

BB: Richard Schaefer. He did not like the idea of an independent media but didn’t have a model where it could be circumvented so he followed Arum’s lead like he did everything else. But Arum liked print media. Liked to spar make outrageous accusations wink once quotes were down. King too. Maybe it was generational cultural but Schaefer did not see. He had his dozen or so media guys he was false friendly with but you could tell he didn’t trust or like them any more’n they trusted or liked him.

BB: How hard is it to write this column?

BB: Much easier than a couple years ago.

BB: Really?

BB: Before Mayweather-Pacquiao you felt an obligation to make three-quarters of your column about the sport because there were still good stories going on you could meet a young fighter and know he’d be developed and follow his ascent. Immensely rewarding. After Mayweather-Pacquiao there was no excuse to challenge yourself because the hopelessness of things was too apparent.

BB: And there were personal problems too.

BB: No need to delve in those.

BB: That has to affect outlook.

BB: Nothing bad enough to miss work. We’ll use that as a tenable threshold, compadre.

BB: Then we blame The Fight to Save Boxing?

BB: Only out of convenience. Its very satirical name above implies boxing needed redemption of some sort, which it did, and didn’t get any.

BB: How much boxing reading do we still do?

BB: Fractions we once did. Carlos, Jimmy, Norm, David, Tom, Steve – a few others irregularly. But the writing 10 years ago had a vibrancy to it we don’t have any more. We settle scores or fluff things we know don’t deserve it. The writing a decade ago was no better but there was more of it and felt urgent. Now if it’s positive it feels like a press release. And if it’s negative you think: Well, yes, obviously.

BB: What about awards?

BB: Some years past it felt futile and we stopped for the same reason we stop any extra effort: It wasn’t improving the writing. Some of that stuff’s a literary search for truth and admirable. A lot of it is gaming a committee and not. Still read the emails and try to congratulate people whose work we admire but returning to the first point: The more awards we won, worse access became. It wasn’t causal but gave an able excuse to stop entering both columns and credential applications.

BB: This is all pre-PBC then?

BB: Actually yes. The PBC amplified bad things whose effect will endure but created very few new problems. There’s nothing innovative there, is there?

BB: More money, more television, saturate the market with product.

BB: Not saying Al Haymon’s not bright – Rick James wrote very positive things about Haymon in “Memoirs of a Super Freak” – but Haymon’s not Edwin Land or anything.

BB: Still on about Rick James.

BB: Was as an autobiography should be. Vulnerable rough randy as a quiche.

BB: This year’s reading has been everywhere.

BB: Last year’s too.

BB: Why?

BB: Start with fiction, invention of a sort from the unity of one’s imagination. Then you cycle into nonfiction because of some interest or other. You get only so far in that and its requisite reductionism and soon you’re down to –

BB: Names. Numbers. Colors.

BB: – classification of one sort or another. You decide all reduction takes you to a void looking suspiciously like unity. Then you cycle back to fiction.

BB: Miss being ringside?

BB: Only ringside. None the rest of it. The credentials scramble. Nitwit publicists. Airport checkpoints. Cliche characters. Caricatures of wizened old trainers. It’s been years since the experience justified the hassle.

BB: Since Martinez-Chavez Thomas & Mack?

BB: Could be. Really don’t care.

BB: Advice to a young writer.

BB: If anything can stop you from writing –

BB: Let it.

BB: – let it.

BB: Cynical.

BB: No. Wrong. That is not cynical. It is about finding a thing you were born to do. Passion. Since this column is a commemorative effort it marks at least 535,000 words published here. That accounts for only about 1/3 the words we’ve written during that time. If you do not revel in the process –

BB: If anything can stop you . . .

BB: – you should not pursue writing about this sport or another subject. The affirmation is nighnil. If what’s within is too little and you write for without don’t do it. Not because we don’t want the emboldening competition but because you’re precluding yourself from finding a passion.

BB: Social media?

BB: Useless. No, worse. It’s a reflexive anxiety device. Perhaps an historic one. You look at Twitter and see massive anxiety manifesting itself as a need to comment on everything and the machine’s job is to provide more items to comment on because those comments are something to comment on.

BB: You loved Twitter, didn’t you?

BB: Years ago.

BB: Maybe you’ve changed.

BB: One should hope. That’s our adaptation to whatever. Twitter necessarily adapts to our adaptation. We adapt to its adaptation of our adaptation. Tiny adjustments and directional deviations and more adjustments to follow. Nature’s way.

BB: The shape of an oak branch.

BB: You want real ambivalence, lad?

BB: Hit me.

BB: Ralph Waldo Emerson knew all this and wrote it down a century and a half ago.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim–

PHOENIX – Former junior-welterweight champion Jose Benavidez Jr. is recovering from injuries suffered when he was shot in west Phoenix.

The injuries are not believed to be serious. TMZ reported Thursday morning that Benavidez had been shot in the leg, although it was not clear which leg. He was scheduled to leave a Phoenix-area hospital late Thursday.

There was confusion about when the shooting happened. According to one report, it happened Tuesday when he reportedly encountered an armed, unknown man while walking his dog. According to another report, it happened Thursday morning. No arrests have been made, s spokesman for the Phoenix police said.

Benavidez, 24, was not available for comment late Thursday.

Benavidez (25-0, 16 KOs) is coming off a solid performance in his welterweight debut — a unanimous decision over journeyman Francisco Santana on July 23 on the undercard of Terence Crawford’s victory over Viktor Postol at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

Benavidez, who held a WBA interim title at 140 pounds, had been expected to fight again at 147 sometime in November.

He was a possibility for the Nov. 5 card featuring Manny Pacquiao-Jessie Vargas at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center. Benavidez called out Vargas in the immediate aftermath of his victory over Santana.

There also had been talk that he would fight in Tucson on a Top Rank card featuring featherweight champion Oscar Valdez Jr. in his first title defense later in November

By Bart Barry

To hike South Texas in the summertime one must rise unconscionably early on a Saturday morning and be at the nearest state park when it opens and even then a line of early risers crowds the entrance not to hike but barbecue with familiars which might be the nuttiest thing I’d imagined till I saw it done – dozens of men hunched over open flames beneath a roasting sun while enveloped by air humid enough to sag oak branches. The same parks are vacant in the fall and winter when it is livable outside and all is much prettier because, evidently, cooking while cooking is a Lone Star State event more social than communal; one communes with fellow Texans outside in the heat more’n nature and if there is an appeal to all this it escapes me deftly.

