World Super Bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire will defend his crown on December 15th in Houston against former world champion Jorge Arce in Houston in a bout televised by HBO according to Dan Rafael of espn.com

“You know this is a fight we’ve wanted to do and now we are able to do it,” Top Rank chief Bob Arum told ESPN.com. “We didn’t get it done in July, but after the Bradley situation, we went to our television partner and asked them for enough money to make it happen and it’s happening.”

Junior featherweight titlist Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KOs), who has been calling out for a unification match with Donaire, will make his third defense in the televised co-feature.

A two-time Cuban Olympic gold medalist, Rigondeaux, a southpaw, will face former titleholder Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym (48-2, 33 KOs) of Thailand. Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN.com that the deal was agreed to on Tuesday.

“I’m emailing contracts to Thailand. We’re done,” he said. “We just went over some final stuff.”

“I’ve always liked the fight,” Cameron Dunkin, Donaire’s manager, said. “Arce’s a great name and Arce’s a tough bastard. He proved it in the fight he had with Vazquez Jr. He was a big underdog, and came back and showed what he was about (by scoring a 12th-round knockout to win a junior featherweight title). Arce will fight his ass off against Donaire.

“He’ll give it everything he’s got and he will be tough, but Nonito is so highly skilled and fighting at such a high level, I don’t see anyone at 122 dealing with him. It’s good for Nonito to get a fourth fight this year. Four times is really neat in these times in boxing where a lot of champions fight only twice a year.”

“It’s healed,” he said. “He hasn’t really done much with it (in training) yet. He’s running and staying in shape and he says if he’s in shape, he can hit with one hand for the first week or so of training and still get in four good weeks of training. That’s all he needs because he has been so active and doesn’t get out of shape.”

“HBO was prepared to go to Mexico, but the extra cost was prohibitive,” Arum said. “Donaire was willing to go there so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was we couldn’t make it work economically. They didn’t have a high-definition truck there that suited HBO and that means HBO would have to drive a truck there. It didn’t make sense for this kind of event.”

“They can say I am crazy, and much more, but I have shut the mouths of the critics in the ring many times, and against Donaire it will be no different,” Arce said. “I am preparing like never before along with the best trainer Mexico has given to the world, Nacho Beristain, and I will win on Dec. 15.”

Said Dunkin, “Nishioka is a great fighter but he was trying to play cat and mouse with Nonito. One thing about Arce, he won’t play cat and mouse. He’s coming to fight. Arce says Donaire is a good fighter but hasn’t fought anyone with any balls, so that ought to tell you how hard he will try. He’s a proud Mexican and will try to turn it into a sensational fight in Texas with so many Mexican fans there. It will be a really fun fight.”

This will not be a political piece by any means other than its acknowledgement of what tomorrow, known in these United States as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, or Election Day, will bring, which, it predicts here, is four more years, because American history says it requires a remarkable political talent to overcome the myriad of advantages an incumbent President enjoys, and this year’s challenger enjoys some talents shy of a myriad.

If four more years is how things are fated to go Tuesday, it is not a bad way to think about boxing this week, as the next four years will move us far from where we are now. In November 2016, Floyd Mayweather will be months from his 40th birthday, Manny Pacquiao will be heading to 38, and both Juan Manuel Marquez and Sergio Martinez will be too old to be making a living in combat – though Bernard Hopkins, 51 years young and still citing Graterford, will likely be calling someone out, and HBO will be negotiating a way to broadcast it with options on future matches if he wins.

The apparent bet is Adrien Broner will, in 2016, be an approximation of what Floyd Mayweather is right now. An approximation or facsimile is all “The Problem” will be because he’ll not have the benefit of discovery Mayweather has. Whatever one opines of Mayweather’s villainous “Money” character, Mayweather deserves recognition aplenty for inventing it, recognition whose reserves will not be spent on Broner if he never becomes more than Money May with a talking hairbrush, his current azimuth.

Or perhaps Broner will in four years be where most imitators end up in American entertainment: making an unreasonably good living as a courier from the last innovator to the next. We’ll surely not be rid of him, no matter what happens Nov. 17 within or without the confines of a new stretch of beach formerly known as Atlantic City, where Broner is scheduled to confront Mexican southpaw Antonio Demarco in what will be at least Broner’s biggest test in four fights and quite possibly more than he can handle. Broner-Demarco is the most consequential fight from here to New Year’s because its outcome is unknowable and will tell us if boxing is headed where its plotters and plotting wish to take our wallets.

Rocky Juarez’s upset of Antonio Escalante in San Antonio a few Saturdays ago brings a timely reminder: No favorite is safe in the main event of a Golden Boy Promotions card, especially if he is aligned with Golden Boy Promotions. If Broner or his team knows what they’re courting with Antonio Demarco, no evidence suggests it. Broner’s high self-esteem, one suspects, keeps him from watching others’ highlight reels, and Broner’s promoter never knows what an opponent will bring.

Broner’s shoulder-rolling, counter-right-uppercutting style is all wrong for a well-chinned southpaw three inches taller than him, a man whose straight left is the punch that picks the shoulder-roll lock (six years since Money May’s last southpaw opponent is no coincidence), one who brutalized Jorge Linares, a Venezuelan more highly touted by aficionados in his day than Broner is now, last year, and needed less than a minute to stop John Molina (24-0) in September. Demarco can be beaten, the late and prodigious Edwin Valero proved that, but Broner (24-0) has yet to merit inclusion in Valero’s company, which is a fine reminder of what makes this fight indeed so consequential: If Broner beats Demarco, however he does it, and especially if he does it spectacularly, the sharp edge of aficionados’ resentment will be dulled. Broner’s next four soft touches on HBO may not be suffered gladly, but neither will they be accompanied by feelings of betrayal for those exulting in the hairbrush narrative or the hairbrush narrator.

That a commodity annoyingly unproven as Broner can be in the most consequential of upcoming fights, with Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez set to take their rivalry from trilogy to tetralogy three weeks later, uncovers a comment on the difference between consequence and eventfulness. Pacquiao-Marquez IV at MGM Grand on Dec. 8 will be the largest event of the second half of the year, but it will not be consequential because no one mistakes the likely winner, Marquez this time, as the future of prizefighting, and even the specter of Marquez ending (muted) calls for The Fight to Save Boxing now brings with it a fraction of schadenfreude’s once tangy delight. Time and other agents, but time most of all, have corroded the fantastical Pacquiao-Mayweather brand such that even Pacquiao’s unexpectedly stopping – in his fourth try – a man Mayweather whitewashed three years ago will bring demands barely more than perfunctory for them finally to settle accounts in the ring. Make no mistake about either man’s coming need to settle accounts, though.

Chances are good Pacquiao will be busy enough this time against Marquez to win on cards scored with a 2009 pen but will see his opponent, for the second time in 2012, shown all the scoring benefits Pacquiao once enjoyed. That should be for Mayweather a frightening outcome while he plans next year’s Vegas fundraiser, particularly if Adrien Broner, the man scheduled to replace him, does something definitive against Antonio Demarco.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

There are all kinds of symbols on the road to freedom. Some are as grand as the Statue of Liberty. Some are as simple as a pair of shoes.

“Tennis shoes,’’ Alfredo Angulo said.

For a while, they were as elusive as Angulo’s release from a detention center in El Centro, Calif., where the Mexican junior-middleweight sat, waited and worried during a seven-month stretch for what was reported to be an expired visa.

Angulo couldn’t train. It was hard enough to jog.

“No, the reality is that they didn’t let me train in there,’’ Angulo said Thursday in a conference call for his Nov. 10 appearance on the undercard of the Abner Mares-Anselmo Moreno super-bantamweight clash at Los Angeles’ Staples Center in his first fight since his release in mid-August. “It was a simple thing. They didn’t let me have tennis shoes.

“For some reason, they didn’t let me have the shoes for two months.’’

When he finally got them, tennis wasn’t on the agenda. There are no clay courts in the detention center’s yard. Then again, there isn’t a ring, either. But there was handball, Angulo’s only physical outlet while waiting for his case to be resolved and his hopes restored.

“I’m here legally,’’ said Angulo (20-2, 17 KOs), a former 154-pound champion who faces unknown Raul Casarez (19-2, 9 KOs) of Edinburg, Tex. “Everything is fine. I’m ready to move forward.’’

After a nightmarish year, that’s a victory in its own right. A year ago, Angulo lost a wild sixth-round TKO to James Kirkland in Cancun. About five months later, he says he turned himself into immigration authorities in an effort to clear up questions about his legal right to live and work in the U.S. Angulo, who grew up in the border town of Mexicali, says he wanted to pursue his boxing career in America. More important, he wanted to spend time with his daughter, wherever and whenever he wanted to. She was born in the U.S.

There are unanswered questions as to why Angulo was held for so long. He has no reported criminal record.

“I had no idea when I was going to get out,’’ said Angulo, who held an interim version of the World Boxing Organization’s junior-middleweight title. “I was told it was going to be a short time. Obviously, that didn’t happen.’’

The best guess is that he got caught in delays inevitable throughout the web of immigration politics and bureaucracy. Like so many, he was just another face among the many with lives by a border. Unlike many, however, Angulo was lucky. He had Golden Boy Promotions. He had Oscar De La Hoya, who visited him in El Centro, just 14 miles north of the Mexican border.

Golden Boy’s resources and Angulo’s potential were factors that finally led to his release. It’s another question as to whether that will lead to a realization of the early promise he displayed. Incarceration of any kind has proven to be hazardous to a ring career. Maybe, it’s the idle time. Maybe, it’s the diet. Maybe, it’s the handball instead of sparring. Maybe, it’s all three and much more.

For Angulo, that lesson was in front of him in his last fight. Kirkland, who overcame a first-round knockdown before stopping Angulo last November, spent 18 months in a Texas prison on a 2009 weapons charge. After his release, Kirkland easily won two tune-ups before suffering a stunning first-round stoppage against unknown Nobuhiro Ishida.

Angulo re-enters the ring for the first time in a year predictably confident. He has new trainer in Andre Ward’s corner man, Virgil Hunter, who moves into a job once occupied by Nacho Beristain.

“I’m still Alfredo ‘El Perro’ Angulo,’’ he said in a reference to his nickname, Dog. “There’s no change in style. It’s just that Virgil Hunter has added things.’’

But no addition is quite as valuable as what Angulo re-acquired. Hopefully, he’s also kept those tennis shoes. They are a well-worn symbol of what freedom means.

SAN ANTONIO – Three miles east of the Alamodome stands Freeman Coliseum in the southwestern part of an enormous lot it shares with AT&T Center, home of the Spurs. Saturday evening Freeman felt cavernous because it was mostly empty, especially compared to the Vicente Fernandez concert nextdoor. Nevertheless old Freeman allowed a redemptive act to happen in its ring, an act made by Houston’s Rocky Juarez – boxing’s serial contender.

There stood Juarez prefight, waiting in the smoke of an improvised made-for-televisión walkway next to a curtain that covered empty space in the back of an historic old arena, where a locker room and a steep gray ramp and little else were. He was in white, green and gold, and serious. Serious is the word; none other works for Rocky – not charismatic or enticing, certainly, though perhaps humble.

Juarez is humble and serious, like a Mexican prizefighter with a countenance more Asian than Spanish, though Texas-born, and once a standout in USA Boxing before it was an embarrassment. Professional is the other word for Juarez, a man who, no matter what palpable discouragement preceded his career’s palpable disappointments, soldiered forward, pressuring and attacking in a style nostalgic for a 15th round, without ever quite getting to the place that makes special fighters.

There was a moment in most every prime-Juarez fight when he, as the shorter man with the shorter brown arms, maneuvered himself through footwork efficient and proper to just the spot from which to throw decisive punches. Then he paused. It was rarely more than an instant, but an instant that still expands in supporters’ minds today till it is mostly what they recall of Juarez’s championship challenges.

That instant when Rocky paused to ensure all was just right, and everything got away. The opponent, shocked by his good fortune, escaped, or did something – a parrying jab or wildly missed hook, or anything – that caused Juarez to doubt himself, reset and return to the hard task of maneuvering back in range (or get caught, one time, with an audacious right-uppercut lead Juan Manuel Marquez threw his way in their 2007 fight in Tucson, Ariz., when the air audibly escaped the hydraulics of Juarez’s fighting spirit). Rocky: walking to his corner, red blood streaming from a deep and accidental cut, smart enough to wonder how the hell he’d got hit with such a punch, schooled enough to know what it portended.

Rocky: head bowed, seriousness and frustration all over his face, but not urgency, no urgency, shuffling to his corner after each round of his second fight with Marco Antonio Barrera, a Las Vegas rematch of a 2006 fight Juarez deserved to win in Los Angeles four months earlier, a second fight whose closing bell saw Barrera, spiteful in a way few yet realized, spit his mouthguard in his palm and chase Juarez to the Houstonian’s corner to tell him, as Barrera recounted in the mall at Caesar’s Palace an afternoon later: I will always be a master, and you will always be a student.

Before five months had passed there was Juarez at Desert Diamond Casino in a “Solo Boxeo” main event, when Telefutura still had a franchise of which it was proud and protective, willing to fight for a fraction what he’d been paid on Mexican Independence Day. “The way I look at it, this is the most money I’ve ever made for a Telefutura fight,” Juarez said with a nod, not a shrug: serious. He got other chances, and he never got there. So he became an opponent, a target with a name and something of a following, whose defeat might bolster the credibility of a new promotional signee.

Do not doubt that was the plan Saturday when Juarez, 0-6-1 these last four years, got matched against Antonio Escalante, recent signee of a three-fight deal with Golden Boy Promotions. Aside from the main event, the blue corner – from which Juarez fought – went 1-5, Saturday. But Juarez, the b-side who emerged from that improvised white smoke to precede the new signee to the ring, made a professional spectacle of himself, throwing properly leveraged if less telegenic punches at Escalante, dropping him in the third and finishing him in the eighth, and drawing a line beneath Golden Boy Promotions’ inability to spot talent and inability to learn to spot talent.

There was, for once, a small sense of joy at a Juarez fight, especially in the shiny black chairs of Freeman Coliseum’s tiny, empty media section, where a very few of us who’d attended a number of Juarez fights smiled at Rocky’s unlikely accomplishment. In its size and location – now 20 rows back of the ring – and dwindled attendance, Freeman Coliseum’s media section worked well as any metaphor for the boxing community at large when the honorary 10-count came for trainer Emanuel Steward, who passed away after a short fight with a vicious disease, Thursday.

This followed a reminder of how small boxing’s community is, Friday afternoon, when James Leija, one half of Saturday’s Freeman Coliseum host, Leija-Battah Promotions, spoke about Steward, who, posterity oughtn’t forget, worked Leija’s corner at Alamodome in the first of Leija’s four matches against Azumah Nelson, 19 years ago.

