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.

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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.

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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

By Norm Frauenheim-

A compelling clash between Leo Santa Cruz and Carl Frampton Saturday in Brooklyn one week after Oscar Valdez Jr.’s ongoing emergence is a sure sign that the featherweights are a loaded division rich with reasons for optimism in a business otherwise clouded by doom and gloom.

In boxing’s boom-and-bust history, the featherweights have become a reliable way to predict better days.

To wit: Manny Pacquiao. His ascent from unknown Filipino kid to worldwide celebrity started with his 2003 upset of Marco Antonio Barrera for a featherweight title in his first bout at 126 pounds.

He caught the attention of hard-core fans with sensational victories at 122 pounds, called either super-bantam or junior-feather, depending on the acronym. It was at 126, however, that casual fans got familiar with his name and copy editors learned how to spell it.

There are some familiar circumstances unfolding in the division now. It begins – and perhaps ends — with Vasyl Lomachenko. He began his pro career already known. He’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist from the Ukraine. In just seven pro bouts, he’s already won two titles and is No. 7 in The Ring’s pound-for-pound ratings.

His promoter, Bob Arum predicts a Muhammad Ali-like impact from Lomachenko, who has already moved up the scale, beating Roman Martinez in a dramatic stoppage for his first title in his first fight at 130 pounds, called either super-lightweight or junior feather. Whatever it’s called, it’s also where Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. began their Hall of Fame careers.

Will Valdez, Santa Cruz, Frampton, Gary Russell Jr. and Lee Selby follow Lomachenko up the scale – in weight and pay – the way Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Erik Morales followed Pacquiao?

Valdez’ convincing stoppage of Argentina’s Matias Rueda at Las Vegas MGM Grand for his first major title at 126 – the WBO version that Lomachenko held – was evidence that history is repeating itself. The guess here is that Santa Cruz and Frampton will provide further evidence Saturday at Barclays Center Showtime-televised bout (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT).

Valdez, a two-time Mexican Olympian, figures to make his first title defense in Tucson, where he went to school and first began to box, maybe on Nov. 26.

It promises to be a bout that will further solidify his championship credentials and his place alongside the better-known Santa Cruz or Frampton. It’s also a bout that would allow Top Rank to continue marketing its new featherweight champion in a way that could lead to a major 126-pound bout against one of Al Haymon’s featherweights –Santa Cruz, Frampton, Russell, Selby, Jesus Cuellar and Abner Mares.

Mares had a fight scheduled for June 25 in Brooklyn against Cuellar canceled because he reportedly failed the New York eye exam. It’s not clear what’s next for the popular Mares, also a former Mexican Olympian. If California licenses him, however, a bout with Valdez is an intriguing option

It’s also possible. Arum settled his $100-million suit against Haymon a couple of months ago. By all accounts, they’re talking. Part of the discussion must include the featherweights. They’ve always been a good reason to get out of the courtroom and back to business.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at a half-full MGM Grand Garden Arena undefeated American junior welterweight Terence “Bud” Crawford dully decisioned Ukrainian Viktor “The Iceman” Postol on pay-per-view to become the lineal and HBO and non-PBC 140-pound champion of the world. A half-full arena was about right and Crawford is almost certainly the world’s best junior welterweight but this thing had no worldly business being on pay-per-view.

If Bud thinks there’s any appetite remaining for a talented American boxer who safely decisions limited opponents Saturday’s pay-per-view receipts should disabuse him and his promoter and their distributor of it. No good whatever came of Mayweather-Pacquiao 1 including the likelihood of fooling consumers with handspeed and defense in lieu of knockouts for another decade. If you are able to dominate a man in the boxing ring you should snatch his consciousness in a half-hour of trying or you’re not trying hard enough for today’s chastened pay-per-viewer. To box Postol the way Crawford did and satisfy disgruntled consumers Postol would need to be big as Golovkin and feared as Kovalev.

Instead Postol was a rangy counterpuncher with a single speed and dimension who last year caught a once-feared Argentine at the end of a witheringly violent career then bounced enthusiastically round the ring with Crawford for 36 deeply unsatisfying minutes. Postol was a C student Saturday who hoped to score a B- by being early to class and trying real hard. Making Postol look ordinary was not a function of Crawford’s greatness so much as making Postol look remarkable was a function of Lucas Matthysse’s October bankruptcy.

Crawford switches stances often in every match and switched early from orthodox to southpaw Saturday and th’t it seemed to unravel every facet of Postol’s training camp at Coach Freddie Academy does not speak well of preparations done by The Iceman or his trainer. Crawford’s choice to screw with Postol’s lead hand for most of the match was tactically sound but hardly ingenious. One imagines the first three or four times Crawford successfully slapped Postol’s left knuckles with his right palm then rolled his fist forward into a jab Crawford thought: “Sweet! Didn’t think that’d work but let’s do it a few more times until this guy adjusts.” If Crawford wasn’t surprised Postol had no cure all night for such a rudimentary poison he certainly ought to have been.

Rounds 6, 7 and 8 were nigh unwatchable and Crawford deserves the blame for it. He learned everything there was to know about Postol in the fifth round and instead of walking him down and putting the Ukrainian’s lights out Crawford decided to show us a defensive prowess not 50,000 people in a world of 7 billion still wish to see. Crawford was able to keep Postol out of position by changing directions and angles continually and if that was genuinely compelling for a full minute that minute passed in the match’s opening rounds and was no longer welcomed. If Postol was still dangerous – even after Bud clipped him and despite Postol’s negligible KO record – all the better: In history aficionados have been willing to spend more than $50 to see only one man remain undefeated forever and Crawford will not be the second.

Not one financially disinterested person is clamoring for Floyd Mayweather’s return to boxing anyway; whatever one feels about watching a skilled practitioner master a lesser man can be felt in a minute or at most a round of boxing; no one needs to see it done 12 times over. It’s not suspenseful like a tightrope walk unless the lesser man is frighteningly larger or at least frightening in some way. Viktor Postol had 12 knockouts in 28 prizefights.

This was a tryout of sorts, we’ll soon learn, for a chance to welcome Senator Manny Pacquiao back from a retirement he didn’t dignify even with skipping a fight. Is Crawford-Pacquiao a compelling match? Actually yes. But decisioning Viktor Postol anticipates the outcome of Crawford’s match with Pacquiao like a clever Facebook post anticipates a Man Booker Prize. Friday night we didn’t know how Crawford might fare in a match with Pacquiao and Sunday morning we still didn’t know.