Guadalupe River State Park is the one closest to downtown San Antonio and so I was there early last week to saunter more than hike a few miles to an overlook whose trail abandons the sand and desert of its larger part for a short bit through a primary campground. There are sundry overlooks of the shallow green river and its kayaks, bathers and splashers but few of them are isolated as I like and so what parking and hiking precedes the overlook compose the most part of a personal exercise regimen best called “light” in the summertime but part of an epiphany like this: The elimination of anxiety is nearer a theory of contentment as most may come and some weekly hours alone in nature subvert anxiety disproportionately better than more obviously pleasurable endeavors or their pursuit.

The grills were aflame all round the campgrounds on my traipse homewards and Texans are customarily polite people so I waded among the tables doffing my Wallaroo at anyone whose eyes I met. A number of students discussed a big test or the like and they were adorable deriving as they did so much nervousness and attendant anticipation from something so trite it brought to mind an honest friend who once told me she continued pursuing advanced degrees into her thirties because “It’s something I’m good at” – without deducing you can be good at most anything you pay $100,000 to do. A different group considered the legal troubles of their son or nephew or neighbor and as I’d attended a local-artist lecture a few evenings before I participated thusly:

“There’s a wonderful Mexican artist, or she was born here in Texas but raised in Mexico, her name is Jimena Marin, and apropos of her abstract early pieces she told us a bit of advice from her grandmother or aunt and it went, like, I think, we’re all born with a monkey, or, well anyway, a metaphor for problems, and some of us like to collect others’ monkeys and some of us like to give our monkeys away and some of us, I suppose (and by now I was improvising), nurture our own monkeys and watch them grow, and others of us neglect our monkeys and they shrink.”

It was an idea that was not tidying itself up as it did Thursday night for Ms. Marin and in a panic I decided to see if anyone wouldn’t forgive my changing the subject midway and proclaimed: “The Olympics, though, man!” A few other tables joined and soon we turned our spot near Rio Guadalupe to Rio de Janeiro. Someone held forth on the physics of women’s gymnastics and while it was absurd in its way to watch a man so large speak so confidently about the acrobatics of tiny teenage girls it was also interesting – the same way our other quadrennial obsession, figure skating, is interesting for the week it is interesting.

There was talk about Usain Bolt and his breaking or tying records only PED users before him set and I smiled and nodded along not because I believe any of it but because I’m not a sourpuss. And there was that swimmer, too, who faked his own hold-up in a gas station, the guy with the white hair, and I said “Michael Phelps?” partially to jog the others’ collective recall (it wasn’t Phelps, they’d know instantly, and how many other Olympic swimmers can a randomly sampled group of Americans name?) and mostly to keep momentum going in what by then was a premeditated direction.

Friday’s piece by Norm Frauenheim was excellent, of course, and as Norm knows more about the summer Olympics than the aggregate of our tables and our tables’ friends and families, I looked for a chance to insert in our campground chinwag Norm’s longheld theory about the robbery of Roy Jones and what it did to our sport in the decades that followed – best posed as a question like: How different might things have been if the world’s best fighter for a decade did not refuse to leave the country for fear of being robbed a second time?

“How about Olympic boxing?” I said, and I looked round the tables eagerly.

Four beats of silence got broken by the women’s gymnastics physicist saying he would check on the meat.

“Is that on television?” his wife said, sympathetically.

“The Brazilian men’s volleyball team plays the Italians tomorrow!” said a little girl.

“Is curling in the summer Olympics or winter?” asked her brother.

“Winter,” I said. “Did anyone see The Onion gave Kevin Durant the gold medal in Men’s Individual Basketball?”

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action live as Nate Diaz takes on Conor McGregor in one of the most anticipated rematches in sports History.  The action begins at 8 PM ET with the Prelims and then at 10 PM ET with a stacked undercard featuring Anthony “Rumble” Johnson taking on Glover Teixeira.

The page will update automatically every 60 seconds…NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED

Round 1: McGregor landing leg kicks…lands a left knocks Diaz down…Combination…Diaz starting to punch…Leg kick from McGregor..Body shot…Hard leg kicks…another leg kick…2 hard punches..

Round 2 Big left drops Diaz…McGregor lets him up..Left drops Diaz..Diaz face bleeding..Hard leg kick…Nice counter left…Diaz starting to land punches…Diaz landa big combinaion..uppercuts…body

Round 3 Diaz lands a right McGregor fading…Right hook from McGregor..Back to the leg kicks..Counter left…Body shot..Inside shot from McGregor..Good combo from Diaz..Diaz pointing at McGregor..Diaz lands a 1-2..Diaz landing hard shots,,,,McGregor in trouble…Huge shots…McGregor barely gets out of the round

Round 4 Hard 1-2 from McGregor…leg kick..Diaz bleeding from eyes …he is pawing at his cuts…Hard leg kick from McGregor…body shot..Hard left..Diaz tries for the double…good defense from McGregor..Knee to body from Diaz…Big shot from McGregor..Knee to body from Diaz…Diaz staggers McGregor..great counter from McGregor..Good combination..another combination,..Hard left over the top..

Round 5 Diaz tries for another double leg and McGregor blocks it..Good combination from McGregor..Good left..Diaz landing little shots inside..Good takedown from Diaz.

48-47 TWICE FOR MCGREGOR AND 47-47

Round 1 JOHNSON LANDS A RIGHT AND DROPS TEIXEIRA AND THE FIGHT IS OVER…13 SECONDS…HUGE UPPERCUT

Round 1: Leg kick from Cerrone that is followed by a take down..Story reverses and pushes Cerrone on the cage..Cerrone attempting a triangle…Story lands a knee to the body..Inside leg kick from Story..Kick to the body and left hand…Leg kick from Cerrone..Leg kick..combination..Inside kick by story..

Round 2 2 good rights from Cerrone…Leg kick..Kick to head hurts Story…STORY IS DOWN …CERRONE LANDING AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

 

Round 1: Right from Lim..Nice uppercut…Big right from Perry drops Lim..Perry gets top control…Mounted Crucifix..Perry has him pinned down..Huge right knocks Lim down again and Perry begins the ground and pound..Lim is hurt and bleeding on the ground…Lim walks into a huge left and Lim goes down and after  COUPLE PUNHES THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1: Good counter right hand from Means..Good leg kick from Homasi..Right to chin from Means..Homasi lands a leg kick..Homasi gets a take down..Homasi looking tired..Take down for Homasi…Means throwing elbows to the arm..lect to body from means..short elbow…Homasi bleeding badly from his forehead..Short elbow from Means..Homasi is hurt..Body shots from Means..knee and a short elbow

Round 2 Means lands a kick to the body..Homasi seems hurt and tired..Body shots and right that hurts Homasi again….Means 50/83 in strikes…Good right from Means..Good right and left...HEAVY COMBINATION AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

 

Round 1: GARBRANDT DROPS MIZUGAKI AND POUNDING HIM ON THE GROUND…THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1:  Pennington lands a knee to the bottom…Phillips has Pennington’s neck

Round 2:  Knee to head from Pennington…Pennington has a front Guillotine…Good forearm from Phillips..Pennington pounding Phillips on the ground

Round 3 Hard right from Pennington..Hard take down…Pennington on top of Phillips..Pennington going for choke…full back mount..Vicious ground and pound…Penning going for triangle…Phillips gets out of it

30-27 on all cards for Pennington

Round 1 Leg kick from Lobov…Kick to the body..Lobov lands a left hand..2 good leg kicks..make that 3..Straight left..Leg kick..leg kick..18-7 strike advantage for Lobov..Good leg kick from Avila…9 leg kicks from Lobov..Kick to the body from Lobov

Round 2 Leg kick from Avila..1-2 from LobovLeg kick..