“I even posted something on Facebook where it was he and I in the ring when he worked the corner,” said Leija. “During my whole career, it was one of those things where, whenever he sees you, he says, ‘I’ll never forget those guns at the Alamodome.’ He always brought that up, and that was one of those things we had going: ‘I remember walking out to the ring, and those guns blaring.’

“During the fight, he was saying, ‘Keep your jab up high, keep your jab up high.’ What he meant by that was: Don’t drop your jab, because Azumah Nelson’s trying to counter.

“We’d talk in Vegas or wherever we saw each other, and he’d go, ‘I’ll never forget those guns!’

“And he always had that smile.”

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

BROOKLYN, NY (October 27, 2012) – 2008 U.S. Olympian Sadam “World Kid” Ali (16-0, 10 KOs) stopped Ronnie “The Natural Warrior, Jr. (13-8-1, 4 KOs) in the second round of Saturday night’s main event at the Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn, New York

“Rising Olympian Star In The Big Apple,” presented by Ali’s World Kid Promotions, was distributed in the United States on pay-per-view by Integrated Sports Media.

Undefeated welterweight prospect Ali shined bright at home on a show that he also promoted. The well-rounded boxer took control in the opening round, dropped Warrior midway through the second with a short left, and finished him off with a perfectly thrown right at 2:59.

“I worked hard for this and I want to thank everybody for this opportunity,” Ali said after the fight. “I hope I’m eligible to do more television events. I’m trying to get better opponents but sometimes fights fall out (Ali’s original opponent Jermaine White was replaced by Warrior on two days notice). The better fighters cost a lot of money and I’m not in that position yet. I’m ready to step up.

“I want to keep my promotional company going, enhance my career and stay busy. I also want to help other fighters because I know how hard it is getting fights without a promoter.”

In a non-title fight, WBC FECARBOX cruiserweight champion Santander “Cha-Cha” Silgado (23-0, 18 KOs) defeated Joell Godfrey (15-9-1, 6 KOs) for the second time in two months. Silgado won an eight-round decision over Godfrey this past August and repeated that outcome in the co-feature against his late replacement.

Colombia-native Silgado, now residing in Brooklyn, is rated No. 8 by the World Boxing Council (WBC) and No. 10 in the World Boxing Association (WBA). Godfrey has never been stopped in 25 professional fights.

Three-time Egyptian Olympian Ramadan “Holy Man” Yasser (8-0, 5 KOs) engaged in an old-fashioned brawl with Philadelphia cruiserweight Tim Johnson (4-2, 2 KOs). Yasser, who now lives in New York City, dropped Johnson in the first and fifth rounds en route to unanimous six-round decision to remain undefeated.

One-fisted Queens (NY) cruiserweight Michael Costantino, who was born without a right hand, won his pro debut by second-round technical knockout of Nathan Ortiz (0-3). Costantino hurt Ortiz with several strong lefts until Ortiz, turned his back, signaling his corner that he didn’t want to continue fighting.

Manhattan light middleweight Stevie Gamache (4-0, 1 KO) kept his unbeaten record intact, taking all four rounds from a game Jose Angel Ortiz (4-11-1, 1 KO). Gamache is trained by his father, two-time, two-division world champion Joey Gamache.

Boxers in attendance supporting the show included Paulie Malignggi, Junior Jones, Luis Colazzo, Vinny Maddalone, Maureen Shea, Gary Stark, Gabriel Bracero and Will Rosinsky.

Brooklyn bantamweight Jennifer Santiago (2-0) pitched a shutout, winning all four rounds against Ivan “Boo Boo” Coleman (0-3). Light middleweight Shawn Cameron (3-0, 2 KOs) won a battle of previously unbeaten Brooklyn fighters with a four-round decision over Mamadou Doumbia (1-1).

Go online to www.SadamAliBoxing.com for more information about Sadam Ali or follow him on Twitter @realworldkidali.

Sadam Ali’s corner

Full Results:

(Winners listed first)

Cruiserweights

Santander Silgado (23-0, 18 KOs), Brooklyn, NY

WDEC8 (80-72, 79-72, 78-74)

Joell Godfrey (15-9-1, 6 KOs), East St. Louis, IL

Ramadan Yasser (8-0, 5 KOs), New York, NY

WDEC6 (59-53, 59-54, 58-54)

Tim Johnson (4-2, 2 KOs), Philadelphia, PA

Light Heavyweights

Michael Costantino (1-0, 1 KO), Queens, NY

WTKO2 (1:16)

Nathan Ortiz (0-3), Crystal River, FL

Light Middleweights

Steven Gamache (4-0, 1 KO), Manhattan, NY

WDEC4 (40-36, 40-36, 40-36)

Jose Angel Ortiz (4-11-1, 1 KO), Springfield, MA

Shawn Cameron (3-0, 2 KOs), Brooklyn, NY

WDEC4 (40-36, 40-36, 39-37)

Mamadou Doumbia (1-1), Brooklyn, NY

Welterweights

Sadam Ali (16-0, 10 KOs), Brooklyn, NY

WTKO2 (2:59)

Ronnie Warrior, Jr. (13-8-1, 4 KOs), Oklahoma City, OK

Female Bantamweights (4)

Jennifer Santiago (2-0), Brooklyn, NY

WDEC4 (40-36, 40-36, 40-36)

Ivana Coleman (0-3), Sidell, LA

There’s an empty corner in boxing’s battered soul today. There’s always a couple. But none looks quite so large and profoundly sad as the one left by Emanuel Steward’s death Thursday. Gone is his dignity. Gone is his poise. Gone is a gentleman.

I want to say the void will never be filled. But I can’t. Steward won’t let me. Wladimir Klitschko said Wednesday, a day before Steward’s death was confirmed, that his trainer’s “spirit” is always there.

“I can always hear his voice,’’ Klitschko said when asked how he would react without Steward in his corner against Mariusz Wach in Hamburg, Germany for a November 10 bout televised by EPIX.

It’s a voice still heard, because it was without the histrionics associated with a business so noisy that it often sounds as if it includes only extremes and screamers. Steward was never one of those. In his optimistic eyes, you could see calm in the storm. Throw chaos at Steward, and he’d give you that wry smile and a way to conquer it.

I first met him in Phoenix, where his daughter was a student at Arizona State University. He brought Thomas Hearns and Lennox Lewis to train there. He promoted there. For a while, he operated Kronk West, an extension of his fabled Detroit gym, in Tucson.

One of his longtime friends, Steve Eisner, lived in Phoenix. Eisner, a promoter, was one of those storybook characters that only boxing can produce and Damon Runyon could portray. Steward was forever loyal to Eisner, who died in 2003. He was living in Detroit when Steward won a national Golden Gloves title as an 18-year-old bantamweight in 1963. Eisner urged him to go pro. Eisner wanted to manage him. But Steward resisted. Instead, he paid his bills with work as an electrical lineman and followed his voice by coaching, first at Joe Louis’ old gym – Brewster Recreational Center — and then at his own, Kronk.

Eisner was always convinced that Steward would have been a world champion in his own right. As a trainer, however, Steward left a more significant legacy with a list of 41 world champions, starting with Hilmer Kenty in 1980 and one which continues with Klitschko.

Throughout his 68 years, Steward did much more. There was ringside commentary for HBO. He was solid in the role, but that tuxedo never seemed to fit. He belonged in a fighter’s colors with a towel over a shoulder and a bucket in one hand. His familiar presence in a corner was comforting. Despite cliched criticism and tired calls for boxing to be abolished, it always said to me that that the game was in good shape.

That corner, I believe, captures how he wants to be remembered. He was a natural trainer, and there are never enough of them. Had he grown up in a different place or another time, he might have been a great military man. He understood how to wage combat without emotions that lead to panic. He was in the fight business, yet he was able to stay above the dust-ups – the fray — that always comes with it. That’s not easy to do.

I last saw him during the week before Tim Bradley’s controversial victory over Manny Pacquiao on June 9 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. I was writing in the press tent. He came up behind me, grabbed me and gave me a hug. He talked about Eisner. Talked about Bradley and Pacquiao. Talked about boxing. I don’t know if he knew then that he was ill. Speculation about his health began to circulate before Sergio Martinez beat Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Sept. 15, also in Vegas. He wasn’t there. The talk was ominous. He was in the hospital then and had told those close to him not to reveal his dire condition.

It’s outrageous that some media ghouls chose to pursue the story without regard for his family, which wasn’t allowed to mourn in the peace provided by privacy. The pain was evident early Thursday in denials to death reports that included no confirmation from anybody in the Steward family. It would have been nice if that segment of the media had respected Steward the way he had respected them. But my anger at that crowd is tempered by Steward’s voice. Media are just part of the fray. Stay above it and the media’s pathetic rivalries.

Only the fight matters. Remember that. And remember Steward’s instinctive optimism. It’ll tell you that voids are meant to be filled and fights are there to be won. Thanks, Emanuel.

New York, NY (October 24, 2012) – Although he’ll go down in history as a member of the first fight ever at the Barclays Center in his native Brooklyn, NY, Captain Boyd “Rainmaker” Melson left the ring last Saturday night a frustrated fighter.

“I won this fight at worst 4 rounds to 2 with the mutual knockdowns canceling each other out,” the West Point graduate said of his six round junior middleweight bout with rugged veteran Jason Thompson. “I got caught early on in a round that I was winning before I got knocked down and won the rest of after. Additionally, I controlled the ring generalship.”

With close to 300 fans cheering him on, Melson got off to a rough start, suffering a knockdown during the first stanza. After retaking control in the second round, Melson stormed back in the third, decking Thompson with a hard hook immediately followed by a straight left, but was unable to finish his game foe off. During the final three rounds, Thompson landed a few hard clean punches each round while Melson continued to connect with a significantly higher volume of more visibly effective punches. He also demonstrated a better level of conditioning down the stretch by finishing strong.

Thompson continued to fight Melson hard despite receiving more punishment as the final round came to a close for the two New Yorkers. Virtually all of the ringside media members believed Melson’s consistency in pressing the fight and landing significantly higher visibly effective blows throughout the bout clearly earned him the victory.

After six exciting rounds to kick off a historic evening of boxing, all three judges scored the bout 56-56.

“I’m very upset with the decision,” stated Melson, who fought three times since August, all while working a fulltime job for Johnson&Johnson and serving as an Army Reserve Officer. “There was maybe one round outside of the first that I could’ve given to him, so that’d make it 4 rounds to 2 in my favor. This is one of my most frustrating moments in professional boxing, but I am sure I will have more. Most important, I need to keep working harder to ensure I am doing all I possibly can to not leave any doubt in the judges eyes as to my earning a clear victory.”

Even with the draw, the popular Brooklynite recognized there were some good things that came out of the evening.

“On the contrary, there were many positives tonight. I was blessed with the opportunity to be a part of history and there were a lot of people who wanted to speak to me about what I fight for. Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions were extremely generous to not only allow me to fight on their card, but to match my purse by personally donating to Justadollarplease.org. I loved fighting at the Barclays Center and hope to be on another card in the near future. I also had one of the most special moments of my life when my best friend Christan Zaccagnino, who is my inspiration for what I do, wheel in her chair down the aisle with me as I walked to the ring for my bout. I will never forget that moment.”

Melson, one of the most popular local fighters in the New York area, will take a brief break from boxing after fighting seven times since October 2011.

In association with the 501 (C) 3 nonprofit Justadollarplease.org, Melson and his best friend Christan Zaccagnino created Team Fight to Walk, whose mission is to raise awareness within the boxing community as well as the entire nation about the importance of bringing Clinical Trials to the United States to help cure Spinal Cord Injuries. Team Fight to Walk is comprised of Melson, Zaccagnino, former Rutgers football player/ESPY honoree Eric LeGrand, two-time cruiserweight champion Steve “USS” Cunningham, title contender DeAndre “The Bull” Latimore, Edgar “El Chamaco” Santana, Hector “Machito” Camacho Jr., 2008 US Olympians Demetrius “Boo” Andrade and Shawn Estrada along with prospects Sid “The Messenger” El Harrak, Jeff “TNT” Spencer, Denis “Da Momma’s Boy” Douglin, Will “Power” Rosinsky, Floriano “Italiano” Pagliara, Danny “Little Mac” McDermott, Vinny “The Lion” O’Brien, Ahmed “Prince of Egypt” Samir and Delen “Sniper” Parsley.

When Irish-American boxer Sean Monaghan (15-0, 10 KO’s) looks at his predecessors, he sees one thing; a stereotype. For too long, he has watched multiple Irish fighters being labeled as a brawlers and then fighting in that fashion. When Sean Monaghan began his career, he was immediately added to the long list of Irish-born boxers who are face first brawlers.

The truth is, he fought that way in his early days. He broke his opponents down with his sledgehammer-like fists, and his excellent stamina allowed for him to apply consistent pressure. But there is more to it than that. Monaghan barely had an amateur career. He made it to the NY Golden Gloves finals, and despite the losing effort, he came out garnering lots of respect. He started Boxing at the “late” age of 26, so he took the leap of faith into the professional ranks. Combining his amateur and professional records, Monaghan is about as much a newbie to the sport as some teenagers in the gyms that he works out.

Wednesday night, at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, NY, Sean Monaghan looks to compliment his toughness with a refined ability as a technician. Coincidentally, this event promoted by Dibella Entertainment also presents a perfect complement to the fireworks that took place in Brooklyn over the weekend.

“I’m fighting my opponent, but also the stereotype of being a brawler,” stated Monaghan at Monday’s press conference at Jack Dempsey’s restaurant and bar in Manhattan.

Monaghan is set to face off against Rayco Saunders (22-17, 9 KO’s) in a bout scheduled for ten rounds. “We’re ready for ten rounds, but we think it will end earlier,” stated his trainer, Joe Higgins. Despite his record, Saunders is a bit of a spoiler. He has faced many up and coming prospects, and has given nearly all of them fits. He is by far the most experienced opponent Monaghan has faced, and will test Monaghan’s patience numerous times. Higgins isn’t concerned, indicating his fighter’s workmanlike regimen when he said, “Seanie is the truest professional I have ever seen. He comes to the gym with his tool belt on.“

The bout will have the WBC Continental Americas Light Heavyweight title on the line.

The co-feature of the evening features Gabriel “Tito” Bracero (19-1, 3 KO’s) as he continues to make his trek back to the national stage. He is facing Eric Cruz (13-10, 13 KO’s) of Puerto Rico. Back in January, Bracero was shocked when he was dropped three times en route to a decision loss against DeMarcus Corley. Kevin Rooney Jr. of Dibella Entertainment summed it up best when he said, “The fact that he was able to come back after the three knockdowns and sweep the last rounds and making it a close fight is a testament to the kind of fighter that he is and also the kind of person that he is.”

