By Norm Frauenheim–

Oscar Valdez was motivated by a chance to shut mouths. He did that, including this one. But his compelling stoppage of Miguel Berchelt was – make that is – more than immediate satisfaction gained from silencing the doubters.

It is validation, enduring proof, of who he is. It was there in a victory loaded with lessons for a cynical business short on patience and poise. Quaint notions, both, but Valdez practices them with faith impossible to break. Fracture his jaw, but not his ethics.

They are why he won, leaving the feared Berchelt face- down on the canvas last Saturday. That patience and poise, instead of purses and pound-for-pound claims, are why we’re still talking about a fight that happened nearly a week ago, almost an era today in the social-media’s accelerated time zone. A good guy won in a timeless way.

Maybe, it takes him into a fight with Shakur Stevenson. Or maybe, Gervonta Davis. Already, the cynics are circling, saying he wouldn’t have much of a chance against either. If that sounds familiar, just look at last week’s headlines and odds. Very few suggested that Valdez had any chance.

But cynics beware. Valdez is the defining face of what it is to overcome. A broken jaw didn’t finish him in the rain against Scott Quigg three years ago. He was carried out on a stretcher, looking very much like a fighter who won what some believed was his last stand.

But only his jaw was broken. Not his resiliency. The jaw healed and left a lesson he used to propel himself to what has become a great story for a sport with too few. He started over in a place and in a corner that allowed him to find himself. In Eddy Reynoso, Valdez found his identity.

It was evident in a couple of fight-turning moments midway through the bout. It was further affirmed in colleague Bart Barry’s brilliant column Monday. http://www.15rounds.com/oscar-eddy-and-the-power-of-powerful-questions/

Both are evolving. But that mutual evolution wasn’t clear until those middle rounds, one that could have taken a nasty turn with Valdez instead of Berchelt face-down in the 10-round. Their mutual understanding of what was happening and what was at stake was the key.

Berchelt survived a shaky fourth and began to exert himself. Signs of Valdez, pre-Quigg, were evident. His face was flushed. He looked as if he were about to sacrifice poise and smarts to an instinct that had taken over so often. He would brawl, which was a sure way to lose.

But he didn’t. Reynoso was there to remind him to remember the plan and resist the temptation. It was timely, advice strategically brilliant because of how it was carefully delivered and then stubbornly executed.

The trainer-fighter relationship is often nothing more than personal chemistry. Think Freddie Roach and Manny Pacquiao. But Reynoso-Valdez looks to be something even more. They’re both students, learning from each other. Teaching each other, too.

Until those moments in the middle rounds of Valdez’ victory for a junior-lightweight title, it was hard to get a solid read on Reynoso. Turns out, that was unfair. He’s best known for Canelo Alvarez, who ranks among the game’s most accomplished fighters.

The assumption was that Canelo would make any trainer look good. Think of Phil Jackson, whose coaching abilities were somehow questioned simply because he had Michael Jordan in Chicago and Kobe Bryant with the Lakers.

Reynoso was a virtual novice when he moved into Canelo’s corner. After Canelo’s lone loss in a one-sided decision to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, I still remember the great Rafael Mendoza, a Hall of Fame manager, telling me that Canelo would have to learn on his own.

The insightful Mendoza, a former Mexico City sportswriter, had worked with Canelo early in his career. Both lived in Guadalajara. But he split with Canelo, he said, because he wanted Eddy and his father, Chepo, to hire a more experienced trainer.

The Reynosos were there for Canelo in the beginning, but as investors not as trainers. Mendoza, who died in May 2018, wanted a more experienced voice. Not sure who he had in mind, but I’m guessing Mexican legend Nacho Beristain, whom he brought into Humberto Gonzalez’ corner after a 1993 loss to Michael Carbajal. With Beristain, Gonzalez won the next two fights in a junior-flyweight trilogy, beating Carbajal by narrow decisions in both.

We’ll never know how Canelo would have fared with Beristain instead of Eddy Reynoso. By then, Beristain was more of a revered teacher, an authoritarian never to be questioned. But I’m betting Mendoza would be applauding how Eddy Reynoso has transformed himself into the best trainer of the day. He listens, and It’s clear that Valdez and Canelo listen to him.

It’s that intriguing evolution that makes watching worthwhile. I’ll even watch Canelo Saturday against the longest of longshots, 50-to-1 underdog Avni Yildirim, in a super-middleweight title fight (DAZN 8 pm ET/5 pm PT) at the Dolphins stadium in south Florida. However, I wouldn’t watch if not for what was seen in Valdez’ triumph over Berchelt.

The head movement, jab and footwork exhibited by Valdez have been there at an ever-improving rate in Canelo.

They’re still learning.

So, too, are we all.   

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Las Vegas undefeated Mexican Oscar Valdez dropped Mexican titlist Miguel “El Alacran” Berchelt, The Ring’s number one super featherweight, thrice and stopped him violently in round 10.  Carcrash violently.  It was a much-anticipated match, broadcast by ESPN and promoted by Top Rank, that saw the underdog win in what was, but for a few rounds in its middle, a rout.

This was the sort of definitive ending to a definitive fight you wish on anyone who signs up for prizefighting and so few attain.  Nothing polemical, nothing squishy, nothing for unperspectivèd pundits to unpack.  A fully realized lefthook that dangled the larger man and champion in a space between his ongoing lightness and a perpetual darkness.

Valdez reacted dramatically, crying-out and making running circles.  Nowhere to put all that emotion.  A complete loosening of a man who appeared so tight for so long.  There was a cultural element to it all, too, that solely a Mexican would understand about another Mexican.

You could feel elation for Valdez even as you felt dread then sympathy for Berchelt even as you felt relief, perhaps, for our beloved sport.  When it gets it right and definitive, there’s nothing like boxing, is there?

There was a moment in the match a quarterhour before Valdez’s lefthook that felt unique.  Immediately after round 6, one that saw Berchelt in the middle of his best four-minute run of the fight, Valdez walked to his corner and had the following exchange with his chief second, Eddy Reynoso:

ER: ¿Cómo te sientes?

OV: Bien.

ER: ¿Cómo lo sientes a él?

OV: Cansado.

(ER: How do you feel?

OV: Good.

ER: How does he feel to you?

OV: Tired.)

It struck me immediately it was the first time I recalled hearing a trainer give so much trust to his charge’s judgment during a prizefight.  Lore and tradition tell us the trainer is a father figure, often saintly, and the fighter is an impetuous child, often ungrateful.  Part of the reason folks went in for and still do go in for the Cus D’Amato mythos, aside from Mike Tyson’s untiring salesmanship, is because tradition so well prepared us for the relationship D’Amato told everyone he had with Tyson and Tyson now tells everyone he had with D’Amato.

If that’s too American, here’s a Mexican version: Nacho Beristáin and the Brothers Marquez.  Before Rafael’s third match with Israel Vazquez, Nacho memorably opined, “If Rafael obeys (me), he will win.”  You can count on your fist the number of times Nacho or Coach Freddy asked Juan Manuel or Manny how the other guy was feeling during their 126 minutes of combat.

I ask you how you’re doing then I tell you how your opponent is doing – that’s the gist of the trainer-fighter dialogue, if the trainer doesn’t begin by telling the fighter, too, how he is feeling.  If, as Oscar Wilde wrote, all bad poetry is sincere, so too is all bad corner advice.

Eddy Reynoso is a new generation of trainer.  He has guided, generally gently, our sport’s alpha predator, Canelo Alvarez, to an unlikely state of constant improvement.  Canelo has taught Reynoso how to run a corner.

Surely Reynoso saw with the rest of us Berchelt’s gathering strength in round 6, even if Reynoso probably didn’t expect Berchelt to be emergent as he was in round 7.  Yet before Reynoso began strategizing and stuffing 10 minutes of instructions in 50 or so seconds, he gathered intelligence from Valdez.  A little of that may’ve been curiosity, Reynoso’s wishing to confirm his own intuition.  More of that, though, was proper coaching.

Reynoso wanted Valdez to hear himself confirm his own intuition.  Do believe had Valdez’s replies been disordered – I feel tired, and he feels strong – Reynoso would have altered his advice accordingly.  That is the mark of a great coach.  Reynoso was wholly present, in the moment with his charge, not lost in a thicket of his own pastround observations.  That’s why Reynoso was able to ask a question that began with the word how.

