Follow all the action as world Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin defends his titles against undefeated Dominic Wade.  The action begins at 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT with the WBC Flyweight title bout between Roman Gonzalez and McWilliams Arroyo—THE PAGE WILL REFRESH AUTOMATICALLY

Round 1: Golovkin lands a left to the body..Wade lands a body shot..RIGHT TO BACK TO THE HEAD AND DOWN GOES WADE

Round 2 Hard right hurts Wade…good body shot..body shot…Wade gets in a combination…RIGHT HAND AND DOWN GOES WADE.HUGE OVER HAND RIGHT AND WAD GOES DOWN AND DOES NOT BEAT THE COUNT

Round 1 Arroyo working body with left hook..

Round 2 Arroyo lands a left..Combination from Gonzalez…Combination

Round 3 Hard body shits and left hook from Gonzalez…Quick left hook from Arroyo…Gonzalez answers with a left…right hurts Arroyo…Gonzalez outlanding Arroyo 62-40

Round 4 Good right from Arroyo…Good right from Gonzalez…the sole of Arroyo’s shoe has come off..

Round 5 Left hook from Gonzalez

Round 6 Gonzalez lands a left to the body and right to the head..

Round 7 Hard left to the body from Gonzalez..Big left hook..

Round 8 Big left hook from Gonzalez..2 hard rights

Round 9 Right from Gonzalez…

Round 10 Arroyo lands a left hook..straight right and 2 lefts to the body from Gonzales..right..Left hook from Arroyo…Gonzalez outlanding Arroyo 295-160

Round 11 Big right from Gonzalez..Good right…Hard left to the body..Body shot from Arroyo..Gonzalez outlanding Arroyo–327-174

Round 12 Arroyo lands 2 rights..Gonzalez lands a good right..Left hook from Arroyo..360-193 punch advantage for Gonzalez

119-109 TWICE AND 120-108 FOR GONZALEZ

 

Follow all the action as it happens when WBO Jr. Featherweight champion Nonito Donaire defends his title against Zsolt Bedak.  The action begins at 8 AM Eastern Time / 8 PM in The Philippines with a 3 fight undercard featuring Super Featherweight bout between Paul Flemming and Miguel Angel Gonzalez; Featherweights Mark Magsayo and Chris Avalos as well as Jason Pagara battling Miguel Zamudio–PAGE WILL REFRESH AUTOMATICALLY 

Page will refresh automatically

Round 1 Donaire lands a left to the body

Round 2 Left hook lands solid for Donaire….LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES DONAIRE…Bedak bleeding from the nose..Hard uppercut…LEFT TO TOP OF HEAD AND DOWN GOES BEDAK

Round 3 1-2 from Donaire…uppercut…RIGHT HAND BY DONAIRE RULED A KNOCKDOWN AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 GONZALEZ LANDS A RIGHT AND DOWN GOES FLEMING…Right from Gonzalez..

Round 2 Gonzalez lands a body shot..Right from Fleming…Right from Gonzalez

Round 3 Fleming lands a right to the body…Straight left…Left to body from Gonzalez…

Round 4 Fleming lands a combination against the ropes..Uppercut from Gonzalez…Fleming warned for a low blow..

Round 5 1-2 from Gonalez…Body shots from Fleming..4 punch combo from Gonzalez

Round 6 Good combination from Fleming…Body shot…

Round 7 Fleming going to the body..Good left..3 punch combination…Gonzalez lands a right

Round 8 Fleming counters with a right…left…right on the ropes…1-2 from Gonzalez..

Round 9 Fleming lands a combination…left

Round 10 Body shot from Fleming…left…good left..

97-92 twice and 96-93 for FLEMING

ROUND 1 Magsayo lands 2 lefts..Right from Avalos..Counter from Magsayo..left hook to the head..Hard right..

Round 2 Big right from Magsayo..Avalos is hurt…Hard rights on the ropes rocks Avalos..Big overhand right..Counter right from Avalos

Round 3 Left from Avalos..right..HARD LEFT AND DOWN GOES MAGSAYO..Good right hand..Avalos working the body

Round 4 Left from Avalos…1-2…Jab…

Round 5 Left from Magsayo..Right from Avalos…Uppercut from Magsayo..Left…Hard left wobbles Avalos..Hard 3 punch ccombination wobbles and rocks Avalos head back.

Round 6 Good left hand from Magsayo…ANOTHER AND THE TOWEL GETS THROWN IN 

 

 

By Norm Frauenheim–

If boxing mimics politics – as it so often does, Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez are still in the primary season.

It moves onto another stage Saturday (HBO 10 pm ET/ 7 p.m. PT) with Golovkin expected to make another statement about his middleweight dominance against Dominic Wade at The Forum in Los Angeles just two weeks before Canelo faces Amir Khan on May 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

It’s only a guess as to whether the two fights can push GGG and Canelo closer to fighting each other. If it had been up to GGG, he would have been looking into Canelo’s unblinking eyes during the nose-to-nose stare-down for the cameras in a news-conference ritual Thursday in Los Angeles.

But it was the unknown Wade instead of Canelo staring back at GGG because of an agreement that allowed Canelo one defense of the WBC’s 160-pound title he took from Miguel Cotto in November.

It’s a deal that has generated inevitable criticism from fans weary of waiting. The last time they waited, they got Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s dud of a decision over Manny Pacquiao. Anybody want to do that again? Didn’t think so.

But the question of when remains as unclear now as it was months ago. Perhaps, more so, especially in the wake of Canelo’s continuing insistence that the fight be at a catch weight, 155 pounds.
“I really haven’t discussed the topic of Canelo, or regarding Canelo, with Golden Boy,’’ said Tom Loeffler, CEO of K2, GGG’s promoter. “We had the meeting with the WBC when Canelo was obligated to fight Gennady by winning the WBC title.

“But since then, since we had the agreement that he could have one voluntary defense and then would have to fight the winner, Gennady, or Dominic Wade, since then we haven’t had any discussions. We figure we’d focus on April 23, they would focus on May 7 and then after those two fights, we’d figure out the situation.’’

There’s little, if any, doubt abut the outcome in either fight. Golovkin is an overwhelming favorite to continue his string of knockouts, now at 21 and counting. Odds in his favor are anywhere from 70-to-1 to infinity-to-1.

Two weeks later in T-Mobile Arena’s first opening bell, Canelo is nearly a 5-to-1 favorite. That’s one-sided, yet close enough to think Khan has a better chance at making Canelo look bad than he does at beating him.

Khan has the right skill-set – quick feet and hands – to make it difficult for Canelo. In evaluating Khan, there’s been a lot of talk about Canelo’s loss to Mayweather, who in 2013 schooled the popular Mexican, then 22.

But Mayweather has taken just about everybody he’s faced to school. That’s why he’s 49-0. A more telling moment in Canelo’s career, perhaps, was Erislandy Lara in July 2014.

Lara never kept his distance, circling Canelo like a spinning top. An aggressive Canelo moved forward throughout the 12 rounds, an aggressive pursuit which was enough for a split decision.

But Lara made him look bad. Since then, Canelo, now 25, scored a sensational stoppage of James Kirkland and followed up against Cotto with a performance that included some newfound signs of maturity.

Against Cotto, he showed more upper-body movement. He was a more complete fighter, but perhaps not complete enough to contend with GGG, who at 34 is in his prime.

The guess in this corner is that he beats Khan, but his performance will determine whether he goes straight from Khan to GGG or back to the WBC for another agreement on another voluntary title defense.

Canelo promoter Oscar De La Hoya would not eliminate any option during a conference call this week. Even a Cotto rematch is a possibility.

“Might be,’’ De La Hoya said.

A move to further delay a mandatory with GGG could also put the WBC in an awkward spot. The WBC will have to decide whether to strip Canelo of the title if he doesn’t face GGG next. The ruling body is based in Mexico City. Canelo is, far and away, Mexico’s most popular fighter. Remember, boxing mimics politics.

“I’m not even thinking about that,’’ Canelo said this week. “I’m preparing for this fight on May 7. I’m not even thinking about that.

“After the fight, we’ll see. We’ll decide and see what’s the best course of action. But right now, it’s not even in my mind. Hasn’t even crossed my mind. I don’t know.”

By Norm Fraunheim-

Nonito Donaire remembers 2012 as though it is history about to repeat itself.

Donaire fights for the first time in 2016 Saturday at home in the Philippines at Cebu City against Hungarian Zsolt Bedak in defense of a title he won in December and at a weight, 122 pounds, he dominated four years ago when he was Fighter of the Year.

“I have a second opportunity,’’ Donaire said in a conference call Thursday for a bout that will be televised in the U.S. by InDemand Pay-Per-View. “Not everybody gets that. I want to re-write everything that I did in 2012.’’

Re-live it too, yet this time with a deeper appreciation for what it all means.

In the first defense of a WBO super-bantamweight title he won in a decision over Cesar Juarez in December in Puerto Rico, Donaire returns to his Filipino roots in a fight the has dedicated to his father, Nonito Sr, who will be in his corner.

“My dad never left me through all my ups and downs,’’ said Donaire, who is 3-0 since Nicholas Walters knocked him out in a 126-pound bout in October, 2014. “I just want to thank him.’’

Donaire (36-3, 23 KOs) also intends to thank his Filipino fans with a victory over Bedak (25-1, 8 KOs), who beat Abner Mares at the 2004 Olympics.

In a sure sign that Filpino boxing is still thriving in the post-Manny Pacquiao era, about 18,000 tickets have already been sold, according to Donaire and promoters. There’s talk that the walk-up sale could put the crowd at 30,000, he said.

“Boxing will always thrive here,’’ Donaire said. “Filipinos want somebody to represent them, somebody to look up to. For me, it’s an honor and I’m going to show that in my performance.’’

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Barclay’s Center in a PBC match televised by NBC, Texas welterweight southpaw Errol Spence stitchripped New York’s Chris Algieri. Spence won every round en route to a TKO in the fifth. Algieri was game throughout, though, again transcending what lowly expectations his social-media brand sets.

Errol Spence is a good fighter with much potential, and that is everything we know of him. He knockedout a viable opponent in only his fourth year of prizefighting, and that puts him well ahead of the standard PBC development template. But Chris Algieri is the consomate b-side, a guy teed-up to be stiffened by Ruslan Provodnikov execution-style two years ago who managed both to survive and win, getting himself invited to Manny Pacquiao’s “Live from China” tour – joining Algieri evermore to a trivial club whose only other member is Brandon Rios – getting him knocked down a bushel and a peck by the congressman, which got him elevated to the top of Amir Khan’s wishlist, getting him decisioned unanimously though not indignantly by Canelo Alvarez’s next victim, making Algieri a perfect matchup for Errol Spence’s primetime debut.

Last year Spence might have fought on NBC against a lad whose name rang no bells with aficionados, both in April and October, but last year the PBC’s coffers were bursting and the public’s perceived appetite for steaming refuse was unlimited. Limits of gullibility shown by viewers and an eerie echo emanating from those coffers this year led the PBC to drop Spence in Lake Algieri, the sort of blackwater-peril Keith Thurman didn’t see till his ninth year of professional fighting. And Spence became the first man to stop Algieri in the 140 years since the 9th Marquess of Queensberry sanctioned rules, so there!

“First man to knock out (insert well-worn journeyman)” is a dumb way to promote a victory, but it’s what the PBC had, and so it made its way instantly into independent fight reports across the fruited plain. To knockout a guy who goes on to dismantle champions is a feat. To knockout an undefeated man, too, is a feat oftentimes. To use a knockout like an exclamation point on a runon sentence comprising oodles of predictable clauses is no feat at all or not one appropriate to the concerns of writers – unless they’re angling for jobs with a promoter or lazy.

Here’s an appropriate concern to those who would profess an expertise in pugilism or sentencemaking. Spence shows a slight case of Devonitis – an affliction named after Devon Alexander and identified via the following symptoms while jabbing: A guard that flies off the cheek, and a chin that rises with a combination’s progress. Spence does not have a severe case, and even if he did, Alexander’s career informs us, those who are paid to notice such things wouldn’t notice such things anyway until a few millions of dollars were made.

USA Boxing, of which Spence is a product, specializes in the dropped-gloves charge, too, and if Spence doesn’t do it baldly as others like Vanes Martirosyan, he does do it a bit. Which is a good thing for aficionados because it means there’s a chance someone on the PBC roster might make fights that are both dramatic and suspenseful.

Spence can be counterpunched and was counterpunched by Algieri. Spence fired back because that is his composition as a prizefighter and because Algieri doesn’t hit very hard. When Spence caught Algieri with left crosses that arrived with the curvature of hooks Algieri was devastated by the blows in a way he was not by Provodnikov’s or Pacquiao’s or Khan’s, in part because Spence is a natural welterweight while Provodnikov fought Algieri at 140 pounds and Pacquiao began his career at 106 and Khan is, well, Khan.

If that is not entirely fair to Spence, neither was the hyperbole heaped upon him by the PBC broadcast crew Saturday. Fairness travels both directions, and presenting Algieri as more than a quintessential b-side is not fair to the men who beat Algieri however much such unfairness is encouraged by their promoters.

Spence did what he was supposed to do, albeit three years prematurely, and that is a comfort of sorts to those few of us who still take a disinterested interest in our oncebeloved sport. Spence has special qualities. In a previous era there’d be no reason to write that already, as professional matchmaking would make his development inevitable and his ascent obvious. In this era, though, and with Spence’s advisor/manager/promoter seeing to Spence’s development, there’s no telling.