Round 3 Leg kick from Lobov..Lobov cut from his forehead from an accidental headbutt..Avila lands a kick to the head..Leg kick from Lobov..Lobov lands a kicks and falls…Avila gets on top..Lobov has landed 25 leg kicks…

Round 1: Markos has Casey down…Good control…Casey trying to get Markos Back..Casey has Markos arm hooked..Markos reverses..Pounding from behind..Big Elbow from Casey..Casey going for armbar…..MARKOS TAPS…

 

 

 

By Norm Frauenheim-

Roy Jones Jr.’s nightmare continues. He and boxing are subjected to it every four years for the last 28 years. It never changes. Head gear on, head gear off, there’s just no disguise for a mess that began before the Berlin Wall fell.

Jones ranks as the greatest pro of his generation, yet he is remembered more for the 1988 controversy that has defined Olympic boxing ever since the Seoul Games.

The fix that robbed Jones of the gold medal is the reference point for every controversy that happens, ad nauseam and always with no end in sight. It’s beginning to look as if there’s no way back to the day when a Sugar Ray Leonard-led US team in 1976 was an Olympic centerpiece.

Boxing has pushed itself so far to the Olympic fringe that I’m not sure anybody cares anymore. Has anybody heard NBC utter a single mention of anything that has transpired at the Rio de Janeiro boxing venue? Didn’t think so.

In the U.S., Spanish-speaking networks carry the bouts. But the only NBC story about anything resembling a fight involves “whatever’’ happened at a Rio gas station’s bathroom involving security guards and U.S. swimmers, including Ryan Lochte. Gary Hall Jr., a three-time Olympian and 10-time swimming medalist from Phoenix, once said that it’s hard to develop a personality when you spend so much time with your head underwater. He could have been talking about Lochte, the 32-year-old Peter Pan of world-class waters.

I mention Lochte, because swimming’s tsunami of unwanted attention happens as history repeats itself in Olympic boxing. There are the usual judging controversies – this time scored under the pro-style, 10-pound must system. Yet its been mostly ignored by mainstream media, despite a photo of an obscene gesture – an upraised middle finger on each hand– from Irish bantamweight Michael Conlan after losing a quarterfinal decision —29-28 on all three cards – to Russian Vladimir Nikitin.

In perhaps a telling coincidence, Nikitin withdrew from a Thursday bout with emerging American Shakur Stevenson, reportedly because of injuries sustained against Conlan. Predictably, amateur boxing’s ruling acronym, AIBA, announced the familiar shuffles, suspending anonymous judges, unknown referees and faceless bureaucrats.

AIBA said Thursday that executive director Karim Bouzidi of Algeria has been “re-assigned.’’ But to do what from where? It all reminds me of what happened in the aftermath of American Rocky Juarez’ loss to Bekzat Sattarkhanov of Kazakhstan at the 2000 Sydney Games in the featherweight gold-medal match.

Amateur boxing announced that referee Stanislav Kirsanov would be suspended for four years for allowing Sattarkhanov to hold and clinch in the second and third rounds. That prevented Juarez from scoring on the inside, where he was always at his best.

But it looks as if that suspension didn’t last long, if at all. Ringside colleague Bill Dwyre, the former Los Angeles Times sports editor, called Kirsanov while he was still supposed to be under suspension. No, Kirsanov told Dwyre, he was scheduled to work an upcoming international bout and that he had been working for a while.

From Jones to Juarez, from Seoul to Sydney to Rio, nothing really changes. Hate to say it, but Conlan’s gesture says it best.

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA – August 18, 2016 – World Fighting Championships returns to Meadows Racetrack & Casino on Saturday, August 27, with a nine-bout card headlined by “Lightning” Rod Salka (22-4, 4KO) in a eight-round banger versus Arizona’s Wilberth Lopez (15-5, 10KO).

Rod Salka is a busy man. Having fought only three times since his most notable fight versus Danny Garcia in 2014, he has kept busy outside of the ring. “I sat around and waited for a call after the Garcia fight, but the right call never came,” said Salka. Not one to sit idle, he focused his energy elsewhere, opening his own 16,500 square foot gym in Pittsburgh, and founding a new workout called Crossfight. In the meantime, at his “day job,” he was promoted to Regional Sales Manager. If that weren’t enough, come November 8th, if Salka has his way, the “Lightening” will be replaced with “State Representative,” as Salka has embarked on a campaign to become Pennsylvania House District 38 Representative in the state legislature. “People told me to avoid politics. I can honestly say it’s easier than navigating boxing politics, and trying to guide your own boxing career.”

While it hasn’t been easy, Salka has set his sights on preparing to be the best boxer in the ring on August 27th. “I am at the gym every morning and evening, and get my training in then,” said the dedicated pugilist. ”I want to position myself to be able to get a big fight again in the future.”

Salka is not taking the easy route to get there. Wilberth Lopez, who hails from Tucson, Arizona, is on a 10-fight win streak and has no intention of breaking that streak in Pennsylvania next weekend. The tall and rangy southpaw has an awkward style that frustrates his opponents, and he’s faced stiff competition throughout his career.

17-year old prodigy Devin “The Dream” Haney (8-0, 8KO) will also be in action at The Meadows next Saturday, in a six round bout versus Tucson’s Carlos Castillo (4-3, 3KO). Haney has been on the fast track since his debut last December, racking up eight wins in the US and Mexico.

This is World Fighting Championships’ third card at the Meadows Casino, and its sixth boxing event in 2016, with at least two more planned before the end of the year. The crossover promotion caters to casinos, delivering packed venues for boxing and MMA shows in Nevada, Louisiana and now Pennsylvania. “Our growth in 2016 has been incredible,” said promoter Matt McGovern. “Between boxing and MMA, we will end the year having put on 17 events, with at least 10 more already on the books for the first part of next year.”