“I’m cranky. I want to go in there and win. I want to go in there and kick his ass already. Like I said, I’m cranky,” said Bracero. The fight itself is a great clash of styles. Bracero, while not much of a power puncher, likes to keep the fight on the inside, while Cruz is said to be rangier while packing a big wallop. Bracero finished by saying, “You never know. I might knock his ass out.”

The rest of the card features very popular prospects fighting out of the New York City area. Delen Parsley (8-0, 2KO’s), Travis Peterkin (4-0, 3KO’s), Floriano “L’ Italiano” Pagliara (13-4-2, 7KO’s) and Heather Hardy (1-0).will all be featured.

Tickets are priced at $125, $85, and $65, and are on sale now. Tickets can be purchased through any Ticketmaster outlet, visiting Ticketmaster.com, or calling (800) 745-3000

SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA – After over a year away from the ring, 52-year-old local favorite Paul Nave claimed an eight-round unanimous decision over Justin Danforth to achieve the personal milestone of career win number 20 at Albert Park Field on Friday night.

Nave (20-9-2, 8 KOs) of San Anselmo, California took a couple rounds to adjust to the unexpectedly southpaw stance of Danforth (6-19, 1 KO) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Danforth, who came out to the ring in a Hannibal Lecter mask, landed the first clean punch of the fight, a solid left hand in the first, but was never able to hurt California’s oldest licensed fighter.

Both fighters struggled at times with their footing in the fight, as the moist October air left the red ring mat damp. Danforth, 146 ½, was the first to taste the canvas as a result, which was correctly ruled a slip by referee Ray Balewicz in the second round. Both fighters looked to overcome the awkward lefty-righty stance problem by throwing whenever they could. Sometimes the punches were wide or coming from odd angles as both Nave and Danforth aimed to land something clean.

Each fighter landed some of their best shots in the fourth. Nave, 146 ½, landed a clean left hook with Danforth backing up early in the round. Danforth eventually landed back with a hard left of his own before the close of the round. Since Danforth routinely kept his right held low, the wide left would land consistently for Nave throughout the fight.

Nave pressed the action a bit harder in the fifth, again finding Danforth with his left hand. Nave looked to have clipped Danforth with a moderately low blow that the Milwaukee native milked to either gain some time or work the referee for a warning on Nave. Danforth’s acting was not good enough to earn either from Balewicz, who instructed him to box without any timeout. In a somewhat sloppy sixth, Nave was eventually warned for a low blow, but none of his punches ever seemed to stray with any sort of intent.

The most heated round would be the seventh. After some encouraging in his corner, Nave seemed amped at the start and quickly landed his best combination of the fight. The wet conditions came into play again as a Danforth left grazed Nave and the fighter-promoter’s gloved touched the canvas as one of his legs slipped from under him. After Balewicz ruled it a slip, Nave bounced back up and charged back at Danforth, who weathered the rush and eventually fired back. The exchanges lasted a bit after the bell to end the round and Danforth would return to his corner with blood over his right eye.

Nave landed a clean right that rocked Danforth early in the eighth that brought his loud home supporters to their feet, encouraging the old warrior to press for something big. Danforth was awkward enough to evade some of the follow-up and eventually battle back. Helping Danforth’s cause was another Nave slip in the midst of an exchange. Once Nave got back up, both fighters threw until the sound of the bell, much to the delight of the crowd. In the end the scores were all wide for Nave, 79-73 and 80-72 twice.

“It was a personal I had, to get 20 wins,” said Nave after the bout. “He was awkward. He was tough, I give him credit. He was in good shape and he fought back hard. I had no idea he was left handed. I saw one picture where he was posed left handed, but everywhere you looked it said he was orthodox. I asked some people, but it’s not a good idea I guess to ask his trainer/manager. It was just difficult. I didn’t prepare whatsoever for a southpaw. It’s no excuse. You have to adjust like against anyone else and I did.”

Not only did Nave have to combat the natural effects of his advancing age, but Friday’s bout ended a second consecutive layoff of a year or more. However Nave felt better prepared physically this time around, as opposed to last year when he would eventually drop a majority decision to previously unbeaten Brandon Hoskins. “I had to lose eleven pounds in one day last year, and I didn’t give myself the best opportunity to win,” said Nave. “I swore to myself I would never do that again and I didn’t.”

With win number 20 secured, Nave could walk away satisfied, but the “Marin County Assassin” has designs on continuing. “I plan on fighting once or twice more,” says Nave. “With my resume, I think I have a chance for a decent money fight and maybe something will pop up. I don’t plan to wait it out until another year. Either I am going to stay more active or I am going to hang them up. I don’t have a timetable just yet, but I am going to take a look and see what options are out there and what opportunities I get. I can push for something now, coming off a win, so we’ll see what happens.”

Local ticket seller Laura Deanovic (1-3) of San Francisco, California earned her first pro win and avenged an earlier defeat at the same time with a hard-fought four-round unanimous decision over Claudia Amaro (1-3) of Fresno, California.

It was a free-swinging affair from the get go, as both Amaro, 127, and Deanovic, 122 ½, showed some limitations defensively but a ton of heart at the same time. Amaro opened well and cut Deanvoic over her left eye in the early going. Deanovic closed the round the aggressor and possibly took the round with a late rally. Deanovic, who presents a much more muscular, imposing figure, exercised her edge in power beginning in the second. Amaro was rocked several times, first by a solid right and later in a combination. Late in the round, Deanovic backed off, which gave Amaro a chance to press and eventually open up the cut.

After a back-and-forth third, Deanovic rushed out for the fourth and pounded Amaro throughout the round. Amaro threw back enough off the ropes to avoid a possible stoppage, but ended up on the losing end 39-37 on all three cards. Amaro took a four-round majority decision over Deanovic in May of last year.

Marquita Lee (2-0) of Novato, California withstood constant pressure throughout, but outpointed determined veteran Lisa Lewis (7-15, 3 KOs) of Fresno over four. Lewis, 127, pressed Lee, 129 ½, in the first, forcing the local fighter to the ropes for much of the opening round. Lee bounced back with a solid second round as she found a better range to start the round. Lewis eventually forced Lee back to the ropes with a clean series, before the Novato fighter brought the action back to center ring.

Outside of brief moments, Lee controlled the distance the last two rounds and thus the fight. Lee did not stand behind many of her shots in the second half, but did fight out at a range that the shorter and slower Lewis could not land at all. Closing the fight as a mover, Lee took all three cards 39-37. Moments after the fight, Lewis had to attended to by the on-hand EMTs for an asthma attack. Lewis was eventually taken by the fire department as a precaution.

Using his speed and athleticism, Aldwayne Simpson (3-0, 2 KOs) of Richmond, California thwarted the onrushing attack of Jovanni Rubio (7-16, 4 KOs) of Santa Rosa, California en route to a wide four-round unanimous decision.

Simpson, 144 ½, switched seamlessly from the southpaw stance to orthodox and back throughout the fight. The shorter Rubio, 146, had to sell out and rush in on Simpson to get into punching range, a technique that found mixed results at best.

Rubio tried to make it a dirty fight at times, perhaps to untrack Simpson. After a second round in which Simpson rocked Rubio in at least two instances, while Rubio’s moments consisted of lifting his opponent and hitting on breaks, referee Dan Stell warned both fighters for their infractions. Simpson kept his range more consistently in the third, catching Rubio at a distance.

Simpson had Rubio in trouble again in the fourth as he feinted with a right and landed clean with a left. Rubio looked to hold, eventually getting his arms around Simpson. When Stell demanded a break, Rubio continued to punch with his free hand. Stell took Rubio aside and signaled for a point deduction. Rubio kept up his dirty tactics until the end, as he initiated an exchange well after the final bell, before Stell leaped in to end the conflict. Scores were academic, as Simpson won unanimously 39-36 and 40-35 twice.

Opening the event was an amateur contest between local star Rudy Macedo of Novato and David Lopez of San Francisco. Despite downing Lopez twice, Macedo was defeated by scores 29-28 across the board. There was some confusion at the start of the fight, as the fighters were forced to switch corners after their announcement. Some ringside felt that the judges may have scored rounds for the wrong fighter, but in amateur scoring knockdowns do not lead to a 10-8 round.

Photos by Stephanie Trapp

Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at ortega15rds@lycos.com.

This is not a grateful farewell to Erik Morales. That column happened six years ago, when it was still merited. This, rather, is an acknowledgement “El Terrible” has fully amortized his legend and no more is due him. No longer must his failures in the ring be treated in reverent, hushed words wrapped with dignity. Anymore, the dignified aura Morales wears is a projection – some combination of a recently more approachable self when his gloves are off, and aficionados’ appreciativeness for what he gave us the first 50 matches of his career.

There was nothing dignified about Morales’ performance Saturday in the inaugural main event of Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Barclays Center, and there was nothing dignified about the maneuvering last week to ensure it went off. And there was nothing dignified – splendid, perhaps, but not dignified – about the way Danny “Swift” Garcia defended his junior welterweight titles by screwing Morales into the blue mat with a gorgeous left hook at 1:23 of round 4, after taking Morales’ measure in the final minute of the opening round by nimbly retreating from Morales and noticing he did not bother to give chase.

Morales is Erik the Terrible no longer. He is Erik the bloated, today, Erik the uninterested, Erik the mercenary, Erik the unmotivated salesman who tells you he’s got a product that sells itself. The “El Terrible” to remember and tell kids about ended his career with aplomb March 19, 2005. That night Morales, having lost the third match of his trilogy with Marco Antonio Barrera fewer than four months ago, beat back the man becoming known as “The Mexicutioner.” That night, in a show of mindless bravery, Morales, leading on all scorecards after 11 rounds, fought Manny Pacquiao as a southpaw for the 12th, an act in contemporary prizefighting without equivalent.

Since then Morales’ record in world title fights is 1-6. The best part of Morales’ career was over when Barrera was through with him, though no one suspected it. The prime Morales looked starved, his ribs countable on a skinny, almost weird body that conjured paeans to malnutrition more than athleticism. He looked frail enough for his fellow Mexicans to go for those ribs, and his liver, and get served right-uppercut counters unlike anything their palates knew before.

Within six months of his signature victory over Pacquiao, though, Morales’ face was puffy in a way it has been ever since, flesh glommed onto the pits where his cheeks were once hollow – when his lightweight debut saw him undressed by Philadelphian Zahir Raheem. Saturday it was Garcia, a different Philadelphian, who undressed him. More accurately: Morales got stripped, not undressed, Saturday, the remnants of his greatness in a prizefighting ring yanked from one arm, spinning him rightwards, then snapped off his legs, spinning him left.

In a merciful twist Morales should find absurd on reflection, the lower two ropes preserved years on the end of his life. Had Garcia’s seeing-eye left hook caught Morales in the center of the ring, Morales’ torqued shoulders would have pushed into the blue mat and bounced the back of his head off of padded plywood, jostling his brain and ageing it still further. The knockout was violent enough to bring Morales’ chief second rushing at the same ropes that now tangled his charge and struggling through them as the 10-count commenced. If Morales wanted an exclamation point on the end of a sentence that told him to give up boxing, Garcia put two punctuation marks on it in homage to their Spanish heritage: ¡Retírate ya!

It is no longer easy to doubt Morales’ capacity for absurdity as it once was, because Morales is no longer as honest a prizefighter as he once was. There was a time his then-promoter Bob Arum rightly compared El Terrible to Marvelous Marvin Hagler – a professional who showed up and fought whomever under whatever circumstances. There was a refreshing obliviousness about Morales then; if he knew what others opined of him, he did not let on. He has long been more self-aware than that, long been fluent enough in English to know exactly what is written and said of him and react to it, but this awareness of himself as a legendary figure whom tradition stopped constraining years ago, the awareness he now brings beneath a layer of fat to each weighin, is unseemly.

Did he take the banned substance clenbuterol to suppress his appetite during training camp – as U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s samples A and B and C and D but apparently not E and F indicated last week? More must be learned on that score, but no disinterested observer can put banned substances outside the reach of any modern athlete, much less one whose name has long cashed checks his body was unable to cover. Most disinterested observers should admit, too, American sportsfans don’t care a bit about PEDs, deep down, as the NFL’s popularity in America would be said to have grown proportionately with its players – had the league’s 53,200-percent increase in 300-pound players between 1970 and 2010 not made that a mathematical impossibility.

Nutritional pharmacology is a science like economics, not physics – filled, that is, with invented constructs, like “metabolism” and “caloric value,” used to obfuscate more than clarify – but this much about the effects of central nervous system (CNS) stimulants like clenbuterol can be proved: They suppress appetite and race the heart. Coming off them, though, is a horror of deep headaches and malaise. It is an understatement, indeed, to say a suddenly clean athlete whose body has acclimated itself to CNS-stimulant use might begin a competition, or even the perusal of a morning newspaper, “sluggishly.”

Would clenbuterol, known colloquially as “clen” in boxing gyms everywhere, make it easier for an aged fighter like Morales to starve himself but still have adequate energy and concentration for the daily toil and boredom of a training camp?

Does Antonio Margarito like ephedrine with his coffee?

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

We already covered tonight’s Garcia vs. Morales main event. Now on Showtime, it is the main event, but in the Barclays Center there is another main event.

Brooklyn’s main event.

Paul Malignaggi (31-4, 7 KO’s) vs. Pablo Cesar Cano (25-1, 19 KO’s)
Paul Malignaggi was once a young talent begging for a title shot. Now he’s the veteran about to face a talented young fighter. Pablo Cesar Cano is no joke. His one loss came against Erik Morales in a fight that he took on very short notice, and had to stop the match due to a cut. Otherwise, his record is virtually blemish proof against some very stiff opposition.

But Malignaggi has a not so secret weapon. He is fighting as the titleholder in his hometown of Brooklyn, NY. This is something he never imagined happening to himself. Mostly due to the fact that Brooklyn never had a venue to facilitate world title fights. At the pre-fight press conference, Cano made a mention of this fight being a war. This doesn’t phase Malignaggi.

“Listen, man, we can do wars. We can do boxing matches. I have done it all. I have 35 pro fights. I’ll be 32 next month, and I have been in there with the best and fought some of the best, won some, lost some. Won two world titles as you know. There is nothing that I have not seen. So, be at war, a tactical match. So, there is nothing new on Saturday night that I can expect to see that I haven’t already seen and that I’m not prepared to deal with.”

Peter Quillin (27-0, 20 KO’s) vs. Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam (27-0, 17 KO’s)
For those in the know, this match-up is the one that most believe will be the fight of the night. Both fighters are undefeated and both are very good. For anyone able to view fight footage of N’Dam, one thing stood out. He is the real deal. He isn’t your typical euro-fighter that has faced soft opposition. Quillin, a native New Yorker, is poised to impress. He has been yearning for a big opportunity on this stage. Both fighters can box and are very capable of keeping things technical, but don’t be surprised if you see them showcasing power punches.