As generations of legal dramas have taught us, yes-no questions are only about confirming already held assumptions: “You feel fine, right?  And he’s tired, isn’t he?”  Questions of that sort are useless to a coach.  The opposite point on the spectrum – questions that begin with what and allow the speaker to learn about himself – would not have been appropriate in the middle of a confrontation like Saturday’s, either, though they’d be damn potent in a training camp.

We hear so often about a fighter’s need to trust his trainer.  Here is a new direction, call it Sendero Reynoso, by which a trainer learns to trust his fighter.

Valdez’s assessment of Berchelt at Saturday’s midway point mightn’t have been flawless – there’s plenty of machismo in any Mexican prizefighter (machismo for which Reynoso has an automated filter, of course) – but Valdez’s hearing himself say Berchelt was tired absolutely helped Valdez make it through round 7 and begin to change the fight back in round 8.  Which is not to imply Valdez lacked confidence at any moment Saturday.

Confident or not, though, there was a little Margarito-Cotto 1 energy (I know you felt it too) when Berchelt started taking runs at Valdez in rounds 6, 7 and 8.  There was nothing inevitable in round 7, then, about Valdez’s vindication in round 10.

An ending like what Valdez put on Berchelt and every expert who doubted him (I wasn’t asked to offer a prediction but am confident I’d’ve been wrong as everyone else) is what we seek in sport.  Something so decisive, so final, you’ve no choice but to shut-up and nod.  ¡Felicidades, Oscar!

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Miguel Berchelt defends the WBC Super  featherweight title against former Featherweight champion Oscar Valdez.  the action starts at 10 PM ET with undefeated Super Featherweight Gabriel Flores taking on Jayson Velez

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Round 1: Left and right from Valdez

Round 2 Left hook from Berchelt..Jab..Jab from Valdez..Blood from Nose of Berchelt..1-2 from Valdez

Round 3 Jab from Valdez..Jab..

Round 4 Big left hurts Berchelt..Another…Berchelt is wobble..Left AND THE ROPES HOLD UP BERCHELT FOR A 10-COUNT

Round 5 Big left hook from Valdez..Big Right

Round 6 Left from Berchelt..Left hook..Left hook from Valdez..Right..Berchelt landing a combination

Round 7 Left from Berchelt..Hard right hand in the corner..Left hook from Valdez and another..Left hook

Round 8 Jab and left hook from Valdez…Lead Left hook…Left hook

Round 9 Left hook from Valdez..Southpaw jab…LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES BERCHELT….Right from Valdrz..sweeping right

Round 10 Big right from Valdez…Straight right down the middle..Snapping jab and hard right…HUGE LEFT AT THE BELL AND DOWN GOES BERCHELT…HE IS KNOCKED OUT COLD

Round 1 Right from Flores
Round 2 Jab from Flores…Right from Velez..Right..Double jab from Flores
Round 3 Good jab from Flores..Right to body from Velez
Round 4 Left from Velez..Left from Flores..Left hook from Flores..Right to body from Velez..
Round 5 Jab from Flores…Counter left..
Round 6 1-2 from Flores and again…COUNTER LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES VELEZ…Big left wobbles Velez….LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES FLORES AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

By Norm Frauenheim–

Harm’s way is often the only way for Oscar Valdez. He has survived there. Prevailed there. Instinct has taken him there in a risky path toward danger and away from a safer route.

Safe, of course, is a relative term. In the ring, there’s no refuge. There’s no real escape, but there is elusiveness in tactics taught by wise trainers and booed by the blood-lust demographic in the boxing crowd.

Therein, rests the dilemma.

And the drama.

Both are there for Valdez (28-0, 22 KOs) Saturday night (ESPN 10pm ET/7pm PT) against a junior-lightweight with a presence that puts a defining face onto harm’s way. A feared face. Miguel Berchelt has size, power, a five-and-a-half-inch advantage in reach and stoppages in each of his last six fights.

In body and spirit, Berchelt (37-1, 33KOs) has the look of somebody built to inflict the pain in what Mike Tyson once called the hurt business. Get in his way and he’ll do the harm.

There’s peril there, possibly as much as Valdez has ever faced in what will be only the third bout at 130 pounds for the former featherweight champion.

It’s enough for the oddsmakers to force Valdez into a new role. For the first time, he’s the underdog. SportsBettingDime makes Berchelt a minus-190 favorite. At other books, the number is at about 4-to-1 and climbing, all in favor of Berchelt, the defending champion. Translation: Nobody gives Valdez much of a chance in the Top Rank bubble at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

Even Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez is picking Berchelt in what could prove to be another chapter in the Mexican tradition of blood and guts.

“Julio Cesar Chavez says Berchelt will win this fight,’’ said Valdez, who during a Zoom session talked about how he has found motivation in the one-sided odds. “Doesn’t bother me. A great thing about boxing is shutting mouths.’’

The pre-fight promotion includes inevitable parallels to Erik Morales-versus-Marco Antonio Barrera and Israel Vazquez-versus-Rafael Marquez. History sells. Hype does, too.

“The winner, I believe, can be the next superstar in Mexico,’’ said Berchelt, who is anxious to fulfill a dream he has had ever since he was a kid watching the Morales-Barrera trilogy.

History is probably a reach, but the potential for a memorable fight, if not a classic, is there in large part because of what has already been seen from Valdez. There’s been blood. And guts. He’s encountered, if not embraced, adversity. He endured it. And conquered it.

That was never more evident than nearly three years ago on a rainy, chilly night in Carson, Calif.  Beneath a tarp, Valdez fought Scott Quigg, who missed the 126-pound mandatory and was weaponized by several pounds of added leverage at opening bell.

Valdez manager Frank Espinoza advised him not to fight after the scale fail. But Valdez, never one to back away, said no and moved forward, straight into harm’s way. Espinoza saw what could happen.

In the fifth, Quigg broke Valdez’ jaw. For the next seven rounds, Valdez boxed, brawled and bled. After it was all over, the rain washed away footprints and debris from the canvas. Only the stain in the Valdez corner remained from the blood he had spilled, spit up between rounds.

He was the winner. But it was hard to celebrate. Even a smile had to hurt as he was placed on a stretcher and into an ambulance after scoring a decision, a unanimous testament to his courage. The experience, he says now, is a source for confidence.

“The broken jaw made me a better fighter, because I know I can compete when I’m hurt,’’ he said.

Proof of that had been delivered more than once. He fought through pain and a surprising challenge from Filipino Genesis Servania in September, 2017 in Tucson, where the two-time Mexican Olympian went to school and still has family.

In April of that year, he was way ahead on the scorecards against a dangerous challenger, Miguel Marriaga, yet he waved at him in an invitation to brawl in the 11^th and 12^th rounds. He was doing it for the fans, he said. He wanted to give them a show.

After his jaw healed in the months post Quigg, Valdez changed trainers, leaving Manny Robles for Eddy Reynoso, Canelo Alvarez’ trainer. He’s been with Reynoso for four fights. He has tried to replicate the head movement and defense so evident in Canelo’s ever-evolving style.

Valdez says he has worked at adding more options. Yet even with Reynoso in his corner, he got knocked down by a late sub, Adam Lopez, in 2019. He went on to win a seventh-round TKO.

“Being with Eddy has made me a more complete fighter,’’ Valdez says. “I don’t think people have seen me at my best.’’

Against Berchelt, Valdez says there are options.

“Plan A, Plan B, Plan C,’’ said Valdez, whose Olympic resume includes training in the game’s defensive fundamentals.

He might need all three and a few more. Plan D, E, F and G. Then again, if those plans break like that jaw, Valdez might be at his dangerous best. In his unbeaten run, Valdez has been a little bit like Michael Carbajal, a Hall of Fame junior-flyweight who grew up in Phoenix, about 180 miles north of Nogales, Valdez’ hometown in Mexico.

Carbajal, like Valdez, was at his best when he was hurt. A badly-bloodied and seemingly-beaten Carbajal knocked out Jorge Arce in 1999. Carbajal got up from two knockdowns to knock out Humberto Gonzalez in 1993.