McGovern’s success can at least in part be attributed to his use of technology to streamline the planning and execution of his events. “We have a small staff, but we’ve got the formula down and can deliver high-quality, exciting boxing to our casino clients and boxing fans without a ton of stress. We are in the midst of putting on five shows in six weeks, and we can do that because have an exceptional staff, and we’ve done it now 56 times before.” The young promoter continues to raise his and WFC’s profiles with the addition of new casinos and cities. The coming year will see WFC events from coast to coast, in nine additional cities across the country.

Tickets for WFC 57 are priced at $100, $50, and $25, and are available along with VIP tables via the WFC website at www.worldfightingchampionships.com.

Doors open at 6:00 p.m. on fight night. First bell is at 7:00 p.m.

By Bart Barry-

My new friend Sammy and I became friends at a coffeehouse in the Pearl Brewery complex because of our socks or fate. I didn’t ask if his brand were Happy Socks and he didn’t ask my brand either but neither of us needed to ask with as much ankle as we both showed; a man who orders his socks from that website never alights on the best pair instantly and necessarily scrollcombs dozens of varieties before landing on the pair(s) he’ll purchase. Such considered scrolling familiarizes him with patterns more than he knows till he’s across from a man wearing a pattern he didn’t realize he considered till that instant – and still mayn’t realize he considered till he begins to write a story opening with another man’s socks in a coffeehouse.

I admired Sammy’s stature while he stood in line beside his wife. His was a physique I decided to call Tex-Mex in the moment; someone sometime in his family tree came from some country south of Texas but many generations of Texas residency made him much taller and thicker and assertive than ancestors of his whom I imagined like Israel Vazquez or Rafael Marquez. Sammy’s wife was not from Texas but somewhere much norther and more eastern and seemed uninterested in our banter about the cultural and tempo differences between Texas and places less fortunate. Sammy was a native of San Antonio very much unlike me and had a hardened intelligence about the city’s boxing scene I did not have and couldn’t passably fake in my first decade for the same reason a young man who lifts weights fewer than ten years, no matter the poundages he moves or pharmaceuticals he ingests, does not have to his muscles the gnarled girth of a professional bodybuilder – which is a meandering way to define maturity, muscular or cognitive, I guess.

Sammy asked what sort of work I do and since he didn’t preposition the ending – “for a living” – I told him I was a writer, as a means of explaining my dress more than my identity, and because when one says he’s something other than a writer he finds himself explaining that other thing which devolves insipidly but when he says he’s a writer he often gets to hear the other person’s idea for a novel. Sammy did not have an idea for a novel but asked what sort of writing, and imagining the most-interesting conversational fork, I said, “Boxing.”

“Once you see MMA, man, it’s hard to go back to boxing,” said Sammy.

I didn’t agree with him not because I didn’t wish to be accommodating or initially reciprocal but because I’d never seen MMA with an interested pair of eyes and didn’t wish to start things dishonestly with Sammy because he seemed the serious sort of South Texan who’d know a man fibbing and hold it against him by abruptly ending the conversation. I was reading a story by Hemingway on my lap and inverted the characters to imagine myself bolting Sammy’s disapproval, much to his wife’s dismay, and thinking such a show of cowardice’d ruin the next morning’s camp breakfast, and instead of disagreeing with Sammy I began to list local fighters like Ayala and Leija. Sammy knew them both from hours spent in his adolescence at San Fernando Gymnasium, and now we had something in common and there’d be no bolting, no lions laid flat in the grass breathing pink bubbles, no buffalo in a thick swamp where it was impossible to get a shot.

Sammy knew a trainer who had a kid recently signed by the promoter, the, what’s his, the guy who beat Leija, the golden – oh, Oscar De La Hoya! who was building like a farm system or something. I didn’t bore him with the particulars of addiction and poor choices and a scrofulous bastard who posed like a friend and sold a man’s lifework to someone else and just now returned to boxing, because it was a mean, bitter path senseless to Sammy.

“Who was the last fighter you truly cared about?” I asked instead.

“Julio Cesar Chavez.”

I recounted a tale from a Mexican writer seated beside me 11 years ago at Chavez’s final fight, a loss to Grover Wiley in Phoenix none of us who attended thought’d be historic:

“And he told me, ‘For those terrible ten years, Chavez was the only thing that went right for us’.”

Sammy’s eyes were blank as he searched for something surely unrelated to my unimpressive anecdote about the last man who interested him in a sport that no longer interested him slightly.

“Salvador Sanchez, though,” said Sammy, interrupting my account of all the things other than Chavez that went wrong in Mexico during Chavez’s tenure as El Gran Campeón Mexicano – like the peso’s collapse, the assassination of Luis Donaldo . . . “Sanchez, man, I idolized Salvador Sanchez. Never been anybody like him.”

Killed in a car accident, boxer-puncher, Top Rank tried to sell us a knockoff with the same coif – these were the only ideas that came in my head. Sammy was older than me than I thought or else privy to entirely different public programming in 1980 South Texas. We talked about Wide World of Sports till Sammy’s wife went outside.

“Once you’ve seen MMA, man,” Sammy said, and he shook his head, stood up, shook my hand and left for a seat by his wife’s side.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s hard to know what to make of Manny Pacquiao’s decision to fight Jessie Vargas on November 5, other than to say he never retired.

Please, don’t call it a comeback. Pacquiao never went away. He ran for office. He won, changing his Filipino title from Congressman to Senator. He wrote some legislation and apparently a lot of checks.

He said this week he would continue to fight, in part because his Senate salary just wasn’t enough, despite the $100-plus million he reportedly collected for his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. just 15 months ago.

“Boxing is my main source of income,’’ Pacquiao said Wednesday in announcing he would fight Vargas at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Arena. “I can’t rely on my salary as a public official. I’m helping the family of my wife and my own family, as well.

“Many people also come to me to ask for help and I just couldn’t ignore them.”

If it’s possible, Pacquiao gives away money faster than Mayweather spends it. At this rate, there’s a better chance Pacquiao will still be in the ring than there is Michael Phelps will be in the Olympic pool at the 2020 Tokyo Games. If nine figures can’t cover what Pacquiao spends over less than a year-and-a-half, what can?

It’s not clear how much he’ll earn against Vargas, the WBO’s welterweight champion. But it’s safe to say it won’t be the $20-to-25 million minimum Pacquiao collected over the last few years, including his last fight – a decision in April over Timothy Bradley in a second rematch.

That kind of money isn’t there any more, mostly because of a steep decline in pay-per-view numbers in the wake of the disappointing Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

Before junior-welterweight Terence Crawford’s one-sided decision over Viktor Postol on July 23, Pacquaio promoter Bob Arum said that the Filipino understood that the business had changed. He said he could make a deal with the Senator.