“But, I know that I have the skill to pay the bills. And come October 20, I will look you in the eye, Hassan, and you will see all the pain I will endure on you,” stated Quillin. N’Dam’s response was, “I do want you to see a show on Saturday night. I am a French showman.”

Randall Bailey (43-7, 37 KO’s) vs. Devon Alexander (23-1, 13 KO’s)
This match-up is the perfect clash of styles. Bailey is one of the most feared punchers in the game while Alexander is one of the fastest stylists in the game. While Alexander looks to be the favored fighter, Bailey is not concerned. He has been the underdog against young gunners in the past. And he prevailed.

“I am still going to prove myself by taking on Randall Bailey. You guys say that he’s Knockout King Bailey, but Saturday night I will show you what I’m going to do to him. I don’t run from anybody. I will fight anybody. I’m a throwback fighter. And I’m ready to rock ‘n’ roll. I have been ready since September 8,” said a confident Alexander. Bailey, a man of few words, stated, “So, I’m looking way too forward to Saturday night. It will be a great show. I plan on putting on a great show, along with all of the other fighters come Saturday night.”

NOVATO, CALIFORNIA – Refusing to listen to his detractors, 52-year-old local hero Paul Nave returns to the ring tonight in search of elusive win number 20 as he takes on Justin Danforth in the eight-round main attraction of what will likely be the last professional boxing event to take place at Albert Park Field in Downtown San Rafael. Fighters for the five-bout card weighed-in at the nearby Inn Marin on Thursday evening.

Nave (19-9-2, 8 KOs) of San Anselmo, California was last in the ring a little over a year ago. In the fifth fight of his unlikely comeback after a nine-plus year retirement, Nave battled previously unbeaten 25-year-old Brandon Hoskins on even terms but came up just short with a majority decision defeat. Nave took painstaking measures to bring last year’s event to Albert Park Field and encountered similar obstacles in bringing tonight’s card back to the park. After granting Nave permission to host tonight’s event, local officials passed legislature that will prevent future boxing events to take place at the venue. Given all the factors, local fight fans should think of this as their last opportunity to see outdoor boxing in San Rafael and, for all anybody knows, the last hurrah of the “Marin County Assassin.”

Aiming to spoil the show is Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s “Jazzy” Justin Danforth (6-18, 1 KO). Though mired in a four-fight losing streak, Danforth has been matched tough against some of better prospects in the Midwest. Although it has not happened often, Danforth has proved capable of springing an upset. Most notably, Danforth ended the unbeaten run of Mike Post via six-round decision back in 2006. Post has yet to lose another fight. Both Nave and Danforth weighed-in a pound under the welterweight limit at 146-pounds on Thursday.

In undercard action, one of the area’s brighter prospects Aldwayne Simpson (2-0, 2 KOs) of Richmond, California will take on Jovanni Rubio (7-15, 4 KOs) of Santa Rosa, California in a four-round welterweight bout. Simpson, who recently added Virgil Hunter to his team which includes respected head trainer Henry Jarrow, will be making his Bay Area return after turning pro back in 2009. After fighting as a middleweight and super middleweight in recent years, Rubio is back down to 145-pounds for the first time since 2007. Simpson scaled 144 ½, while Rubio stripped down to just make the contracted 145-pound limit.

Novato’s Marquita Lee (1-0) returns to the Albert Park Field ring in a four-round super featherweight bout against veteran Lisa Lewis (7-14, 3 KOs) of Fresno, California. Lee is coming off of a four-round decision over Laura Deanovic last year. Lewis, though she had a fight fall out in August, has not competed since 2007. Lewis’ record reads like a who’s who in women’s boxing, including losses to Holly Holm, Melissa Fiorentino, Kelsey Jeffries and Jessica Rakoczy among others. Lee scaled 129 ½, while Lewis came in at 127-pounds.

Having proven to be a ticket seller in her defeat at the park last year, Laura Deanovic (0-3) of San Francisco, California is back in search of elusive win number one. Opposing Deanovic is a familiar foe in Claudia Amaro (1-2) of Fresno in a four-round featherweight bout. Amaro claimed a four-round majority decision over Deanovic in May of last year. Amaro’s first battle came against the scale, as she came in at 127-pounds, a few pounds over the contract limit. Deanovic made weight at 122 ½-pounds. An agreement was reached and the fight will go on as scheduled.

Opening the evening will be an amateur exhibition between local amateur star Rudy Macedo of Novato and David Lopez of San Francisco. Macedo weighed-in for their three-round bout at 154-pounds, while Lopez came in at 156-pounds.

Tickets for the event, promoted by Liberty Boxing Enterprises, are available online at Ticketmaster.com.

Quick Weigh-in Results:

Welterweights, 8 Rounds
Nave 146 ½
Danforth 146 ½

Welterweights, 4 Rounds
Simpson 144 ½
Rubio 146

Super Featherweights, 4 Rounds
Lee 129 ½
Lewis 127

Featherweights, 4 Rounds
Amaro 127
Deanovic 122 ½

Amateur Weigh-in Results:

Light Middleweights, 3 Rounds
Macedo 154
Lopez 156

Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at ortega15rds@lycos.com.

Happy Birthday, Evander Holyfield.

A couple of lifetimes have been jammed into your half-century of heavyweight titles, improbable comebacks, surprises and disappointments. You lost your money and even a piece of your ear, but never your defiant pride.

You lost in a classic to Riddick Bowe and you were there as an eye witness on the night that the Fan Man dropped into the ring like the 82nd Airborne Division on the night of the rematch at Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace.

You saw Mike Tyson for the bully he was and then slayed the beast when few thought anybody could. Tyson’s only counter was to tear off a piece of your ear in a rematch that spawned chaos throughout the MGM Grand and the streets surrounding the Vegas casino.

You were fearless, yet flawed.

Within the ropes, your mix of tactical skill and instinctive poise was often brilliant.

Outside of the ropes, your contradictions as a preacher with many wives and children were exasperating.

The critics gathered, calling you a hypocrite and then demanding that you retire. But you stood up to all of it, just as you stood up to Tyson, in your characteristically quiet manner. That’s why I say Happy Birthday. Few live life on their own terms, but at 50 you have, no matter how terrible the cost.

I’m not sure you’ll stay retired. Every time you have to pay alimony — $3,000 a month — and a reported $500,000 in child support, there will be the temptation to step through ropes one more time for a bout that will allow some shameless promoter to cash in on your name. My wish is that you stay retired. I hope it is yours as well. But that’s your business.

In retirement, it will be left to history to decide where you belong among the great heavyweights. About that, I have no doubts. As a four-time heavyweight champ and – for now – America’s last great heavyweight, you belong in the all-time top 10.

Here’s an informal list that will always be subject to debate and revision. Over the years, however, I suspect Holyfield will be always be there for the tenacity, technical proficiency and resiliency that have yet to be fully appreciated.

1. – Joe Louis. Great speed, power and furious combinations created the heavyweight who has been transformed into a historical figure for his rematch victory over Germany’s Max Schmeling in a 1938 bout symbolic of an imminent world war.

2. – Muhammad Ali. Few have ever possessed better foot work, which was matched by fast hands and a mouth that has roared down through decades since he changed his name and a lot minds during the 1960s and early 70s.

3. – Jack Johnson. The early 1900s were a very different time, but Johnson’s defense and some modern training would have made him the equal of anyone in any time. He went unbeaten for a decade. His place in history is secure. Without him, there would have been no “Great White Hope.’’

4. – George Foreman. He won a heavyweight title in 1994 when he was 45, in part because of the skills and sheer power he possessed as a younger man. He lost to Ali in the famed “Rumble in the Jungle.’’ But there were very few who could withstand the concussive force he had in both hands.

5. – Joe Frazier. His relentless pressure made him dangerous for anybody who dared stand in front of him, including Ali, who lost the first fight in a series that has become the standard for any great rivalry.

6. — Lennox Lewis. Size, speed and power made him virtually unbeatable and when he was on top of his game throughout the 1990s and during the first few years in the new millennium. Sometimes, however, his focus seemed to wander. When it did, he left his vulnerable chin open to a knockout shot.

7. – Evander Holyfield.

8. – Jack Dempsey. He would relentlessly attack and was quick to capitalize on any weakness he exposed during the 1920s. In a modern parallel, Dempsey has been compared to Roberto Duran, who was inexhaustible and unstoppable during his days as perhaps the greatest lightweight of all time.

9. – Larry Holmes. He was as great a tactician in the 1970s as there has ever been in the heavyweight division. His jab serves as a model.

10.– Rocky Marciano. He swarmed opponents in the 1950s with a brawling style hard to beat. Or in his case, impossible to beat. There’s a debate about whether his unbeaten record (49-0) was compiled against fighters past their prime. It also eliminates a key yardstick: How would he have responded to a loss? In a sport built on adversity, that’s a key. It helps us judge Holyfield, who came back from defeat more than once. Still, it keeps Marciano on this list.

World Middleweight Champion Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez of Maravilla Box Promotions will make his promotional debut in his home country of Argentina on Saturday, November 3, in the city of Colon, in Entre Rios, Argentina, in a jam-packed night of professional boxing presenting two world title fights and several top contenders in important battles.

Co-promoted by Maravilla Box, Sampson Lewkowicz of Sampson Boxing and Carlos Gonzalez of Best Box, the exciting night will feature in the 12-round main event, WBA #2 contender Roberto “La Araña” Vasquez (32-5, 22 KOs) of Panama City, Panama, taking on WBA #3 contender John Mark “Iceman” Apolinario (17-2-1 4 KOs) of Sarangani, Philippines, for the Interim WBA World Bantamweight Championship.

The 29-year-old southpaw Vasquez is a former WBA World light flyweight Champion. 22-year-old Apolinario won the WBO Oriental Super Flyweight title in 2009.

In the night’s 10-round co-main event, Cecilia “La Reina” Comunales (9-1, 6 KOs) from Paysandu, Uruguay, will make the first defense of her WBA female lightweight title against Simone Da Silva Duarte (11-3, 4 KOs) from Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The 23-year-old Comunales won the title with a TKO 1 over Maribel Santana last March.

On the jam-packed undercard:

In a 10-round super featherweight bout, Israel Hector Enrique “Cachito” Perez (23-2-1, 13 KOs) from Oxnard, California via Buenos Aires, will face Orlen Padilla (19-3-1, 17 KOs) from Puerto Colombia, Colombia.

In a 10-round featherweight bout, Jonathan “Salomon King” Guzman (8-0, 8 KOs) of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, will face Emerson “The Winner” Santos Carvalho (10-3-1, 8 KOs) from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In another 10-round super featherweight bout, Fernando David “El Vasco” Saucedo (46-5-3, 4 KOs) from Buenos Aires, Argentina takes on Cristian El Tigre Palma (18-6-1, 5 KOs) from Lautaro, Chile.

In a 10-round welterweight bout for the vacant WBA Fedelatin Welterweight Title, Azael “Turbo” Cosio (15-1-2, 12 KOs) from Santa Marta, Panama, will face Cesar Humberto Velez (11-3-1, 4 KOs) from Cordoba, Argentina.

In an 8-round super lightweight bout, Juan Carlos “Merengue” Abreu (12-0, 11 KOs) Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, will face Claudinei “Volcano” Lacerda (14-6, 10 KOs) from Sombrio, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

And in another 10-round super featherweight bout, undefeated Braulio “El Chavo” Rodriguez (9-0, 9 KOs) from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, will take on Roberto Santos de Jesus (14-7, 10 KOs) from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The beautiful City of Colón in Argentina is located on the western shore of the Uruguay River and lies opposite Paysandú, Uruguay. Colón is the center of an important tourist region, featuring high-quality hotels, a casino, and also a hot springs and associated facilities.

The event will be televised by TyC Sports in Argentina, in Panama on RPC Channel 4, in Uruguay on VTV and on TV5 in the Philippines.

Here’s what happened Saturday. An excellent junior welterweight prizefight scheduled for 10 rounds ended in the seventh. The busier and more effective man through the match’s opening five rounds was startled in the sixth and wobbled in the seventh. Headbanging on stiffened legs, he was one landed-punch from unconsciousness but not felled. A referee erred on the side of caution, and the right man won. Both fighters were gracious afterwards. Each was open to a rematch.

If Brandon Rios’ technical-knockout victory over Mike Alvarado on the tennis courts of Carson, Calif.’s Home Depot Center was not every fanciful thing for which youngsters set their DVRs, it was close enough. It was, in fact, fantastic. Its six rounds, one minute and 57 seconds – the fight’s duration when it was stopped with Alvarado still on his feet – were the equal, in courage and violence and brutality, of every 12-round fight yet seen, and likely to be seen, in 2012.

The fight was decided by right hands: where they were placed, and where heads were, or weren’t, put to avoid them. It made for a curious spectacle when the match turned on a midfight adjustment made by our sport’s proudest caveman, Brandon Rios, and not his larger, more refined, better-situated opponent. That adjustment was the everything-must-go right hand Rios threw in the sixth and ended Alvarado with in the seventh.

Did Rios mean to wait so long to throw it? After his 12 unskilled rounds with Richard Abril in April and the opening 16 or so minutes with Alvarado, you’d have thought: No, it’s impossible Rios didn’t throw a punch, out of strategy. Rios doesn’t bother himself with strategy because it tires him more than having his brain sloshed round its protective shell, evidently. After the adjustment was made, though, made and returned to – trainer Robert Garcia cheering, not plotting, once Rios discovered it himself – you at least must wonder.

But first is the question of how Rios got himself in a position to throw the punch, and the answer, truly, is that he got in position for the right hand by taking himself entirely out of position for the left. And he did that to avoid Alvarado’s right uppercut, a punch Alvarado lustily winged in the fight’s opening round and nearly every round after. It’s the only punch a prizefighter of Rios’ pedigree fears because there is nothing inescapably disorienting or jarring as dropping one’s head on another man’s upwards-rushing fist. It is a punch that needn’t travel more than a foot to devastate its target. Rios solved the problem of Alvarado’s right uppercut – a punch Rios was acutely aware Alvarado had in his arsenal, and constantly sought to avoid – by placing his head outside Alvarado’s left shoulder, on the way in.

Rios then did the same astoundingly wrong thing with Alvarado he perfected against Abril: Punching a man in the head with your left fist after settling your head behind the man’s left shoulder. A contortionist’s error of such stupefying lines Picasso couldn’t have drawn it, Rios’ tactic was to uncoil a punch from an already, and entirely, uncoiled position. It didn’t work. And while it wasn’t working, Alvarado, the larger and smoother and better balanced man, moved Rios round the ring with his jab and right hook.