Harm’s way is a dangerous way. For some fighters, however, there’s no other way  

By Bart Barry-

Saturday on DAZN in a non-title match, the fighting pride of Tajikistan, undefeated super featherweight Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov, settled for a majority draw against California’s Joseph “Jo Jo” Diaz, a former Olympian and IBF titlist, in a California casino.  The match was not spectacular but better than what its weighin portended.

This was to be a redemption thing of some sort for Diaz even before it had to be an even larger redemption thing for Diaz.  It sure wasn’t either.

Long before Friday’s weighin debacle Diaz’s comportment raised questions about his willingness.  Setting aside his skedaddling out the featherweight division without rematching reluctant Gary Russell, there was a contract and general understanding Diaz should give a rematch to Tevin Farmer, the man Diaz won his IBF super featherweight title from 13 months ago.  Diaz, in no hurry to fight Farmer again and promoted by an adrift outfit now without its one revenue generator, allowed COVID-19 considerations to scuttle his rematch and assign an unknown Tajikistani in Farmer’s stead.

Then Diaz missed weight by so much weight he wasn’t allowed to try again.  The culprit?  A missing sauna at Fantasy Springs Casino.  In his postfight interview Diaz used his generation’s version of postmodernist cant, beginning a torrent of excuses with the standard disclaimer: No excuses.  There were the hometown haters trying to make money off his name, and childbirth, and a host venue so unprofessional as to tell Diaz to make weight by making his own sauna in his hotel room.  There were Saturday’s judges, too, who mistook Diaz’s blocking everything thrown at him for landed punches.

Somewhere in this no-excuse-making mishmash, delightfully enough, the large gash to the outside of Diaz’s right eye, opened undoubtedly by a blocked punch, began spurting blood down the angering former titlist’s face.  It wasn’t bleeding quite so steadily as Diaz’s nose had through much of the fight – another victim of a blocked punch.

Diaz’s outrage played authentic as his haircolor and promoter’s every utterance.  Diaz long has felt like an Oscar knockoff.  The rehearsed autobiography, the California roots, the Olympic dreams, the vanity.  With about half the talent.

Saturday Diaz was easily the more talented fighter, still.  Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov holds no secrets.  With Freddie Roach in his corner, too, what secrets he once held are fewer.  Coach Freddie wants his men to hurt the men across from them – “he’s not your friend”.  Roach’s own condition, the product of other men once hurting him, lends a counterintuitive credence to his demands.  If a conditioning coach unscathed by others’ fists implored his charges to hurt other men, it would sound bullying, weekend warrior-ish, silly, in its way, as that Vince Lombardi hologram a couple Sundays ago.  That Roach’s neck is strained and his hands shake with Parkinson’s while he implores a fighter to hurt the man across from him says This is the only way, son, for if there were another way, wouldn’t I be the one to tell you?

That Roach says it doesn’t mean his charges take heed, necessarily, as Rakhimov didn’t in the later rounds Saturday, when either his conditioning failed or his affection for Jo Jo succeeded and Rakhimov relented right about the time the fight was there for his taking.  A life-changing event for Rakhimov?  No, not really.  COVID-19 is a life-changing event.  Winning a sliver of a title from Jo Jo during a pandemic is not.

Besides, if we’re going to concern ourselves with what was squandered Saturday, let’s go back to Jo Jo, where the squandering considerations begin and end.  As everyone knows, Golden Boy Promotions is not in a very good place.  Without Canelo Alvarez the company is a regional promoter with a flaky figurehead.  The contract they have with DAZN, such as it is, relies primarily on DAZN’s current lack of meaningful fights and fighters.  That should persist for some time, helping both parties overlook how little value Golden Boy Promotions brings a broadcaster without Canelo on its roster.

It would be an excellent time for Jo Jo to show his promoter and his promoter’s network he is the next Ryan Garcia.  Instead Jo Jo comes to his first title defense woefully unprepared and goofy as hell in orange coif.  Much more Son of the Legend than Niño de Oro.  Does he get in the ring on a redemption quest, bin all self-preservation and ice an opponent we might later memorialize as “that tough Russian”?  Nope.  He tries for a quarter of each opening round then goes on defense and ekes out a draw, much to his father’s vocal dismay (and has anyone thought to coach trainers on how audible they’ve become to judges?).

Jo Jo can now give Tevin Farmer that rematch, if Farmer still wants it, or Jo Jo can go away.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Joseph Diaz takes on Shavkat Rakhimov in an IBF Jr. Lightweight Title bout. (Diaz lost the belt on the scales).  The action begins at 8 PM ET and will include the WBO Junior Middleweight world title bout between Patrick Teixeira and Brian Castano.

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Round 1: Nice Left from Diaz

Round 2 Left from Diaz knocks Rakhimov off balance…Another left..Body punching…Big Left

Round 3 Blood from Nose of Diaz…Straight left from Diaz..Straight left..Good body shots..Combination that is finished by a left…

Round 4 Jab from Diaz..Body shot from Rakhimov…

Round 5 Counter left from Diaz…Combination from Rakhimov…Body shot..Body shot..Overhand left from Diaz..

Round 6 Combination from Rakhimov

Round 7 Counter right from Diaz..Good Lefr from Rakhimov…Left from Diaz

Round 8 Nice Left from Diaz..Nice left from Rakhimov..Right hook

Round 9 Body shot from Diaz…

Round 10 Good Jab by Rakhimov

Round 11 Nice left from Diaz…Good left from Rakhimov..Counter righ from Diaz

Round 12 Diaz lands a straight left…Nice right hook..Nice right…Left from Rakhimov…Left

115-113 FOR DIAZ…114-114 TWICE — A DRAW

ROUND 1 Jabbing from Teixeira

ROUND 2 Catano starting to land…Left from Teixeira..

ROUND 3 Catano getting more aggressive..Pressuring against the ropes..Nice Right from Teixeira

ROUND 4 Good Body shot from Teixeira..Good left from Castano…

ROUND 5  2 Good left uppercuts from Teixeira…left..body shot..Counter right from Castano

ROUND 6 Good right from Castano..Another Good right at the bell

ROUND 7 Left from Teixeira

ROUND 8 Good body shot from Castano..Counter right from Teixeira

Round 9 Combination from Castano..Countering..

Round 10 Right to body from Castano..Big right buckles Teixeira..

Round 11 Big Right counter from Castano

Round 12 Teixeira lands a left hook…Good uppercut and body shot from Castano..Teixeira is in trouble…Hard left to the body

120-108; 119-108 AND 117-111 FOR BRIAN CASTANO

Round 1: Good right from Rios..Nice left hook…Head and body shots..Body shots
Round 2 Body shot from Rios…Nice Combination..Left to body…Uppercut…Body shot..Right…Body shots..Rios is cut on the forehead from a headbutt
Round 3 Nice combination…Uppercut..Right cross
Round 4  Nice uppercut and left from Rios
Round 5 Combination from Rios
Round 6 Sharp Shots from Rios…Negrete lands a body shot..Body shot from Rios..
Round 7 Right from Negrete..2 sweeping rights from Rios..
Round 8 Right and left from Rios…Body shot
Round 9 Good combination from Rios…Right from Negrete…
Round 10  Right from Negrete

100-90 TWICE AND 99-91 FOR RIOS

Round 1 Chopping right from Olivas
Round 2 Good left hook from Mosley…Body shot on the inside
Round 3 Olivas swelling around the Right eye..Right from Mosley…Left
Round 4 Nice left hook from Olivas…Big Right
Round 5 Doctor Checking’s Olivas Eye before round..Left from Mosley..Olivas Eye is basically shut…2 lefts from Mosley..Right..Left hook from Olivas….FIGHT IS STOPPED AS OLIVAS CANT SEE

Round 1: Right to body from Melikuziev…Straight Right
Round 2: Right to body from Melikuziev..Right hook hurts Fitch..Fitch bleeding from the nose..combination
Round 3 Straight left to the head from Melikuziev…Another…LEFT AND FITCH TAKES A KNEE…Good body shot..HARD LEFT TO THE BODY…DOWN GOES FITCH AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

By Norm Frauenheim–

The lines are getting longer and maybe the wait is getting shorter. If that sounds like a contradiction, welcome to a fine mess that has been raging for 12 months. February marks a forgettable anniversary. More headstone than happy.

Gone is the world as we knew it. At least, it’s been absent since Tyson Fury’s stoppage of Deontay Wilder in a Las Vegas rematch on Feb. 22. What followed was a prolonged string of postponements, social-distancing, masking-up, empty seats, bubble bouts and boredom.