Spence made the fourth fight of his career in a small San Antonio gymnasium, the 11th fight of his career in a San Antonio bullring, and the 12th at a converted venue Alamodome expertly named Illusions Theater. Each time I was ringside, and each time Spence was the most talented fighter on the card. In the bullring Spence’s palpable talent was made noticeably more palpable through its juxtaposition with an Olympic teammate’s talent. Terrell Gausha is not good enough at boxing to make his living as anything but a PBC prospect, and so the PBC’s championing of Gausha brings a necessarily nervous titter from those who might otherwise assert Spence will someday reach his potential under that banner.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim

Bob Arum ripped Donald Trump. Mocked him, too, from a bully pulpit on a stage for what the promoter called the No Trump Undercard. It was clever advertising and might have generated as many pay-per-view sales as Manny Pacquiao’s decision over Timothy Bradley in the main event.

Part show and part substance, part satire and part serious, it was mostly words, another political debate during a political season as silly and tiresome as any boxing news conference ever could be.

But it had a face, too.

Oscar Valdez’ face.

In one promising featherweight, Valdez personifies two cultures that Trump wants to divide with a wall. Valdez’ roots are on both sides of the border between Arizona and Mexico. He went to grade school in Tucson. He began to box there. Then, he moved to Nogales on the Mexican side of the border where he became a two-time Mexican Olympian. He speaks like an American kid. He speaks like a Mexican kid. There’s no wall big enough to separate the American from the Mexican in Valdez.

“I’m not really into political end of things in the USA,’’ Valdez said before delivering the card’s best performance, a fourth-round stoppage of Evgeny Gradovich, the self-proclaimed Mexican-Russian and the IBF’s former 126-pound champion, at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. “But what I do know is that I that I wouldn’t want Trump to be president of the United States. It would affect other countries.

“Mostly, I’m just focused on this fight. But I’m also excited to be on this card. Knowing that we have Bob Arum’s support on what he’s calling the No Trump Card, it just brings a little more flavor to it.’’

More edge to it, too.

In addition to Valdez, the April 9 card included Gilberto Ramirez, who won a WBO title became the first Mexican to win a major super-middleweight belt with a decision over Arthur Abraham, a German of Armenian descent. There was also junior-welterweight Jose Ramirez, a 2012 U.S. Olympian, faces Manny Perez of Denver in a bout scheduled for 10 rounds. Ramirez, the son of farm workers in central California, is an activist in water conservation.

Valdez, Gilberto Ramirez and Jose Ramirez were the collective face of what Trump’s proposed wall opposes, Arum said. Trump loves to talk about winners. On Arum’s card, however, he was the loser. Mexico 3, Trump 0.

“Without a wall, they just show that, back and forth, great things happen across the border between the two countries,’’ Arum said.

There is already a wall along much of the border between Mexico and Arizona, where there was a heated immigration controversy about six years ago with the state legislature’s passage of SB 1070.

Valdez, who fought in Tucson in December, has traveled through that wall’s checkpoints often, visiting his mom and grandmother in Tucson and his family in Nogales.

“I’m blessed to have grown up on both sides,’’ said Valdez, who now lives in Hermosillo when he’s not training in Southern California. “Having grown up in Mexico means so much to me. My culture, my family, is everything. Having grown up in the United States means so much. It’s so important to know English. It’s meant so much to have gone to school in Tucson and still have friends and family there. It will always be my second home.’’

In part, Valdez’ emergence as a featherweight contender is a symbol of Arizona’s resilience as a boxing market. It’s always been a good one, yet it all but disappeared for a couple of years in the wake of SB 1070.

Mexican advertisers stayed away, forcing Arum to move a Jose Benavidez Jr.-featured card in 2010 out of the state and to Chicago early in his career. The controversy even prompted Jose Sulaiman, the late president of the World Boxing Council, to issue an edict, asking Mexican fighters to boycott the state. Some did, some didn’t. But the impact knocked Arizona out of the ring of viable markets long enough to wonder if it would ever come back.

It has, it is, because of the gyms that dot the state’s Sonoran desert like cactus. From Phoenix to Tucson, from Michael Carbajal to Oscar Valdez, there’s always another one. Good fighters are part of the landscape. Part of the culture.

At some point, Valdez, who stopped Gradovich with the best left hand from a fighter with Arizona roots since Carbajal, hopes to fight again in Tucson, although his rapid ascent might keep him in bigger markets. In the immediate aftermath of his victory over Gradovich, there was talk he would wind up on the Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol card on July 23, also in Vegas at the MGM Crawford.

“I do know people – cousins, friends, family — who have been deported, especially in the state of Arizona. There was a time there when it got really crazy. You know, it was sad. Just sad. I know my friends. They’re not terrorists. They just come to work, come to make a better life.’’

Fight for one, too.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at MGM Grand in the first retirement match of his career and second rematch with California’s Timothy Bradley, Filipino welterweight Manny Pacquiao decisioned roundly Bradley by three fair scores of 116-110, an odd-looking tally representing both a Pacquiao pulldown in round 7 and a knuckleball knockdown in the ninth. The deserving man won. Little more can be said for the fare.

An emotional sendoff it was not. It was a luggery, a strained thing, an effort to aggrandize hoarse as Teddy Atlas’ voice. Too, there was promoter Bob Arum seated beside Jerry Jones, owner of the stadium where Pacquiao fought Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito in 2010, as if to put the lie squarely to the halfassery of promoting the match in front of them like Pacquiao’s last – or was Jones onhand to offer Arum his venue for Lomachenko-Walters?

Pacquiao fought Bradley the way he had for their 24 rounds that preceded Saturday’s belligerence: as a congressman vote-counter campaigning for a win. There was naught of the mania Pacquiao showed Erik Morales, naught of the rage he flashed at Juan Manuel Marquez. It was a politically correct effort by Pacquiao, sanitized, sportsmanlike, humane. Right down to the requisite spar-with-me-bro glove kisses at the open of each round.

Bradley wanted to win the right way more than he wanted to win, seeing chances to lead with his head as he so often did on his way to the majors and banishing the thought quickly as it arrived. Manny and Timmy are great buddies! They fought like it, too, much to the chagrin of the comparatively small number of us born-every-minute folks who purchased their fight.

Trainer Teddy Atlas convinced Bradley during their camp what the promotion somehow convinced the rest of us: Finding and blitzing a heavybag like Brandon Rios prepared a man for counterpunching Pacquiao. The only men who succeeded in counterpunching Pacquiao in his career, though, were the two master counterpunchers of the era, Marquez and Floyd Mayweather. Bradley, a volume puncher athletic enough to counterpunch b-level guys, was not going to win a match in which he was outworked anymore than Pacquiao had a chance of outsmarting Mayweather 11 months ago.

There was a spot in the first rounds of the match in which Bradley clearly knew Pacquiao was about to jab him, prepped himself to parry or slip, and got smitten anyway. When something that discouraging happens to a professional athlete his trainer can feed a third of MGM Grand with five loaves and two fish between rounds and it ain’t going to matter. Atlas spent a commentary career watching Pacquiao on video like the rest of us, no doubt thinking all the while if only he could teach someone with great reflexes to see Pacquiao’s triggers and tells the way Atlas did, historians would wear Atlas’ name on their lips for a generation. He got that guy with Bradley, and it mattered nothing at all.

Bradley’s best chance with Pacquiao was his first chance; Bradley was the wildcard in that fight, rhythmically unpredictable, flexibly awkward. It was a match in which either guy might have sprained an ankle careening past the other, and it just happened to be Bradley who did. Ever since then Pacquiao has been everything Bradley is – only much more so.

By the sixth round Saturday what became apparent was this: Only Marquez among all men who matched themselves against Pacquiao had the balls to see Pacquiao’s jabfeint-hopback-jabpounce and step directly into it, manifesting a faith in his physical genius that said, “One of us goes to sleep right now, and I don’t much care which.” Bradley saw Pacquiao’s signature move and tried to jab it or retreat from it or absorb and counter it. But not once in 108 minutes of standing across from Pacquiao did Bradley sellout the right hand Marquez-style. Wherever go one’s memories of Pacquiao, then, should follow Marquez – the two matched wonderfully and gave us so very much in their four fights.

Asked for Pacquiao’s legacy my thoughts go immediately here: 6-2-1 (3 KOs). That is Pacquiao’s record against prime versions of Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez. There is nothing any prizefighter has done in the last 25 years that is so impressive as that. No handicapping, no trickeration, no legerdemain, no bullshit: Pacquiao fought three first-ballot guys nine times. And most of that happened before SportsCenter even knew the Filipino’s name.

Pacquiao leaves the game, if he does, having amortized most of that goodwill, yes – despite what those whose salaries now rely primarily on Pacquiao revenue tell us during telecasts. Some of us have enriched him for woeful garbage like his matches with Shane Mosley, Brandon Rios and Chris Algieri. So be it. Historians will not either forgive Pacquiao’s effort against Mayweather with its submissive lack of urgency, even while they concede things might have been different before Floyd orchestrated a five-year delay (we will not forget how close they came to signing contracts in December 2009).

When Pacquiao’s matches happened against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto, I cared very little. I care less now. The way Pacquiao unmanned Barrera, though, 2 1/2 years after Barrera undressed Naseem Hamed and 15 months after Barrera decisioned Erik Morales, the way Pacquiao made Morales make heroic choices to beat him 11 years ago, the way Pacquiao swarmed Marquez in 2008 till both men were covered in blood – those images form Pacquiao’s legacy for me.

Before his charge’s third fight with Pacquiao, Mexican trainer Nacho Beristain – actually the sort of mentor Teddy Atlas tells everyone Atlas is – described Pacquiao as “a wildcat.” A better image of the prime Pacquiao is not yet unearthed: Beaming maniacally round his mouthguard, banging his gloves together, blood on his trunks and gloves and beard, beseeching madness and violence from other men before slashing their faces open with weirdly angled punches thrown at the wrong moments of an unknowable beat . . .

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Fraueheim-

LAS VEGAS – Timothy Bradley stepped onto the scale and gestured as if to say there wouldn’t be any surprises

There weren’t.

At a weigh-in without an ounce of the unexpected, Bradley and Manny Pacquiao both came in under the welterweight limit of 147 pounds for their third fight Saturday in an HBO pay-per-view bout at the MGM Grand.

Bradley, his face a serene mask of confidence and his upper body sculpted like an ancient statue, came in at 146.5 pounds. Pacquiao, a little less sculpted yet smiling as he always has, was one pound lighter at 145.5.

There was no trash talk. No threats. History stood between them and perhaps in front of them. Roberto Duran was there, holding a WBO belt specially made for the occasion.

Pacquiao was to his right, Bradley to his left. After posing for the requisite photographs, they turned and left Duran, standing alone with the belt and alone in his undisputed place among history’s all-time greats.

For Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) and Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs), history isn’t the issue. Only Saturday night is. For them, it’s one last chance to settle some of the questions that have been there since Bradley’s controversial victory by split decision in their first meeting in 2012.

It’s a chance for Bradley to prove that maybe it wasn’t quite as controversial as everybody thought it was four years ago. For Pacquiao, it’s a chance to put a final punctuation point on what is perceived to be a rivalry, despite his clearcut decision in their first rematch. The Filipino can prove, once and for all, that he has always been the better fight.

“I have a lot to prove,’’ Pacquiao, a slight favorite, said Friday in what has become a refrain throughout the last few weeks.

Enough proof might be a definitive reason for him to walk away, say farewell, to a career that has already made its own share of history in the ring and for the Philippines. He’s a Congressman and candidate for his country’s Senate. There’s talk he might be president one day.

On Saturday, however, the current Congressman, would-be Senator and wanna-be President only hopes to be the winner.

Bradley, who has endorsed him as politician, is confident that the canvas-covered district between the ropes will belong to him this time around

“Got to get ready for tomorrow, baby,’’ Bradley said. “I think there are going to be a lot of disappointed fans out there.’’

Bradley was talking to Pacquiao’s constituency, a deeply loyal crowd whose faith in him as a Filipino icon remains unshaken by his controversial comments about gays in February.

Questions linger, of course. At opening bell, the biggest one will be about Pacquiao’s right shoulder.

He underwent surgery for a reported muscle tear after a disappointing loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May. How strong is the shoulder? Pacquiao’s promoters say he has fought with the tear since his 2008 victory over Oscar De La Hoya. There are questions about why he didn’t undergo surgery then.

If he had undergone surgery earlier, would he have avoided his long knockout drought? He hasn’t scored stoppage since 2009.

“I don’t know,’’ Pacquiao said.

The guess is that Bradley will test the surgically-repaired shoulder often and early. But the other guess is that Bradley could encounter twice as much power and from more angles from Pacquiao now than he did before surgery.

There are a lot of guesses now. In the end, maybe there’s a surprise.

HBO’s pay-per-view telecast is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. with junior-welterweight Jose Ramirez (16-012 KOs of Avenal, Calif., against Manny Perez (25-11-1, 6 KOs) of Denver. Ramirez was 138 pounds and Perez was 137.5 Friday.

The telecast’s second bout features Mexican featherweight Oscar Valdez (19-0, 16 KOs) of Nogales against ex-IBF champion Evgeny Gradovich (21-1-1, (KOs) of Russia. Valdez was 125 ½ pounds, Gradovich 126.