Channeling Floyd Mayweather – ultimately to his detriment – Alvarado threw right hooks round Rios’ high guard the very way Mayweather did to Miguel Cotto in May. And Alvarado’s right hands stung the smaller man more than Mayweather’s right hands stung his larger man in May. Alvarado, too, kept his lead, left, hand low in an effort to catch Rios’ right hands with his raised left shoulder. Such a defense is a counterpuncher’s specialty and an inane tactic for an offensive fighter like Alvarado to employ, and his corner said as much several times. Mayweather catches opponents’ right hands on his high lead shoulder because Mayweather looks for opponents’ right hands at every fraction of every second of every round, and has for years. Alvarado, incredibly, dropped his lead guard then forgot Rios had a right hand at all.

Wrong as it was for Rios to start left hooks from outside his opponent’s left shoulder, that spot was the perfect place to begin right hands from, as Rios discovered (or planned?) in round 6. His body cocked rightwards, his left shoulder turned forward in an otherwise squared-up stance, Rios yanked his head across the plane of Alvarado’s chest, and brought his right hand behind it. Rios’ overhand rights landed in a way reminiscent of southpaw Sergio Martinez’s left hand on Paul Williams in 2010, with one difference that might lead purists to credit Rios more than one is generally inclined: Rios kept his eyes on Alvarado’s chin the whole way, ensuring the punch landed precisely where he aimed it.

Was the stoppage by referee Pat Russell too quick? Yes, by a punch. Alvarado was absolutely in peril, genuinely out of his mind. He was still upright, though, and appeared to be readying either to hold Rios’ head down or clinch him. Would it have made a difference? That is doubtful.

“Maybe the ref should have given him a little more time,” said Rios, whose words, for coming from a masochist more than a sadist, have weight.

“I thought that was stopped a little too early,” said Alvarado afterwards. “Yeah, I was surprised by it.”

The fight’s stoppage precluded the exact parallels to the Gatti-Ward I and Corrales-Castillo I fights aficionados were hoping to draw, and so – very well. There’s an even better trilogy that began with a fight that did not see the eighth round, though: Rafael Marquez versus Israel Vazquez. Let the first man who does not wish to see Rios-Alvarado II call Saturday’s match a failure of any kind.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

Brooklyn, NY will be the center of the Boxing world this Saturday as the brand new Barclays Center will play host to one of the most loaded events in a very long time. 15rounds will be your one stop shop for everything that is Brooklyn Boxing and today, we will provide to you a cheat-sheet for the main event of the evening. Throughout the week, we will do the same with the rest of the televised portion of the card that will air on Showtime. And to add some icing on the cake, we will also preview the non-televised portion, which also features some competitive match-ups.

Let’s get started.

Danny Garcia (24-0, 15 KO’s) vs. Erik Morales (50-8, 36 KO’s)
WBA/WBC light welterweight titles

These two squared off a little over a year and a half ago in what turned out to be a very entertaining bout. Much to our surprise, it was Garcia that was more aggressive throughout the night, throwing over two hundred more punches throughout the fight. And his output finally paid off when he managed to floor Morales with a powerful left hook. Before this bout, Garcia was virtually unknown to anyone that was not a hardcore fan.

Here is what we could expect out of both fighters. Despite not having huge power, Garcia likes to take the fight to his opponent. He has shown that he can experience some difficulty against more defensive minded opponents. Morales seemed to make some attempts at this on their first go around, so we could expect to see him counterpunch off of his back foot. Morales saw some success bringing his right hand over the top of Garcia’s left hook. Garcia has one advantage that is quite literally a game changer. Both fighters know that Garcia is capable of knocking Morales down.

In the end, we could expect to see a very different fight between both fighters. Most of it is riding on how Morales has prepared his strategy for this bout. Garcia certainly has the advantage, which is why he is favored so highly.

Tickets priced at $300, $200, $100 and $50 are available for purchase at www.barclayscenter.com, www.ticketmaster.com, the Barclays Center box office, all Ticketmaster locations or by calling 800-745-3000. Or you can tune into Showtime Extreme where the boxing broadcast will begin at 7:00PM Eastern Time and then Showtime at 8:00PM for the fight broadcast.

CARSON, Calif. – If maturity is measured in knowing what to keep and what to shed, there is some good news in Jose Benavidez Jr.’s transformation from prospect to pro.

Benavidez got rid of an expensive toy, a Maserati, as though it were an excess pound.

“It was costing me too much to insure and too much to maintain,’’ said Benavidez, whose insurance premium on the high-performance sport car was $1,500-a-month. “I’ve got more important things to do.’’

Did you just hear a loud sigh of relief? No need to get your ears checked. It came from dad, Jose Benavidez Sr. who a year ago worried about his son’s purchase of the high-performance sports car. It attracted too much attention. Dad worried that fans might begin to think that his son was more interested in expensive toys than hard work. No worries. None at all.

“Oh yeah, it’s a good sign,’’ the senior Benavidez said. “To me, it means he’s figuring it out. He’s getting serious. Sometimes, I have to get on him about some things. But he is starting to get it.’’

Benavidez (16-0, 13 KOs) is still about seven months away from a birthday that will turn him into a 21-year-old adult. Yet, his wisdom often belies his years. He is quick to say he still has much to learn and many to fight.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do, a whole lot,’’ said the Phoenix prospect, who goes back on the job Saturday night at the Home Depot Center against Pavel Miranda (19-7-1, 10 KOs) of Tijuana on the undercard of two HBO-featured fights, junior-welterweights Mike Alvarado (33-0, 23 KOs) of Denver against Brandon Rios (30-0-1, 21 KOs) Oxnard, Calif., and super-bantamweights Nonito Donaire (29-1,18 KOs) of the Philippines against Japan’s Toshiaki Nishioki (39-4-3, 24 KOs) of Japan.

At a formal weigh-in Friday in a crowded hotel ballroom in nearby Manhattan Beach, Donaire was at 121.6 pounds and Nishioka 121.8, both under the 122-pound limit for their title fight. Meanwhile, Rios, unable to make the 135-pound mandatory at lightweight in his last couple of outings, had no trouble at junior-welter. He was at the limit, 140. Alvarado tipped the scales at 139.8.

Miranda was at 144.2 pounds and Benavidez 143.4 for a bout scheduled for eight rounds and officially classified as super-lightweight. In another sign of Benavidez’ ongoing maturity, however he is closer to becoming a welterweight than a junior-welter.

“Anymore, I walk around at 160-pounds,’’ Benavidez said. “At some point, I’ll be a welterweight.’’

That official jump might not happen until sometime next year.

“If we could fight for a youth title or something like that, 140 pounds wouldn’t be a problem,’’ Benavidez Sr. said.

If Benavidez wins as expected against Miranda, he could be ticketed for a bout on the Dec. 8 card featuring the third rematch between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

“But he’s got to be ready for everybody now,’’ Benavidez manager Steve Feder said. “Every young guy out there wants to be the one to upset Jose Benavidez Jr. He’s become a target.’’

But not a flashy one.

NOTES: The Carson card also includes a light-heavyweight bout between light-heavyweight Trevor McCumby (6-0, 6 KOs) against Eliseo Durazo (4-3, 1 KO). McCumby has the look of a prospect. He has been training in Phoenix and at Robert Garcia’s gym in Oxnard. Another big McCumby win Saturday night might lead to a Top Rank contract next week.

And the card had yet to sell out Friday, but there was a buzz at a weigh-in crowded with more Japanese media than American for a main event featuring Nishioka, who grew up in Nagasaki and trains in Tokyo.

LAS VEGAS– STRIKEFORCE® announced today it is planning its next card set to air live on SHOWTIME in January 2013. Further information on the fight card and location will be announced shortly.

STRIKEFORCE also announced the cancellation of its Nov. 3 event at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, Okla., due to injuries sustained by main event star Frank Mir and co-main event star Luke Rockhold. Refunds for tickets purchased are available at point of sale.

“Due to a series of injuries, we were forced to cancel the upcoming card on Nov. 3, but are already working to put together a stacked card in January,” STRIKEFORCE CEO Scott Coker said.

“While we’re disappointed with the cancellation, we are looking forward to an even bigger STRIKEFORCE event on SHOWTIME early next year,” said Stephen Espinoza, Executive Vice President & General Manager, SHOWTIME Sports®

WESTBURY, LONG ISLAND (October 12, 2012) All fighters for Star Boxing’s “WESTBURY WARS” were on weight leading up to a sensational evening of world-class professional boxing Saturday night, OCTOBER 13 at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury.

Issouf Kinda, 139.5 vs. Mike Arnaoutis, 139.5

Ten Rounds, New York State Junior Welterweight Title

Cletus Seldin, 143 vs. Carl McNickles, 143

Eight Rounds

Bayan Jargal, 137 vs. Luis Rodriguez, 140

Six Rounds

Alan Gotay, 137 vs. Alberto Manukyan, 137

Four Rounds

Prior to the pro fights, three amateur bouts will kick off the card.

Advance tickets for this theatre-in-the-round seating event, priced at $150 for Gold Circle VIP, $60 for Ringside Reserved and $30 for Mezzanine Reserved, are available at Live Nation, charge by phone at 800-745-3000, at the Westbury Box Office or through the Star Boxing office by calling (718) 823-2000 or on their website, Star Boxing.

Doors on the evening of the event will open at 6:30pm with the first bell at 7:30pm. Event, date and time are subject to change. Tickets are subject to applicable service charges.

After the fights boxing fans can dine at Marco Polo’s Restaurant in the Viana Hotel and Spa and receive 15% off their meals by presenting a ticket stub from the event. The Viana Hotel and Spa is located at 3998 Brush Hollow Road in Westbury, New York.

The NYCB Theatre at Westbury is located at 960 Brush Hollow Road in Westbury, New York, 11590. For directions and more information please visit their website at The Theatre at Westbury. For Westbury membership information, visit Westbury Membership

This event is sponsored by

GOLD COAST BANK
VIANA HOTEL AND SPA
CORAL HOUSE

see below for details:

ABOUT STAR BOXING:

Star Boxing Inc. is celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2012. Star Boxing has worked to produce some of the most exciting and memorable boxing events in recent history. Star has continued to work with and develop a number of very exciting world champions, world rated contenders and young prospects. Star has consistently brought credibility, integrity, and exciting fights to the boxing industry. For more information on Star Boxing, visit their official website at www.StarBoxing.com and follow them on twitter.com/starboxing

and Facebook.com/starboxing

About Live Nation Entertainment:

Live Nation Entertainment is the world’s leading live entertainment and eCommerce company, comprised of four market leaders: Ticketmaster.com, Live Nation Concerts, Front Line Management Group and Live Nation Network. Ticketmaster.com is the global event ticketing leader and one of the world’s top five eCommerce sites, with over 26 million monthly unique visitors. Live Nation Concerts produces over 20,000 shows annually for more than 2,000 artists globally. Front Line is the world’s top artist management company, representing over 250 artists. These businesses power Live Nation Network, the leading provider of entertainment marketing solutions, enabling over 800 advertisers to tap into the 200 million consumers Live Nation delivers annually through its live event and digital platforms. For additional information, visit www.livenation.com/investors.

ABOUT THE CORAL HOUSE

The Coral Houseoverlooking Milburn Lake in Baldwin, Long Island, NY “Everything is NEW…but the Name”offers an exquisite location and every amenity for weddings, anniversary celebrations, corporate events and holidays. Coral House’s lakefront setting is unrivaled, menus are custom designed to each party’s taste and budget, and the service is unparalleled. Whether you’re planning a wedding for several hundred guests, an intimate party for family and friends, or a business gathering, the Coral House on Long Island, NY will make your special event an occasion to remember for years to come. For more information, visit their website at The Coral House.

ABOUT VIANA HOTEL AND SPA

Viana Hotel and Spa, a member of the exclusive Small Luxury Hotels of the World and Long Island’s only green built feng shui hotel, is located in the heart of Long Island. Designed to provide a soothing environment, all spaces are inspired by the ancient art of feng shui paired with state-of-the-art technology, and infused with a vibrant sense of joy and harmony.

This elegant retreat offers luxurious guest rooms and suites, a Zen-inspired spa for rejuvenating body and spirit, a full-service salon, well-equipped fitness center, indoor pool, and inviting restaurant and bar.

As an eco-friendly, LEED project green hotel, we have made an unwavering commitment to sustainability with a number of eco-friendly initiatives in place.

When East meets West and flavors meld perfectly, you know you must be dining at Marco Polo’s. It’s fusion at its finest. Our creative menu features Italian and Asian dishes, as well as a unique blend of fusion dishes. We also offer a vast range of organic wines and specialty cocktails from our full-service bar to compliment your meal. Complete your night with an enjoyable after-dinner drink in our adults-only Game Room and Lounge.

For more information visit their website at www.vianahotelandspa.com.

About Gold Coast Bank

Headquartered in Islandia with additional branches located in Huntington, Setauket, Farmingdale, and Mineola, Gold Coast Bank is a New York State chartered bank whose popularity and sterling reputation stems from the strong, long-term relationships it has cultivated among its large and diverse customer base. A member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and one of Long Island’s financially strongest de novo banks, Gold Coast Bank has more than $170 million in assets and prides itself on providing businesses and individuals with quality lending and banking services. Fulfilling a unique niche within the Long Island commercial banking sector, Gold Coast Bank delivers specialty lending capabilities in a variety of areas that include real estate, equipment finance, and lines of credit for privately owned businesses. For more information, please visit Gold Coast Bank

Boxing’s equivalent of lighting in a bottle was captured by Nonito Donaire nearly two years ago when he knocked out accomplished Fernando Montiel within two rounds of a stunning statement that transformed him into a pound-for-pound contender.

Everything since then has been like time in a high school class. Donaire studied, did his homework and roadwork. Yet, he yearned for that bold stroke of reality that still has fans and media talking about him.

“The last three fights were experimental,’’ Donaire said in a conference call. “This fight, we are going back to boxing and being unexpected. We relied on the power in the last three fights. But this fight we will come out throwing lots of punches.’’

In a statement that sounds a lot like a bid to re-insert himself into the pound-for-debate amid doubts about whether Manny Pacquiao can beat Juan Manuel Marquez in a third rematch and only silence from Floyd Mayweather Jr., Donaire promised to reaffirm his credentials in a significant test Saturday night against another accomplished foe, Toshiaki Nishioka of Japan.

It’s another step up for Donaire (29-1, 18 KOs), whose version of the super-bantamweight titles – the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization – will be at stake in an HBO-televised bout from the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. In beating Montiel in February, 2011, Donaire stopped an acknowledged master of tactical skill. The proof was in Montiel’s record, then 44-2-2 with 35 KOs.