Maybe, sellouts, beer lines, boos and cheers come back. Even trash talk would sound better than the artificial noise that fills today’s empty arenas. It’s the Pandemic version of elevator music.

Hope, at least, is on the horizon. There’s a chance to think that a meal in a restaurant, a regular haircut and a seat at ringside will cease to become a risk.

The Pandemic appears to be in retreat, according to various experts and numbers. An ongoing decline in the infection-and-hospitalization rate looks to be the result of vaccinations and COVID-19 survivors, according to the New York Times.

Combine the two, and you get the beginnings of herd immunity, according to the story. I hate crowds, but I’m hoping to join that herd. I’m eligible for my first jab, the UK word for a shot. Getting an appointment is a hustle. Getting in line is a hassle. But getting the virus is worse. There’s optimism in the waiting, unlike a few months ago when there was only worry and wondering.

Wondering if it would ever end.

There are still reasons to wonder. To wit: Thursday’s news that the Joe Smith-Maxim Vlasov fight for a vacant light-heavyweight title in Las Vegas won’t happen Saturday. COVID hasn’t quit yet. Vlasov tested positive.

 “I am devastated with the postponement of my world title fight against Joe Smith Jr,’’ Vlasov said in a Top Rank release about a bout that had been scheduled to headline an ESPN telecast. “I have been following strict protocols, I have done regular testing with negative results, and I have no symptoms. I am well prepared and had an excellent training camp. I look forward to the rescheduling of the fight.’’

The news is a reminder and a warning, both timely. Too much can still go awry in the fight to come back from a virus with almost as many mutations as there are masks. Health experts call them variants. They come from South Africa, or the UK, or Brazil, or the dark side of the moon. They’re scary because of their unpredictability. They could land like that proverbial punch, the one you never see.

Still, there’s the dose of hope that comes from the end a needle.

Signs of its potential impact are emerging. There was news this week that Canelo Alvarez has been granted a promoter’s license by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. It’s the first step in what looks to be plans for Canelo to fight UK super-middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders on May 8 at Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders new home in Vegas.

May appears to be the target month for boxing to get back to something that resembles business-as-usual.

A long-anticipated Jose Ramirez-versus-Josh Taylor title-unification bout at junior welterweight is also scheduled for May 1 or May 8.

Then, there are heavyweights Anthony Joshua and Fury. They’ve reportedly agreed to two fights. The first is expected to happen in “late May, early June,” Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn has said repeatedly in multiple media reports.

The thinking – make that hope – is that the herd will have developed enough immunity in May to gather in numbers that can produce the kind of gate that can pay the fighters. The Pandemic’s empty seats have eroded the kind of purses fighters grew to expect, pre-COVID.

Example: Teofimo Lopez. He became a star with his decision in October over Vasiliy Lomachenko for the lightweight title in a bubble filled with cardboard cutouts instead of paying customers. It was the Fight of the Pandemic. It put Lopez in the top tier of the pound-for-pound scale. But the pay scale remains diminished. Pandemic pay will never fulfill Lopez’ current asking price — $10 million.

Only a vaccinated herd, healthy in body and wallet, can generate that kind of money. That’s as fundamental as jabs.

Delivering them.

Taking them, too.  

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – We’ve got Covid back under control here, partially, and if we hold the line while vaccinations take their effect we may avert further historic tragedy.  If we do this it will be thanks to local government and local organizations, a very different breed of leader and businessman than what the word Texan rightfully conjures; this city’s mayor and this county’s judge have resisted what shortsighted greed informed most every state-level decision come down these last 12 months.

History will not forgive, even if voters – beleaguered: frightened, unhealthy, desperate for remedy – someday do.  A generation of men raised to genuflect always before the market god went unconvinced there were questions in the universe they couldn’t answer with their childlike supply-and-demand intuition.  Before the first Covid casualties were buried at virtual funerals these jackasses got up to bray about we’ve got to get this economy going again!

Whatever economy returns won’t look like the old one.  A lesson from the Renaissance, courtesy of the Bubonic Plague, is when a half-million citizens die before they’re supposed to die, survivors lose faith in the previous system, and that lost faith expresses itself in unimagined ways.  I’ll leave it to the kids to figure out which churches they’ll swap-out for artists this time round.

Crypto over fiat, doge over dollars, looks like a safe bet so far.  Or maybe it’s just coincidence the U.S. dollar, the one constant in every human’s life since World War II, loses 99-percent of its value against a different virtual currency every month.  Since the presidential election dogecoin is up 2,544-percent against the dollar.  That is astounding when written like that and astounding in an entirely different way if you write it like a loss in the dollar’s value.  Whence does this value come?  Maybe it has long existed in the immense amounts of uncompensated labor humans have done often for themselves and more often for others.

If this account reads like a Covid survivor’s, I suppose it is written by one.  Wednesday night I had the second of two Moderna SARS-COV-2 vaccination shots, 28 days after my first.  It strikes me there are far more speculative accounts of what the vaccine is or isn’t than eyewitness accounts, so let’s remedy that slightly here.

The second vaccination shot ushered in none of the euphoria of the first, unfortunately, but it did bring side effects.  Round 7 PM Wednesday I made my way in the same partially defunct mall I had in January and found quite a few more people in the lobby than there’d been in January.  Yet the line for vaccinations was empty.  I strode to the registration table, presented my CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card and got directed down the same hallway.  There was no one in front of me this time, and within two minutes I was injected in my left shoulder and sent to the same 10-minute-observation room.

Ten minutes later I was back in the lobby and noticing how many more persons were gathered than 15 minutes earlier.  Many more and much older.  It struck me on the way out the door these are people who’ve been unable to attain appointments.  It’s one more blossoming tragedy vulnerable citizens now congregate for hours indoors in the hopes of pulling a leftover vaccine at last-call.  Which is not to recommend anyone forego his second shot; the last thing the world needs in 2022 is millions of half-vaccinated Americans globetrotting to spread their iterated, thrice-as-virulent strains.  

Thursday morning began symptom-free, with a slight pain where the needle went.  At 1 PM, though, symptoms hit.  The best way to describe the symptoms are the fatigued and achy feeling you get when you know you are about to get sick and there’s nothing to be done about it – maybe an hour after Airborne or echinacea or immune syrup could have intervened.  This crummy feeling lasted till 9 PM.  The next morning only a bit of left-shoulder soreness remained.  For those scoring at home, then, an eight-hour window of symptoms occurred in the 18th hour after the second vaccination shot happened.

Sometime by the end of this week I’ll be fully vaccinated.  This brings all the ecstasy of being stranded alone on an island; you have the freedom to frolic naked in the waves and bathe in coconut milk, but without anyone to share this great good fortune with, really, what is it for?  A coworker posed this question Friday.  My answer is that it’s for not-being a vector, for not-infecting others, for disabling one node, of billions, on COVID-19’s network.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim–

During days when there’s more talk about fights that don’t get made instead of those that do, promoter Eddie Hearn has an interesting idea involving the latest one to frustrate fans.

Caleb Plant-versus-David Benavidez has been near the top of the wish list for a couple of years, yet no amount of trash talk or apparent interest has moved it any closer to reality.

It’s right there, another fantasy fight consigned to never-never land. Maybe, it’ll show up as a co-feature on the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. card. Yeah right. Wait on. Dream on.

On the surface, Plant-Benavidez appears to be as unlikely as ever in the wake of Plant’s one-sided decision over Caleb Truax last weekend. Plant added a victory to his record and a loss to his reputation.

His skillset was exposed, shown to be wanting, especially in his hopes for a super-middleweight biggie with Canelo Alvarez. Perhaps, Plant’s performance was an aberration.

Plant had said he wanted to get past his mandatories. That’s all he did against Truax.  He also could have been limited by a hand injury, which he said he suffered midway throughout the 12-round shutout.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

Abundantly clear to Hearn and everybody else in a surprisingly large FOX audience (1.887 million, peaking at 2.019 million, according to Nielsen), however, was that Plant isn’t ready for Canelo any more than Benavidez is.

Hearn suggested during an appearance on “The Ak & Barak Show” (DAZN and SiriusXM) that Plant and Benavidez meet in what would be an eliminator for the right to face Canelo, perhaps in September.