What plagues boxing now and will do so for at least a generation is its lack of depth. Chris Algieri decisioned a puncher? Put him in with Pacquiao! Viktor Postol attritioned a puncher? Get him to Crawford! It’s not merely that men with Algieri’s and Postol’s records were prematurely fed to far superior practitioners but worse than that there were few opponents with which to build them properly before cashing them out; Postol and Algieri were sacrificed early because they were not going to become more than sacrifices and at least were marketable.

Empty gyms round the country will not remedy this and neither will USA Boxing’s inevitably poor showing next month in Brazil. We can stop the search for our sport’s next savior, in other words, because even if he crash-landed on the Vegas Strip in a spaceship we wouldn’t know what to do with him – though PBC would offer him an advisory contract and shot at “Son of the Legend” Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Once more: Order leads to increasing returns which bring chaos that leads to decreasing returns which bring order and so on forever and ever. We’re in the decreasing-returns part of the cycle now and it behooves none of us to deny it. Paying $60 for Crawford-Postol is denying it worse than charging $60 for Crawford-Postol.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol fight in a WBC/WBO Super Lightweight unification bout.  The action, from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with a 3-fight undercard with a Featherweight world title bout between Oscar Valdez and Mattias Rueda.  Also on the card will be weltweights Jose Benavidez Jr and Francisco Santana.  The action kicks off at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT with a Light Heavyweight tussle between Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Tommy Karpency.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY

Round 1: Crawford gets in a right inside..Right from Postol

Round 2: Right to to body from Postol..Bidy shot from Crawford..left to body.left to body..Left

Round 3 G.ood right from Postol..right to body…right,,Left from Crawford..2 rights and  jab from Postol..right to the chest

Round 4 Hard left from Crawford…2 more hard lefts..right to body from Postol..right..Right from Crawford..

Round 5 LEFT AND DOWN GOES POSTAL..HARD LEFT AND POSTOL’S GLOVE HITS CANVAS…

Round 6 Postol lands a right..

Round 7 Right hook from Crawford..hard body shot..left

Round 8 Left rocks Postol..

Round 9 Good left hurts Postol..

Round 10 2 straight lefts from Crawford..

Round 11 2 nice counters for Crawford..Body shot from Postol..Right from Crawford…Counter..POSTOL DEDUCTED A POINT FOR HITTING BEHIND THE HEAD

Round 12: 2 shots from Postol..Good right..Hard shots from both guys…

118-107 twice 117-108 FOR TERENCE CRAWFORD

Round 1 Jab from Valdez…2 more left hooks and right..Huge right…Jab

Round 2 Blood from nose of Rueda..Good Jab..ripping right…BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES RUEDA…BIG COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES RUEDA…FIGHT STOPPED

Round 1 Santana working on the ropes..Body shot by Benavidez..Body…Good uppercut..Santana lands a left hook..hard combination rocks Santana..Hard combination

Round 2 Combination to the head..Hard uppercut from Benavidez snaps Santana’s head..Ripping head..

Round 3 Santana gets in a combination on the ropes..Terrific in fighting on the ropes..Right on ropes from Sanatana..Great round

Round 4 hard work on the ropes from Santana…

Round 5 Body shot from Benavidez…Combination to the head..

Round 6 Hard right from Benavidez..

Round 7 Benavidez countering and landing some hard shots from distance

Round 8 Good right uppercut from Benavidez..Good left from Santana…Right rocks Santana..Santana rallies at the bell

Round 9 Right from Santana…Santana looking exhausted…Benavidez pot shotting …Good combination

Round 10 2 good shots from Santana..

100-90, 96-94, and 98-92 FOR BENAVIDEZ

Round 1 Karpency lands a left…KARPENCY DROPS GVOZDNYK WITH A RIGHT..Gvozdyk lands a left..Left from Karpenct

Round 2 Right from Karpency..Body shot

Round 3 Gvozdyk lands a body shot

Round 4 Gvozdnyk out working Karpency..Good right

Round 5 Karpency bleeding from the bridge of his nose..Left from Karpency

Round 6 Body shot from Gvzdnyk…BODY SHOT DROPS KARPENCY…FIGHT IS OVER

By Norm Frauenheim

LAS VEGAS – It’s a unification fight in a contentious game as divided as ever.

Terence Crawford or Viktor Postol will walk out of the MGM Grand’s ring Saturday night with three pieces of a 140-pound title and into a fractured business hit by declining revenues and unsure about how to proceed.

It’s a rare bout, matching The Ring’s No. 1 and No. 2–rated junior-welterweights and both unbeaten. It’s the kind of fight that media and fans always demand to see, yet rarely do. If interest is measured in dollars and praise, however, it’s not there.

Amid criticism, promoter Bob Arum is offering the fight on pay-per-view for $59.95. HBO is carrying it. Yet, Arum is on the hook for the purses, $1.3 million for Crawford (28-0 20 KOs) and $675,000 for Postol (28-0, 12 KOs). The money for the fighters isn’t in the HBO budget. The premium network reportedly cut its boxing budget for 2016.

Arum decided to go forward with the bout on PPV anyway, in part because he wants to keep Crawford busy. With a victory, Crawford, nearly a 7-1 favorite late Friday, could win a shot at Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 5 at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center. If Crawford gets past the dangerous Postol and upsets Pacquiao, he could solidify his credentials as boxing’s next superstar.

But would the money be there for him? Given today’s economics, could Pacquiao, a new Filipino Senator, expect his usual $20-million guarantee? Arum says Pacquiao understands that the business is in decline since the Filipino collected a reported $180 million for a loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, a colossal dud, is seen as the beginning of the ongoing crash.

In some ways, Crawford-Postol represents the start of a different era with smaller expectations, at least in terms of purses. Getting used to it, however, might take some time. Arum is not happy about it. He’s expressed frustration at the criticism he’s getting for putting Crawford-Postol on PPV.

“I want to thank the press for telling the fans not to buy the fight,’’ Arum said to a few reporters as he left the media room after the weigh-in Friday. “I’ll remember.’’

Arum needs 80,000 pay-per-view customers to break even, according to several sources. It was hard to predict whether he’ll even get that number. An estimated crowd of fewer than 1,000 was at the weigh-in Friday. Crawford, of Omaha, tipped the scales at 140 pounds. Postol, of the Ukraine, was 139.5.

Despite the one-sided odds and media complaints about pay-per-view, the fight itself looks intriguing. Postol has developed a nasty, powerful uppercut since Freddie Roach became his trainer. Roach, also Pacquaio’s trainer, will be in Postol’s corner for the fourth time. He’s so confident that he came into the media room after the weigh-in Friday, showing off a betting slip. He wagered $1,000 on the chance to collect $9,000, picking Postol to win by knockout.

“In any round.’’ Roach said.

That might turn out to be better bet that big a pay-per-view audience.