The third televised bout features WBO super-middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (44-4, 29 KOs) of Berlin against Mexican Gilberto Ramirez (33-0, 24 KOs). Both were at 168 pounds Friday.

By Norm Frauwnheim

LAS VEGAS – At a time when politics appear to be imitating boxing or vice-versa, there was an endorsement Wednesday for a politician from a fighter who will do more than just promise to punch his rival in a few days.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz weren’t even there.

Too bad.

They might have learned something about decorum from Timothy Bradley and Manny Pacquiao.

Bradley gave Pacquiao a ringing endorsement for his run at another political office in the Philippines at the final news conference for their welterweight rematch Saturday night at the MGM Grand. Bradley got the office wrong.

“He deserves to become governor of the Philippines,’’ Bradley said.

Last anybody checked, Pacquiao, a current Congressman, is running for the Senate. The talk is that he hopes to be the Filipino president one day. Governor of the Philippines is not a title that exists, although maybe the World Boxing Association can create one. But you get the idea. Trump and Cruz wouldn’t endorse each other for dogcatcher. Instead, they look at each other like a dogcatcher might look at his shoes to see what he just stepped into.

But it looks as if Bradley and Pacquiao genuinely like each other. Before the news conference, they stood next to each other, talking and smiling. They posed for the cameras without the unblinking stare-down that is part ritual and part theater. They just looked like a couple of old comrades, happy at the chance to do some more business.

Bradley’s endorsement, of course, included a presumption that he’ll win Saturday night. He prefaced it by saying that he didn’t agree with the idea that Pacquiao has to win the fight to win votes for a seat in the Filipino Senate.

“I think that’s baloney,’’ said Bradley, who spoke for about 10 minutes and thanked juts about everyone, including his wide and manager, Monica, whom he called Super Woman.

Losing a fight, Bradley said, should have no impact on how Filipino’s looks at Pacquiao, an icon whose image took hit in February for controversial comments about gay sex.

“He’s truly a man who is going to do it right for the Philippines,’’ said Bradley, a 2-to-1 underdog in their third fight. “He’s a man of his word, a man for the Filipino people. He’ always shown that.’’

In his turn at the bully pulpit, Pacquiao sounded a lot like politician on a campaign. He talked about his faith and his humble roots.

“You know my life,’’ said Pacquiao, who says he will answer an opening bell for the last time Saturday night in an HBO pay-per-view bout. “I came from nothing. I slept in the streets. No food. I just drank water to survive.’’

He’s done more than survive. His ring earnings, including an estimated $150 million for his dull loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May, were unimaginable for a kid sleeping in cardboard box on the streets of Manila when he first began boxing. Much of that money has gone to help his fellow citizens, said Pacquiao, who is guaranteed $20 million Saturday. Bradley will get $4 million

“The money you pay for this boxing goes to thousands of poor people,’’ Pacquiao said.

His generosity and political career raise questions about whether he can afford to walk away from the pay-for-punches racket. He gives away much of what he banks, according to his promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank.

“I once said, and it’s still true, that the social system in the Philippines is called Manny Pacquiao,’’ Arum said.

Pacquiao’s political life creates complications. They were evident during the new conference. The Filipinos regulate how much TV time a political candidate gets. According to Arum, Pacquiao is limited to 120 minutes.

“It’s crazier than the Democrats and Republicans in this country,’’ said Arum, who is staging a No Trump Undercard featuring junior-welterweight Jose Ramirez, super-middleweight Gilberto Ramirez and featherweight Oscar Valdez before Pacquiao-Bradley.

So crazy, Arum said, that the Filipino agency assigned to regulate political campaigns was still arguing Wednesday whether a 12-round fight would be counted as 36 minutes, three for each round, or 48 minutes, which would account for the 60 seconds between each round.

There’s also a Trump-versus-Cruz -like intensity to the rivalry between the respective trainers, Teddy Atlas for Bradley and Freddie Roach for Pacquiao.

“Like the old-timers used to say,’’ Atlas said when he was introduced Wednesday, “it’s all over but the shooting.’’

Shooting is what almost happened many years ago when Roach and Atlas figured out they didn’t like each other, according to story by Lance Pugmire for the Los Angeles Times. In 1997, Michael Moorer, the IBF’s heavyweight champion, Atlas quit and he hired Roach.

Roach told Pugmire that he walked in on argument that Atlas and Moorer’s manager, John Davimos. Atlas punched Davimos, according to Roach. Then, Roach said, two men, each with a gun, pointed their weapons at him. Roach said he believed the men were Atlas’ associates. Roach said he was told to leave.

Apparently, a good governor wasn’t around.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at MGM Grand in a fight for the vacant WBO International (better than domestic, less than world) Welterweight belt Filipino Manny Pacquiao will make the first last match of his career against California’s Timothy Bradley. It will be the third time the men meet and Pacquiao’s first fight since disappointing himself, pay-per-viewers and his entire country against Floyd Mayweather in May. Expectations are low.

And so we return to the unpleasantness, the badfaith, the malcontentment. This fight will be preyed upon by what abiding discontent aficionados feel towards Pacquiao, and after his performance in the Fight to Save boxing there’s no chance casual fans want a part of it.

Cynicism all round, then, and what else is new? It’s deeper and uglier this time.

Those casual fans who felt hoodwinked by Pacquiao’s performance 11 months ago and then rightly resented talk of his shoulder afterwards, persons inexperienced in the hucksterism of our beloved sport, persons who didn’t know every loser in every fight has a plethora of excuses – the dishonorable ones reading us their list; the honorable ones having their trainers do it – had no intention of buying the second fight of their lives Saturday, but Pacquiao’s comments against homosexual acts, well, those ignited the same persons to encourage a boycott.

It’s not a legacy or a revenues booster, but bless Pacquiao for holding his line frankly, for resisting the media bullying that now passes for awareness or enlightenment or openmindedness or whatever the next euphemism is for herd animals collectively rising on their hindlegs to whinny disapproval via social media, outstanding birthplace of antisocial behavior. Pacquiao’s comments were not new or in any way different from previous comments he’s made, and they were far more honest than whatever halfassed apologies came later and the corporate distancing his business partners foisted on us, hating the sin and the sinner unless some revenue might yet be milked from the sinner and then hating only the sin.

Once more the foil in all this is Timothy Bradley, decent, gracious, genuine, grateful, and wholly unmarketable. Someone somewhere probably hoped the folks so theatrically offended by Pacquiao’s unwavering commentary would rally behind a friendly black Californian, husband in a mixed marriage, father to biracial children, but no: Those who consider being offended an intellectual feat rally against things, not for them.

Bradley did his part to get the rubber match: he looked vulnerable against secondrate competition till hiring a famous trainer then looked unstoppable against secondrate competition. Teddy Atlas has failed a bit as a ham, though, hasn’t he? There was supposed to be a battle of wits between Teddy and Coach Freddie, an antagonism onto which novelty seekers might latch, but it hasn’t come off. Atlas, finally, takes himself and his profession too seriously to make mirthful with Coach Freddie. There is no American interest in the sport of boxing anymore either, which must be considered a hindrance of sorts.

Pacquiao has chosen for his farewell tilt a far superior opponent to the guy Money May used for his failure of a goodbye in the fall, but it’s hard to imagine that will save this. Bradley, after all, is the unsympathetic guy who robbed Pacman in 2012.

That was an enduring example of the way misanthropes rally against things and not for them. Tired as they were of cheering for Pacquiao a large number of folks decided to project their rage with life on Bradley, just about the least-deserving target of mass hatred prizefighting has produced in a generation. It took Bradley to show some of us what a large number of despicable people populate our ranks, and no we haven’t forgotten.

Coincidentally, this was not Pacquiao’s fault. He thought he won the first match with Bradley, even if he knew he didn’t win its predecessor, his third match with Juan Manuel Marquez, but he wasn’t fractionally animated in the post-Bradley-fight press conference as his promoter Bob Arum – realizing, as Arum did, this decision would cool talk of a Mayweather megamatch for years. We forget that now for a couple reasons, the largest of which being what a dreadful thing the Mayweather match was when it did happen.

The other reason: Marquez knocked Pacquiao stiff six months after Pacquiao was robbed by Bradley. Those of us who watched from ringside as Pacquiao was conclusively outboxed in the second half of his third fight with Marquez and then made to miss continually by Bradley were not surprised Marquez got him – even if every person at ringside was jolted by how decisively Marquez took Pacquiao’s consciousness – and even less surprised how hopelessly Pacquiao fought Mayweather 2 1/2 years later.

Apparently Pacquiao beat Bradley in their rematch – after mis-scoring their first fight I was seated too far from the ring to see the fighters as more than circling electrons in a microscope, and I didn’t care enough to watch the tape – which got Pacquiao a shot at Chris Algieri, which somehow got Pacquiao a shot at Floyd Mayweather, which again went the way every aficionado knew it would even while some boxing writers did their promotional best to envision ways Pacquiao might win.

One hopes Saturday’s match is competitive as it should be, raising Bradley’s next purse while sending Pacquiao into his first retirement with dignity. It can’t possibly be worse than his last fight.

I’ll take Pacquiao, SD-12, in a match Bradley wins by two rounds.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

There was a time when Manny Pacquiao was known for distractions as much as his power. It’s hard to tell whether that power will ever be back. But there are signs that the distractions are making a comeback.

They are there in angry tweets and the social-media outrage that have echoed for nearly two months in the wake of his comments about gay sex during a political stop in the Philippines.

They are there in his campaign for a step up in political class, from Congressman to Senator.

The tone is different. There is widespread condemnation instead of the familiar praise before his April 9 rematch with Timothy Bradley at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in an HBO pay-per-view bout.

The inevitable questions are all about whether the potential distractions can have the same effect as a well-executed feint.

Pacquiao has heard them all before.

Maybe, that’s why he’s smiling the way he used to.

He was at his best within the ropes when there was a storm of distractions outside of them.

Don’t forget, Pacquiao was considering his first run for office when he stopped Erik Morales in a second rematch in December, 2006. He lost an election for a seat in the Filipino Congress in May 2007 and went on to beat Marco Antonio Barrera in their rematch that October.

In November 2009, he was thinking about his second run at a Congress when he scored a 12th-round TKO of Miguel Cotto in his last stoppage. He went on to to win the election in May, 2010 and then scored a punishing decision over Antonio Margarito that November.

Oh, yeah, there was also basketball, questions from tax authorities, acting, singing, women, gambling and who-knows-what all on an exhaustive laundry list of items, all with a better chance at beating Pacquiao than any opponent in those days.

Maybe, distractions are like sparring partners. Pacquiao needs them. Some fighters, perhaps the best, do. That, at least, was Bradley trainer Teddy Atlas’ suggestion in a conference call.

“He’s had distractions, that maybe you could call chaos,’’ said Atlas, who won’t let himself or Bradley get fooled by the distraction theory. “Definitely a lot of things swirling around him throughout most of his career.

“Whether it was politics, whether it was singing, whether it was some personal situations he was going through that everybody goes through. Whether it was religious thoughts and growth, so to speak. Whether it was all the pulls on him because he’s an iconic figure in his country, where he gets all the attention you could never get here for one fighter.

“He has always dealt with that. It’s never impacted him.”

It hasn’t, perhaps because the distraction theory doesn’t go far enough. Maybe, distractions are a source of strength. A reborn Pacquiao before his loss to Floyd Mayweather in May had the body language of a fighter nobody recognized any more. The old smile looked artificial, almost as if it was forced. He had to fight because so much money was at stake. But it was a joyless exhibition.

He was there, single-minded and yet also suffering an undisclosed shoulder injury that led to a dull performance. He didn’t have any fun and neither did anyone among a record-setting pay-per-view audience. There’s been a reported lack of buzz for the April 9 fight, and its fair to say that the disappointing May bout is the reason.

Yet, the fight is interesting on a couple of other levels, including the question about whether Pacquiao can resurrect the genuine enthusiasm he once had for a brutal craft that is at the very foundation of his political career.

For him, maybe, the distractions are part of a crazy show, a circus parade that ended with a Pacquiao knockout. Or, maybe, the ring has always been the one place he could control when chaos trapped him as a poor kid and the chaos his wealth bought when he got rich. But he embraced all of it. About that, there’s no maybe.

“I make the comparison to Floyd Mayweather,” Atlas said. “They said the same things about Floyd throughout his career.

‘You think this distraction is gonna bother him, Teddy?’ ‘No, because the last one didn’t. And the one before that didn’t. And the one before that didn’t.’

“Floyd was a guy who always had distractions, who always had stuff going on in his life that might distract somebody else. But at the end of the day, it did not distract him from what he was doing.

“I feel like Pacquiao is the same kind of person in that way.’’

If Atlas is right, the current distractions might make Pacquiao a dangerous fighter all over again

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Oakland former undisputed super middleweight champion and current number-one ranked contender for the HBO light heavyweight championship Andre Ward completely decisioned undefeated Cuban Sullivan Barrera. Despite controlling every minute of the match Ward displayed enough vulnerability to whet hopeful aficionados’ imaginations something dangerous and competitive might happen in the late fall if Ward has the stones to risk life and limb in a match with Sergey “Second Most Feared Fighter on HBO” Kovalev.