It makes sense

Maybe too much sense.

Remember, this is boxing, constant chaos.

In post-fight interviews after Truax, Plant repeated that he intends to wait on Canelo, who has a mandatory defense scheduled for Feb. 27 against Turkish challenger Avni Yildirim in Miami and then a title unification fight with UK belt-holder Billy Joe Saunders in early May.

From a promotional standpoint, Plant-Benavidez might inject some anticipation for Canelo’s next couple of bouts. He’s a 20-to-1 favorite over Yildirim. Those odds figure to multiply as opening bell approaches.

The Saunders bout promises to be a lot more competitive, yet Canelo still figures to be the favorite. Plant-Benavidez would just be another reason to talk about Canelo, who recently signed a two-fight deal with Hearn. Talk is also another way of turning up the volume on Canelo’s ongoing campaign for No. 1 in the pound-for-pound debate.

It would work, work on a couple of levels.

Then again, it could come apart because of that constant chaos, boxing’s only reliable business model. It’s not clear how serious Plant’s hand injury is. If it keeps the super-middleweight belt-holder out of the gym for a long stretch, a promotional idea remains on the wish list.

More problematic, perhaps, is Benavidez’ weight. Can he make 168 anymore? He failed the day before his stoppage of Roamer Alexis Angulo last August. It cost him his belt and an immediate chance at Canelo. 

There’s talk that Benavidez is already in the 175-pound division. We’ll find out the day, March 12, before he fights Ronald Ellis on March 13 when he returns to the scene of the August scale fail at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.

That’s when and where Benavidez will be back on that scale as either a light-heavyweight or with a renewed chance to get back in line for Canelo.

By Bart Barry –

Saturday in Los Angeles in a match broadcast by FOX PBC relocated Tennessean Caleb “Sweethands” Plant decisioned Minnesota’s Caleb Truax to retain a super middleweight title that is to Canelo Alvarez’s super middleweight championship what Dogecoin is to the U.S. dollar.  Afterwards Plant congratulated himself for his shutout victory and willingness to fight anybody despite a sore hand.

Even in this traditionally mediocre time of year when mediocrities are mistaken for much more Plant looked mediocre.

When our beloved sport had a more appreciable fanbase the stretch between December and February was when most any decent fight or fighter got sold all over social media.  It was an anticipatory sort of thing wherein youngsters looked at the great fights to come and projected their justifiable enthusiasm for the future on a present that did not justify their enthusiasms.  Though there was a fraction the enthusiasm for Saturday’s broadcast as bygone years’ January offerings there were still folks projecting their understandable enthusiasm for March’s super flyweight superfight on the Calebs.

Caleb Truax, stopped in his prime by both Danny Jacobs and Anthony Dirrell, got presented as some sort of legitimate threat to a super middleweight titlist, which he is not.  For comparison’s sake, imagine what aficionados would say if after undressing Callum Smith, Canelo had called-out Truax.

Yet a guy who says with a straight face he wants to unify all the titles and become the first super middleweight somethingorother chose Truax as his third title defense.  Was his PBC stablemate David Benavidez unavailable?  There’s no telling.  PBC palace intrigue intrigues nobody anymore.  

Benavidez hasn’t been justifying his talents these last few years, either, but at least he looks like he wants to hurt other men.  Plant looks like he takes himself and his conditioning and his boxing seriously but he hasn’t nearly enough malice to make his living as more than a gatekeeper in anything resembling a good era of talented 168-pound men.

This is no such era, as evinced by Canelo’s capture of the division’s championship in only his second fight at the weight.  If you are wont to accuse Canelo of cherrypicking, what does it say he cherrypicked The Ring champion, someone none of the other titlists thought to challenge?

Plant stopped short of calling Canelo’s name Saturday, after hurting his hand jabbing Truax, because he must know somewhere in the pit of his stomach Canelo is an entirely different entity.  Canelo isn’t quite two years older than Plant but has nearly three times as many prizefights, exactly three times as many knockouts, and at least three times as much of any other thing Plant will ever have.  Canelo looks on his new division as overfed and pathetic.  It’s hard to argue with that assessment.  Forget not, Canelo came up in the Mexican system, where he saw men of twice Caleb Plant’s talent ruined in their first 10 prizefights, if not sparring sessions, for the sin of being born to a smaller physique.

Canelo fights like he needs to justify his luck, like he knows he’s had it too easy; the larger body, the red hair, the golden promoter.  By PBC super middleweight standards, though, Canelo’s career has been an ordeal of almost constant, unimaginable suffering.

It’s improbable Canelo watched Saturday’s match.  If he did surely he was unimpressed.  Turns out, in the ring Sweethands has a pretty sweet personality.  Even with that inane crowd noise signaling to FOX’s audience each time any punch landed there wasn’t an iota of suspense.  And let us hear none of the usual horseshit about an unchallenged fighter being so good it’s not his fault he wins 12-0.  If you are good enough to outbox 37-year-old Caleb Truax 12-0 but not fighter enough to make him quit, you do not belong on television.

FOX should include an oddsmakers-veto clause in its broadcasting contracts, henceforth.  If PBC announces a fight and the opening line is greater than 5-to-1 FOX ought to spike it.  Put PBC on the line to overpay their fighters for insipid mismatches.

What’s that you say, they’ll just do it anyway?  You’re right.  Never mind.

The Benavidez-Plant situation puts the lie to all those pity pieces we’ve written over the years about rival promoters and sanctioning bodies undoing our beloved sport.  The Ring’s numbers 1 and 2 super middleweights have one belt and one promoter, they’re both undefeated, and they don’t fight one another.  Before anyone goes too hard on Plant’s matchmaking, take a look at Benavidez’s next opponent in March.  At least Benavidez will ice Ronald Ellis – if you’re thinking that, like I am, you’re a sucker (like I am).

Finally, it’s unrewarding to write like this, to dump icewater on some young aficionado’s affinity for a fighter he’s been told, by Joe Buck of all people, is a surefire future superstar.  If there are disinterested fans of Plant reading this – read: kids without a financial incentive for saying Plant is a future world champion – it’s not my intention to make you feel lied-to or plant seeds of cynicism for boxing to water regularly, even if that’s what I’ve done.  Switch your allegiance to Canelo, today, friends, and stick with him till any super middleweight actually challenges him.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Caleb Plant defends the IBF Super Middleweight title against former champion Caleb Truax.  The action begins at 8 PM ET.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY 

Round 1: 2 body shots from Plant…Good hook..Jab and right to body..Jab…Left to body..Combination

Round 2 Good right from Plant..Snapping jab..Good hook

Round 3 Triple jab from Plant..Hook to body…Hook o head…right to body

Round 4 Good hook from Plant..Blood from the nose of Truax..Combination..Uppercut from Truax

Round 5 Body shot from Plant…

Round 6 Right to head by Plant…Swelling around right eye of Truax…Lead hook from Plant

Round 7 Combination from Truax..2 hard jabs from Plant..Snapping jab…Hard jab

Round 8 Right from Truax..Good hook from Plant..Right from Truax..Hard body shots from Plant

Round 9 Overhand right from Truax…Jab from Plant

Round 10 Left hook from Plant…Right from Truax…Hard left from Plant..Right from Truax..Combination from Plant

Round 11 3 punch combination from Plant..

Round 12 Plant lands a left hook and right hand..Right from Truax..Hook drives Truax back

120-108 on all cards for PLANT

By Norm Frauenheim-

Mandatory means order, command. Do it or else. But it could mean just about anything in today’s boxing dictionary, which is another way of saying it means bupkis.

There are mandatory challengers. Super-middleweight champion Caleb Plant faces one in another Caleb, Truax, Saturday (Fox 5 pm PT/8 pm ET) in Los Angeles.

There are mandatory defenses. Canelo Alvarez is scheduled for one on Feb. 27 (DAZN) against super-middleweight challenger Avni Yildirim in Miami.

Trouble is, there’s no mandatory watching.

Mandatory in boxing is just another day at the office. (Insert yawn here.) It’s process, procedure. It’s a nice enough idea, a fair way to reward journeymen like Truax and Yildirim. For Plant and especially Canelo, it’s a prerogative, one that comes with a belt and their respective records. Take an easy, stay-busy fight and call it a mandatory.