By Norm Frauenheim-
LAS VEGAS – From Salvador Sanchez to Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales, the history of Mexican featherweights reads like royalty. Is Oscar Valdez Jr. next in line? Bob Arum thinks so.

Arum anointed Valdez as a heir apparent Thursday during a news conference for the 25-year-old’s bid for his first major title against Argentina’s Matias Rueda on the undercard of the pay-per-view bout featuring junior-welterweights Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol Saturday night at the MGM Grand.

“The great Mexican featherweights include Morales and Barrera,’’ said Arum. “Juan Manuel Marquez campaigned at featherweight for a while. We believe Oscar Valdez can surpass those legends.’’

Valdez smiled. Might have gulped a little bit, too. It’s great to be mentioned alongside all-time greats. But predicted potential can also be thorns on a burdensome crown.

“I think he exaggerated,’’ said Valdez, whose easy-going streak of humility includes a healthy sense of humor.

Valdez (20-0, 17 KOs) grew up in Tucson and Nogales on the Mexican side of the Arizona border as a kid who idolized Morales. The two-time Mexican Olympian has met Morales. He’s always wanted to be like him. But Valdez has taken his dad’s advice. Oscar Valdez Sr. said he told his son to forget about the comparisons.

“I don’t like to think that way, about Oscar becoming a Mexican idol like Barrera and Morales,’’ said Oscar Valdez Sr., who introduced his son to boxing in Tucson and then moved back to Nogales where he lives and works in real estate today. “I’d like him to go just step-by step.

“I don’t like to think that he’s a big star now, because he’s not. So, I tell him he needs to go, little-by-little. I told my son not to think he’s the big super-star, because he’s not.’’

Father knows best. Valdez has no illusions about the here-and-now, which is the immediate task of facing an unknown, unbeaten Argentine with 23 knockouts in 26 victories for a WBO title vacated by new junior-lightweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko.

“To be compared to Erik Morales means a lot to me, but I ‘ve got a long way to get to what he and Marco Antonio Barrera did,’’ Valdez said. “A long, long way.’’

Valdez said he was surprised to hear Arum say he would surpass his heroes.

“Yeah, it did surprise me,’’ he said. “Of course, it did.’’

Arum’s projection creates bigger expectations for the promising Valdez. But, as Charles Barkley once said, pressure is for tires. Valdez doesn’t seem to feel much, if any. Above all, he appears to enjoy the bigger stakes and heightened attention.

“It puts me on the spot, ‘’ said Valdez, the potential star on an Arizona-accented undercard that includes former junior-welterweight Jose Benavidez Jr. of Phoenix at welterweight against Francisco Santana (24-4-1, 12 KOs) “But it’s good. I never get pressured. I’m very focused on what I do in training. I’m aware of what I’m capable of.’’

Against Rueda, he plans to display some more of those emerging capabilities. Rueda is fighting for only the second time in the United States. He won a bout in Tampa in October, 2015. He’s unknown. Then again, so was fellow Argentine Marcos Maidana before he stunned Victor Ortiz in 2009.

“I’ve seen tapes of him,’’ Valdez said. “Sometimes, he barely hits guys and they fall. So you can tell he has a hard-hitting punch. But I’m ready for him. I’m ready.’’

Ready for Rueda and everything else that might be next, too.
Attachments area

By Norm Frauenheim-

Adam Lopez, a former Phoenix super-bantamweight now of San Antonio, hopes to celebrate 15 years of ShoBox with a victory of his own.

The unbeaten Lopez (15-0, 7 KOs) is in the main event for the 15th anniversary of “ShoBox: The New Generation” Friday night (Showtime 10 ET/PT) against Roman Ruben Reynoso (18-1-1, 7 KOs) of Argentina at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn.

Lopez hopes his career unfolds the way other careers have during the long run of the Showtime series. Deontay Wilder and Andre Ward, to name just two, fought on ShoBox early in their careers.

Lopez is coming off a decision over Mario Munoz for a minor title on Feb. 19 in Atlantic City. Reynoso has won 10 straight.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at the Bartow Arena in Birmingham the reigning Alabama and PBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder discouraged California’s Chris Arreola to a referee or corner stoppage after the eighth round of a match Arreola took on short notice because he was going to lose anyway after Wilder’s intended opponent anticipated his country’s ban from the Summer Olympics by failing a drug-related IQ test. The PBC on Fox in conjunction with Showtime but not CBS and NBC as part of a synergistic agreement with ESPN, Spike and Fox Sports 1 (though not Fox Now’s buggy app) had the call in the U.S. and apparently much of the broadcast was ad-free.

Though Wilder’s confidence grows with each title defense his precision diminishes more quickly.

Somewhere in the last month or so I read about the virtues of watching television programming at increased speeds. The article grew from an unrelatable foundation like: There’s so much television one simply must watch today and so little time when one considers other necessities like, I suppose, Facebook updates and Snapchats th’t one must utilize technologies to gulp what one’s parents sipped. I neither sip nor gulp from television and so I filed the article under curios and downloaded the Chrome plugin to procrastinate from doing something strenuous as yoga – and if you don’t know what a Chrome plugin is you probably paid three times too much for your laptop. Since then I’ve deactivated my Flash player and casted about for a chance to be amazed by this amazing new technology and none presented itself till Sunday morning.

There’s always something better to do on a Friday or Saturday night than watch PBC matches live because the main reason to watch live sports is to prevent others’ robbing you of the suspense and drama of outcome (unless you’re one of those few honest folks who entertains the collective delusion one’s witness to an event from distance changes the event, which remains probable as it is impossible to prove) and PBC matchmaking delivers both suspense and drama at ratios low enough to be historic. Anyone interested in our sport enough to read this column could run his index finger down the next two years of PBC main events and mark the winner with 95-percent accuracy and Saturday’s mismatch was more mismatched than usual. Where the pessimist drops his head in his hands and gnashes teeth at what’s become of boxing, though, the optimist sees an opportunity to test a wonderful new technology he downloaded sometime in the last month, with a YouTube video of Saturday’s main event.

Pay close attention because a bit of technological dexterity may be needed to decipher the riddle of the next few sentences.

You should not watch a PBC heavyweight match on YouTube at 2x speed because you’ll miss a few of the punches and the Scottish guy on the commentary team sounds muddy more than muddled and while his insights are reliably nil his garbled consonants distract from the action before you at speed. You should try 1.5x; anything less is not worth the trouble of a plugin download and if you’ve not been watching much faster and better prizefighting in lower weightclasses for the past two decades you may find heavyweights moving 50-percent faster than usual a touch too suspenseful. Goldilocks says 1.7x is the perfect rate.