It was a typical Andre Ward fight comprising technical precision and relying on its opponent’s craft to provide emotion. Barrera had some craft but mostly strongman assertiveness. As Ward boxes most every opponent the same, a manifestation of his obsessive control, there weren’t many surprises after the first three minutes passed. While the mammalian mind specializes in pattern recognition, the human mind specializes in pattern completion, recognizing patterns with less data than other species – abstraction, that is – and so there was nary a human who watched round 1 of Saturday’s match and didn’t intuit about exactly where it was going in the next 33 minutes, and that was where it went.

That marks Ward at once an extraordinary craftsman and substandard entertainer. But his entertainment value is evidently others’ concern – though neither of his copromoters, Roc Nation Sports and Home Box Office Sports, seems fractionally good at its craft as Ward is at his. For the best part of his professional career Ward has understood his status as American boxing’s last and probably final Olympic gold medalist and the weight of that metal, ignoring any who endeavored to move him anydirection he did not choose himself. Ward is a bright dude, too, and that precluded others’ convincing him their direction for him was his own direction.

If and when Ward chooses to redeem HBO’s matchmaking by matching himself with the network’s light heavyweight champion it will be on terms that do not appear favorable to anyone but Ward, and this will happen because Ward doesn’t need the fight because his selfworth is too well established to bend very much. Kovalev will bend in negotiations, one assumes, because he probably wants the Ward fight more than Ward does. Kovalev doesn’t need the fight, but he does want it; Ward seems neither to need nor want to fight Kovalev.

Having emptied a once-exceptional 168-pound division and failed to lure Gennady “He’ll fight anyone between 154 and 168 pounds!” Golovkin to fight him at super middleweight, Ward now tentatively, carefully, controllingly moves himself to 175, requiring three tuneups to ascend seven pounds, a tuneup-per-pound mark unlikely to be surpassed until Cinnamon Alvarez’s eventual ascent to 160. And that’s not a criticism of Ward either. He knows it’s HBO’s credibility, not his, that requires a 2016 match with Kovalev, and he knows, too, the only equalizer Kovalev has in that fight is size. So Ward patiently acclimates himself to the new weightclass, caring very little for what arbitrary timelines a broadcaster sets, gradually and decisively removing the sole advantage the network’s light heavyweight champion has.

If one draws up a chart of things Kovalev has more than Ward, it probably stops here: 1. Size, 2. Right cross. Notice meanness and ferocity didn’t make the list. Kovalev might have psychopathy going for him, but he is no more ornery in a fight than Ward is and not nearly so adept at fouling. Ward has approximately twice Kovalev’s craft and can effectively fight while moving in three times as many directions as Kovalev, who does incredibly well while moving forward and moving forward. Ward will tangle him and frustrate him in a way Bernard Hopkins was too old to do and no one else’s had the chops to try.

Early Saturday Ward reviewed Barrera’s physicality and class and decided it was better to slip punches and keep distance than go shopping inside. He’ll decide otherwise against Kovalev, planting his shoulders in the Russian’s chest and his head all over the Russian’s face, yes he will. Kovalev will make the bully’s choice and endeavor to outmuscle Ward, and Ward will have him. Ward is good an infighter as we’ve seen in a generation, and the secret of that goodness is his footwork; Ward churns his hips and feet where others stand still and wrestle above the waist. There are lots of ways Ward can prepare for Kovalev and not one way Kovalev can prepare for Ward, and one senses nobody who knows that in Kovalev’s circle will tell the Russian, making the proper assumption th’t refitting Kovalev at this point is a fool’s errand; go forward with full confidence, Sergey, or don’t go.

Talk of Ward’s rust or slippage, too, is irrelevant. Ward has been sharp enough to control every opponent he’s faced since his 13th birthday, and that will be true of Kovalev or Ward will not make the fight. Ward takes through all his life the confidence and distrust Floyd Mayweather brought in the prizefighting ring; where Mayweather played the buffoon in promotions then got real serious when the bell rang, Ward stays real serious.

Immediately before and after the dullest spectacles of his career Bernard Hopkins warned us how much we’d miss him when he was gone. He’s been gone for nearly a year and a half, and he isn’t missed – in large part because we still have Ward. There is neither another Andre Ward in the pipeline nor even much of a pipeline: In the end we may miss Ward more even than Hopkins assured us we’d miss Hopkins.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Nearly twelve years have come and gone since Andre Ward won America’s last Olympic gold medal in boxing, yet there’s a sense he’s still unknown among casual fans who know all about Floyd Mayweather Jr., know a little about Manny Pacquiao and remember Mike Tyson.

Mayweather sells cash and controversy. Pacquiao sells a naïve smile, his role as a man-of-the-Filipino people and some controversy of his own lately with comments about same-sex marriage. Tyson sold fear.

For them, it has been a business model, a way to unlock the pay-per-view vault. Through design or just dumb luck, they figured out how to achieve the kind of celebrity that makes them more than a boxer and puts them on a list a lot more valuable than any rating. Dollar-for-dollar or pound-for-pound? Any bets on where Ward would rather be ranked? Forbes or The Ring?

But he’s never been on Forbes’ annual list of the highest earning athletes, despite his pound-for-pound credentials, mostly because he’s never been a pay-per-view headliner.

Perhaps, that’s because of inactivity brought on by injuries and a promotional lawsuit, or stubborn pride, or just his unerring competency over a couple decades. He hasn’t lost a fight since he was 12 years old. Mistakes attract attention, especially these days, and Ward (28-0, 15 KOs) just doesn’t make many on either side of the ropes. He’s hard to know. Harder to beat.

Now 32 and the clock ticking on his prime, he embarks on a stage of his career defined by a last chance to become the pay-per-view star that everyone thought he would be after he stepped off the medal stand at the Athens Games.

It begins Saturday in hometown Oakland on HBO (9:45 pm ET/PT) in his debut at light-heavyweight against former Cuban amateur Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs), whose record and size suggests his welcome to 175 pounds could be a tough one.

“We did not pick him because he’s a soft touch,’’ Ward said at a media workout. “We picked him because he was going to get me ready and show me what this weight class is all about. If you look at my career, there’s a place for tune-ups, which I haven’t had a lot of. You want to fight the best and if you aren’t fighting the best, you want to fight the No. 1 contender. That’s what we’re doing.’’

What Ward is doing is testing his readiness for Sergey Kovalev, the feared holder of most of the light-heavyweight belts and a Russian fighting to get his own foothold in America’s PPV market. Kovalev, who is expected to be ringside at Oracle Arena, and Ward have an agreement to fight, perhaps in November and presumably on HBO’s pay-per-view.

It’s a projected fight that has fans more interested in combinations than celebrity drooling in anticipation. With the Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin possibility looking as if it will be placed in a Mayweather-Pacquiao-like delay because of Canelo’s continuing insistence on a 155-pound catch-weight, Ward-Kovalev is the biggest fight out there.

The question is just how big it could be. Hints at an answer will be in how Ward does against Barrera, whose promoter, Main Events, also promotes Kovalev. Ward’s singular brilliance has been absent from the ring’s stage, in part because of injuries that are surely causing some sleepless nights at HBO, Main Events and his own promoter, Roc Nation.

He fought and beat Carl Froch at 168 pounds in 2011 with a hand that was broken in two places during sparring. Surgery on his right shoulder forced the cancellation of a planned bout with Kelly Pavlik in 2013. A knee injury forced him off the PPV card featuring Canelo’s victory over Miguel Cotto on Nov. 21.

His history of injuries and his introduction to 175 pounds against someone with 12 stoppages in 17 fights add up to a reason for concern. The guess here is that his command of the ring and versatile skillset will be too much for the tough Barrera. Ward wins.

But he needs to do more than just that. He needs to emerge unscathed and able to fight on in a way that will remind fans of where he has been.

And where he is going.

LAS VEGAS (March 22, 2016) – World Boxing Association (WBA) Interim Cruiserweight World champion Beibut Shumenov (16-2, 10 KOs) is targeting the May 21st unification title winner between WBA titlist Denis Lebedev (28-2, 21 KOs) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) champion Victor Emilio “El Tyson de Abasto” Ramirez (22-2-1, 17 KOs).

When Shumenov defeated B.J. Flores (31-1-1, 20 KOs) last July in Las Vegas, the former WBA light heavyweight champion became WBA Interim champion as well as its No. 1 mandatory contender.

Lebedev, however, hasn’t fought a mandatory fight since last April 10 in which he won a 12-round decision over then Interim WBA champion Youri Kalenga. Lebedev made a voluntary tittle offense last November, stopping Lateef Kayode in the eighth round.

Shumenov will be back in the ring next month (April), full details forthcoming, and then he will challenge the Lebedev-Ramirez winner within 90/120 days of their outcome.

“I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to fight the Lebedev-Ramirez winner because it’s always been my goal to unify the titles,” Shumenov explained. “Lebedev has always been my target. Ramirez is the other fighter I’ve really wanted to fight and my manager tried to make a fight between us, too.

“I’ve been in the gym since my last fight, training hard to perfect my skills. Now, I am a completely different fighter since I fought last July. My team is extremely happy and confident that I can beat all of the other world cruiserweight champions.”

Last December, Shumenov was scheduled to defend his Interim WBA crown against two-time world cruiserweight champion Krzyesztof “Diablo” Wlodarczyk (50-3-1, 36 KOs), but a serious medical issue concerning a family member forced Shumenov to withdraw from the aforementioned fight.

“The opportunity to fight the winner of Lebedev/Ramirez in a big unification fight just came about this year and I didn’t have that option back when I agreed to initially fight Wlodarczyk back in December and I was unable to foresee what would happen to my family personally,” 32-year-old Shumenov said. “I have no problem fighting Wlodarczyk in the future, but only after I fight the Lebedev-Ramirez unification winner. In addition, at any time, I have no problem fighting WBA No. 2-ranked Yunier Dorticos.

“Right now, I’m at my fighting prime yet still improving, training with my coach, Ismael Salas. I want to show the world my skills before I get too old. Literally, I’m ready to fight tomorrow and I’ve been ready for months. I’ll be back in the ring next month and then I’ll get my shot at the Lebedev-Ramirez winner.”

Fans may friend Beibut Shumenov on his Facebook Fan Page at www.facebook.com/BeibutShumenov.

By Bart Barry-

HOUSTON – In the good times there was a lameness to this city that didn’t make the brochures; places closed early, nothing opened Sundays, and when folks told you how proud they were of their city it felt strained. That lameness has been replaced by a sort of anger that happens to cities that once boomed then stopped booming then stopped telling others how much they were booming (salesmen necessarily being the most oblivious of rejection) and then resigned themselves to settling in, and whose transplants now look about and realize they didn’t want to live here in the first place.

We were gathered in this city, just the same, for an eight-match Top Rank card that featured the returns of hometowner Juan Diaz and Colorado’s Mike Alvarado, and both men won by knockout, but only one of them, Diaz, should continue fighting.

No one ever told me he moved to Houston and loved it. There was money here, though, and that money calmed the slight uneasiness one feels when he’s uprooted himself for something that isn’t quite-quite. Two years ago crude oil was trading over $100 per barrel. Today it is heaving to return to $40. This city’s humor rises and falls with those prices, and right now its humor is lower than it has been anytime in the last decade – except last month; oil is up $10 since then, and it’s springtime after all, so how about them green shoots?

The boom times are not reflective times, and what a city does with its wealth while it booms sets a floor of sorts for where it goes when it busts (except in prolonged cases like Detroit, the one ever-busting American city of the last halfcentury). This city did some Texas tackiness, big hair and sparkly things, sure, though nothing that approached Dallas’ scale, and its skyline remains alluring, but it neglected wholly its infrastructure. With all the money that sloshed about, one wonders, and did wonder, why are its surface streets barely fit for urban attack vehicles (ah, the Hummer – enduring symbol of a different bust: Phoenix housing market) and otherwise unfit for any sensible car?

Back when Austin, this state’s capital, was actually weird – not “keep Austin weird” weird – it got by with a hippy sensibility like: we’re all in this together, so yield the right of way when you know I can’t see round the tree at the intersection. Houston’s eroding infrastructure is making it weirder every day, though without any sensibility but greed to bind its citizenry; in Houston, now, you drive like a maniac because some primal intuition tells you you’re safer that way, and you are – because when you’re moving faster than the loons on either side, you regain half your attention by no longer needing a rearview mirror.

Arena Theatre was a fine, if well-hidden, venue to watch a fight Saturday, and only a sucker paid for better than the cheapest seat, since there wasn’t a distant view in the entire bowl, and the ring sat up shiny in the venue’s very center. Heard in the Top Rank section: “Small rings make for great matchmakers.” The ring was tiny; no one larger than a middleweight set foot in it during the card’s eight matches, and everyone looked large.

There’s a slapdash South American-mercado feel to much Spanish-language television, the don Francisco style of having the host perform commercials onstage during a show, and it interrupted the pleasure of Saturday’s card, some. Television owns boxing, of course, the programming director tells the commission when it may ring the opening bell, but the delays of a show performed for Spanish-language television are, even by the known standard, a touch gratuitous. Seated a few rows behind the UniMás commentary team with a clear view of their monitors, one sees the main event is being delayed by week-old commercials advertising the co-main event that already went off; it’s a sloppy, sales-blitz mentality wherein the host sees himself as an emcee, not a journalist, and his target demographic meanwhile slumps its shoulders and trudges back to the beerline.