Flip the calendar forward, jump up in weight and you’re looking at Nishioka, whose record (39-4-3, 25 KOs) adds up to mastery of a division, 122 pounds, that he has quietly ruled since 2004.

“This is a fight Nonito has wanted for a very long time,’’ said manager Cameron Dunkin, who sounded as if he worried Donaire might regret that his wish was granted.

A Donaire advantage appears to be his age. At 29, he should be stepping into his prime. At 36, Nishioka is probably a step beyond his. There is also Nishioka’s recent inactivity. He hasn’t fought since a unanimous decision over skillful Rafael Marquez a year ago.

“We don’t want to take any chances at all,’’ said Donaire, who this year has fought twice at 122 pounds and won both, beating Jeffrey Mathebula and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. by decisions. “I believe when we are at this level and at this age and even if he hasn’t fought in a while, he can be very dangerous.’’

A potential disadvantage for Donaire is the absence of trainer Robert Garcia for much of his camp. The busy Garcia was also working with Brandon Rios, who faces Mike Alvarado in a junior-welterweight clash that has potential to upstage Donaire-Nishioka.

Nishioka’s advantage rests in experience and smarts. He hasn’t been stopped once and that was in 1995 in only his second pro bout. If Donaire is trying to re-energize his pound-for-pound claim with emphasis – meaning a knockout, he might have picked the wrong guy.

“Sometimes, you don’t get the results that people look for,’’ Donaire said. “ People expect a lot from me. We have been trying to change things up to get different results. Against Nishioka we can’t let our guard down and going back to the old Nonito Donaire style of fighting smart.

“When it comes, it comes. But the proper game plan will show my power, which is what I was known for – lightning fast counters that were knocking people out because they never saw it coming.

“No matter how tough you are, if you don’t see where it’s coming from, you don’t expect it and it will knock you down.’’

And maybe knock him squarely back into pound-for-pound talk.

DALLAS – Four miles north of this city’s Main Street District, on Southern Methodist University’s beautiful campus, stands Meadows Museum – a collection of Spanish art so extensive it fulfills founder Algur H. Meadows’ vision of a “Prado on the Prairie.” Complementing perhaps the finest collection of Diego Velazquez’s work outside Madrid are works by Spanish masters Murillo, Goya and El Greco. Here hangs, as well, an excellent Fernando Yanez work of Saint Sebastian, cheekily called “the pin-cushion saint” by art students.

Sebastian, a third-century Christian martyr, was a subject treated often by Renaissance painters and always with arrows piercing his body. Tradition says those arrows represent pestilence. Martyrdom, pestilence and masterpieces compose a vantage fitting as any from which to preview Saturday’s undercard scrap between Colorado’s Mike Alvarado and California’s Brandon Rios, a junior-welterweight title-eliminator match that will begin HBO’s “Boxing After Dark” program. It is a fight to which both men seem eager to martyr themselves, a fight to rid boxing briefly of its pestilence, and a fight more likely to become a masterpiece than any this year or next.

Beside my laptop sits a six-year-old media credential that acts as a reminder Mike Alvarado was once something quite different from what he is today. On June 2, 2006, Alvarado represented a future of sorts for his promoter, Top Rank. That night in Tucson, Ariz., at a venue called Club Envy, Alvarado was the main event even if he wasn’t in the main event.

The night’s final match, actually, was Jesus Soto-Karass against “Cool” Vince Phillips in a brutal fight broadcasted by Telefutura’s once-invaluable “Solo Boxeo” program. Soto-Karass beat down the man who stopped hall of famer Kostya Tszyu in 1997 – and yes, Phillips, himself, is on this year’s ballot – in a fashion so assiduous and harsh Phillips tried to retire immediately afterwards. Programming issues, though, prevented Phillips’ public retirement, and so, unsurprisingly, Phillips was back in a prizefighting ring, this time in Russia, one year later.

But my credential makes no reference to Phillips or Soto-Karass. It emphasizes boxing, Top Rank and Mike Alvarado – in order of font size. Alvarado went through a welterweight target named Maximino Cuevas that night, stopping the overmatched New Yorker in round 5. One paragraph about Alvarez from the Tucson report stands out:

“Despite absorbing a number of right hands in the first round, Mike Alvarado quickly adjusted to Cuevas’s style by the start of the second, allowing more distance and landing straight punches. In the closing moments of Round 2, Alvarado rocked Cuevas with a fierce right uppercut that was the fight’s best punch.”

Two notes: 1. Six years ago Alvarado was open to right hands as he is today, and 2. Alvarado’s arsenal included, and one assumes still does, a fight-changing right uppercut. That is germane to Saturday’s match because the right uppercut is not a punch anyone but the peerless Juan Manuel Marquez throws as a lead. It is ever a counter, one thrown at a volume-punching aggressor who unadvisedly gets his weight over the lead knee. It is a punch executed by taking a quick hop backwards, planting one’s right elbow just about on the right hip and shooting both upwards at once. The counter right uppercut is devastating for a volume puncher – the one blow they all fear. It requires of its thrower poise enough to take a hop backwards, geometric awareness enough to establish a tempting plain for the aggressor to stretch himself over, and timing enough to drop that aggressor’s chin on an upcoming fist.

In 2006, after only 28 months of prizefighting, Mike Alvarado’s record was 14-0. Seventy-six months later, Alvarado’s record is 33-0. This dramatically slowed rate is attributable, in part, to time Alvarado spent in jail. His career has been a disappointment. He is 32 years old, which surprises fans who believe they’ve made the discovery of a new action fighter. Alvarado is more exciting than ever, now, because he has to be.

He and Brandon Rios are the sorts of fighters Top Rank makes an industry of. They are the prizefighters Bob Arum threatens other fighters with, the way he shook Antonio Margarito, like a fist, at Jose Luis Castillo when the latter got his rubber match with Diego Corrales canceled because of twice missing weight.

If that sounds at all familiar, it is because twice is how many times Rios has missed the lightweight limit of 135 pounds since ruining Urbano Antillon in July 2011. Remember, the plan was for Rios to fight Juan Manuel Marquez in Cowboys Stadium three months ago, not Mike Alvarado in a co-main event on the tennis courts of Home Depot Center.

Alvarado can outbox Rios because Alvarado is a better athlete than Rios and because, as Richard Abril demonstrated in April, Rios can be thoroughly outboxed. Whatever his amateur pedigree, Rios’ ring IQ is questionable. Alvarado chooses to make savagery with others because he has to, Rios because he can – for when he has to, as he did against Abril, Rios often trips over himself. Alvarado represents for Rios his largest opponent; Rios represents for Alvarado his best.

Both men need redemption. Their fight is, in essence, Margarito versus Margarito – and promises to be that entertaining. In redeeming themselves through suffering, in absorbing abuse that will probably shorten their lives and invariably compromise what health they take to retirement, Alvarado and Rios will also, like Saint Sebastian, rid us of the pestilence that adheres to our sport – for a spell anyway.

I’ll take Alvarado, MD-12, in a savage affair that redeems both men.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

The nickname is Bam Bam. Bold and Bolder might be more appropriate for Brandon Rios, who isn’t afraid of promises or punishment.

Rios’ confrontation with Mike Alvarado on Oct. 13 at Carson, Calif., is generating buzz about a possible Fight of the Year. But Rios raised the bar, or at least the blood lust, for a junior-welterweight bout that could upstage the main event, Nonito Donaire versus Toshiaki Nishioka.

“A Micky Ward-Arturo Gatti kind of fight,’’ Rios said Thursday during a conference call.

For bruises, danger and drama, Ward-Gatti is the modern standard. It’s not the sort of fight that Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Andre Ward would seek. They see themselves as scientists who try to balance their craft with a sweet balance of offense and defense. Their philosophy has been heard for as long as there has been an opening bell. They live by one credo: Hit and not get hit. Delete the not from that formula and add as many hits as possible, and you’ve got a pretty good idea at what Rios hopes to inflict and perhaps endure.

That stretch of canvas between the ropes is no checker board for Rios, who is moving up in weight, to 140 pounds, after a controversial failure to make the lightweight limit, 135. He has no patience for what he calls “little chess games.’’

When Rios looks at the unbeaten Alvarado, he could be looking into a mirror. He sees a similar style and the same stubborn streak of pride that demands, if not welcomes, a walk though harm’s way.

“It’s going to be a bloody, massacre fight,’’ said Rios, who told trainer Robert Garcia that he has been dreaming about a chance to do battle in a fight that would be the equal of Gatti-Ward. “I’ve been telling Robert since I started as a professional I’ve been waiting for that type of fight and hopefully this is that fight.’’

Whether that chance will be there in an outdoor ring above the Home Depot Center’s tennis court, however, depends on Alvarado. Alvarado’s trainer, Henry Delgado, left it open-ended as to whether Rios will encounter the Alvarado he expects.

Fans and media have yet to see Alvarado’s boxing skill, Delgado says. His instincts draw him into exchanges from which there is no retreat.

“He makes it tougher than it has to be, because he’s a warrior,’’ Delgado said. “But we’ve got some surprises coming. We have options, lots of options.’’

Options are often forgotten after the first big punch lands, of course. That’s when even the most seasoned fighter reverts to what he knows and does best.

“He looks to come forward; I like to come forward,’’ said Rios, who says there’s nothing new about a heavier weight which he believes makes him stronger and able to hit with the power of a welterweight. “I don’t change my style.’’

Or his hopes of realizing a dream that many avoid like a nightmare.

Tyson can’t escape 20-year-old controversy
New Zealand’s withdrawal of Mike Tyson’s request to enter the country because of his conviction for raping Desiree Washington is just another sad chapter in a 20-year-old controversy.

Tyson, who was scheduled to speak at series of events in New Zealand, has long denied that he committed the crime. Legal experts, including Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, criticized the 1992 Indianapolis trial and Tyson’s legal defense.

In 2001, Tyson underwent a lie-detector test in Phoenix, where he was living at the time. According to test results acquired by The Arizona Republic, Tyson was truthful when he said he did not rape Washington. But the conviction will always be on his record. Fair or not, it also will always be there for people seeking to make political capital out of it, no matter what he says or they believe.

AZ Notes
Unbeaten Phoenix prospect Jose Benavidez Jr. (16-0, 13 KOs) has a change in opponents for his undercard appearance on Donaire- Nishioka undercard on Oct. 13. Benavidez now is scheduled to face Pavel Miranda (17-7-1, 7 KOs) of Tijuana, Mexico.

Iron Boy Promotions of Phoenix is back at Celebrity Theatre Saturday, Oct. 6, with a card full of young fighters, including Phoenix super-bantamweight Emilio Garcia (6-0-1) against Jensen Ramirez (2-1-1) of Tucson. Opening bell is scheduled for 6 p.m.

Featherweight prospect Guy Robb makes his hometown debut as professional boxing returns to the historic Sacramento Memorial Auditorium on Saturday night. Robb takes on veteran Mexican journeyman Adolfo Landeros in a six-rounder on the undercard of the Fox Deportes-televised event.

Boxing played a huge role in making the Memorial, which originally opened in 1927 and reopened in 1996 after a ten-year closure, such an iconic venue. However the sweet science has returned only once since promoter Don Chargin hosted cards on back-to-back nights in May of 2002. With the help of Golden Boy Promotions and local promoter Paco Damian, Chargin brings the sport back this Saturday.

Guy Robb (9-1, 4 KOs), one of the several promising young faces of Sacramento boxing, is thrilled to be a part of the proceedings on Saturday night. “It will be my first time fighting in Sacramento, and what makes it even more special is that it will be at the Memorial Auditorium, a place the older generation of Sacramento legends all fought,” said Robb, who frequented events at the venue years back. “I’m excited. That place has a lot of history and the older guys have a lot of memories of that place. One of my career goals was to fight at the Memorial Auditorium, and next thing you know they are having a fight there. It is going to be great.”

Though Robb has never fought in Sacramento as a pro before, he has fought in front of hometown crowds in nearby Woodland and Fairfield on several occasions. In his last appearance just two weeks ago, Robb ended a three-month layoff before a supportive crowd at the Woodland Community & Senior Center. Robb decked ultra-tough Jonathan Alcantara en route to a unanimous decision.

“It wasn’t so much about being back in the ring, but being back in the ring near home again,” said Robb about his last fight. “It had been a while since I had a fight around town and my fights were away where not too many of my people could make it out there. When I have all my people out there hollering and yelling ‘Team Robb, Team Robb’ – that support gives me extra strength.”

Having some extra strength could come in handy against the always game Landeros (22-27-2, 10 KOs) of Hidalgo, Hidalgo, Mexico. Landeros, somehow still just 32-years-old, steps in where originally southpaw Cesar Garcia had been pegged. “I was prepared for a southpaw and it got switched on me, but it doesn’t really effect me in any way,” explains Robb, who found out about the opponent change on Sunday. “I am used to fighting an orthodox opponent and I’d rather have it switch this way than the other way.”

The usually durable Landeros will provide Robb with a litmus test, given the fact he has been in with three eventual world champions and countless prospects and contenders. “Landeros is a veteran and has been around a long time. He’s fought all those prospects and Olympians. Everybody that’s anybody, he’s fought them. He has a lot of experience and he’s a warrior. I’m young and I’m looking to give a great show out there. He’s not coming to lay down, he’s coming to fight and he knows how to fight. I’m just excited to have the opportunity to fight somebody with that type of knowledge and experience.”

Lined up after Saturday’s fight, Robb, a notorious gym rat, has some well earned time off scheduled, as he and his blossoming family have booked a cruise to Caribbean. “I pretty much stay in the gym,” explains Robb. “I enjoy what I do. But I need some family time and am taking a little break. I have a girlfriend and a son, and sometimes with the fights back-to-back, I don’t get to spend much time with them. Even if I am with them, I am not really getting to spend that time with them. I know it means a lot and family is very important to me. Boxing is my life and family is my life, so I have to get them to work together.”

Before Robb can pack his bags, apply his sunscreen and set sail, he has some unfinished business at home on Saturday night. “It’s an old warrior versus a young warrior and I expect us to provide some fireworks,” says Robb.

Photos by Erik Killin

Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at ortega15rds@lycos.com.

SAN ANTONIO – Five miles northwest of the Alamo stands a remarkable edifice and concept known colloquially as “The McNay,” Texas’ first museum of modern art. It comprises a collection of more than 700 works bequeathed by Marion Koogler McNay, a childless and eccentric heiress who, in her femininity and childlessness and eccentricity and wealth, helped compose a tiny cohort of 20th century Americans: Those who were not for sale.