But there’s no mandate that anybody has to care. Guess here: Few do. In the end, it’s the fans who still have a mandate that hasn’t been reduced to euphemism.

They can choose to watch.

Or not.

Their prerogative.

It’s a slam dunk to say that they’d watch David Benavidez against Plant instead of Truax. The Benavidez-Plant rivalry has been boiling for a couple of years now. Their ongoing exchange of trash talk was there throughout this week, despite Plant’s imminent date with Truax and news that Benavidez will fight Ronald Ellis on March 13.

Benavidez, a Phoenix fighter who lost his belt on the scale in August, posted a photo of Plant on a Wanted, Dead Or Alive poster on Instagram this week.

“But he’s gonna have to wait in line like a good little boy, off to the side, because I got my fight January 30th and then I got bigger fish to fry with Canelo after that, and then I’ll get to him when I get to him,’’ Plant told FightHype.

Expect more of the mandatory trash talk not long after Saturday’s fight. Plant by stoppage –say the seventh round – looks likely. Plant is an overwhelming favorite – from minus-1200 at SportsBettingDime.com to minus-3000 at BetMGM

Odds favoring Canelo over Yildirim are even bigger. He’s at minus-5000 and counting, according to some books. In other words, Yildirim has about as much a chance at winning as Donald Trump has at apologizing.

Meanwhile, we wait on some real drama at 168 pounds, perhaps with Plant-Canelo or Canelo-Billy Joe Saunders in May. It’s a loaded division, but for now it’s loaded only with potential. It’s those mandatories that get in the way.

A path around that process, however, might be emerging. So-called exhibitions are a threat to business-as-usual. There’s been more talk this week about a possible Ryan Garcia-Manny Pacquiao exhibition than there has been about Plant-Truax, a sanctioned title fight. The Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. pay-per-view exhibition in November drew a bigger audience than any bout last year.

On one level, it’s ridiculous to call any fight an exhibition. The risk of injury is still there. A fight is a fight is a fight, whether in a parking lot or in a regulated ring.

Garcia’s social-media popularity and Pacquiao’s enduring celebrity are part of the buzz. At opening bell, however, people will watch no matter what it’s called. Garcia-Pacquiao is an interesting exhibition. Interesting fight, too. A title belt and all of the attached mandatories just don’t matter much anymore.

Garcia, who holds an interim (aren’t they all?) belt, put it best in an interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.

“What doesn’t matter is belts,’’ said Garcia, who made a belt sound like a hood ornament. “I wear this belt because it looks good. Doesn’t it look good? It does make me look good. The truth is, there’s too many belts, there are too many champions. You don’t know who the true champion is.’’

The genuine in Garcia looks better than any belt ever could. It’s what appeals to young fans, who have a mandate of their own. Pay attention to it. That’s a mandatory warning. 

By Kyle Kinder-

When Brownsville and boxing are mentioned in the same sentence, the name Mike Tyson usually emerges from someone’s mouth.  And if it doesn’t, there’s a good chance the name of another Brownsville champion does; perhaps Riddick Bowe or Shannon Briggs, maybe Zab Judah or Daniel Jacobs.

There’s another Brownsville though, some 2,000 miles from the boxing-rich Brooklyn streets of Tyson’s youth.  Just across the border from Matamores, Mexico, this Brownsville has yet to produce a world champion.  At 8-0 with 5KO’s, junior welterweight Omar “El Relampago” Juarez is on a mission to change that.

With a population north of 182,000 people, Brownsville claims the southernmost point on mainland USA and is the most populous municipality comprising Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.  And while boxing’s roots run deep in Brownsville, it wasn’t until recently that the city and surrounding region have begun to produce world-class fighters. 

In the Rio Grande Valley, like the rest of Texas, football is king.  Most boys grow up playing youth football with the dream of one day achieving glory under Texas’ famed Friday Night Lights.  So perhaps it was a bit of a divergence then, that at 8 years old, Omar Juarez stuffed his fists into padded gloves and committed himself to boxing.  

“My father was a huge fan of boxing,” Juarez, now 21, said.  “It all started with me just wanting to make my parents proud.”

Just a year later Juarez began boxing competitively…if you can call it that.  He got walloped in his first ten amateur bouts, losing them all. 

“I got knocked down twice in my first fight,” he recalled.  “I would lose left and right..and of course I was knocked down left and right…but I just stuck to it.  It was a very bumpy road, but I stuck to it.” 

Juarez’s persistence, combined with a steady diet of hard-work and discipline eventually paid off.  After a cruel introduction to the world of amatuer boxing, Juarez started to win…and win often.  He went on to claim victory in 90 of his final 110 amateur contests before turning pro in September 2018 under Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) promotional banner. 

In his first six fights, which spanned September 2018 to November 2019, Juarez faced opponents with a combined record of 11-21-5, stopping three of them inside the distance.  

But in 2020, PBC matchmakers upped Juarez’s opposition level, pitting the Mexican-American against four boxers whose combined record read 59-34-3.

In February Juarez squared off against his toughest foe yet,  Mexico’s Martin Angel Martinez; a gritty veteran who had shared the ring with former world champions Lucas Matthysse and Marcos Maidana.  After eight hardfought rounds, all three judges awarded Juarez a wide decision. 

“I learned a lot in that experience especially from a fighter that had over 40 fights and fought a lot of good fighters,” said Juarez. “Originally, we thought we were going to fight someone else, but I told myself whoever it is, it doesn’t matter.  I trained hard, I put in all the hard work in camp.  It turned out to be one of my hardest fights, but I definitely learned a lot.”  

Riding high after the biggest win of his career, Juarez hoped to get back in the ring in early spring.  In a perfect world, he wanted to fight five more times in 2020.  

But less than a month later, COVID-19 thrust the majority of the country into lockdown.  Although his plans for the year were altered, Juarez knew boxing would likely resume in the summer.  He made certain that when it did, he’d be ready to fight.

“We actually quarantined here for about two to three months,” Juarez said.  “During the quarantine I was getting up every day, there was nothing open, I was here in my backyard, in my garage…using the resources we had to stay in shape to be ready.

“Something told me this was not going to last,” he continued.  “Eventually it will go back to normal and they were going to call me and ask if I’m ready and that’s exactly what happened.  About four weeks before my August fight, which was the first fight after the pandemic….I said I’m ready.”

In that August fight, Juarez, who is trained by his father Rudy, earned a wide six round unanimous decision against once-defeated Willie Shaw.  He picked up another convincing eight round decision in a slugfest against West Virginia’s Dakota Linger the following month.  And on December 26, Juarez closed out 2020 with a bang, dropping veteran Raul Chirinos four times in the opening round en route to a first round TKO. 

As his national profile grows with each win, the Brownsville-born fighter remains grounded, vowing to be a force for good in his south Texas community.  

Roughly three years ago, Juarez decided to delve into the world of motivational speaking.  As a boxer who dropped his first ten amateur contests, yet persisted to become a top junior welterweight prospect in the pro ranks, Juarez felt his story could inspire others.  He wanted to let kids in the Valley know that with hard work, dedication, and persistence, they could do the same. 

“I was fresh out of high school…I wanted to start motivating students,” said Juarez.  “What motivated me a lot was listening to motivational speeches by famous athletes and motivational speakers…specifically Eric Thomas and David Goggins.  I said to myself, you know, if these guys can help me fight adversity in life, I’m more than sure that I can help somebody else.

“So we started with elementary schools at first to see how it went,” he continued.  “And from there, just with word of mouth, it blew up by itself.  And from there we had gigs left and right speaking at middle schools, high schools, pep rallies.  We were sometimes doing three schools per day.  Every single time we have an event I have to speak at, I’m always getting up with a smile on my face ready to speak from my heart and that’s why I like it.”

It’s unsurprising that Juarez’s motivational speaking events combined with his in-ring success, have coincided in a boxing boom of sorts in the Valley.  

Juarez is humble enough to not claim any credit himself, but acknowledges the Valley’s interest in boxing is peaking.  

“The sport is growing a lot here in the Rio Grande Valley,” Juarez said.  “We have champions and I feel like we have a lot of talent coming up with the amateur fighters that are training currently and fighting all over the place.”

Although already in the throes of amateur boxing as a young teen, Juarez himself was inspired by a fellow Valley boxer, former WBC World Lightweight Champion Omar Figuroa, who hails from nearby Weslaco.