Saturday’s crowd was the usual mix of hometown fight figures and familiars and friends and hangerson, and local businessmen reveling in others’ danger. A lawfirm gathered in the row behind me, and when they weren’t hellbent on outnamedropping one another, they were admonishing the fighters to “punch him in the neck” or “knock his head off” or “finish him”! And so.

Mile High Mike looked exactly the same Saturday as he did the last time you saw him, and that’s a problem, obviously, because the last time you saw him he was stopped by a limited fighter, albeit a former champion, and this time he plied his wares against a lighthitter with 10 knockouts and six losses in 25 matches. Eventually Alvarado bludgeoned him down with wild righthands, but Mile High Mike and his rehabby salespitch, “I’ve been fighting my demons as much as my opponents,” are through with major championship prizefighting.

The Baby Bull looked about the same, too, and that’s a really good thing. Never the bearer of a pinup physique, Juan Diaz still weighs and fights the exact same way at 32 as he did at 22. He does not set on any punch so he does not have concussive power, but he doesn’t need it: Because he’s somehow stayed in the same weightclass, where his chin is proven, and because he possesses more belief in his own conditioning than just about anyone in the game today, and because there’s exactly no chance of another Nate Campbell or Juan Manuel Marquez or even Paulie Malignaggi showing up at lightweight in the next five years, Diaz will make a competitive and fun title match with anyone he fights.

It was good to see Juan Diaz do so well in front of his friends and family.

The best sight of all, though, was Israel Vazquez, the color guy on the UniMás broadcast team, being as unassuming in retirement as ever he was vicious in the ring. The fans queued up for photos with him, and Izzy lost himself in their adoration, requiring several times the program director to scold him for nearly missing cues. Vazquez’s delta – violence in combat to gentleness in society – is the greatest I’ve seen in our sport that has so very few happy endings, and how properly joyful it makes me to think Israel might be one of them.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Timothy Bradley, a genuine personality in a business often defined by a feint, has a chance to eliminate any questions about an item on his record. He doesn’t have to correct it. A victory over Manny Pacquiao on June 9, 2012 is there and always will be.

No asterisk included.

No apology either.

But the questions, like echoes, are still there from the crazy controversy that raged for weeks after the scorecards awarded him a split decision over Pacquiao. To this day, there aren’t many people who think Bradley won. There are times when it sounds as though Bradley isn’t convinced either.

In a conference call this week, he dropped another hint that says he still has some doubts. In talking about his third fight with Pacquiao on April 9 at Las Vegas MGM Grand, he talked about the bout almost as though it was a chance to beat Pacquiao for the first time.

“It is an opportunity for my kids to talk about years from now with their classmates – that their father beat Manny Pacquiao,’’ he said.

Actually, his kids can say that to their classmates now, but probably not without most of the school shouting them down with the same heated argument that tormented Bradley and his family for too long.

Perhaps, his comment was just a slip. He was answering a question about whether he was weary of fighting Pacquiao.

No, he said, he welcomed a third chance. Then, he hinted at what virtually everyone has believed since those scorecards were announced nearly four years ago. Bradley has never been able to carry off a feint for too long. His genuine nature won’t let him. But it’s more than even that.

There’s a sense that he wants to eliminate some of the questions still in the public mind and perhaps in his own. A victory on April 9 might do that.

“Everyone has their own opinion regarding the first fight,’’ he said. “How ever way you want to look at it, it was a very close fight. The second fight, Pacquiao definitely won that fight hands down.’’

Bradley goes into the third fight with a different trainer in Teddy Atlas and his wife Monica as his manager. He promises Pacquiao will be encountering a much different fighter than the he saw in 2012 and again in a rematch decision over Bradley on April 12, 2014.

“This time around I have a new guy — Teddy Atlas — a guy who analyzes fighters for a living,’’ Bradley said. “That’s what he does — he’s an analyst and a trainer. The approach this time is going to be a lot different and I will be looking to exploit Pacquiao’s weaknesses.’’

The weaknesses have been there, brought on by erosion in speed and perhaps a more cautious nature that is summed by Pacquiao’s failure to score a knockout since 2009.

Pacquiao isn’t the same guy. Then again, neither is Bradley.

In Bradley, however, the most intriguing change might simply be his health. He got injured in each of the first two bouts. In 2012, he won the fight. But the winner was in a wheelchair at the post-fight conference with a fractured left foot and a sprained right ankle. In 2014, the muscle mass in his right calf sustained tears in two places.

It begs a question: What would have happened in the first two if Bradley’s legs had not betrayed him? Of course, there’s another question: Is he just prone to leg injuries and about to suffer another one or three?

But Bradley is confident his legs will carry him to a victory that this nobody will question this time.

He says he was over-trained and under-fed for the first two fights. Under former trainer Joel Diaz, he say he did too much running when he wasn’t in the gym. He also was a vegan. Beans and no beef are a diet without a combo for a fighter in training.

Between the steaks, Bradley says “we don’t run on off days anymore. We don’t do any of that stuff. Everything now just feels like it’s all down to a science the way Teddy’s got this thing orchestrated.”

Orchestrated, perhaps, in a genuine attempt to remove some lingering doubts that are a matter of record.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Arena Theatre in Houston, Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz and “Mile High” Mike Alvarado will return to prizefighting on an UniMás telecast. Diaz will fight a Mexican lightweight named Fernando Garcia, and Alvarado will fight a Mexican welterweight named Saul Corral. Garcia and Corral appear to be statement-type opponents; Diaz and Alvarado will either use such men to make flattering statements about their futures by dominating them, or there will be statements made by others about overdue retirements.

I’ll be there because I did not expect to be ringside again for a fight featuring either man, let alone both, and I do not expect to have such a chance again, and I wish our sport comprised more men like Diaz and Alvarado once were.

I have been ringside for four of Juan Diaz’s last six fights, and while I did not realize it till time came to write this column, in retrospect, I’m glad it’s been that way. I knew little about the Baby Bull when I sat ringside for his 2006 match against Fernando Angulo at Chase Field, but his activity was infectious, and his selfbelief exceptional for a fluffy lightstriker. Volume punchers, men like Diaz and Timothy Bradley, are compelling fighters because of their limitations, because their offenses are more pesky than concussive, unlike sluggers’, and their defenses are steady applications of offense with a dusting of head movement, unlike boxers’.

There are few fighters whose style I enjoy more than Diaz’s – and one of those few is Juan Manuel Marquez, the man whose style ruined Diaz in one of the very best matches I’ve covered from ringside. That match happened in Houston more than seven years ago, a fact that dates this column sympathetically or ruthlessly whatever one’s philosophy of time, and it marked an apogee of sorts for Marquez, a moment of lightweight supremacy just before his own greed and his promoter’s greed and guilelessness got him humiliated in a sparring match with the world’s best welterweight, Floyd Mayweather. (The lesson from that match: Tossing boulders at altitude and drinking your own piss, training in the naturalest way possible in other words, is dimwitted; a year or so later, Juan Manuel contacted Memo and things got supernatural for his second campaign at welter.)

By the time Diaz fought Marquez the first time, in a Toyota Center that was full and loud, he was no longer undefeated, having been beaten by Nate Campbell in a Don King-special event conducted in a Quintana Roo bullring, the culmination of a weird promotional relationship initiated in 2006 when King, realizing he’d never sellout a Phoenix baseball stadium with a Belarusian and Shannon Briggs, heard a Latino ticketseller named Diaz might be about to sign a contract with Golden Boy Promotions, and finding Diaz’s pen dangled cautiously over his new Golden Boy contract, King slipped a King contract in its stead.

Diaz and King were not a sensible match, and eventually Diaz was with Golden Boy Promotions, and through fifteen minutes appeared ready to devour Marquez at Toyota Center. Those of us ringside fretted openly about the cost of Marquez’s pride; Diaz did not strike hard enough to unseam Marquez with one punch or 20, and as Marquez looked old and worn and Diaz appeared much the larger man, we verily worried something tragic might befall Marquez before the 12th round concluded.

Goodness, but we were wrong. Marquez made of Diaz his most gorgeous finish (until the Pacquiao icing years later), stubbornly wagering his straight punches would best Diaz’s crooked ones no matter their quantitative disparity. Diaz fell prey to the uppercut like every volume puncher must, tallying shots on Marquez so feverishly he neglected to notice his weight fully spilled overknee, and Marquez, his era’s master closer, brought Diaz’s unconsciousness with a customary precision and lack of ruth.

Their rematch was a dud fought in a soulless casino while the Vegas economy experienced gravity in a vacuum. And with that the Baby Bull was finished with boxing and ready to become a lawyer. Initially I didn’t care when he returned because it felt, like most of our sport’s comebacks, a fated mix of betrayal and desperation.

Writing of which, “Mile High” Mike will be in Saturday’s co-main, his first ringside sighting since the autohumiliation he perpetrated on himself and his fellow Coloradoans 14 months ago in his second rematch with Brandon Rios. The standard ploy, changing trainers and promising rededication, was not going to be enough for Alvarado to sell his return, and so he attended rehab and got married.

Promoter Top Rank forgives Alvarado his numerous transgressions because Alvarado atones properly; Alvarado has fought five times since 2012, when his career was reresurrected after legal issues aplenty, and what fights were not with Rios were with the aforementioned Marquez and Ruslan Provodnikov – five consecutive fights with any combination of Provodnikov and Rios and Marquez exceeds in peril the product of every 2015 PBC main event multiplied by 50, and so Alvarado gets forgiven. The beating Alvarado took from Provodnikov in 2013 was mansized and vigorous; it was the only time I recall seeing at ringside a defending champion wince in the first round of a title fight, as Alvarado did after several of Provodnikov’s facinorous blows befell him.

I’m an unapologetic fan of Diaz and Alvarado both; I’ve traveled to Nevada and Colorado to see prime versions of the men and consider those trips time and resources well-consumed. Neither is good enough, anymore, for me to leave the state of Texas to see, but either is worth the 200-mile drive to Houston, and the two of them together, a treat. This nostalgia tour continues along happily.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim

Jose Benavidez Jr. is considering several options, including a move up in weight, in an attempt to re-ignite a career that has stalled since Top Rank thought about putting him in against Terence Crawford, yet decided on Hank Lundy.

Benavidez, unbeaten (24-0, 16 KOs) at 140 pounds, was considered a leading possibility for Crawford, who on Feb. 27 blew away Lundy in a fifth-round stoppage on HBO in The Theater at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

But Benavidez didn’t look good in scoring a unanimous decision on Dec. 12 over unknown Sidney Siqueira of Brazil on a Univision card in Tucson that featured emerging featherweight Oscar Valdez in a sensational victory.

The crowd booed Benavidez, whose rope-a-dope tactics are not popular. He said he had the flu. At the weigh-in, he was 152.4 pounds, 4.4 heavier than the contracted 148 for a non-title fight. Between rounds, he struggled to breathe.

It’s not clear whether that performance knocked the Phoenix fighter out of consideration for Crawford, whom he called out repeatedly before the Tucson card. But Benavidez didn’t regret the decision to fight, despite the flu.

“No, not at all’’ his father, trainer and manager, Jose Benavidez Sr. said from Hill Street Boxing in Los Angeles where he is training his younger son, David Benavidez, for an appearance on the Chris Algieri-Errol Spence Jr. card on April 16 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. “I mean, he was in the co-main event. In that kind of situation, you’re never right. Imagine the reaction if we had canceled out.

“At the same time, I knew he could beat the guy. It was a big risk. We knew he’d win. But we also knew he wouldn’t look good. But the crowd thought he should of stopped him. I thought he should have stopped, too. But he was sick.’’

The best that can be said is that Benavidez emerged from difficult night with his unbeaten record intact. Still, one of boxing’s brightest prospects six years ago faces an uncertain future. He no longer has the WBA’s interim 140-pound belt, according to his father. He took it from Mauricio Herrera about sixteen months ago in a decision as controversial as any in 2014.

After defending it once in a 12th-round stoppage of Jorge Paez Jr. last May, the WBA ordered a mandatory for the acronym’s regular belt against Italian Michele di Rocco (40-1-1, 18 KOs), an Italian. That’s when Benavidez found out what interim really means.

“They stripped him,’’ the senior Benavidez said. “It’s kind of ridiculous what they wanted. They wanted us to go fight over there. They wanted us to fight for very little money. Then, they wanted us to pay the sanctioning fee. It didn’t make sense.

“I mean, we were trying to fight Crawford, or Jessie Vargas, or Viktor Postol. Those fights make sense.’’

Dollars, too.

Now, common sense says it’s time for the 5-foot-11 Benavidez to move up to welterweight. He’ll be 24 years old on May 15.

“I think we go to 147 and stay there, unless something big breaks like Crawford, or Postol, or something like that,’’ Benavidez Sr. said. “He’s still young. The body hasn’t really changed much. He could definitely make 140 for a big opportunity. If not, we’ll just stay at 147.

“But I do think he needs big fights. So many of these guys he’s been fighting, there’s just no motivation.’’

Nothing has been scheduled, yet. However, Benavidez is expected to resume training with brother David next week in Los Angeles.

“We want to fight, but I don’t what’s going to happen,’’ his father said. “We’re just going to stay focused and try to regroup. Hopefully something comes up. You never know.’’