Last week The McNay opened its fall exhibition, “Estampas de La Raza,” a somewhat forgettable collection of prints that nevertheless features a marvelous mini-exhibition, “America’s Finest,” by local artist Vincent Valdez. “America’s Finest” comprises, among other works, six large, graphite-on-paper portraits of prizefighters. Expertly hung in a minimalist style that spaces the rich works – pencil drawings with no backgrounds, framed by white wood – evenly across a bare white wall, “America’s Finest” reminds South Texas art aficionados what talent lives in our community and prizefighting aficionados how many things our sport is about.

What Valdez is after is boxing as metaphor. In interviews, he’s confessed he is not enamored of prizefighting. There is an element of brutality to it that likely offends what reservoir of empathy makes him capable of art. He is able to wade into brutality’s immediate effects and distant consequences and make art of them, but he is doubtfully drawn to the living, bleeding spectacle of one man pulping another’s face and spirit.

The nearly demolished human spirit is another thing Valdez is after. He is not interested in the underdog’s senseless self-belief – that uncertainty of outcome Carl von Clausewitz taught us is a prerequisite for courage – but rather what irrepressible thing makes a fighter lumber forward to collect a whupping in silence. Valdez is after what possesses a man, far removed from any chance of victory, to sanctify an unwillingness to be broken. As a creator Valdez knows such men are not like him; they construct nothing. But he understands, and proves, they are essential as fundament; they are the crushed and melted and hardened elements upon which an ethnicity constructs its identity in America. In this way the characters Valdez portrays are both our “finest” in their superiority of character, and in the nature of what particles remain once they’ve been pulverized for our amusement.

All Valdez’s works are evocative. None is substandard. They begin with a man whose shimmering trunks bear the Star of David atop the outside of his thick right quadriceps. He is followed by a Native American, done up in a headdress and trunks that partially read “Big Chief” – his promotional costume complemented by Saint Sebastian’s arrows, both as a reminder of what comical gimmickry boxing employs, and what cultural expiation the man performs.

The only of Valdez’s six drawings that features an immediately recognizable figure is his black prizefighter – one who, with his heavy eyelids and gangly frame, could be no one but the Motor City Cobra, Thomas “Hitman” Hearns. Curiously, Valdez situates him atop a black panther-skin rug. The next figure is either an Irishman or an Italian, coins and bills scattered at his feet, a tattoo of a sinking ship circled by banners that read “THIS TOO SHALL PASS” on his tensed left forearm.

Valdez’s most interesting study is his Latino prizefighter. Posed in a ready stance, his right heel lifted, the man wears two teardrop tattoos beside his left eye, signifying either familiars he has lost or others’ familiars he has taken. The band of his trunks has an “N” placed before its iconic “EVERLAST” brand. Beside the fighter a memorial wreath hangs on a squat stand, and across its flowers slumps a satin ribbon whose calligraphic letters spell “NI MODO,” a Spanish phrase used in dismissal. Literally translated, “ni modo” means “neither mode,” the exact opposite of what English speakers mean by “either way.” Figuratively translated, Valdez’s “NI MODO” means “it didn’t matter”; whatever volition the individual showed, larger forces predetermined his ruin.

The final figure is an Asian fighter, a serpentine dragon tattoo circling his shoulders and wrists, with his face, blood streaming from its right nostril, a reminder to those old enough to remember the misshapen countenance of Duk Koo Kim – a South Korean man killed by an American prizefighting ring. An improvised altar of tattered prayer cards and candles spreads before the toe of his left boot.

Much like the black and white photographs in Holger Keifel’s “Box” (a book found in museum giftshops), Valdez’s work shows what the violence of our sport does to the human form. Valdez’s “Big Chief” has much of the left side of his face caved-in from punches, his eye shuttered and its brow peaked and sharpened, his left cheek swollen, even the feathers on the end of his headdress seemingly shaved away. Whomever’s right fist hit him however many times, its concussion induced a stroke victim’s dull mask.

Valdez concerns himself with the aloneness in which a prizefighter traffics. While members of a prizefighter’s ethnicity elect him their savage representative, someone to remind other Americans what a man who goes to synagogue or lives in Chinatown can do them if wrongfully provoked, he is wholly alone in the violence he perpetrates and endures. In a poetic explanation stenciled on the wall opposite his drawings, Valdez is more celebrative than political but confident in what his work is about:

“These poor men, these boxers, these representatives of multitudes
ranked by color of skin, width of nose, and kink of hair,
stand guard above the sacred symbols that mortared and bricked,
hammered and sawed, planted and picked this country
with broken, bandaged hands.”

Praise boxing, then, for inspiring this art, for giving our flinching contemporary culture a place it can still revel in ethnic pride and work through its resultant conflicts. Boxing is America’s most truthful sport, and praise Valdez for capturing it.

*

Author’s note: Large photographs of four of Vincent Valdez’s six portraits, including the one above, can be found at the artist’s website.

*

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

Talk about Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. is back like a bad hangover. Everybody seems to have an interpretation, if not a prediction, in the wake of a settlement to Pacquiao’s defamation suit and his offer to give Mayweather the lion’s share in a 55-45 split.

It’s as if Pacquiao’s rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez in their fourth meeting on Dec. 8 doesn’t matter. Maybe, it doesn’t, which is good reason for Marquez to worry about Robbery IV. The public and media fixation on Pacquiao-Mayweather won’t go away and perhaps won’t let anything stand in its way

That said, there’s been a shift in public sentiment and in Pacquiao himself. Combine the two, and only Marquez matters – or should – in any talk about Pacquiao-Mayweather. If Pacquiao loses, the Filipino Congressman becomes a full time politician. He has talked about leaving the ring. Marquez could hasten that departure.

Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach is concerned on a couple of levels.

First, there’s sympathy for Marquez and his argument that he was robbed in the narrow decisions, split and majority, that went against him in the first and second rematches. Scorecards can be like ballots. They’re subjective.

“I think we go into the fight three to four rounds down already,’’ Roach said about the Marquez bout when it was still being negotiated a couple of days before he worked Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s loss to Sergio Martinez on Sept. 15 at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center.

That means Pacquaio has to win by knockout. That would be a first. Marquez, who has six losses, has never been stopped. Given the narrow 36 rounds that already have transpired and Pacquiao’s record of no stoppages in five fights since a 2009 TKO of Miguel Cotto, Pacquiao by KO is a very tall order.

Roach says the task in camp at the Wild Card Gym will be to rediscover Pacquiao’s old aggression, which has withered for reasons that aren’t clear.

Compassion, perhaps the born-again expression of Pacquiao’s return to a Catholic lifestyle, has lessened the ferocity for which there was no refuge for so many of his fallen foes, Roach says. It was evident in 2010 when Pacquiao almost begged referee Laurence Cole to stop what he wouldn’t in a brutal decision over Antonio Margarito at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tex.

Then again, it wasn’t enough in 2004 when Pacquiao, then at his ferocious best, knocked down Marquez three times in the first round, but never out during the next 11 in a bout that ended in a draw.

Roach says Pacquiao’s physical skills are as sharp as ever, although there seemed to be a missing gear in the hand speed throughout his controversial loss by decision to Timothy Bradley on June 9. From Erik Morales to Oscar De La Hoya, Pacquiao threw punches at a rate that overwhelmed. Against Bradley, that rate proved pedestrian.

But Roach is convinced that those hands will move at a ruthless rate if Pacquiao’s heart still has the streak of larceny needed in a brutal business.

Will it?

“I don’t know,’’ Roach said. “That’s the challenge.’’

The only one.

NEW YORK (September 24, 2012) – Tickets are now on for the October 27th pay-per-view event, “Rising Olympian Star In The Big Apple,” featuring undefeated welterweight prospect Sadam “World Kid” Ali (15-0, 9 KOs), a 2008 U.S. Olympian, live from Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn, New York.

Brownsville super middleweight Curtis “Showtime” Stevens (22-3, 16 KOs) has been added to the card in a eight-round bout against an opponent to be determined. Stevens is a former New York State light heavyweight champion who knocked out previously unbeaten Piotr Wilczewski (22-0) in the third round of their 2009 fight in Newark (NJ). A 2002 US National amateur champion, Stevens has also defeated world champion Carl Daniels.

The youngest boxing promoter in America, 23-year-old Ali was a highly-decorated amateur boxer who was a national champion in the Junior Olympics, Police Athlete League (PAL), Under-19 Tournament, as well as a two-time, two division New York City Golden Gloves champion. He became the first New York City boxer in 20 years, since Riddick Bowe in 1988, to earn a berth on the U.S. Olympic Boxing Team, and was the first Arab-American to ever represent the U.S. in the Olympic Games.

“Rising Olympian Star In The Big Apple,” presented by Sadam Ali’s World Kid Promotions, will be distributed in the United States by Integrated Sports Media for live viewing at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT on both cable and satellite pay per view via iN Demand, DISH Network and Avail-TVN for a suggested retail price of only $29.95.

Rising star Ali, fighting out of Brooklyn, is currently rated No. 8 by United States Boxing Association (USBA), as well as No. 12 by the North American Boxing Organization (NABO) and No. 15 by the North American Boxing Federation (NABF).

Ali, who won World Boxing Federation American welterweight title in his last fight in June versus Franklin Gonzalez (TKO8), takes on former Indiana State champion Jermaine “Too Sweet” White (17-5, 9 KOs), of Chicago, in the 10-round main event. Three of White’s career losses have been to world champions Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., Anthony Peterson and Paul Spadafora.

Colombian cruiserweight Santander “The Demolition Man” Silgado (22-0, 18 KOs) puts his unbeaten record on the line against veteran Gary “Pit Bull” Gomez (19-13-2, 7 KOs) in the 10-round co-feature. Silgado, now fighting out of Brooklyn, is world rated at No. 11 by the World Boxing Association (WBA) and No. 13 by the World Boxing Council (WBC). A seven-time Colombian national champion, Silgado captured the World Boxing Council FECARBOX title by defeating Willie Herring this past March. Salt Lake City’s Gomez is a former WBC Continental Americas and Utah State champion. His most notable wins have been against Chad Van Sickle, who was 18-0-1 when Gomez defeated him by way of a 10-round decision, Rayco Saunders and Derrick Brown.

Newly crowned World Boxing Federation Intercontinental light middleweight champion Mike “El Cangri” Ruiz (17-7, 9 KOs) drops back to his natural welterweight division to face and opponent to soon be determined. Ruiz is coming off his 10th round TKO title-winning performance July 21 against hometown favorite Paul Delgado in Atlanta.

Also fighting on the undercard in four-round bouts against opponents to soon be announced are Brooklyn’s one-handed Michael Constantino, who will be making his pro debut after fighting in the NYC Golden Gloves Tournament; Maine light middleweight Steven Gamache (3-0, 1 KO), the son of former world champion Joey Gamache; Brooklyn light middleweight Shawn Cameron in his pro debut. Brooklyn bantamweight Jennifer Santiago meets Louisiana invader Ivana Coleman (0-1). All fights and fighters are subject to change.

Tickets, priced at $150.00, $100.00 and $50.00, are on sale and available to purchase by calling 917.807.3630 or 917.655.5254 in Brooklyn and Queens, 718.744.8855 in Manhattan, or 201.914.9392 in Staten Island and New Jersey.

For more information about “Rising Olympian Star In The Big Apple,” go online to www.SadamAliBoxing.com or www.integratedsportsnet.com. Sadam Ali can be followed on Twitter @realworldkidali.

The best writing in Thomas Hauser’s new collection, “And the New . . .” (The University of Arkansas Press; $24.95), barely treats boxing at all. Hauser’s best writing, instead, comes in his book’s final piece, “Elvis (and Ali),” and concerns itself with the ruinous effect celebrity, and what brings celebrity, visits on the lives of exceptionally gifted Americans.

Hauser evidently set out to write about Elvis Presley, but because Hauser is a writer, because he discovers a subject during its writing and not necessarily before, he found in his treatment of Presley a unique metaphor and parallel with Muhammad Ali: Both men were shorn – of hair in Presley’s case, of the heavyweight championship in Ali’s – by the establishment, and then softened in exile, their sharpest edges grinded on, before being permitted to return as icons. Presley was not the same force after his time in the Army, and Ali was not the same force after refusing induction.

“And they were so good when they were young,” Hauser wistfully concludes about those two Americans on the final page of his latest book.

At 235 pages, “And the New . . .” is the shortest of Hauser’s recent collections about boxing. It is more digestible. There is little missing from the 80 or so pages not in this book. Any boy who is eight years old today and just hearing about this sport of ours, a boy who in 10 years will be an adult who visits a bookstore to learn about boxing generally and what happened in 2011 specifically, will find as apt a summary of the year in this Hauser collection as another.

The likelihood, though, is that no one who reaches adulthood in 2022 will have a bookstore to visit. If you’ve been in a Barnes & Noble lately you already sense it; the last of our country’s largest booksellers is a Starbucks sharing floorspace with Toys “R” Us and Sam Goody, with an airy attic of books whose covers sparkle with raised print. Hauser and his work stand athwart this movement because it is exceedingly important to Hauser that whatever he writes make its way onto paper, a medium of endurance for a few millennia now.

“And the New . . .” is a more optimistic book than Hauser’s last collection, “Winks and Daggers,” felt. If boxing is not in a more hopeful place today, it is at least in a place where sabotage is suspected less. Everyone is acting in a rapaciously self-interested way, business as usual, but there appears a modicum less cynicism now that the premium networks have had their little shakeups, with HBO Sports’ chief pursuing other opportunities, Showtime Sports’ leader replacing him, and a lawyer replacing him. To revisit some of the programming choices made in 2010 and 2011 by HBO is to wonder if there were not poison pills being sewn; if the network’s loyalty to certain fighters were not a means of subverting the next regime.

Ah yes, HBO – the subject for whose treatment Hauser is perhaps best known. No longer. In March, Hauser became a consultant for the network. Urgent criticism in our small community greeted this news, some of it in good faith, much of it not. The good-faith concern was this: HBO’s greatest critic is no longer free to criticize. That is indeed a loss. Calls for Hauser’s removal from the full-member rolls of the Boxing Writers Association of America went out and were heeded, showing, in a fine twist, that among writers, HBO is considered a promotional entity more than a journalistic one.

Touché. This decision on the part of the BWAA’s leadership, though, brought one terrible consequence: Hauser resigned from his post at the head of the BWAA membership committee, where he still retains a vote. Hauser is a writer first; he speaks the language of writing, cares about prose, and understands the rigors of rewriting in a way deadline reporters do not. Hauser’s motto of event coverage – not first but best – is authentically different from the wires’ or their editors’.

As head of the membership committee, Hauser combed the internet for good writing about our beloved sport, caring considerably more about what words he found on a page than what URL floated in the address bar above. Hauser reached out to otherwise unknown writers. He elevated our work. Because Hauser is a writer, he knows this: Only the words endure. Page views, Twitter followers, breakfasts with a promoter; all of that is ephemeral noise when set against a writer’s words.