It’s so right and Sunday morning’s 20 minutes were so proper I’ve decided to put the perfect viewing rate of a PBC heavyweight match right in the name of the PBC’s flagship commodity: Deontay “1.7x” Wilder. At the 1.7x rate his Saturday opponent moved like a cruiserweight and even appeared at various intervals to want to fight the man across from him.

There are two reasons Wilder did not stop Arreola in Alabama. The first is Arreola’s sense of pride that trends inversely with his conditioning in a ratio that allowed Arreola to lumber from a fat guy who could box to a trimmer guy who bleeds on cue and absorbs like a paper towel. The second reason is Deontay Wilder is awful at boxing.

According to breathless ringside reports Saturday night Wilder tore his right bicep while punching. Do you have any idea how difficult that is from an orthodox stance? To turn the trick one cannot merely throw a straight punch wildly crooked but also must touch no part of his knuckles to the target at impact. It’s a feat of both technical incompetence and faulty depth perception; if you throw the right hand correctly while being blind in one eye or throw the right hand incorrectly while trusting a third dimension exists, either one, you cannot tear your right bicep while punching and that means you fail in a way Wilder succeeded Saturday.

He succeeded for the right reason at least and that was rage. When Wilder gets another man hurt in front of him he verily loses his mind and while his finishing moves resemble an infant in tantrum more than a predator in the wild he looks dangerous to inexperienced eyes, 9,000 of which showed a patriot’s zeal in Birmingham.

Wilder is a great regional champion, the best heavyweight in Alabama and perhaps the entirety of America’s South, but in a meritocratic world he’s a scalp. Even at age 50 Vitali Klitschko would wear Wilder’s silly bronze mask like a codpiece.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action live as Deontay Wilder defends the WBC Heavyweight title against Chris aArreola.  The action begins at 8 PM with a Jr. Middleweight bout between Erickson Lubin taking on Ivan Montero.  The co-feature will pit Sammy Vasquez Jr and Felix Diaz in a welterweight bout.  After Wilder – Arreola, stick around for bonus action as Gerald Washington takes on former world title challenger Ray Austin in a heavyweight bout, former world champion Vic Darchinyan battles Enrique Quevedo in a super bntamweight tilt and welterweights Jamal James and Wale Omotoso do battle.

THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY–NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED

Round 1 Right from Wilder..

Round 2 Wilder lands a right.  Arreola cut on the nose.

Round 3 Arreola working the body..Chopping right and another right from Wilder..

Round 4 Uppercut from Wilder..BIG COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES ARREOLA..Arreola bleeding from his right eye..Big right rocks and wobbles Arreola

Round 5 Wilder lands a hard jab…left hook..Body shot from Arreola..Uppercut from Wilder

Round 6: Jab from Wilder..

Round 7 Wilder lands a jab…Good right..3 punch combination..right hand..Big right at the bell

Round 8 Nice jab from wilder..3 punch combination..Body shot..Arreola left eye is closing..Left hook…THE FIGHT IS STOPPED IN THE CORNER

Round 1: Lubin working the body

Round 2 Combination and body shot from Montero.  Combination and Body shot from Lubin..Good left..Nice left hook..Over hand left..

Round 3 Lubin working the body…Straight left

Round 4 Jab from Lubin..Body shot…

Round 5 3 body shots from Lubin

Round 6 Good combination from Lubin..2 jabs..right to body

Round 7:  Uppercut from Lubin

Round 8

Round 1:  Body shot from Vasquez

Round 2  Diaz getting through with a couple lefts

Round 3 Diaz lands a body shot

Round 4 Diaz lands a body shot..Both going ti the body..Good uppercut from Diaz,,

Round 5:  Diaz continuing with the left

Round 6: Vasquez lands a body shot…Straight left by Diaz..Combination

Round 7: Right from Diaz..Good body shot

Round 8:  Vazquez beginning to bleed from his left.  Diaz lands an uppercut…Right Hook

Round 9:  Diaz lands a shot in the corner ..Jab..Good left…Vasquez lands a left

Round 10 Vasquez cut over the right eye..Vasquez lands a left..Vasquez deducted point for spitting out mouthpiece

96-93, and 95-94 twice for Diaz

 

 

Sergey Lipinets scored a 7th round stoppage over Walter Castillo in a junior welterweight bout in Tunica,
Mississippi.

Lipinets landed a hard right that hurt Castillo in the seventh frame. He landed several clean power shots that backed Castillo into the ropes and a few more shots forced the referee to stop the fight at 2:45.

Lipinets, 141 lbs of Beverly Hills, CA is 10-0 with eight knockouts. Castillo, 142 lbs of Managua, NIC is 26-4-1.

Tugstogt Naymabayer stopped Rafael Vasquez in the first round of their scheduled ten round featherweight bout.

Nayambayer dropped Vasquez in the first thirty seconds with a straight right, Thirty seconds later, it was another right that put Vasquez on the canvas again. Another big right hurt Vasquez, and he ate three more chopping rights that sent him to the canvas for a third and final time and the bout was stopped at 1:24.

Nayamabayer, 123.6 lbs of Van Nuys, CA is now 9-2 with six knockouts. Vasquez, 124 lbs of Brooklyn is now 16-3.

David Perez won a six-round unanimous decision over Adam Ortiz in a bantamweight bout.

Perez dropped Ortiz in the first round with an uppercut.

Perez, 119.5 lbs of Houston, TX won by scores of 60-53, 59-54 and 58-55 and is now 7-0. Ortiz, 122.2 lbs of San Marcos, MX is 9-2.

By Norm Frauenheim

A Viktor Postol victory over Terence Crawford could lead to a Postol-Manny Pacquiao fight and force trainer Freddie Roach to choose between Postol and Pacquiao.

It sounds awkward. But Roach, trainer for both Postol and Pacquiao, says it wouldn’t be.

“It wouldn’t be the worst position in the world,’’ Roach said Thursday during a conference call nine days before the Postol-Crawford junior-welterweight bout July 23 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. “I feel like Viktor has done everything to get ready for this fight, to win this fight.’’

“If that does happen, I’ll have to deal with it.’’

The possibility emerged this week amid reports that Pacquiao would fight later this year in his first bout since he was elected to the Filipino Senate a few weeks after his rematch decision over Timothy Bradley in a welterweight bout in April.

Danny Garcia appears to be the leading possibility when — and perhaps if — Pacquiao decides to resume his career. Longtime Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum, who also promotes Crawford and Postol, also said the July 23rd winner could land a shot at the Senator with a spectacular performance.

Postol and Crawford will fight at 140 pounds, which many believe is Pacquiao’s ideal weight.

“If that fight will happen, we’ll then sit down with each team to see how it goes,’’ Top Rank vice-president Carl Moretti said.

Then, Moretti couldn’t resist the chance to deliver a good punch line.