By Bart Barry

Wednesday HBO released a statement about Manny Pacquiao’s weeks-old statement about the prizefighter’s interpretation of the Bible’s anticipation of the current LGBTQ platform. There is rarely a reason to interrogate press releases from cable networks, but this one seemed portentous: One opened the email thinking HBO, in an incredible expression of solidarity with oppressed persons everywhere, had announced its refusal to condone Pacquiao’s hate speech by cancelling its distribution of the Filipino’s match with Timothy Bradley in April.

Well, no, actually – of course not. Instead, in a manifestation of what groupthink imbecility corporations reduce themselves to whenever trying to accomplish anything different from revenue (like moral judgements), the network decided to condemn Pacquiao’s sincerely held, sincerely stated and sincerely reiterated beliefs by implying, in the insincerest way possible, the network’s endorsement of Pacquiao would continue unabated because of its “obligation to both fighters” – only a network far less scrupulous than HBO, in other words, might punish Bradley for Pacquiao’s ignorance.

But why bother? why now? what could this accomplish? Answer: To illustrate tidily how Donald Trump is, in March, nearer to becoming our 45th President in November than any contemplative person in January imagined he would be.

It’s the insincerity of the HBO statement that rankles, and since HBO is a media company, it should be instructive for us, the large percentage of the country that cannot grasp whence Donald Trump’s popularity derives, to contrast the event of HBO’s statement with the event of Trump’s ascent. Trump embellishes most everything, exaggerates his own record, obfuscates, and often says things he knows are not true, but he never appears insincere. His appeal is his sincerity – his zealous belief in his own greatness; anything might be said in service to it – and his supporters are not the idiots we think they are.

For a few presidential cycles now, the dog-whistle metaphor has been fashionable, likening the insincere and euphemistic bits politicians say to a sound humans cannot hear but puppies can. Probably this sort of analogy first achieved acclaim with Ronald Reagan’s laudable/infamous (depending on one’s region and political bent) States’ Rights speech in Mississippi 36 years ago, a speech that winked at Southern segregationists while giving its speaker all sorts of deniability.

If employing rhetorical irony is saying something that means more than merely the denotative sum of its words, being cynical often is saying something that means nearly the opposite of its literal contents – “all natural ingredients” for instance – and cynicism is inferring from another’s rhetoric its opposite. While the crafters of dog-whistle statements would defend them as irony, Shakespeare’s own mechanics, they rely on the cynicism of their audiences, which in its own tawdry way attributes more talent and imagination to these audiences’ members than outsiders generally do.

What Trump practices is not dog-whistle so much as dog-tail; in all of nature, there are few things as decisively honest as a dog’s tail. A dog does not wag its tail ironically, a dog does not eat food it dislikes then whip its tail sarcastically about, a dog may misunderstand, and a dog may stand bemused by human indecision, but a dog’s tail ever tells the truth. What Trump’s supporters watch is his tail; when he is speaking in circles, when he is contradicting himself, when he is insulting his opponents, when he is effusively praising himself, his supporters ask only one question: Does he believe this? Their support for him as a candidate, not his platform or ideas that are alternately threadbare and frightening and frighteningly threadbare, are proportionate to how enthusiastically his supporters see his tail wagging and subsequently how enthusiastically their own tails wag back.

Well what have we here? This column has now done the unthinkable, likening humans to animals, the sort of ruse that got the congressman from Sarangani Province summarily scolded by blogs across the fruited plane, disowned by an apparel manufacturer notorious for its international labor practices, and called “insensitive, offensive and deplorable” by HBO.

Really, you say, your own tail beginning to stir, a broadcaster stated something that honestly about one of its assets?

Well, no, actually – of course not. Manny is none of these things to HBO on the eve of a broadcasting event with revenue expectations in the millions of dollars; his “recent comments”, you see, those are the insensitive and offensive and deplorable things, not the beloved lad nicknamed Pacman who once eradicated world poverty with yellow gloves (to pick the one ludicrous Pacquiao prefight storyline for which HBO is not responsible).

Saturday after results from the Republican primaries came in, Trump opened the floor to media inquiries by saying, “I would love to take a couple questions from these dishonest people.” It’s no wonder his supporters howled and cheered; much as members of the media may hold them in contempt, much as they may coin ironical terms like “low information” and “poorly educated” as descriptors, Trump supporters hate members of the media all the more, and their surging hatred now sloshes over every abstract and arbitrary barrier, from decency to integrity to education to partisanship.

Trump’s contempt is genuine; he considers his opponents beneath him, and he hates the dishonesty of an electoral/press cycle in which the candidates who purchase the most advertising traditionally receive the most coverage from a media that calls itself independent, unbiased, objective, and fair and balanced. The sole way to disabuse Trump’s supporters of their fervor is to prove in some playful and offhanded manner their man is inauthentic.

That feat, though, would require both authentic spokesmen and media outlets capable of recognizing and disseminating authentic commentary.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman says an olive tree will be planted amid the neon surrounding Las Vegas’ new T-Mobile Arena during the week of the Canelo Alvarez-Amir Khan fight on May 7.

The tree, Sulaiman says, will be a symbol of peace and unity. It’s a nice idea. But few would confuse boxing with peace or unity. It’s about imminent violence. It’s why we watch.

It’s why we watch Donald Trump, too. Trump’s sneers, profanity and insults are straight out of a boxing news conference. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Trump learned the schtick as a business partner with Don King during the days when Mike Tyson fought in Atlantic City.

Are those debates getting huge ratings because people want to hear what Ted Cruz and John Kasich say? Didn’t think so. The network could sell the debates, pay-per-view, because Trump’s rhetoric heightens the drama, if not the sense that his over-the-top talk threatens to a degenerate into a real brawl.

Trump even went so far as to defend his manhood on Fox Thursday night. It was his response to Marco Rubio’s crack about his small hands. He sounded a lot like Tyson once did. Tyson has grown up since then. Too bad Trump hasn’t. Come to think of it, Trump could learn a lot from Tyson, who is lot more statesman-like these days than the presidential candidate with more insults than answers.

Trouble is, we all seem to be living in Trump’s world. After all, Trump’s angry rhetoric is the real reason Sulaiman said he plans to plant that olive tree. Everybody with something to say and sell is on the Trump bandwagon for the number of hits the mere mention of him generates in social media.

Even Oscar De La Hoya tossed out the Trump name during a Canelo-Khan press tour that stopped in London, New York and Los Angeles. De La Hoya says he actually decided to put together Canelo-versus-Khan – Catholic-versus-Muslim – while watching Trump channel Don Rickles during one of those debates. It’s a good story. It’s better marketing, a sure way to generate hits and tweets. Maybe a few olives, too.

Here’s one request of Sulaiman: Next to that tree, plant a guarantee that there will be an immediate Canelo-Gennady Golovkin fight if – as expected – Canelo beats Khan.

A lot of things were said during the Canelo-Khan tour. But when the inevitable question about Canelo-GGG was asked, the answer was always — and only — an assurance that it would happen. No specifics and no real time frame were included. Maybe, an olive tree represents a peaceful counter to Trump.

But boxing needs more than an olive branch. It needs Canelo-GGG. Without it, there won’t be much to harvest in its immediate future.

BETHLEHEM, PA. (March 3, 2016) – Undefeated top contender Julian “J-Rock” Williams and Italy’s Marcello Matano went face-to-face for the first time Thursday at the final press conference before they meet with the IBF’s No. 1 spot at 154-pounds on the line this Saturday, March 5 live on SHOWTIME® (10 p.m. ET/PT) from Sands Bethlehem Events Center in Bethlehem, Pa.

Saturday’s SHOWTIME BOXING: SPECIAL EDITION® tripleheader features middleweight matchups between rising contender Antoine Douglas and Avtandil Khurtsidze and exciting Detroit prospect Tony Harrison against former title challenger Fernando Guerrero.

Tickets for the live event, which is promoted by King’s Promotions, are priced at $108, $83 and $58, not including applicable service charges and taxes and are on sale now. Tickets are available HERE at www.ticketmaster.com. To charge by phone call Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000.

Here is what the fighters had to say Thursday:

JULIAN WILLIAMS

“I want to thank Matano and his team for coming all the way over here. We’ve had a difficult time getting opponents for different reasons, but I’m excited to headline this stacked card.

“When I win this fight I’ll be able to accomplish my dream of being a world champion. It’s one step closer.

“I’m going to attack the head and body as much as I can. I’ve got enough film on him to see what he’s got. He’s pretty solid. He got better each time out. But those guys in Italy don’t have the skills that I have. I think he’s going to bring it for as long as he can handle it.

“He’s an awkward fighter. He’s definitely a boxer and he can be a little skittish in the ring. I know I’ve fought the better competition and I’ve trained my hardest for this.

“I’m ready to make a statement. I’m not worried about a knockout. However the win comes, it’s great. I’m just looking to win and beat him down.

“I’m expecting a good Philadelphia crowd to be out here supporting me. Ninety percent of my career I’ve been on the West Coast and other places. But now fighting in front of my hometown fans, there’s nothing better. It’s perfect.”

MARCELLO MATANO

“I feel very good. I’ve been here since Friday so I have gotten used to the time zone difference and I’m ready to fight. My American experience is just starting and I’m looking forward to it.

“It’s been a hard two months of training for this fight. This is by far the most important fight of my career so I’ve trained even harder than I usually do.

“I know that Julian Williams is a top-notch athlete and that he is coming to give his best, just like I am. It’s going to be an exciting fight because we both want to get to the top.

“I can adapt myself to any opponent. I can be a boxer or I can be a brawler. But in my heart, I am a warrior and I will come forward all fight. I am coming to leave that ring victorious.

“This is a dream come true to come here to the United States. I’ve always worked hard and it’s gotten me here. I will put all of my heart into the ring on Saturday night.”

ANTOINE DOUGLAS

“You can always look forward to an action-packed fight when I step into the ring. I have an admirable opponent who I know is coming to fight.

“I’ve grown into this role and into who I am. If you asked me earlier in my career, I would have never thought I’d be here. This is great and it comes from all the hard work I’ve put in over the years.

“You will see my growth Saturday night in the ring. I plan on being victorious. The work I put in won’t let me be any less than that. I’m looking forward to the action.

“I have a very strong opponent and I think it will make for a more exciting fight than Sam Soliman.

“I just always have to be prepared for whatever is thrown at me. This is boxing – there are no guarantees. We just have to be prepared for everything and do our best.

“The styles of Soliman and Khurtsidze are completely different, but we always base our offense and defense off a fighting at range and working the jab. I’m not going in blind – I’ve faced opponents who come forward. We’ll be ready for him and ready to make the adjustments in the ring.

“A win on Saturday will definitely put me in a position for a title shot. We just take it day-by-day. It’s not about looking at future opponents. We take each step successfully and see where it puts us.”

AVTANDIL KHURTSIDZE

“I’m very happy to be here and I’m grateful for the opportunity. I’m fighting a very strong fighter. Once I step into the ring I’m expecting a good challenge and I can’t wait for Saturday night.

“Everything in training went well. We’ve trained really hard and we’re ready for Saturday night.

“Douglas is a good fighter. He’s a good boxer and he has a good left hook. But none of that means anything until you get in the ring.

“Once I step into the ring, I will bring 100 percent. I am not going to stop swinging until Douglas goes down.”

FERNANDO GUERRERO

“We’re ready to fight. We had a great training camp and there’s not too much to say. It’s warrior time.

“I’ve been through my ups and downs, but I’m still here and I’m not going anywhere. This is for my whole nation, everyone in the Dominican Republic who is watching. You have to step in that ring for something.

“This isn’t a game. This is the only sport that you cannot play. I’m going to make this one of those fights that will be one of the best of the year. It will either be the best knockout or the best fight of the year. This is going to be memorable.

“This is the kind of opponent who will bring out the best of me. Everybody has to watch out for me. I’m coming to make a statement on Saturday.”

Friday, March 4

6:00 p.m. OFFICIAL WEIGH-IN – OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
Location: Vision Bar (Located inside Sands Bethlehem Events Center)
77 Sands Blvd.; Bethlehem, PA 18015
5:00 p.m. – Media arrival
6:00 p.m. – Fighters to scales

Saturday, March 5

5:30 p.m. SANDS BETHLEHEM EVENTS CENTER DOORS OPEN
Location: 77 Sands Blvd.; Bethlehem, PA 18015

6:45 p.m. FIRST BOUT

10:00 p.m. SHOWTIME BOXING: SPECIAL EDITION BROADCAST BEGINS

CREDENTIAL DISTRIBUTION
Fight night credentials can be picked up on Saturday, March 5 from 5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. at the Backstage Entrance. 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 $108, $83 and $58, not including applicable service charges and taxes and are on sale now. Tickets are available HERE at www.ticketmaster.com. To charge by phone call Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000.

For more information visit www.SHO.com/Sports and www.sandseventcenter.com, follow on Twitter @SHOSports, @JRockBoxing, @Action_Douglas, @IAmBoxing, @FernandoDomini, @TheSBEC and @Swanson_Comm or become a fan on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/SHOSports

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in New York City, undefeated Nebraska junior welterweight Terence “Bud” Crawford, an HBO fighter, put the sixth blemish on Philadelphian Hank Lundy’s ledger via TKO in round 5. Though Crawford’s assault did not take Lundy’s consciousness, it took his spirit, much as was anticipated by their records and all who watched. Crawford is aware there is an unseemly dearth of viable opponents for him, with the men who might’ve played challengers in bygone eras currently being overpaid by the PBC to behave like titlists, and he properly beats them to submission. If Crawford is not creating new aficionados, he is at least ensuring no more aficionados depart our sport on his watch.