“We’re not talking about those kind of crazy numbers,” Arum told the Los Angeles Times this week.

But those numbers are still a guessing game until Arum announces how and who will telecast the pay-per-view. It looks as if it won’t be HBO, the premium network that carried Pacquiao’s top-earning bouts. ESPN has been rumored. But at what price?

The decision to fight Vargas instead of the emerging Crawford appears to be a bet on a rematch with Mayweather, perhaps next May. Signs that Pacquiao would sidestep Crawford were apparent in the wake of Crawford’s blowout of Postol.

Crawford’s agile footwork and versatility surprised Postol trainer Freddie Roach, also Pacquiao’s trainer. It was evident that Crawford’s overall speed would be very hard to overcome, even at 140-pounds, perhaps Pacquiao’s ideal weight. Roach said as much.

A loss to Crawford would likely mean irrelevancy, if not a real retirement, for Pacquaio. Surely, it would badly damage any chance at a Mayweather rematch. Hence, Vargas, the safer choice, at 147 instead of 140.

But even that’s a risk. Mayweather has been mostly silent since he spent all that time talking about a big-money deal in a bout with the UFC’s Conor McGregor. There’ no indication that he is any more interested in a comeback than he was at the moment he formally announced his retirement after beating Andre Berto in September 2015.

Mayweather has said he might be interested if the money – his nickname and motivation – is right. He reportedly collected $240 million for Pacquiao. He had a $32-million guarantee for each of his bouts in a six-fight deal with Showtime.

Like Arum said, crazy numbers. But it’s also crazy to think Mayweather would ask for anything less than $32 million, even if he were interested. The guess – and that’s all it is – is that he will be. He’s still young enough. He’ll be 40 on Feb. 24. He retired at 49-0. Fifty-and-0 has to be a temptation.

The bigger question is whether there’s even an audience for an encore. The bout in May 2015 set a record for PPV buys at 4.4 million. The theory is that a rematch could do at least 1 million, meaning it would make money. But the ongoing decline only raises questions about whether anyone wants a sequel that would only remind everyone of the original.

VERONA, NY (August 10, 2016) – Unbeaten welterweight contender Jamal James (20-0, 9 KOs) is set to take on Olympic bronze medalist Yordenis Ugas (15-3, 7 KOs) in a 10-round showdown featured on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN and ESPN Deportes this Friday, August 12 from Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York.

James replaces undefeated welterweight Bryant Perrella, who was forced to withdraw from the bout because of an injury to his left thumb.

PBC on ESPN and ESPN Deportes coverage begins at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT and is headlined by undefeated rising contender Miguel Flores taking on exciting once-beaten contender Ryan Kielczweski in featherweight action.

Tickets for the live event, which is promoted by King’s Promotions, are priced at $60 for ringside, $35 and $25, and are on sale now (may be subject to additional fees). Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster, by calling 877-833-SHOW or by visiting the Turning Stone Box Office.

Highlighting undercard action is undefeated rising prospect Josue “The Prodigy” Vargas (5-0, 3 KOs) battling veteran brawler Ira Terry (26-14, 16 KOs) in a six-round welterweight attraction.

A tall welterweight at 6′ 2″, James is undefeated as a pro and has had a big 2016, beating tough contenders Javier Molina and Wale Omotoso this year. The 28-year-old out of Minneapolis picked up where he left off after a 2015 campaign that began with victories over Michael Balasi and Daniel Sostre and culminated with a hard fought decision over once-beaten Juan Carlos Abreu in September.

A sensational Cuban amateur, Ugas picked up a Bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics and also owns Gold medals from the 2005 World Amateur Championships and 2007 Pan American Games. Now fighting out of Miami, the 30-year-old owns victories over Cosme Rivera, Kenny Abril and Adan Hernandez.

The 18-year-old Vargas recently signed with Floyd Mayweather’s Mayweather Promotions and dominated Ryan Picou in his U.S. debut in June on the Keith Thurman vs. Shawn Porter undercard in Brooklyn. Now fighting out of the Bronx, Vargas picked up the first four victories of his pro career fighting in Mexico. He takes on the 29-year-old Terry out of Memphis who has shared the ring with former champion Jorge Linares and top contenders Claudio Marrero, Haskell Rhodes and main event participant Kielczweski.

MIGUEL FLORES VS. RYAN KIELCZWESKI MEDIA SCHEDULE
*All Times Are Eastern*

Thursday, August 11

4:30 p.m. OFFICIAL WEIGH-IN
Location: Turning Stone Resort Casino – The Oneida Room
5218 Patrick Rd.; Verona, NY 13478
4:30 p.m. – Media Arrival
5:00 p.m. – Fighters to Scales

Friday, August 12

6:00 p.m . TURNING STONE RESORT CASINO DOORS OPEN
Location: 5218 Patrick Rd.; Verona, NY 13478

6:45 p.m. FIRST BOUT

9:00 p.m. ESPN & ESPN DEPORTES BROADCAST BEGINS

CREDENTIAL DISTRIBUTION
Fight night credentials can be picked up at Cypress C from 5:30 – 9:00 p.m. Proper personal photo ID (Driver’s license or passport) is required for credential pick-up.

CREDENTIAL DISTRIBUTION
Fight night credentials can be picked up at Cypress C from 5:30 – 9:00 p.m. Proper personal photo ID (Driver’s license or passport) is required for credential pick-up.

# # #

Tickets for the live event, which is promoted by King’s Promotions, are priced at $60 for ringside, $35 and $25, and are on sale now (may be subject to additional fees). Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster, by calling 877-833-SHOW or by visiting the Turning Stone Box Office.

For information visit www.premierboxingchampions.com, follow on Twitter @PremierBoxing, @KingsBoxing, @ESPNBoxing and @Swanson_Comm and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/premierboxingchampions. Highlights available to embed at www.youtube.com/premierboxingchampions. PBC on ESPN is sponsored by Corona Extra, La Cerveza Mas Fina.

By Bart Barry-
Saturday in Oakland light heavyweight Andre Ward decisioned a Colombian named Alexander Brand on HBO by scores predictable as they were lopsided. The match was the final installment of a four-part infomercial for Ward’s fall fight with Russian Sergey Kovalev which will happen unless one of them moves to a rival broadcaster the way Adonis Stevenson did the last time HBO used light heavyweight matches as advertisements.