“As far as Freddie goes, it would be great to see him run back-and forth, from corner-to-corner,’’ Moretti joked.

That wouldn’t happen, of course. Roach’s longtime role as Pacquiao’s friend, confidante and corner man dictates that he would be in the Filpino’s corner.

“Me and Manny have been together for 15 years,’’ Roach. “It would be very difficult to go against him, of course. But, you know, I know Viktor is a very good fighter also.’’

If the Postol-Pacquiao happens, Marvin Somodio, Roach’s longtime aide, would probably train Postol.

BROOKLYN (July 13, 2016) – Former two-division world champion Paulie Malignaggi is set to defend Brooklyn’s World Championship Belt in a 10-round welterweight showdown after being challenged on Twitter this afternoon by fellow Brooklyn-native Gabriel Bracero on Saturday, July 30 live on SHOWTIME EXTREME.

Malignaggi earned the title of “King of Brooklyn” when he defeated another Brooklyn-born star in former world champion Zab Judah in December of 2013 at Barclays Center. This version of the “Battle for Brooklyn” will once again have local bragging rights on the line, with both men looking to impress in front of a hometown crowd.

“Representing Brooklyn with this belt has been something I’m very proud of,” said Malignaggi. “I relish the competitive spirit of being able to defend it against another quality Brooklyn fighter like Gabriel Bracero. I fight for Brooklyn and I represent Brooklyn with everything I’ve got each time I step into the ring and on July 30 it will be no different.”

“This fight is going to have two Brooklynites, finally meeting inside the ring, in a really exciting matchup,” said Bracero. “What better way to highlight that, then having the Brooklyn’s World Championship Belt on the line. Growing up in Brooklyn is what has made me the man and the fighter that I am today. I respect Paulie for giving me this opportunity, for putting his belt on the line and everything he’s done in his career. On July 30 though, that belt is coming home with me. I will be the new champion of Brooklyn.”

Click HERE for video of Bracero’s challenge and HERE for video of Malignaggi’s response

Tickets for the live event, which is promoted by DiBella Entertainment in association with Cyclone Promotions and presented by Premier Boxing Champions, start at $38 and can be purchased online by visiting www.ticketmaster.com, www.barclayscenter.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Tickets are also available at the American Express Box Office at Barclays Center. Group discounts are available by calling 844-BKLYN-GP.

“Malignaggi-Bracero figures not only to be a highly competitive fight, but is truly a battle of Brooklyn,” said Lou DiBella, President of DiBella Entertainment. “Paulie has had a fantastic career, but this is a dangerous matchup for him against a tough fighter.”

“There’s nothing more fitting than two Brooklyn fighters, Paulie, of Bensonhurst, and Gabriel, of Sunset Park, standing toe-to-toe in the ring at Barclays Center,” said Brett Yormark, CEO of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. “Paulie holds the title of Brooklyn’s World Champion. On July 30, his belt is on the line. Who’s going to take it?”

The July 30 event features a SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING headlined by a featherweight world title clash between Leo Santa Cruz and Carl Frampton. Coverage begins live on SHOWTIME at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT and features former two-division world champion Mikey Garcia returning to the ring to take on former champion Elio Rojas plus 154-pound contenders Tony Harrison and Sergey Rabchenko in a world title-eliminator. Lightweight sluggers Ivan Redkach and Tevin Farmer will also battle in televised action on SHOWTIME EXTREME.

A former world champion at 140 and 147-pounds, the 35-year-old Malignaggi (35-7, 7 KOs) will return to the ring to fight at Barclays Center for the fifth time. He has faced a slew of big names throughout his career and has been victorious over the likes of Judah, Vyacheslav Senchenko and Pablo Cesar Cano. Born and raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, “The Magic Man” was victorious twice fighting in his birth country of Italy last year after unsuccessfully challenging unbeaten Danny Garcia in August.

Another Brooklyn-native, Bracero (24-2, 5 KOs) comes off of a sensational one-punch knockout of rival Danny O’Connor in their rematch last October. The 35-year-old owns victories over Dmitry Salita and Pavel Miranda in addition to his first triumph over the previously unbeaten O’Connor in 2011.

# # #

For more information visit www.SHO.com/Sports follow on Twitter @SHOSports, @LeoSantaCruz2, @RealCFrampton, @BarclaysCenter, and @Swanson_Comm or become a fan on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/SHOSports, www.Facebook.com/DiBellaEntertainment, www.Facebook.com/barclayscenter. PBC is sponsored by Corona, La Cerveza Mas Fina.

ABOUT BROOKLYN BOXING™
Upon opening in 2012, Barclays Center brought major championship boxing back to Brooklyn after more than 50 years. Over the past four years, the BROOKLYN BOXING platform has hosted more than 120 bouts and more than 20 world title fights while giving local fighters their own shot in the spotlight. In April 2016, BROOKLYN BOXING extended its brand by creating an active wear and lifestyle apparel line that is available at www.BrooklynBoxingShop.com. BROOKLYN BOXING is proudly presented by AARP.

By Bart Barry-

Sometime soon – or conceivably as you read this – light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev will beat up a South African named Isaac Chilemba in a Russian city called Yekaterinburg. HBO will air the mess sometime this evening as part of a yearlong promotional attempt to have Kovalev fight Andre Ward in the network’s one anticipated fight of 2016.

Since now everyone is a promoter anyway . . .

This afternoon the man who calls himself “The Golden Boy” but others know as the Joburg Jo and the Malawi Malcontent, the Gauteng Gatlin Boy and the Terror of Turning Stone, Miguel Isaac Chilemba Zuze, brings his broadfists and rage in a Russian ring with the express purpose of mauling Sergey Kovalev not far from the Soviet Union’s best-known nuclear-waste dump. Frankly the broadcast in broad daylight should be rated R and the reason HBO will not do its tapedelay till after dark. That a network specializing in naked violence and graphical gore like “Game of Thrones” would ultimately flinch at a live broadcast of a boxing match reports to its viewers the unalloyed peril that accompanies Chilemba whenever gauze mounts his knuckles and leather rides his flying fists.

Actually Chilemba is the right man for the job of launching HBO’s one-off MNB series as men returning from second shifts at work will conduct an informal race with Krusher to determine if Kovalev can put Chilemba to sleep before Chilemba snatches the consciousness from HBO’s viewing audience. Such suspense now heralds the Monday arrival of the manly art of self-defense.

The case of Chilemba raises what has become a common question for main events in a way it once was a common question only in undercards and walkouts: Does Chilemba know he is going to lose or will awakening from unconsciousness bring him more than the standard surprise? And if he does know he’s going in the ring as a sacrifice, did he know it before signing the contract or while boarding his flight to Russia or during the weighin that probably happened while this got written?