Once televised boxing became predictable, we moved our commentaries to new subjects, and many concerned judges and their disagreeable tallies and referees and their improper stoppages, ever early or late, and point deductions, ever too much or too little, and if it isn’t an apt substitute for writing especially well about great spectacles, our unfortunate choice is partly palliated by the quality of the spectacles: It is no more possible to write greatly about a mediocre subject than stitch a great suit from burlap. Saturday’s match was not mediocre fabric, quite, it was in its punchcount and intent about good, though certainly not great, and what precluded its mediocrity, or eventual and desperately required salvation from mediocrity, was a choice its referee made in the closing moments of round 3.

Steve Willis, whose trademark enthusiasm is appearing ever more frequently during televised mainevents, chose not to act at the end of the third round, and it redeemed almost immediately a match that was strolling, and feinting and flexing, its way towards mediocrity. With a halfminute remaining in the round, Hank Lundy tried valiantly to close distance by swinging wildly and folding forward, and once Crawford began to set his weight on the back of Lundy’s neck in mammals’ universal manner of establishing dominance over another, Lundy flashed his torso leftwards then upwards, jamming the top of his head exactly where Crawford did not want it: against his chin. Crawford covered Lundy’s head with both blue gloves, and a leveraging match ensued with Lundy in the manifestly favorable position of having a lower center of gravity.

It has become an unspoken clause of sorts, call it the Mayweather Rule, that a fight’s promotional a-side shall not be discomfited by anything but a perfectly clean punch. While the b-side can be forearmed, elbowed, clinched, suffocated and occasionally butted, the a-side must not lose his title on anything but unspotted punching with the middle knuckle of his opponent’s fist – all other tactics must be treated as infractions and subjected to intense audiovisual scrutiny.

Referee Willis eschewed the Mayweather Rule, very much the way Tony Weeks got the Mayweather Rule ratified in 2014 (when, after allowing Marcos Maidana to strike Floyd Mayweather without Mayweather’s express permission a few too many times, in a fight, Weeks found himself quietly barred from officiating Mayweather matches evermore), and an actual fight began, allaying what fears aficionados developed after seeing the usually composed Crawford behave brashly during fightweek media events. Crawford is no one’s bitch, and he responded to Lundy’s aggression exactly as a champion should do: he clubbed his challenger nearly unconscious in the next five minutes.

Before that, though, Crawford found himself forced, via Lundy’s appropriate activity and Willis’ more appropriate inactivity, to grab hold of Lundy and wrestle him away. What was Willis doing meanwhile? HBO viewers will never know; blessedly Willis was removed enough from the combatants the frame did not contain him through much of it.

Crawford got Lundy off him and began to give Lundy what Lundy wanted and needed: less space to close. This is the sort of choice Crawford makes that makes him a better entertainer than his stylistically similar peers across the dial on the PBC. Crawford had the size and reflexes to discourage Lundy with space; however many inches taller Crawford actually is, he must’ve looked a foot taller and a meter farther away to Lundy than he was in Saturday’s first 2 1/2 rounds. Crawford, were he a PBC prospect, would have gone on feinting and flexing and scowling and leaping inrange long enough to pushoff a chest jab, and then leaping out of space, over and over, hoping Lundy might fatigue enough to make a sustained attack perfectly safe, and even then perhaps not chancing it. Crawford must know this; it would be impossible to watch boxing in the last decade, much less practice it at such a level, without noticing men of good reflexes no longer need to get struck in order to make their first million; so long as you purport to ferocity and make c-level opponents look bad, boxing needn’t be a fullcontact sport for you.

Crawford has the excellent fortune of being a Top Rank fighter, not a PBC asset; he is developed by the same experts who crafted Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya, and they didn’t develop those men by tolerating a pacifistic approach to combat (unbeknownst to most of the Money Team, in his first eight fights young Mayweather was compared to Mike Tyson). Crawford is a finisher, the way Top Rank expects its fighters to be; the rare case of a Top Rank fighter not being a born finisher, Tim Bradley for instance, is marked by that man’s willingness to undergo hellacious tests regularly. Not every match must end in a knockout, but boxing’s dwindled fanbase is through with talented athletes moving cautiously for a halfhour then suing posterity for scorecard points – particularly after making fraudulent prefight promises during press conferences and other promotional perfunctories.

Crawford expects to knock his opponents rigid, and he knows his promoter expects the same. If there are moments in his matches Crawford wonders about his professional choice to practice his brutal profession quite so brutally, he draws reinforcement from pride and expectations. Crawford is a very proud man, and his corner and promoter have very high expectations.

A good bit of punching, a restrained ref, and a decisive ending; if Saturday was not boxing’s best, it was a pleasant distance from its worst.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Claudio Abalos held on to take a 12-round unanimous decision over Noe Gonzalez Alcoba in a Middleweight bout at Club Social y Deportivo El Porvenir in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Abalos scored knockdowns in round’s two and six but was down twice in the final frame, but he built a lead and won by scores of  116-107 twice and 115-108.

Abalos is now 30-14-3.  Alcoba is 30-5.

Elias Vallejos won a 6-round unanimous decision over Segundo Semteno in a Welterweight bout.

In round four, Senteno was deducted a point for a low blow.

Vallejos won by scores of 60-53 twice and 60-54 and is now 19-5-1.  Senteno is 8-7-1,

Ramon Sena stopped Cristian Gramajo in round three of a scheduled 6-round Welterweight bout.

In round two, Sena dropped Gramajo with a right hand.  After taking a few punches in round three, Gramajo’s corer stopped the bout.

Sena is 21-15-2 with 12 knockouts.  Gramajo is 17-3-1.

German Peralta and Maximilliano Brizuela battled to a 4-round draw in a Middleweight bout.

Scores were 38.5-38.5 on all cards.

Peralta is 3-1-4.  Brizuela is 2-1-2.

 

 

 

Follow all the action LIVE  from Ringside at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden as Terence Crawford defends the WBO Jr. Welterweight title against Hank Lundy.  The action begins at 10 PM ET /7 PM PT with a Lightweight contest between future star Fleix Verdejo taking on William Silva in a battle of undefeated Lightweights.

THE PAGE WILL REFRESH EVERY 60 SECONDS AUTOMATICALLY 

Round 1 Lundy lands a left..Jab from Crawford..

Round 2

Round 3 Crawford lands a left from distance…Hard jab from Lundy…Left from Crawford..Jab..

Round 4 Crawford gets in a left..inside right..Lundy cut above right eye…

Round 5 Lundy gets in a right hook..Straight left hurts Lundy…BIG LEFT IN CORNER AND DOWN GOES LUNDY…crawford ALL OVER LUNDY AND ANOTHER STRAIGHT LEFT ROCKS LUNDY AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

 

Round 1 Silva gets in a left..

Round 2 Verdejo lands a right over the top…Left to body…1-2

Round 3 Combination from Verdejo

Round 4 Verdejo lands a jab

Round 5 Good left hook by Verdejo…Right over the top..

Round 6 Verdejo lands a right to the body…Verdejo warned for a low blow…right from Verdejo

Round 7 Verdejo jabbing

Round 8 Verdejo lands a right to the body…

Round 9 Right from Verdejo..Right from Silva…Left hook..

Round 10 Right from Verdejo…2 hard left hooks

100-90 twice and 99-91 for VERDEJO

By Norm Frauenheim-

A pound-for-pound debate without a mention of Terence Crawford isn’t much of a conversation. At least, he doesn’t think so. Does Crawford belong?

“Of course,’’ he said. “I feel like I’m already in that conversation.’’

Maybe.

Hank Lundy has some of his own ideas. Turns out, Crawford wouldn’t even make the top three on Lundy’s list.

“No, he’s not the best guy I’ve fight,’’ Lundy said.

Lundy went on to say a lot of things. On the Lundy list, Crawford would rank behind Viktor Postol, Ajose Olusegun, and maybe Dannie Williams.

Lundy might have found a few other names to rank ahead of Crawford if only he had had more time to hold court on his portion of a conference call this week

If he’s as good a fighter as he is a talker, Crawford (27-0, 19 KOs) is in trouble Saturday night (10 p.m. ET/PT) in an HBO-televised junior-welterweight bout in The Theater at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

But the guess in this corner is that Lundy has only managed to talk himself into trouble while also giving Crawford a big chance on a very big stage. An impressive victory over Lundy (26-5-1, 13 KOs) would get Crawford off the fringes of a debate currently dominated by flyweight Roman Gonzalez, middleweight Gennady Golovkin and light-heavyweight Sergey Kovalev.

“It’s hard to rank myself against guys who are in different weight classes,’’ Crawford said. “They would never be my opponent. They are either too big or too small. They do good in their weight division and I do good in mine.’’

So good, in fact, that you can make a pretty good argument that Manny Pacquiao bypassed him for Timothy Bradley for the same reasons that middleweight belt-holders have ducked Golovkin for so long. The risk is too big.

If true, the unbeaten Crawford is left with the motivation to be as impressive as possible. Wittingly or not, Lundy’s talk might have sparked some emotional flint not yet seen in the somewhat stoic fighter from the Midwest.

“I don’t know what’s going on in that boy’s head,’’ Crawford said. “Come Saturday there’s not going to be much talking to do.’’

Crawford conceded that there was some disappointment at not getting the chance to face Pacquiao, who says he’s retiring after the Bradley bout on April 9.

“I wouldn’t say it was a letdown but I wouldn’t say it was exciting,’’ Crawford said the Pacquiao decision. “When they told me the names, they then told me Lundy. He and I had been going back and forth on Twitter for a long time. Now I just want to shut him up.

“He has said a couple of things that upset me, but nothing that has made me change my game plan or fight different than I would normally fight. I am going to go in there and fight my fight. Do what I have to do to get the job done.’’

Then, maybe, Crawford can say thanks to Lundy and hello to a more accepted place in an ever-evolving argument.

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: For part 12, please click here.

*

SAN ANTONIO – Very good artists inspire imitation – why so much boxing writing of the 1970s and 1980s looks like stepped-on Hemingway – but great artists inspire others to pursue their craft regardless where it leads. Thursday evening in this city’s irreplaceable McNay Art Museum, as part of a celebration of local artists, painter Stefani Job Spears gave a talk about her abstract paintings and the glorying in color complements and fractals that charges her process that creates them.

And layers – she spoke quite a lot about layers. Many of her watercolors have a hundred layers to them, each layer equal parts mathematically insignificant and aesthetically essential, and this layering effect was one she discovered, in part, by making colored paper, a process through which the fibers in pulp are blended by crushing. Layers consume Spears’ recent work as they consume every artist’s work, often in a proportionality with the artist’s seriousness.

What plagues Spears’ work, or would were she not adamantly opposed to such a plaguing, is what plagues all who obsessively pursue layers: a lack of tension, which resolves itself as muddiness in visual arts and noisiness in music and nervously linked anecdotes in writing. The most painful part: Artistic tension follows a balloon’s model – it is generally greatest, with metaphors stretched to shiny, the instant before it deflates with a pop. Artists abandon works eventually after this deflation happens though never soon enough; they set out to reconcile the sudden lack of tension by rebuilding, relayering, repiling, but such conscientiousness seldom wins the day because the composition grows only looser as the colors muddle, and all the while, crueler still, their memory of the gorgeous tension their works comprised, the wrenching into existence their creation celebrated, now overdyes each forwards gaze they cast at their suddenly unsatisfactory and worsening piece.

How does one know when to stop layering? There are two paths that both reduce, eventually, to luck – for the greatest works of art ever evince chance as much as another quality, and the greatest artists never evince any emotion more than gratitude, profound thankfulness for their fortune – and those paths are: 1. Luck, and 2. Feedback properly observed. The works that endure best, that receive the highest appraisals centuries after their births, are those that impress us as relying least on chance, though there’s a good chance this is our misperception more than any actuality their creators would recognize.

Miguel de Cervantes, we assume, had no chance of getting lucky for two books and 700 pages of Don Quijote, and this is close to true as we’re likely to come. But the genesis of his idea, to take histories purporting to nonfiction and have them drive a reader to a portrayal of delusion – and again, friends, this question is the reason the book endures: Was Quijote delusional, or by inventing a character publicly addled enough for others to play along with him, for their own amusement, did Quijote accomplish a life very near his ideal of one? – probably arrived in a seed owed to good fortune, and besides, anyone who has read or reread El Quijote in English or Spanish can attest to something nearly objective like: If Cervantes got unlucky on hundreds of those pages, so unlucky in his first book, in fact, he spent a couple lucky sentences in book two making fun of his own terrible writing, it is not untoward to suggest his best sentences, too, owed some to chance.

Enough with the tautologies; luck is luck, yes, and? – take us to feedback (which is the feedback). That is what Stefani Job Spears was about in her Thursday discussion when she said she did not allow a work to muddy itself beyond repair, and she did not allow her students to allow their works to muddy themselves beyond repair. She believes and teaches a work must be wrestled back from that muddy brink, and it’s a wonderful technique that saves future works while appearing to save present ones. Knowing one may not abandon a work whose canvas has popped, oozing its tension from electric orange to beige to mahogany, see, makes an artist err just to the restrained side of his next work; the anxiety that leads him to continue adding layers, to continue pursuing a beautiful truth, finds itself moderated by a cultivated anxiety about what destruction one last layer might bring, and here is where a tension begets another tension that amplifies the tension created by two other tensions, and these iterated tensions make a work that endures.