The problem with Alexander Brand was not his incompetence at any skill save enduring consciousness – fogging up the ol’ mirror these days is the larger part of landing a televised role on the side which is B – but how incompetently he met the hopes of Andre Ward’s promoters Throne Boxing (three shows this year, two of them Ward’s) and HBO who put its dwindled credibility behind broadcasting two Ward warmups in 2016 and two Kovalev warmups in the name of a Nov. 19 match whose contract is signed though its venue remains undecided which makes you wonder what else but signatures adorns this fabled contract. Surely someone between HBO and Throne (remember that weekend we thought Big Daddy Kane’s former hypeman was going to save boxing?) hoped Brand would remind viewers of Kovalev in some way less superficial than complexion. And yet.

Brand retreated from the beginning and made himself a barely mobile bag for Ward to practice on in a way that was near to opposite Kovalev’s approach as possible and practice on him Ward did though without anything suspenseful as peril or, heaven help us, a knockdown. Ward seemed to want to harm Brand in the late-middle rounds but overshot his cross uncharacteristically and made disconcertingly little progress with a leaping lefthook lead. Ward was not much of a puncher at 168 pounds and probably isn’t thrilled to be at light heavyweight with Kovalev there awaiting him but what Ward did have seven pounds ago was a defense that looks less impenetrable today than it did when Ward fought and cleanedout real competition as recently as four years ago.

Part of what goes forgotten in the throes of Ward’s Embarassment Years, 2013-2016, is Ward finished the Super Six undefeated and next fought Chad Dawson who beat Bernard Hopkins five months before Ward iced him. Whatever infamous squandering Ward did after he unbuttoned Dawson that name along with Mikkel Kessler’s and Carl Froch’s composes a triumvirate more impressive than every name on Kovalev’s resume save Hopkins’ which has to have an asterisk, even in this dreadful era, if the name belongs to a man in his 50th year when you decision him. To further incite Soviet apologists let us doubledown by adding each name on Gennady Golovkin’s resume to each name on Kovalev’s resume and diminish Ward’s preeminence in no way whatever: Half-century Hopkins remains the only name deserving mention among Kessler’s and Froch’s and Dawson’s which means, in defiance of what industry and relentlessness publicists have dedicated to the cause, in one meaningful category Ward has accomplished about three times the sum of Kovalev and Golovkin.

But toss that when you consider Saturday’s spectacle because Saturday diminished Ward’s legacy more than burnished it so if you need solace it’s here: Ward looked bad enough against Brand to convince a goodish number of the folks who reliably purchase pay-per-views (OK maybe not Crawford-Postol but most) the guy who needed judges to best a 49 5/6-year-old Hopkins is going to rip through Ward. Kovalev is not going to rip through Ward. If ripping through Ward could be done somebody at least would’ve decisioned him in the past 20 years.

Oddly the best argument in Kovalev’s favor is not Kovalev’s career record but Ward’s recent record. Had the guy who snatched consciousness from Chad Dawson gone directly in the ring with even the current version of Kovalev oddsmakers justifiably would’ve set Ward a 4-1 favorite and should still favor Ward though not because of anything they saw Saturday or anything they’ve seen from Ward’s mentor Virgil Hunter in a decade.

What oddsmakers saw to sober them Saturday from Ward were a few righthands that Branded him. Ward complemented the Mayweather low-lead hand with a low-lead shoulder wrinkle of his own – a terrible idea that defied the extended left arm with which Ward otherwise steers opponents – and it got him clipped a few times that did not tell because it bears reiteration: Alexander Brand is godawful. Worse yet for this morning’s oddsmakers was how Ward dropped to his own right to collect those punches in a way that belied what mobility Ward has or once had.

Ward has narrowed his stance considerably against recent opposition to allow a greater transfer of weight back-to-front when he punches and because widening himself as a target hasn’t been a problem for him – opponents of Brand’s caliber have the same chance of solving Ward’s defense in 36 minutes as a fourth-grader has of solving an encryption algorithm with a pencil. But if Ward doesn’t return his feet to the wide spread he previously employed, against Kovalev he’s going feel fragile. He shouldn’t plan either to be so bored by Kovalev he spends rounds as a southpaw like he did against Brand.

So long as Ward keeps stabbing Kovalev’s gut with his jab, though, he should decision the Russian in a match that is compelling. Not four-tuneup compelling, of course, but compelling nevertheless.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

TUCSON — One journey has ended and another has just begun for Oscar Valdez Jr., who returns Saturday to his boyhood roots with a world-title belt that fulfilled a school kid’s dreams and now represents options for an emerging champion in what has become boxing’s most competitive division.

Valdez, the WBO’s new featherweight champ, is back in Tucson to appear at a Top Rank-promoted card featuring former champion Juan Diaz (41-4, 20 KOs) on the comeback trail against junior-lightweight Cesar Vazquez (27-3, 16 KOs) in a UniMas-televised bout at Casino Del Sol.

Valdez’ appearance is no coincidence. Plans are for him to make his first title defense in the southern Arizona city where he first began to box. The timing also coincides with heightened drama and anticipation about the featherweights.

Valdez, a two-time Mexican Olympian whose mom still lives in Tucson, won the WBO’s 126-pound title two weeks ago in a definitive second-round stoppage of Argentina’s Matias Rueda at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. A lot has happened since then.

One week after Valdez’ eye-catching triumph, there was upheaval at the top of the division in Irishman Carl Frampton’s 126-pound debut, a majority decision over favored Leo Santa Cruz at Barclays Center in New York.

What’s next? Who’s next?

Hard to say, but Valdez manager Frank Espinoza says his unbeaten featherweight is prepared for whatever happens.

“Yes, Oscar is ready, ready to fight anyone,’’ Espinoza said when asked about Frampton or Santa Cruz.

There’s some confusion about whether there is a contract clause that could force an immediate Santa Cruz-Frampton rematch. The Santa Cruz management says yes. Meanwhile, Frampton’s Belfast management talks about Lee Selby in what could be a rich UK showdown.

No matter what happens, Frampton, Santa Cruz and Selby figure to be on Valdez’ horizon for awhile. So, too, do Gary Russell Jr. and Abner Mares. Valdez has even mentioned by Nonito Donaire, back at 122 pounds, yet still interested in regaining a 126-pound crown.

Mares, a former Espinoza-managed featherweight, looms as an intriguing possibility. But his future is unclear. A June fight against Jesus Cuellar in Brooklyn was canceled when Mares failed the New York eye exam.

Mares, who underwent surgery for a detached retina in 2008, told the Los Angeles Times that he is healthy and determined to continue his career, perhaps against Cuellar on Oct. 15 at Staples Center. If Mares gets his career back on track and beats Cuellar, the three-time champ will be looking for a shot at a fourth title. He probably won’t have to look for long

Valdez’ looked like he was just at the start of a longtime reign in his victory over Rueda, which followed a powerful performance against ex-champ Evgeny Gradovich. It’s still not clear whom Valdez might face in his first defense, perhaps on Nov. 26 at either Casino Del Sol or the Tucson Community Center. One possibility is the winner of Guy Robb-Miguel Marriaga in a WBO eliminator on Aug. 27 at Fallon, Nev., also on UniMas’ SoloBoxeo series.