“I remember growing up when Omar was getting pretty big…watching him did motivate me,” Juarez said.  “I remember going to I think it was in Corpus [Christi] to watch him….and seeing all the lights, all the action, it was everything I ever dreamt of.

“I was still an amateur and just watching would bring a spark inside of me,” he went on.  “I’d come back from a fight and go want to workout….it would pump me up.”

Though Omar Figueroa is now inactive, his younger brother Brandon picked up the mantle, and as the current WBA Regular Super Bantamweight world titlist, is the Valley’s lone world champion.

And while Juarez and the Figueroa brothers represent the present and future of boxing in the Valley, there have been recent efforts to celebrate the region’s fighting past.  In Fall 2018 the RGV Boxing Hall of Fame was founded and five local boxers and physicians were inducted in the first inaugural class:  Dr. Benjamin Salinas, Alfredo “Chicken” Gomez, Herberto “Beto” Carr, Tomas Barrientes, and Andrew Maynard.  Juarez’s younger brother Sebastian took home the first annual RGV Amateur of the Year award.

There is little doubt that Juarez will one day himself be inducted into the RGV Hall of Fame, but not anytime soon.  Juarez has his immediate sights set on competing in lengthier fights this calendar year against increasingly tougher opposition.

“A perfect 2021 would be four to five fights,” Juarez said. “I don’t doubt I’ll get four, hopefully we squeak in five.  I want to become a world champion as soon as possible.”

He continued, “This year I’m looking to get into ten or hopefully twelve rounders and start making some noise. But I know that I’m not ready, I’m only a prospect, but I believe in two or three years, it’s [becoming a world champion] going to happen.  I just have to continue to be consistent, stay patient, and continue to work hard.”

If Juarez’s dream ever becomes reality, he’ll join a long, illustrious list of world champions from Brownsville. 

But he’ll be the first and only one from Brownsville, Texas. 

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – Covid cases here last week were about 35-percent higher than during the peak of the summer awfulness, bad enough an increase to set a noteworthy record if setting such records hadn’t been our thing most of last month too.  If help is on the way it is taking its sweet time.  Each new release of an online vaccination calendar sets a new record time for a sellout.

Would that residents were so patient with pandemic protocols as state and national officials are with vaccine rollouts.  It’s a broken system, a system quietly broken by bad actors for decades but openly sabotaged these last four.  History will not forgive.

Wednesday brought performative rejoicing by poor thespians.  The most to be said of the spectacle of America’s new leadership is it’s a tourniquet gradually tightening round a godawful wound pumping fitfully.  One fears it should act as an excuse for worst impulses.  For those suffering internet poisoning to recede further into encrypted systems and frothy swindles while the formerly vigilant lose their defiance, loosen their masks, and become part of the last wave of Americans to die from COVID-19.

A large fraction of a oncegreat country dying of despair.  That’s what is going on, after all, when men crowd indoor areas masklessly.  They want you to infer Big John has no fear, but what they’re really implying is Big John has nothing to lose.  Many Americans, mostly men if we’re honest, have decided, in an otherwise-pubescent round of magical thinking, I’d rather die than have to cover my face to spare others a virus.  There will always be hypemen and hangerson to lionize such figures; history is replete with small, weak men following big, dumb ones to terrible places.

What one hopes changes mostly from last week’s awkward transfer of power is the end of oxygen to the careless who consider themselves brave.  It maddens them to be deprived attention.  Who’d have thought changing a two-year-old’s diaper would be such a complete strategy for managing 1/3 of American men?

(American women, probably.)

Awkward indeed, pal – was that supposed to be a salespitch for Gallo-Chocolatito 2?  More an expression of ambivalence.  I’m happy the fight is happening.  I should be thrilled it’s happening in this state.  I’m not.

Last week’s announcement Juan Francisco Estrada’s March rematch with Roman Gonzalez will happen in Dallas brought strong and mixed emotions.  My first thought was to request a credential.  I’ll be five weeks past my second vaccination shot by then, safe as safe can be, and there are no trips I regularly make that are rewarding as my trips to Dallas.  There are diversions aplenty for me in Big D.  When I tire of those, too, there are the remarkable art museums of Fort Worth, including The Kimbell, one of our country’s great architectural achievements.  There’s Chocolatito, too, for whom I traveled from this city to Los Angeles for his rematch with Rat King.  The drive from here to Dallas is shorter than the flight to Los Angeles, and I would probably fly to Dallas (about 45 minutes, gate to gate).

But what of my diversions honestly exists in Dallas right now?  Are the museums even sincerely open?  I suppose there’s the joy of telling other men forevermore I was ringside when Chocolatito and Gallo made their extraordinary rematch, a fight that proved ruinously retiring for both.  But men trying to impress other men is a large part of what’s made America the world’s most dangerous place to live for 12 months.

A chance to see old friends?  Hardly.  On the odd chance any of them travels from afar to see a 114-pound Nicaraguan and a 114-pound Mexican, how much do we see one another, masked, spaced six feet apart, unable to congregate safely more than 15 minutes at a time?  The solution to this riddle, it strikes me as I type this, is not to defy a virus like a scorned lover but abstain instead.

The fight should be wonderful.  The arena will publish a list of theatrical protocols no one observes – because freedom.  The ultimate effect thousands of drinking, shouting men in an enclosed area has on the local ecosystem will be ignored then suppressed then forgotten.  But in this city, where two prizefights and a bowl game happened at Alamodome the month before new Covid cases started breaking their own records, it’s a less-forgivable act to participate in a superspreader event, however well inoculated any individual feels.

No, I won’t be in Dallas in a couple months.  Not in a pandemic.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Angelo Leo defends the WBO Super Bantamweight title against Stephen Fulton Jr.  The co-feature will be the WBA Interim Super Bantamweight title match as Ra’eese Aleem takes on Victor Pasillas.  The show begins at 9 pm ET with a light fight featuring Rolando Romero and Avery Sparrow.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY.

Round 1: Jab from Fulton..Left hook to body from Leo..Jab from Fulton..Leo cut over left eye (Accidental headbutt)

Round 2 Sharp jab from Fulton..Double left hook from Leo…

Round 3 Double-Jab from Fulton; Body shot from Leo…Lead left hook and right to body from Fulton..Body shot from Leo…Right uppercut from Fulton

Round 4 Right from Leo…Left hook to the body..Jab from Fulton..Right uppercut..Right and left from Leo..Good right from Fulton..Right from Leo stuns Fulton

Round 5 Nice right from Leo…Body shot from Fulton..Chopping right from Fulton..Right uppercut..

Round 6 Short left and uppercut from Fulton..Big right uppercut

Round 7  Right to head from Fulton…Right uppercut..Nice left hook from Leo..Right uppercut from Fulton..Right hand..Body Punch from Leo..Right..combination from Fulton…

Round 8  Uppercut from Fulton..Choppimg right…Body shot from Fulton

Round 9 Good jab from Fulton…

Round 10  Fulton jabbing.Bidy work from Leo..Fulton working on the inside

Round 11  Good right from from Fulton

Round 12 Fulton jabbing from distance

118-110; 119-109 TWICE FOR THE NEW CHAMPION STEPHEN FULTON

Round 1 Combination from Aleem..Body shot..Right hand

Round 2 Pasillas lands a left.. Jab and body combo from Aleem…SWEEPING LEFT AND DOWN GOES PASILLAS…Right buckles Pasillas….Hard left to the body

Round 3 Body work from Aleem..Counter left from Pasillas

Round 4 Double left hook from Aleem..Left followed by left to body..2 short left hooks..Pasillas lands a counter

Round 5 Straight right from Aleem..Double left and right..Counter right from Pasillas..Counter left from Aleem

Round 6 Double left hook from Aleem..Lead Right…LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES PASILLAS…Lead left from Pasillas…

Round 7 Big left rocks Pasillas…Hard body shot..Big Right..

Round 8 Ringside Doctor looks at Pasillas in between rounds….Left from Pasillas..Left..Good right hook..Left knocks Aleem off balance..