There was a time so many Mexican taxistas and albañiles staffed the nohoper side of undercards one brought his opera glasses to spot Alfonso Zayas at welterweight or Tun Tun at straw, a time competent matchmakers allowed nary a victor to shuffle from the red corner across a 12-match marquee. After showing valor and a certain whimsical willfulness for a quarter hour this hopeless opponent of the prospect being developed would catch a left hook or right cross flush and drop as if shot then rise to his right knee before the seven count and retain his crouch till the fabled 10 1/2-count at which time he would spring upright and spread his gloves to plead the ref allow his continuance. The referee would make some avuncular gesture or other embracing the lad to tell him neither could conscience his absorbing one more blow. Then the nohoper would do a shameless lap of posture and disbelief before conceding it was not the prospect’s fault and in a show of abiding sportsmanship raise the victor’s taped fist high above both heads.

After a short medical suspension this taxista or albañil would be back on the circuit making enough money to bid zealously on a used pickup truck postfight (my favorite such character was the supremely courteous Genaro “Trancazos” Trazancos who after beginning his career 1-1-1 managed to get himself on television a number of times and fight Miguel Cotto’s older brother and Steven Luevano and Edwin Valero in a three-loss streak that became a curtain-calling 1-11 [10 KOs] close to his career). Such men had no believable chance of prevailing but truly believed they might ring one up and slice the other man just once – since it takes only a punch – and gave honest fighting efforts in a way few of us circumstanced similarly would do. Their job was to ensure a knockout. They were stuntmen who expected to complete the jump but didn’t mind a net stretched just below.

With the advent of the PBC and its quality bending effect there’s no longer any banking on an opponent’s honest effort. Most of the a-siders have adjusted to this and found solace in admonitions to win tonight and look good next time and while that next time never comes it’s not a thing PBC handlers think a biographical video cannot fix. Writing of biographical videos, the only reasonable explanation for HBO’s signing a contract that binds the network to air this farce is a chance to roll viewers towards a Terence Crawford infomercial for a pay-per-view match that mayn’t find its 100,000th viewer in a couple weeks.

Kovalev is a problem for the contemporary nohoper arrangement. He’s a bully-cum-sociopath who derives open joy from torturing lesser men. One might hope performing before a crowd of fellow Russians would leash his psychopathy a teensy-weensy bit until one recalls Kovalev killed Roman Simakov in the very same city five years ago. Kovalev is a loving father now, we’re told, and probably appreciates human life fractionally more than he did then and so Chilemba may well be safe this afternoon.

Therein lies another explanation for boxing’s moribund fanbase: Another main event, an HBO main event no less, finds aficionados fixated on the health and safety of its network-sanctioned opponent.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Cesar Juarez stopped previously undefeated Albert Pagara in round eight of their scheduled 12-round super bantamweight bout at the San Mateo Event Center in San Mateo, California

At the end of round one, Pagara dropped Juarez with a left hook.

Juarez rushed out of is corner in round eight and landed a hard right that drove Pagara to the corner and down for the count at 15 seconds of round eight.

Juarez, 121.2 lbs of of Mexico City is 18-5 with 14 knockouts. Pagara, 121.2 lbs of the Philippines is 26-1.

Jason Pagara scored a third round stoppage over Abraham Alvares in a scheduled eight round welterweight bout.

Pagara dropped Alvarez with a right hand and the fight was stopped at 55 seconds of round three

Pagara, 146 lbs is now 39-2 with 24 knockouts. Alvarez, 147 lbs of Sinaloa, MX 21-11-1.

By Norm Frauenheim-

Sergey Kovalev returns to Russia on July 11 for his first fight in nearly five years with titles and an emerging celebrity he never had or perhaps could have ever envisioned.

Kovalev won his first championship, the WBO ‘s light- heavyweight version, in Wales with a 2013 stoppage of Nathan Cleverly. He defended it for the first time in the French-Canadian town of Quebec City with a knockout of Ismayl Sillah , also in 2013.

The Russian, a first-time champ in Wales with an initial title defense in Canada, gained his first chance at American-style stardom a 2014 upset of an enduring American legend, Bernard Hopkins in Atlantic City.

Therae was a Robin Williams’ line in Moscow on The Hudson, a 1984 film about the defection of a musician in the old Soviet circus during a tour stop in New York.

“Yesterday, I bought my first pair of American shoes,’’ the Williams character wrote in a letter home. “They were made in Italy.’’

In true American fashion, Kovalev is made of a lot of things, many of which are still being discovered in an ongoing story that is moving toward what could be a defining chapter against Andre Ward on Nov. 19 in Las Vegas.

First, however, a few things have to happen and not happen. Kovalev (29-0-1, 19 KOs) has to beat Isaac Chilemba (24-3-2, 10 KOs) in Ekaterinburg, 137 miles from Kovalev’s hometown, Kopeysk, in a bout that HBO will televise, tape-delay (10:15 p.m., ET/PT).

“I must get my victory for my next possible fight,” Kovalev said. “You lose once, everything goes broke.’’

Broke comes with a double meaning. The much-anticipated Ward-Kovalev bout sets up the winner as one of the game’s potential big earners. In a poll featuring boxing’s top earners in 2016, for Fortune magazine this week, Ward is ranked No. 5 and Kovalev No. 6.

Given the decision by Canelo Alvarez–Fortune’s No. 1–to bypass No. 3 Gennady Golovkin until at least next year, Kovalev-Ward looms as the biggie in 2016.

Ward has to uphold his part in the deal on Aug. 6 against Alexander Brand in Oakland. The guess here is that neither Kovalev nor Ward is in much risk of a loss. The bigger threat is an injury that could delay the fight, using it into 2017.

Kovalev, often as bold before a fight as he is dangerous during one, is already promising to do what no one else has.

Chilemba, awkward and mostly unknown, has never been stopped.

“Nobody has ever knocked Chilemba out,’’ Kovalev said. “I want to be the first.’’

Fighting at home for the first time since 2011 might come with some unfamiliar pressure on Kovalev. A hometown crowd might want something spectacular from a newborn star, who has been deadly on the road. Who knows how he’ll react at home?

There’s another element in all the plot lines surrounding the geography. Kovalev will be back in the same arena where his opponent, Roman Sinkov, died after he won by a stoppage.

Since then, Kovalev has said little about the tragedy. The people around him talk about it more than he does. For Kovalev, the job is more about the here –now, the immediate task in front of him.

Nevertheless, the Sinkov death is an unmistakable part of the Kovalev story in each day and every step he takes toward opening bell on Monday. If he wins as expected, he ‘ll have a definitive answer.