Tonight’s telecast (11 pm ET/PT) is the featured bout on a card including Phoenix light-heavyweight Trevor McCumby (22-0, 17 KOs) against Dion Savage (12-9, 6 KOs) of Flint, Mich. First bell is scheduled for 6 p.m. (PT).

By Norm Frauenheim-

They are brothers who have sparred former champs, current champs, emerging champs and sometimes each other.

For David Benavidez and Jose Benavidez Jr., long rounds in gyms from Phoenix to Southern California have been about learning the craft and building the family business.

Business is good these days and it could get a little better Friday night when David Benavidez tries to improve on the family’s unbeaten record against veteran Denis Douglin in an ESPN-televised super-middleweight bout (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.

A David Benavidez victory would put the family mark at 41-0. Going into a bout scheduled for 10 rounds against Douglin (20-4, 14 KOs), the 19-year-old has won all 15 of his bouts, 14 by stoppage.

His older brother, 22-year-old Jose Jr, went to 25-0, 16 by knockout, with a unanimous decision over Francisco Santana in a welterweight debut on the July 23 undercard of Terence Crawford’s one-sided decision over Viktor Postol.

Eight years ago, David was the other Benavidez while his older brother, a 16-year-old National Golden Gloves champion in 2009, began to get a lot of internet attention for holding his own in sparring against Amir Khan.

Since then, David Benavidez has emerged — steadily and stubbornly –in his own right, becoming his brother’s equal, at least in terms of media attention. If there’s a sibling rivalry, however, it’s not readily evident. In fact and in spirit, they’ve each been in the other’s corner. David was there for Jose Jr.’s decision over Santana.

In style and approach, however, they’re different. Jose Jr. is more athletic than David, who has gained muscle and shed upper-body baby fat over the last 18 months. David is more instinctive. He moves forward and toward the fight, unlike Jose, who has unmatched hand speed, yet often exasperates fans and father-trainer Jose Sr. by fighting off the ropes in what looks like a tactical, calculated move.

If you could fuse the best of the brothers into one Benavidez, you might have a pound-for-pound contender. Just imagine Jose Jr.’s precise jab and David’s instinctive aggressiveness, all in one feared fighter. Fantasy? Maybe.

Over time, however, the family business might wind up with two fighters who learn from each other. Remember, both are still young. Jose Jr. is probably five years from his prime. David’s prime is about a decade away. By then, he might be a heavyweight. David’s recent growth has taken him out of the sparring he used to do with his brother.

Over the last year, David sparred with Gilberto Ramirez before he won the WBO’s 168-pound belt against Arthur Abraham on April 9. He got ready for Douglin by sparring with Alexander Brand.

Brand (25-1, 19 KOs) faces Andre Ward (29-0, 15 KOs) Saturday night in Oakland, Calif., in an HBO-televised bout that is considered a tune-up for Ward’s planned light-heavyweight showdown with Sergey Kovalev on Nov. 19.

Already, there’s talk from promoter Sampson Lewkowicz about David becoming the youngest champion in super-middleweight history. First, of course, he has to beat Douglin, a New Jersey fighter with world-class experience in losses to George Groves and Jermell Charlo.

This time, it is Jose Jr.’s turn to be in the corner. After all, David’s victory would also be his own in what could become business as usual for the Benavidez brothers.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Brooklyn a fight for the WBA’s “Super World” featherweight title saw Northern Ireland super bantamweight Carl “The Jackal” Frampton decision Mexican featherweight Leo Santa Cruz by some scores that varied. The fight was competitive in the sense th’t both guys threw lots of punches and landed a similarly small portion of those lots and did not hurt or knockdown the other man or get hurt or knocked down in 36 minutes of sanctioned assault. Some who attended no doubt walked out Barclays Center into the summer night convinced they’d witnessed a classic battle whose name will reside eternally on the lips of men.

Harder than scoring Frampton-Santa Cruz was caring about the official scores because if you have integrity about your own biases and having checked such impulses you accept the fight was even enough to be uncertain who you favored you know better than to pile on, pro or con, the judges’ decision – no matter how gutless that appears to online scorekeepers. It’s just not that important. Both guys did their limited best to win a match neither seemed to think could end in the other’s unconsciousness.

Those are the grounds upon which this fight can be indicted: once more there was no suspense and little building drama since neither man was hurt or felled or imperiled in 12 rounds, and less than a generation ago we knew that was the measure of what’s memorable in boxing. Yes there was a slippy sort of thing early and there were a few decent counters throughout and there was even a series of consequential-looking flurries towards the end but there was not a moment that made you ghasp in thrill or fright and frankly the gloves looked too big again.

This has become a personal measure of a match’s honest delivery of what matters in a confrontation which is some sense of danger: How big do the gloves look? So much of a boxing telecast today is committed to fooling you – hyperbolic commentary, prefight pyrotechnics, sexy lighting, celebrity sightings, staged replays, biographical meanderings, indecipherable scoring, father/son forensics – one’s initial impression cannot be trusted because it is necessarily coated with so much promotionally interested gunk the truth becomes a derivative of a fraction of whatever just happened in the surprisingly large spaces between combatants’ gloves and network cameras and an HD screen and your eyes. My current and albeit late-arriving solution to this fix is to ask myself how big the fighters’ gloves look because my perception of glove size is a metaphor that is reliable for how much danger happens in the ostensibly violent spectacle before me.

When Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto fought the first time their gloves looked tiny enough to be varnished knuckles; Cotto’s punches were so sharp and Margarito’s effect (however attained) was so profound both men felt to me imperiled from the match’s open. In the later rounds of their third fight both Manny Pacquiao’s and Juan Manuel Marquez’s gloves looked diminished – as each held within his fist the chance to injure instantly and humiliate the intensely proud man across from him. One of my clearest memories of being ringside for Israel Vazquez’s third match with Rafael Marquez is how tiny Vazquez’s right glove looked to me in the 12th round as he threw it over and over and over again at an involuntarily retreating Marquez.