To those who might rebut “Works fail all the time – look at this column,” Spears’ process counterargues: Completed works fail, yes, but a work cannot be a failure till it is completed, and considering works incomplete until they succeed remedies that indeed (a spirally argument more than a circular one). And this brings us to the essence of the approach: Works must only be completed in order to achieve acclaim or revenue; an artist who finds his life’s highest fulfillment in creation’s very process needn’t ever declare a work completed, and therefore mustn’t ever concede failure, even while the ecstatic tension of his creating, feedback’s feedback, continues its accumulation.

Until this column ends, it does not fail.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

A blueprint of the next great fighter would look a lot like Felix Verdejo. Fast hands, agile feet, power and a long, lanky body that will easily grow into bigger weight classes and multi-division titles.

But there’s more.

“The it factor,’’ Top Rank President Todd duBoef says.

Assign whatever value you want to it. The intangible usually means charisma, which can’t be found on any tale of the tape. In this era of analytic-engineered major-league baseball rosters and NBA teams, an element without a reliable measurement might mean it can fool you just as surely as a fragile chin.

In Verdejo, however, it looks real. Feels real, so real that the young Puerto Rican moves into the next step of a process that Top Rank believes is bound for stardom.

Sometime in 2016, Verdejo hopes to fight for a world-title belt that is a symbol of a fighter moving on from prospect to world class.

“I don’t have a specific opponent in mind… I just want to fight for a championship,’’ Verdejo (19-0, 14 KOs) said Thursday through a translator during a conference call for his first appearance in the New Year on a HBO-televised card Feb. 27 against William Silva (23-0, 14 KOs) in The Theater at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Verdejo’s fight against Silva on the undercard of Terence Crawford-Hank Lundy is intriguing on several levels. Silva was an accomplished amateur and, like Verdejo, is unbeaten as a pro.

The Brazilian lightweight is also listed at 6 feet 1, which makes him the tallest foe Verdejo has faced since turning pro after the 2012 Olympics. More important, perhaps, it represents a further test of Verdejo’s left hand. He was sidelined for six months last year after undergoing surgery to have bone spurs removed.

There were no problems with the left in a mid-December wipeout of Josenilson Dos Santos in Puerto Rico. Then again, Verdejo didn’t really have to use the left. He landed a perfect right that resulted in a second-round stoppage.

“Everything, thanks to God, is fine with the hand,’’ he said Thursday.

Confidence that he’ll succeed against Silva is enough for Top Rank to think about the rest of 2016. He’s already scheduled for a bout on April 16, probably in Puerto Rico where he’s close with his mentor and hero, Felix Trinidad.

Trinidad, Verdejo says, “teaches me how to act inside and outside of the ring.’’

Depending on the champions and their willingness to fight him, duBoef estimates Verdejo might get a title shot in six to 10 months.

For now, the WBO lightweight title is the preferred target. The UK’s Terry Flanagan holds the belt sanctioned by an acronym based in Puerto Rico. Flanagan, ranked No. 5 by The Ring, is scheduled for a title defense against Derry Mathews on March 13 in Liverpool. The bout has already been postponed twice, first in December and then a few weeks ago. First Flanagan said he needed more time off. Then, he said suffered an injury to his left foot.

Somehow and at some point, a shot at a major belt will be there for the emerging Verdejo. Against Silva, he is making his sixth appearance in New York. He’s already popular in New York’s huge Puerto Rican community, which is looking for a star to succeed Miguel Cotto as a centerpiece to its Puerto Rican Day celebration in June.

“Fans in New York should look forward to seeing me fight for a long time,’’ said Verdejo, whose it factor also means he knows how to talk to the customers.

By Norm Frauenheim

A busy stretch for Arizona boxing continues this weekend with appearances on Showtime’s ShoBox in Atlantic City Friday and on UniMas’ Solo Boxeo at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix Saturday.

Super-bantamweight Jesse Magdaleno (22-0, 16 KOs) of Las Vegas headlines the UniMas card (11 p.m. ET/PT) in a scheduled 10-rounder against Filipino Rey Perez (20-7, 5 KOs).

The seven-fight card, a Top Rank and Iron Boy co-promotion, also is scheduled to include light-heavyweight Trevor McCumby (21-0, 16 KOs) and super-bantamweight Carlos Castro (14-0, 6 KOs), both of Phoenix.

First bell is scheduled for 6 p.m. (MST).

On ShoBox (10 p.m. ET/PT) unbeaten Adam Lopez (14-0, 7 KOs), a former Phoenix fighter now of San Antonio, faces Mario Munoz (16-0-1, 10 KOs) at Adrian Phillips Ballroom in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall.

On Tuesday, Phoenix bantamweight Alexis Santiago (21-3-1, 8 KOs), of Mayweather Promotions, got things started on Fox Sports with a unanimous decision over Erik Ruiz (15-5, 6 KOs) of Mexico.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in California welterweight Oklahoman Alex “El Cholo” Saucedo decisioned Florida’s Clarence Booth by inappropriately wide scores of 79-73, 79-73, 78-74. I watched the 11th hour fight on a Univision app Googlecasted to a television; the stream split and spilled, the buffering was routinely inadequate, and Tecate’s black eagle unfailingly annoyed. The experience, however, was not just a pleasure on its own: it was a reminder of how much better boxing can be and not long ago was.

Back when I found our sport intriguing enough to cover many fightcards and travel a dozen times a year at personal expense, I sat ringside for eight of Alex Saucedo’s first 12 prizefights, and it was an undulatory ride that trended progressively upwards till it was hard-down by March 2014. Initially Saucedo seemed Top Rank’s exact replacement for Antonio Margarito, a rangy Mexican welterweight with a chin and joy for combat, though thrice as polished. And he was merely 17 years-old when we saw him begin his career in Houston (on a card that featured Son of the Legend’s unbuttoning Peter Manfredo).

Though a Chihuahuense by birth, Saucedo fought and still fights out of Oklahoma City, which is the sort of place you’re more likely to recruit a rehab opponent for Son of the Legend than find a future Mexican champion, but like other elements of the Saucedo story, that was an enchanting anomaly until it wasn’t – until it became painfully apparent Saucedo’s exposure to worldclass teaching, training and sparring was wanting in Sooner State. For Saucedo’s match two years ago at Alamodome, the last time I watched him from ringside, the card on which Son of the Legend decisioned Bryan Vera and Orlando Salido fouled Vasyl Lomachenko’s first title match, an old guy named Gilbert Venegas, four deep in the concluding 11-loss streak of a 12-20-4 career, found himself an imported sacrifice for El Cholo – who missed weight by more than a pound and set to clanging what alarms sound when a prodigy begins to disappoint those who’ve invested reputations in him.

That wasn’t me, quite – though I’d sneaked Saucedo on a 2012 list of The Ring’s best prospects after only his seventh prizefight – but it was Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler, an actual legend of his craft previously interested enough in Saucedo to journey all the way to Corpus Christi, Tex., to attend the Oklahoman’s second match. Trampler’s face is not an easy read at ringside, but he seemed duly underwhelmed by Saucedo’s decisioning of Venegas that night at Alamodome, and he might have said explicitly that were an HBO employee named Peter Nelson not in the immediate vicinity.

That year, 2014, became a lost year of sorts for Saucedo, and boxing itself – probably why few noticed one of Top Rank’s prospects, a kid who at age 18 had opened an HBO broadcast for Nonito Donaire, was gone almost entirely missing. Saucedo fought five opponents in 2014, sporting an aggregate record of 56-58-4, and showed little more than a granitic chin he allowed other men to test too often.

The way Top Rank handled Saucedo’s career in 2015 gives fine an example as any the difference between a professional outfit and whoever runs the PBC, an outfit with more money than talent that likely would have gone full-promotional with Saucedo, feeding him increasingly worse competition for increasingly more money till even Keith Thurman started to snicker at Saucedo’s announced opponents. Instead Top Rank put Saucedo in four 2015 matches against opponents with an aggregate record of 69-28-5 and without a losing tally among them, veterans who did not respect a 20-year-old, men who possessed power and craft and intent enough to ice Saucedo unless he improved his defense or demonstrated an incredible chin.

Based on Saturday’s episode, Saucedo did the latter more than the former; his defense is marginally better, yes, and his chin is really quite excellent. Clarence Booth was just the opponent for Saucedo, too, a man who, bursting with musculature and ferocity, looked considerably more menacing than opponents would report – Booth has only stopped two of the last seven men to test his power – and made Saucedo make decisions some of us stopped believing he was capable of making.

“Solo Boxeo Tecate” looked excellent, and it was wonderful to see Israel Vazquez (a rare prizefighter who, in honor of Valentine’s Day, was “one that got away” from Trampler and Top Rank), a man among the noblest of our beloved sport’s noble practitioners, offering commentary. The whole thing brought nostalgia of a sort: I remember this! I remember traveling to Tucson to cover fights like these! I remember Lupe Contreras’ goofy delivery of his “más macho” tagline! I remember Bernardo Osuno adlibbing through Friday night cards! I remember caring enough about boxing to find Spanish-language streams because there were actual consequences for the men who fought on Telefutura and for the sport itself!

Writing a fight report can be simple stuff, simpler even than a conference-call report; yes there are nonlinear elements to it, but the rounds do, after all, arrive in sequence, and few who read fight reports do so for any reason more than: They can’t help themselves. It said a lot to me about me I’d come to find things like PBC or UniMás dreary enough to go through the trouble of writing on subjects farfetched as Catalonian architects or Colombian sculptures, or rewriting entire columns from bygone years.

Well, the times have changed: I now live in Texas, where the main event of a UniMás card doesn’t happen till 11 PM, three hours later than “Solo Boxeo de Miller” sent its Friday mainevents off in Phoenix, and the roster of meaningful challengers for rising prospects is fractionally thick as it was even a decade ago, and current attendance in local gyms assures that situation will worsen. But Saturday’s card was good fun, for once, and that must be counted.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Photo By Chris Farina / Top Rank

By Norm Frauenheim-

Gennady Golovkin is the pound for-pound champion in waiting. Emphasis on the waiting.

No telling when that wait will end. But it got a predictable, yet tiresome extension with the announcement last week that Canelo Alvarez will fight Amir Khan on May 7.

Golovkin has little choice but to stay busy, prepared and hopeful for a shot at Canelo later in the year, perhaps September. GGG management looked up and down the list of options and was left with an April 23 bout against Dominic Wade, who landed the mandatory shot at GGG’s middleweight title when the IBF’s No. 1-rated Tureano Johnson withdrew because of a shoulder injury.

Never heard of Wade? Didn’t think so. Then again, Johnson, of the Bahamas, isn’t exactly a name that generates a buzz. More like: Who’s he?

It’s all-too-familiar and thoroughly unfair to GGG, who is spending his prime in the waiting room. He’ll be 34 on April 8, 15 days before his pound-for-pound skill figures to make a wreck out of Wade.

There’s nobody to blame but a business ruled by the so-called A-side, B-side equation that, in the end, often adds up to rubbish.

Canelo is making GGG wait because he can. Canelo is projected to be the sport’s next pay-per-view star. The evidence of that was in the 900,000 buys he generated in his victory over Miguel Cotto in November. GGG can only counter with the 150,000 PPV number he posted in his last outing, a stoppage of David Lemieux in October.

The difference gives Canelo 750,000 reasons he can tell GGG to wait, wait all over again. Publically, at least, each side of the promotional and management equation has assured a skeptical fan base that Canelo-GGG will happen. A possible date, Sept. 17, and even a place, the Dallas Cowboys NFL Stadium, have been reported.

But there are doubts. Canelo’s decision to face Khan raises questions about whether he really wants to fight a true 160 pounder. He’ll fight Khan, a junior-welterweight just a few years ago, at the familiar 155-pound catch-weight for the WBC title he took from Cotto.

Canelo is called the lineal middleweight champion. Trace the title from Sergio Martinez to Cotto and Canelo, and, yeah, it’s lineal. The catch, however, is how that line of succession has been corrupted by the weight. Canelo might be the lineal champ, but GGG is the real one.

The unresolved issue is whether Canelo will come off the 155-pound marker and agree to fight GGG at the traditional 160.

Even if he does the expected and overwhelms Khan, there still won’t be a fight against a true middleweight contender on Canelo’s resume. If Canelo struggles to beat Khan, then what? If he loses, GGG management might regret the day that Andre Ward decided to go up to light-heavy in anticipation of a potential pound-for-pound confrontation with Sergey Kovalev.

Canelo’s bargaining power has been met with some early moves from GGG’s K2 brain trust. In Wade, Tom Loeffler created potential leverage, which could lead to a very big middleweight fight in its own right if the Canelo possibility falls apart. Wade’s promoter is Al Haymon, who also happens to promote Daniel Jacobs.

Jacobs is coming off his stunning, first-round stoppage of Peter Quillin for a piece of the middleweight title.

“From our side, there wouldn’t be any obstacles to making that fight,” Loeffler told The Ring’s Mitch Abramson.

Call it a warning shot and an acknowledgement that GGG can’t wait much longer.