Maybe that’s just one reason he has gone home. Unresolved questions are a little bit like unfinished fights. They have to be confronted and Kovalev has yet to back away from one in a lifetime full of traveling from one confrontation to the next.

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – There’s a coffeehouse and bar concept called Halcyon in the south-downtown part of this city called Southtown and what brought me here the first time years ago were the make-your-own open-flame s’mores they bravely serve under the paintings local artists hang for-sale on their walls. What brought me here this afternoon was the eclectic crowd that assembles on Sundays and Mondays. If this column is about boxing at all its author’ll be surprised.

There’s a finch nest tattered in the corner above the window that reflects beside my seat. The nest hung there a month or so and by design was unnoticeable unless you were seated directly beneath it when an occupant flew home or you were an airborne predator and in the second case it was still necessarily unnoticeable. The nest came apart a half hour ago when the wind took the dominant strand away and the unraveling accelerated to disorder. The occupants returned a few minutes ago, a couple – not unlike the folks who just sat across from me on a couch fractionally comfortable as it looks and we’ll see how long they endure it. The finches have no apparent memory how was the nest when they departed but recognized instantly the place they alighted on is uninhabitable currently but shows potential as a home with some repairs – a fixerupper possibly in foreclosure. They set off fusslessly on their task and collect from the ground a blessedly large collection of twigs – what good fortune, this! – that is their former nest unbeknownst to them.

The lass across from me is attractive but covered in tattoos each with a story and pretty clearly in the throes of a tinder date with a douchebag of sorts who nonetheless satisfies the Texas female’s one mating requirement: He is tall. He’s whispering to her about me and it raises an interesting question for any writer: Did he know I thought this about him before I read what I’d written and realized I thought this about him because I didn’t realize I’d noticed him so much as the finches, much less like a competitor, till the beginning of this runon sentence? They’re giggling girlishly now (about my hat probably) and it brings to mind the timeless wisdom of Sir Mix-A-Lot: “I’m a giggle wit’em, ‘cause I wanna get wit’em.”

It’s later than usual and that keeps the brunch crowd from occupying too many tables and it makes the mix in Halcyon right now quite good – modellish women, bearded men, students, lesbians, a few toddler siblings dressed in matching purple outfits by their conscientious mom. The temperature is rising unfortunately because there’s only so much of the good fight any establishment might wage against the summer suffocation of South Texas and if the cooling system kept things below 75 when the place was 1/3 full it’s got no chance against the arrival of the second- and third-third. Its initial emptiness signed departed South Texans, our townsfolk off and enjoying the holiday elsewhere, and much as one hoped the city removed itself to Calgary or Montreal to enjoy rejuvenating climes the greater likelihood is folks who’d otherwise be here brunching were instead floating inebriatedly southwards on one of our many waterways.

Even a year ago I might’ve glanced at a boxing calendar on some site or other before writing a column about not writing a boxing column but it didn’t cross my mind last night when the idea for this column scurried on in. That marks its own demarcation of an extraordinary sort: There was a time I started worrying about my next column Tuesday morning and chastised myself openly if Wednesday evening didn’t bring a workable plan. While I haven’t quite drawn a bead on what my more honorable and mechanical self of 2005 should’ve opined about the writer I am now I suspect he’d have been amused – an appreciation of absurdity being the one thing that held constant in the boiling variable stew of this last decade. Or so I hope.

A good column in a good paper this morning returned me to a months-old pledge to read more Rudyard Kipling and so I enjoyed “The Drums of the Fore and Aft” before going to Central Library, this city’s colorful architectural event that comprises a Botero sculpture in the front atrium and Chihuly glass in its middle. There was a time a tale of cowardice and redemptive courage such as Kipling’s on a Sunday morning would’ve won a tangential inclusion in the week’s column. Instead its allusion here is direct and freely unrelated. Read Kipling because he’s imaginative and not in order to learn something.

Funnily enough the working title for this column was to be “Planning a trip to Johannesburg instead of writing a column” – as planning was what I’d planned to be do doing – but thoughts of a short and wonderfully cheap flight to Cape Town midway through a two-week stay in South Africa seemed unacceptably premeditated when set below all that preceded. It’s something like intuition the way these destinations get chosen or a feeling assembled preconsciously of sounds and images and promised delight from Dublin to Barcelona to Bogota to Joburg.

And now I’m going to mention the young lady who replaced the tall-n-tatted couple on the lima-green sofa, in a faded midnight-blue blouse with upsidedown pink elephants marching between paisleys because I just imagined a conversation with her in which I’d tell her I’m writing about the rebuilding birds’ nest reassembling above us in lieu of writing about boxing and after a 20-minute soliloquy about creative process at the end of which she’d say in exasperation she was overdue at her boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s place I’d tell her to check this column the next morning and see if I was joking when I said I’d mention her.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim

The birthday was a long shot. Few guessed it would ever happen. Mike Tyson is 50. Buster Douglas probably faced smaller odds when, as a 42-to-1 underdog, he beat Tyson more than a quarter of a century ago.

Tyson’s milestone, instead of an early headstone, came and went Thursday amid some headlines, but none of the deafening craziness that defined him for so long.

That’s an upset. Tyson’s biggest victory, too.

In doing a cover story on Tyson for The Ring in 2014, he told me: “Let’s be men about this. Be honest. You didn’t think we’d be talking to each other like we are right now. Did you? Come on now, be real. You thought I’d be dead, right? Hey, I thought I’d be dead.’’

Tyson survived — survived prison, drugs, booze, outrage from the infamous bite he took out of Evander Holyfield’s ear and all the rest – because he learned how to deal with the personal demons, who once outnumbered the crowd in his entourage. How did he do it? He grew up.

It sounds simple enough. But it wasn’t, especially for a kid from the streets of Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood who won the world heavyweight title faster than anyone in the fabled division’s history. He was 20, which is another way of saying he just wasn’t ready for worldwide attention and unprecedented money.

“There ain’t no future in my past,’’ he told me in 2014.
He began to figure to figure that out after the past landed him at rock bottom. He was virtually finished as a fighter when he arrived in Phoenix in the fall of 1998, searching for a way to resurrect his career after the infamous Bite Fight disqualification at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in 1997. He was in Arizona for counseling and to train at an old gym that the city was about to demolish.

Central Boxing was scheduled for the wrecking ball when Tyson decided he wanted to train there in beat-up building without air-conditioning. There’s AC there, now. But Tyson liked it for the hot box it was. Within its old walls, temps could hit 130 degrees during summer days in the Arizona desert.

Tyson saved the gym. It’s still there, near the state capitol and with AC. But nothing could save his career, which Holyfield effectively ended by stripping him of the intimidation that defeated so many frightened opponents before opening bell. After moving to Phoenix, he fought 10 times, winning five, losing three and getting no-contest in two. But he scared no one any more, other than himself.