“And the new . . .” has plenty of good writing, of course, and Hauser’s usual number of good choices. “It was as though someone had shoved a tennis ball beneath the skin and painted the entire area purple,” Hauser writes of a fighter’s countenance in “Rodriguez-Wolak: A Great Fight,” an unplanned piece he was moved to write after being ringside for Pawel Wolak and Delvin Rodriguez’s surprisingly excellent first match.

Much of Hauser’s event coverage treats Manny Pacquiao and the possible repercussions his move to Showtime would cause. It was a fling, we now know, and seismic only so much as it cost the leader of HBO Sports his job. But there is a strain in some of it; Hauser captures well the lugging that began 21 months ago when the announcement came that Pacquiao would fight Shane Mosley on Showtime. So desperate were we for change of some kind after 2010 that we squinted to find meaning that was not there, interrogating every press release like a poem by Hart Crane.

We’re in a better, more relaxed place now. No promoter today would schedule another midnight conference call about Pacquiao not-fighting Floyd Mayweather. No one would dial in if he did.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

WOODLAND, CALIFORNIA – In a good scrap that he was leading, Paul Mendez unfortunately robbed himself of praise that he likely would have attained justifiably had the fight not ended with a clear-cut low blow in the seventh round of his Telefutura-televised main event against DonYil Livingston at the Woodland Community & Senior Center on Saturday night. After an errant left hand hit Livingston below the belt, the out of position referee counted the down fighter out and awarded Mendez the stoppage victory – a decision that will likely be overturned after an appeal.

Livingston (8-2-1, 4 KOs) of Palmdale, California opened the first as the aggressor, landing his jab, before Mendez (10-2-1, 4 KOs) of Delano, California backed him to the ropes moments later. When Mendez, 162, got Livingston, 162, trapped, he did not manage to land anything really telling as the Palmdale resident covered up.

In a close second round, Livingston found a home for a hard left hand, but midway through the act it was Mendez that found his range and kept his opponent on the end of his shots.

Mendez took control of the fight in the third, hurting Livingston with a solid overhand right and flurrying his smaller adversary to the ropes. Livingston looked steady on his feet as the fourth began, but not so much as the round came to a close. Mendez rocked the cousin of Andre Ward with a hard combination and had him in trouble before the bell to end the round.

Mendez had another solid round in the fifth, but Livingston began to show renewed life as the round ended. Livingston came on the start the sixth, landing in combination as Mendez’ shots turned a bit wide. Livingston landed a hard left, before Mendez closed the round with a decent combination.

What looked to be a fight going into the final two frames, ended abruptly as Mendez caught Livingston way south of the border with a hard lefthand. Unfortunately, referee Dan Collins was over Livingston’s left shoulder, in admittedly no position to make the call. According to the attending Commission supervisor, the referee should have polled the ringside judges for the call. Judge Kermit Bayless was asked and told Collins he did not see the blow. The other two judges were unavailable to make a comment to 15rounds.com on the fight’s ending.

Scores at the time of the stoppage, which came at 43 seconds of the seventh round, were 58-56 and 59-55 twice for Mendez. The result will very likely be overturned to a no-contest, considering the Telefutura replay will clearly show the blow was low. Livingston should have had five minutes to be ready to continue, according to the rules of the California State Athletic Commission. Had he not been able to continue at that point, Mendez would have been declared a TKO winner. Given the ending, it is unfortunate for Mendez that a solid showing will likely go to waste, at least in terms of his won-loss record.

Moving up to the eight-round distance, progressing super bantam Manuel Avila (10-0, 3 KOs) of Fairfield, California showed off his jab and lateral movement en route to a measured unanimous decision win over the naturally smaller John Alberto Molina (32-20-3, 20 KOs) of Fort Myers, Florida by way of Caucasia, Colombia.

Despite the size disadvantage, it was Molina, 121.5, who pressed the action throughout. Though getting on inside was Molina’s only hope, his plan played into the hands of the comfortable counter-puncher Avila. The young prospect, 123, seemed happy to jab and move his way to the points win soon after the fight got under way. The little bit of action the fight provided was in the few moments Molina managed to back Avila into a corner or to the ropes, forcing his undefeated foe to exchange before moving back out of range.

After eight rounds of bull versus matador back-and-forth, Avila was given the nod on all three judges’ cards. All three officials had Avila a winner in seven of the eight rounds, with the final tally of 79-73 across the board.

Local favorite Guy Robb (9-1, 4 KOs) of Sacramento, California sent his strong contingent home happy as he dropped the durable Jonathan Alcantara (6-9-2, 1 KO) of Novato, California en route to a wide six-round unanimous decision victory.

Despite his accomplished amateur background, Robb, 126.5, is becoming known for his relentless inside game and that trait stood out in the opening rounds against Alcantara, 128, a late fill-in opponent.

After utilizing his harder and more accurate shots through two, Robb dropped Alcantara with a combination punctuated by a stiff right hand in the opening seconds of the third. Robb applied pressure soon after Alcantara rose, forcing the Novato resident to stumble back with another clean combo. However, by the finals seconds, Alcantara seemed to have regained his legs and even began to offer back with some ineffective attempts of his own. Just to show Robb he was still present, Alcantara shoved Robb as the bell rang to end the third.

Robb, coming in off one of his longer layoffs as a pro, may have winded a bit after the third and eventually tempered his offense as the rounds wore on. Acting more as a counter puncher, Robb found success in the latter rounds. Picking his shots, Robb outboxed Alcantara in the final round en route to the shutout decision, 60-53 across the board. Robb will return to the ring October 6th in his hometown at the famed Sacramento Memorial Auditorium.

Despite an uneven start, Jonathan Chicas (7-0, 3 KOs) of San Francisco, California outgunned journeyman Jose Mendoza (7-7, 3 KOs) of Oxnard, California by way of Jalisco, Jalisco, Mexico for the second time in just under a month.

Chicas, 140, fought a bit recklessly in the opening rounds, but found a home for his power shots in each stanza. Mendoza, 139, was successful when he opened up, particularly in the second and third rounds. However, as was the case in their first encounter, Mendoza did not have the power to earn Chicas’ respect. Even when was hit clean, Chicas mostly walked through the punches and fired back in combination. Chicas regained complete control in the last two acts and was named the winner, 49-45 across the three cards. Back in August, Chicas took a shutout four-round decision over Mendoza in Fairfield, California.

A scheduled four-round super featherweight bout between former amateur standout Andy Vences of San Jose, California and Carlos Higuera Gonzalez (1-1) of Los Angeles, California was scratched from the card this afternoon. Gonzalez’ required blood work was not completed in time which forced the California State Athletic Commission to remove him from the fight. No opponent could be found to save the night for Vences, who was scheduled to make his debut. Vences now hopes to debut on the aforementioned October 6th card in Sacramento.

Photos by Erik Killin

Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at ortega15rds@lycos.com

WOODLAND, CALIFORNIA – Without undefeated records to cling to, middleweights Paul Mendez and DonYil Livingston meet in an eight-round bout that has huge implications on the rest of their careers in tonight’s Telefutura Solo Boxeo-televised main event emanating from the Woodland Community & Senior Center. Fighters for the five-bout card weighed-in Friday night at Las Islitas Ostioneria, just down the street from tonight’s fight venue.

Mendez (9-2-1, 3 KOs) of Delano, California has kept busy over the last year, but found mixed results both times he stepped up in competition during that stretch. Last September Mendez met James Parison, who coincidentally brings a similar style into the ring that Livingston does. In a close fight, Mendez dropped a six-round decision. Two fights later, Mendez came up in class again and was perhaps lucky to escape with a draw against unbeaten Dmitry Chudinov. Now after two wins against modest opposition, Mendez, who scaled 162-pounds Friday, attempts to prove he can succeed at the next level in a pick’em type fight.

Livingston (8-1-1, 4 KOs) of Palmdale, California enters tonight’s bout with something to prove himself. Last October, Livingston earned his prospect stripes by hanging the first ‘L’ on the record of previously unbeaten and heralded Gary Shaw Productions-promoted power-puncher Kurtiss Colvin via unanimous six-round decision. However, some of that luster was knocked off three fights later as unheralded Elie Augustama dropped Livingston en route to a six-round split decision this past March. Livingston, who also scaled 162-pounds, has been out of the ring since. If he can claim a victory over Mendez, Livingston would be right back on track. Tonight’s main event is the type of fight neither fighter can afford to lose and the winner becomes an attractive option for a meaningful opportunity not too far down the road.

In the co-feature, rising super bantamweight Manuel Avila (9-0, 3 KOs) of Fairfield, California will take on experienced journeyman John Alberto Molina (32-19-3, 20 KOs) of Fort Myers, Florida by way of Caucasia, Colombia in an eight-rounder. Avila, scheduled for the eight-round distance for the first time, is coming off one of his better outings – a third-round knockout of previously once-beaten Vicente Alfaro just four weeks ago.

Molina, who relocated to Florida just this year, was last in the ring in July. In that fight, Molina was disposed of by undefeated Juan Carlos Payano in nine rounds in a fight fought just over the 115-pound super flyweight limit. On Friday, Avila scaled 123-pounds, while Molina came in at 121.5-pounds. Avila was one pound over the contracted weight and had to forfeit 20 percent of his purse, ten of which will go to Molina.

In what will be surely be an entertaining fight, Guy Robb (8-1, 4 KOs) of Sacramento, California will take on the always tough Jonathan Alcantara (6-8-2, 1 KO) of Novato, California in a six-round super featherweight fight. Robb rebounded from his first pro loss with a fifth-round stoppage over Rodrigo Aranda in June and now returns to his home area for the first time since December, when he lit up the crowd at the Woodland Community & Senior Center with a fifth-round stoppage of Hugo Ramos. Alcantara, who had been scheduled to fight elsewhere tonight, but could not make the contracted weight, came in at the last minute to save Robb’s spot on the bill. Alcantara was last seen going the distance with mega prospect Roman Morales in August. Prior to that, Alcantara sprung an upset over former amateur standout Walter Sarnoi in May. Robb scaled 126.5-pounds Friday, while Alcantara came in at 128.

In a four-round light welterweight bout, Jonathan Chicas (6-0, 3 KOs) of San Francisco, California will look to outdo himself as he fights Jose Mendoza (7-6, 3 KOs) of Jalisco, Jalisco, Mexico for the second straight time. In their first meeting, which took place on August 25th, Chicas pounded his way to a shutout four-round decision. Mendoza, fighting for the fourth time in the U.S., weighed in at 139-pounds, while Chicas scaled 140.

Former amateur standout Andy Vences of San Jose, California will make his professional debut in a four-round super featherweight bout against Carlos Higuera Gonzalez (1-1) of Los Angeles, California. Vences, long one of the top ranked amateurs in the country, weighed-in at 129.5-pounds Friday. Sporting a bright blonde dye-job, Gonzalez weighed in at 130.

The evening’s festivities were supposed to be rounded out by the debut of another of the area’s top amateurs, as Ricardo Pinell of San Francisco was slated to take on Jerome Buchanon of Kalamazoo, Michigan in a four-rounder. Pinell weighed-in at 160-pounds. Unfortunately for Pinell, his opponent Buchanon came in a bit over at 174, and thus no fight.

Tickets for the event, promoted by Golden Boy Promotions, Don Chargin Productions, Paco Presents and Jorge Marron Productions, are available online at PacoPresentsBoxing.com.

Quick Weigh-in Results:

Middleweights, 8 Rounds
Mendez 162
Livingston 162

Super Bantamweights, 8 Rounds
Avila 123
Molina 121.5

Super Featherweights, 6 Rounds
Robb 126.5
Alcantara 128

Light Welterweights, 4 Rounds
Chicas 140
Mendoza 139

Super Featherweights, 4 Rounds
Vences 129.5
Higuera Gonzalez 130

Photos by Erik Killin

Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at ortega15rds@lycos.com.

Hasim Rahman (50-7-2, 41 KOs) wants to do it again. The man who already took
on big names such as Lennox Lewis will face current WBA Champion Alexander
Povetkin (24-0, 16 KOs) at the Sporthalle Hamburg, Germany, on September 29.
And the American is not planning on just showing up. At the age of 39,
Rahman is aiming to become the champion of the world once more. Right before
the big showdown, the heavyweight took some time out of his preparations for
a one-on-one interview.

Hasim Rahman, you will be stepping back into the ring on September 29. Your
last fight was in June 2011 which ended in a victory over Galen Brown. Now
you have had quite a long break.

Hasim Rahman: The Galen Brown fight was over a year ago and really was a
tune up. About the only thing I can say is, that I will be in a lot better
condition for the Povetkin fight than I was for Galen.

What are your thoughts on your next opponent Alexander Povetkin? Where do
you see his strengths and which weaknesses are you planning to exploit when
you meet him inside the ring?

Hasim Rahman: Povetkin is a very good fighter. He has proven to be a winner
at every level. He was an Olympic gold medallist and is the current WBA
Champion. I have respect for him as a boxer. Regardless of his strengths or
weaknesses, I know what I have to do and that is to knock him out. I know
that when I’m at my best, no one can take my power and I will knock him or
anyone else out, period!

As mentioned before it has been a while since your last fight. When did you
start preparing for Povetkin and what shape are you currently in?

Hasim Rahman: I’ve been preparing for this fight for six months. We thought
we were going to fight in May, then July, now it is September 29. I haven’t
been this ready for a fight in many years. I’m prepared to go twelve rounds,
I’m in great condition.

How are you dealing with the time difference between your hometown of Las
Vegas and Germany?

Hasim Rahman: It won’t have an impact on my performance. The first time I
fought Lennox Lewis it was in South Africa and the time difference didn’t
affect me. I will arrive in Hamburg a week before the fight, so within a day
I will have adjusted to the local time.

You have been in 60 fights as a professional and fought some of the biggest
names such as Holyfield and Lewis. How much of an advantage might your
experience be against Povetkin?

Hasim Rahman: My experience is invaluable. This is not my first rodeo, I
have performed on the largest stage and know how to keep my focus and how to
embrace the moment.

This will be your second fight in Germany. What is your take on the German
boxing scene? Do you enjoy fighting over here?

Hasim Rahman: I am a professional and I will fight wherever I have to.
Germany has become the hot spot for heavyweight title fights. The fans are
knowledgeable and really support boxing. I’m looking forward to wowing them
with my performance.

How will the fight end on September 29? Will it go the distance?

Hasim Rahman: No fight at this level is easy, but I know that I am 100
percent prepared and so I am supremely confident. The fight will not go the
distance. I will KO Povetkin on September 29.