Saturday Leo Santa Cruz’s gloves looked enormous. Some of that is television and some of it is the way the color white flattens by softening creases and enlarges whatever it covers but most of it is a way of translating to metaphor an intuition held throughout: Frampton is in no danger whatever. The Irishman’s face was marked afterwards and it was a refreshing proof some of Santa Cruz’s aggressiveness was effective and no skin shines thinner than Irish-white but otherwise Santa Cruz’s inaccuracy was something not even Showtime’s leading replays cleaned up. When Santa Cruz’s feet were positioned properly he hit Frampton on every part of his body that was not the head or liver and when Santa Cruz did land targeted punches his feet and fists were a conflict of interest. If Santa Cruz was ever more than half what his advisor and promoters had us believe he has not been that in years and feeding him poor opponents has done none of us any favors except his advisor.

If this diminishes in some way Frampton’s performance, well, so be it. Frampton used a keen sense of time and space to neutralize Santa Cruz’s once-frantic offense and Frampton’s dexterity reduced Santa Cruz to an average boxer but if that evinces merit it’s a merit also belonging to Cesar Seda who neutralized most of Santa Cruz’s attack three years ago at Alamodome just before Marcos Maidana became the busdriver who took Adrien Broner’s ass to school. Back then Santa Cruz reminded us of Antonio Margarito because we were told he did and because, more importantly, someone like Santa Cruz – a rangy and busy Mexican attrition fighter – never would’ve found himself on television young and early as he did without Margarito’s expansive influence on the narrow imaginations of television programmers.

Since his debut in that giddy, insincere medium Santa Cruz’s quality as a prizefighter has moved opposite the quantity of promotion given to convincing us what an historic item Leo is. As usual they do protest too much.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY–NO REFRESH NEEDED

Round 1:Left from Frampton..Left from Santa Cruz..

Round 2:  Right to the body from Frampton..They are going to war on the inside…Right from Frampton..Big right rocks Santa Cruz..Good body shot

Round 3 2 good rights from Frampton..Body shot..

Round 4 Jab from Santa Cruz..good right..Body shot from Frampton..Hard left to the body…Left inside..Santa Cruz lands 2 hard shots on inside..hard right

Round 5: Jab from Frampton..Right..left..right..left inside

Round 6 Counter left from Frampton..Big right from Santa Cruz sets off a furious exchange inside..Hard right..Another Great exhange..Hard left from santa Cruz at the bell

Round 7 Right from Santa Cruz..Hard right..Counter left…

Round 8 Tremendous work on the inside..Santa Cruz getting the better..Jab..Right from Frampton..Good left..Right

Round 9 right from Frampton..Body..Left..Good right

Round 10 Right to body by Santa Cruz

Round 11 Good right by Santa Cruz..Right..Counter right…Good left from Frampton..Counter right

Round 12:  They are going to war..Frampton Lands a right…Right from Santa Cruz…Big right from Frampton …The are going to toe to toe to the final bell.

114-114; 116-112, 117-111 for CARL FRAMPTON

Round 1 Right from Rojas..Garcia lands a right to the body and Rojas falls to canvas..slip…

Round 2 Rojas lands a right..Hard left from Garcia..

Round 3 Right from Rojas…HARD LEFT AND DOWN GOES ROJAS…HUGE RIGHT AND DOWN GOES ROJAS…

Round 4:  Right and left wobbles Rojas…Hard right from Rojas..Right…Left from Garcia..2 lefts..

Round 5:  Right DROPS ROJAS..HUGE LEFT HOOK DOWN GOES ROJAS…FIGHT IS STOPPED

 

Round 1: lots of swinging and missing

Round 2:  Harrison lands a left..Counter left..right

Round 3: Right from Harrison

Round 4: Straight right from Harrison

Round 5: Hard Jab from Harrison..right..left hook..

Round 6: left from Harrison..jab

Round 7: Right from Harrison…Jab..Left from Rabchenko..

Round 8 Right from Rabchenko..left from Harrison..Right..Rabchenko lands to the body..right…left from Harrison..Right..

Round 9 HARD RIGHT AND DOWN GOES RABCHENKO…THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Right from Bracero..Jab from Malignaggi…Counter left from Bracero..Right from Malignaggi..

Round 2 Bracero sneaks in a right

Round 3 Left from Malignaggi..

Round 4 Jab from Bracero…

Round 5 Left from Bracero…Jabs from Malignaggi…good right…

Round 6 Right from Malignaggi…Counter right…Hard body shot from Bracero…

Round 7  Left from Bracero…left…

Round 8 Jab from Bracero..left.

Round 9 Jab to body from Malignaggi..uppercut…good right from Bracero..Left hook..Uppercut from Malignaggi

Round 10 Left from Bracero….Jab..

96-94, 98-92 twice for Malignaggi

Round 1: Farmer working body..Right hook from Redkach..

Round 2  Body shot from Farmer..Body combo..Redkach flurries on the ropes..

Round 3 Farmer showing slick defense..2 jabs from Farmer..

Round 4:   Redkach lands a right…Combo from Farmer

Round 5: Farmer lands a left.  Right hook from Redkach..Body combo from Farmer..straight left..Jab

Round 6: Redkach warned for hitting behind the head..Hard combination..Hard body

Round 7 Quick hard combinations for Farmer..Farmer hitting the body..Farmer making Redkach miss and making him pay

Round 8 Farmer hits Redkach Low…and IS DEDUCTED A POINT…They both land lefts..straight left…Redkach bleeding from around right eye…

Round 9 REDKACH DEDUCTED A POINT FOR A HEADBUTT..Body shot from Farmer..

Round 10 Right hook from Redkach..Right from Farmer inside..straight left..Farmer landing inside

99-89, 98-90 TWICE for Farmer

 

Follow all the action as Adonis Stevenson defends the WBC Light Heavyweight title against hard punching Thomas Williams.  The action begins at 9 PM ET with a Light Heavyweight showdown between Eleider ALvarez and Robert Berridge.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED–PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY

Round 1: Williams lands a left …LEFT TO TOP OF HEAD AND DOWN GOES WILLIAMS

Round 2: Stevenson lands a left..Williams lands a hard right hook..Combination…Stevenson is staggered by a combination

Round 3: Left from Williams and 2 rights…Left from Stevenson..Uppercut from Williams…Right hook

Round 4:  Good body shots from Stevenson…Williams cut above and below his right eye…More body work from Stevenson..HUGE LEFT AND DOWN GOES WILLIAMS…HE CANT GET UP AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1:  Feel out round

Round 2:  Quick left from Alvarez..

Round 3:

Round 4 Good exchange..Right from Alvarez

Round 5 Left from Berridge,,,Redness below right eye of Berridge..Uppercut from Alvarez

Round 6 Alvarez lands a right

Round 7 Nice right over the top from Alvarez

Round 8: Left hook from Alvarez…

Round 9: Left and right from Alvarez…Berridge bleeding from mouth..Good body shot from Alvarez

Round 10 Alvarez landing hard shots

99-90, 98-92, 98-92 Alvarez