It was that period in Tyson’s life when he used talk, often ad nauseam, about what a waste it had been. Again and again, he said he was sick and tired of boxing. He knew he didn’t want to be in the ring anymore, but he was because of a tax bill and other financial responsibilities.

When I first met him as a reporter for The Arizona Republic newspaper, I was cautious, fearful perhaps that he’d go off on a rant and take a piece of my ear. I’d stop at Central and he’d look through me as if he had never seen me. Then, there were times he welcomed me like an old boyhood friend. He just wanted to talk and he would, almost non-stop.

After one workout, I told him I had to leave. He followed me out into the mid-summer heat and to my truck. I opened the door and Tyson dropped his heavy right hand on my left elbow. I felt a hint of the power that frightened the heavyweight division for so long.

With one quick yank, he could have pulled my arm right out of its shoulder socket. I froze. Tyson talked. I listened.

It was then I realized Tyson was mostly afraid of himself, especially when he knew he was finished as a fighter. What was next for somebody who knew nothing else? He talked then, and continued to talk for another couple of years, as though he was trying to exorcise the demons. I was skeptical that he ever could. But he did, confronting tragedy when a 4-year-old daughter, Exodus, died in an accident on treadmill in Phoenix in 2009.

The tragedy helped forge the man. He would be back in Phoenix to visit ailing Muhammad Ali before Ali’s death on June 3. A week later, Tyson was a pallbearer for Ali’s funeral in Louisville.

Tyson was there to honor Ali. It was a sad moment, a reason to grieve, yet also fitting in terms of a heavyweight history full of champions, each different and yet each linked by what they did and how they did it.

Happy Birthday, champ.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Brooklyn, Florida welterweight Keith “One Time” Thurman hit Ohio’s “Showtime” Shawn Porter many many times and all over though not too often on the chin and beat him by three fair scores of 115-113. Social media reacted with uncharacteristic sobriety to a match Showtime-on-CBS-presented-by-PBC commentary mistook for a historic war from opening bell to closing after promising a historic war over and over and over.

The match was better than expected and about a third what viewers heard it was from the PBC’s circusbarking play-by-play dude. Somewhere in his relentless drumbeat of historic punchstat figures and legendary power this contradiction became obvious in a way best posed like a question: How come Mike Tyson never set any activity records in his heyday?

Television, mankind’s greatest yet enthusiasm-dissemination device, embraces then amplifies emotions as they arise, picking them up and setting them down instant by instant, and therefore no conflict registered to Saturday’s on-air lunacy. But here it is in a plainspoken way television can’t do: If Keith Thurman hits so damn hard, how come 200 chops with the Thurman axe didn’t dent much less fell the Porter tree? How come a Sunday morning camaraderie pic of Thurman and Porter saw Porter looking so clean, safe and sane?

Because Porter has a legendary chin! Sure, right, whatever; legends don’t get dropped by clowns like Adrien Broner and Porter did.

Great acts of combat inspire great prose.

“They both appeared exhausted in the final round but let it all hang out,” wrote ESPN’s Dan Rafael.

“With the kind of tremendous action they created in the ring, a rematch is a no-brainer and an easy sell,” wrote USA Today’s Mike Coppinger.

Porter was what his supporters believed he was and Thurman was a bit less. Like every other volume puncher in history Porter erred with his chin over his front knee, too anxious to impose himself and consequently wide open to counter uppercuts. Thurman landed a few and more of other counters like his left hook but often Thurman was in such frantic and tanglefooted retreat the punches did not measure on Porter’s chin the way they attacked PBC viewers’ ears.

Congratulations of a sort for that: The missing component of television broadcasts has long been its flattening audio that makes all punches sound the same. PBC raced directly past that issue in a wide circle that now has every punch sounding much louder and the same.

It is easy to call Porter a fun fighter without calling him or Saturday’s match legendary and probably advisable too. Being anywhere but Brooklyn for a columnist had the advantage of being far from the event’s boorish puppet-promoter sweating and screaming across press row about the quality of his product. Porter combines athleticism, desire, and yes, intelligence the way young Timothy Bradley and Juan Diaz did. He is aware of his limitations in a way his opponents are not; volume guys do not fear violence or exhaustion or ridicule the way they shudder at others’ right uppercuts but it takes a Juan Manuel Marquez – much more than a Keith Thurman – to plant and hold steady with a wildman racing your way. Porter’s jab wasn’t merely the decoy it appeared but wasn’t much more than that either. When the two men jabbed together Porter’s jab was often the first arriver but no credible source ever said Thurman had a great jab.

What Thurman has is a right hand and sometimes a left hook but it’s been so long since he fought an opponent bad enough to make him look invincible it’s admittedly hard to recall what made us so excited about him years ago but speed and intensity are good places as any to look. Or perhaps it was our delirious search to find some welterweight who might ice Floyd Mayweather that made us see in Thurman more than was there. Whatever images once danced in our heads Thurman’s footwork today rates, on a scale of novice-to-master, about: Amir Khan + 1.

Porter was able to jab him out of position and spin him fairly easily because, whatever postfight allusions Thurman concocted about Muhammad Ali (who as an aside gave away opening rounds in order to knock George Foreman out, not decision him narrowly) Thurman’s feet rarely anchored his body properly. His vaunted power, which took precious little fight out of Porter, relied heavily on Porter’s aggressiveness and Porter delivered that aggressiveness, swinging and missing ferally and fairly often(ly), but Thurman was out of position or in-position and retreating at the time of Porter’s arrivals mostly. A generation raised to confuse wide circles and wasted effort with great defense surely saw in Thurman’s tactics something like genius but not the rest of us. Better put: In 36 minutes of what horizontal ferocity snaps heavybags from gym ceilings vertically Thurman didn’t once show Porter as much conviction or technique or effect as “About Billions” did.

Still, Thurman-Porter 1 was dramatic throughout and suspenseful occasionally. Let us see an immediate rematch. According to their Sunday pic neither guy was ruined by Saturday’s match and according to previous box-office receipts neither guy is popular enough to spend another year starching novices. Provided the check clears this week CBS should agree to air the rematch in December, too – maybe even at a discount.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

In the final seconds of round three, Karl landed a big left hook that sent Solis to the canvas.

In a battle of previously undefeated Jr. Welterweights, Darwin Price won a eight round unanimous decision over Semajay Thomas.

Price scored a knockdown in round one from a left hook. In round seven, Thomas began to bleed from his nose.

Price, 138 lbs of Houston won by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72 and is now 10-0. Thomas, 140 lbs of Chicago is 7-1.

Price landed 131 of 387 punches. Thomas was 102 of 480.