Round 9 Left from Pasillas…ALEEM LANDS A LEFT THAT MADE PASILLAS GLOVE TOUCH CANVAS..Aleem lands a left uppercut and left to head

Round 10 Straight left from Pasillas…Double Jab from Aleem…Good right..Body shot

Round 11 BIG COUNTER LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES PASILLAS…FIGHT OVER

Round 1: Right AND BIG LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES SPARROW..1-2 from Romero
Round 2 Short left hook from Romero….Combination on the ropes
Round 3 Counter jab from Sparrow… Good left hook from Romero
Round 4 Combination from Romero
Round 5 Jab from Romero…1-2 from Sparrow…Good right from Romero..Right
Round 6 Good combination from Romero…Sparrow hurts leg and goes down..no knockdown..SPARROW DEDUCTED  2 POINTS FOR A LOW BLOW
ROUND 7   FIGHT STOPPED BY SPARROW’S CORNER

By Norm Frauenheim–

Canelo Alvarez’ contract with Matchroom for two fights with DAZN, the streaming service he sued, is a further example of his power. He gets what he wants.

The deal, formally announced Thursday, is also a further look at a career path carefully drawn up to include bouts and belts that figure to strengthen his claim on the top spot in the pound-for-pound debate.

Canelo is as stubbornly methodical outside of the ropes as he is within them. He’s working to eliminate any other pound-for-pound argument. The process resumes on Feb. 27 in Miami against Turkish challenger Avni Yidirim in a stay-busy bout that sets the stage for a further unification of the super-middleweight title against Billy Joe Saunders or Caleb Plant.

Of the two, Saunders looks to be the most likely in large part because of a long-term promotional relationship with Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn. Saunders also brings the UK audience. But exact date doesn’t seem to matter much. If it is Saunders in May, it figures to be Plant in September. Or vice-versa.

The key is that each has a 168-pound belt that Canelo needs to unify the title and finish the argument. For now, it continues, an ongoing argument reflected in polls conducted and marketed by rival networks. DAZN’s No. 1 is Canelo; ESPN’s No. 1 is welterweight Terence Crawford. Pick your acronym and reasoning.

There’s the body of work theory, which favors the once-beaten Canelo. There’s the eye-test, which favors the unbeaten Crawford. At least, it does from this corner. Put it this way: 2020 ended with Crawford finishing Kell Brook on Nov. 14 in a fourth-round TKO and Canelo scoring a one-sided decision on Dec. 19 over an overmatched Callum Smith.

Canelo’s side of the debate could include a couple of more belts and a busier schedule. For now, that’s the advertised plan and advertising counts for a lot in this debate. Canelo is moving forward. Other than more talk about an ever-elusive date with Errol Spence Jr, it’s not clear what’s next for Crawford.

Meanwhile, Canelo’s plan does not include any mention of Gennadiy Golovkin or David Benavidez. For both, it’s a case of weight and wait, a frustrating dilemma for them and fans.

Golovkin fought Canelo to a controversial draw and lost to him narrowly by majority decision, both at middleweight. But GGG’s prime is going, going, gone. Time is an issue.

If Canelo’s 2021 schedule is already booked with Yidirim, Saunders and Plant, Golovkin will probably have to wait until 2022. GGG will be 40 on April 8 of that year.

At the other end of the age and weight scale, there’s Benavidez, who many believe might have the best chance at upsetting Canelo. Benavidez is 24. He’s young, but that’s the problem. His failure to make weight presumably dropped him off of Canelo’s short list.

With a belt, he would have been there. But he lost it – the World Boxing Council’s version – on Aug. 14 when the Phoenix fighter was 2.8 pounds heavier than the limit for a defense against Roamer Alexis Angulo.

Benavidez went on to stop Angulo, forcing the Venezuelan’s corner to throw in the towel after the 10^th round. But he lost a career-defining opportunity. He’s still young enough to regain it. But making the 168-pound limit doesn’t figure to get any easier for the maturing Benavidez, who figures to be a light-heavyweight within a couple of years. 

The costly scale-fail in August happened in part because of the Pandemic, according to Benavidez, who said it disrupted familiar routines for his bout at Mohegan Sun Casino & Resort in Connecticut. There was no sauna. There was no gym other than a treadmill and a stationary bike in the hotel.

Benavidez, a lanky 6-foot-1 ½, says he plans to stay at super-middleweight for as long as he can.  But time, already a problem for Golovkin, is there for Benavidez too. The alarm sounded when he stepped on that scale in mid-August.

Without a belt, Benavidez’ only leverage is the media. He repeatedly calls out Canelo. But Canelo doesn’t seem to hear him. He’s got other plans.

By Bart Barry-

The doldrums are upon us.  Winter is come.  While cable news broadcasts the final hours of America’s worst president, Netflix serially releases serial-killer biopics, and prizefighting hibernates, an interesting new movie related to an important 1964 championship match got released last week and might deserve some of your time this Martin Luther King Day.

Some years Muhammad Ali’s birthday falls on Martin Luther King Day.  This year it fell the day before.  They were contemporaries in the sense of sharing the world stage but were not known to be confidantes, and King was 13 years older than Ali.

Nine years ago I wrote a piece for The Ring about Ali turning 70.  It gave me an occasion to research King, and that research brought me to recordings of his speeches.  I recommend revisiting them.  His talent for speechmaking was enormous, many times that of today’s American leaders’, up to and including Barack Obama.  There’s a majesty to King’s delivery that has yet to be matched.  Even with 57-year-old acoustics, outdoors, King’s voice is unmistakable and gigantic.

I thought about King and the mythology of Ali, too, last weekend while watching One Night in Miami, a Regina King film adapted from Kemp Powers’ 2013 play and recently released on Amazon Prime.  It is an excellent movie, finally, that begins badly.  Even without seeing the play or reading its script an attentive viewer shouldn’t have trouble spotting what is theatrical and what is cinematic, what got created by a talented young playwright and what puerile exposition got added for marketing reasons.  

The clunky introductions to Ali, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Malcolm X are very much Hollywood claptrap, turning the caricature knob to 10, and one fears many viewers who watch its preview or opening 15 minutes will never go any further.  If you’re reading this, though, consider it a recommendation for getting through the throat-clearing and into the motel room where much of the movie and all its best writing, in the room and especially on its rooftop, happens.  The acting, too, is excellent.

Despite the night in the movie’s title belonging to Ali, the movie is not about Ali or Cooke or Brown nearly so much as Malcolm X.  When the other characters are not talking to Malcolm X they’re talking about him.  This is not hagiography, which is why the movie works so well.  Malcolm X gets accused of being a manipulator and a parasite and simply a man without a job.  If he isn’t surly he is generally joyless, a scold.

The other three men are nearer their primes; Ali the newly crowned king of prizefighting, Brown the greatest football player of all time, Cooke about to record “A Change is Gonna Come”.  Malcolm X is less than a year from his assassination and aware the consequences of his planned departure from Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, which Malcolm X formally departed 11 days after Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston in Miami.

One of the sadder passages in Malcolm X’s autobiography, a book I read during Christmas break my senior year in high school, decades before “woke” was a word, comes when Malcolm X describes a chance encounter in an airport with Ali.  Both men know they are to remain separated.  Malcolm X portrays their estrangement as a personal tragedy.

Watching One Night in Miami, it is easy to see why.  Cassius Marcellus Clay, as played adeptly by Canadian actor Eli Goree, is an enchanting energy to be around.  Childlike and often childish Goree’s Clay is a gifted young man gliding through life without an inkling what difficulties lie in wait and without very much patience yet for others’ difficulties.  Goree’s Clay is also better than Will Smith’s.

While a large part of the movie’s plot treats Clay’s pending conversion to Islam, or its announcement anyway, the movie’s best parts do not include Clay as more than an observer.  Malcolm X’s relationship with Sam Cooke, their mutual antagonism and love, as depicted by Kingsley Ben-Adir and Leslie Odom, brings the story’s most poignant scenes.

Ben-Adir’s portrayal of Malcolm X brought to mind master literary critic James Wood’s observation that in the Gospels Jesus weeps but never laughs – so much to mind that I misplaced an hour trying to find a New Yorker article in which Wood compares the messianic ascents of Jesus and Malcolm X.  Turns out, that interesting comparison belongs to a different literary critic, Adam Gopnik.

The movie ends with Cooke, having been sparked by Bob Dylan and antagonized by Malcolm X’s praise of Dylan, making a debut of his new, more-conscious song.  Then Clay becomes Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown becomes an actor and Malcolm X’s house gets firebombed.  Before the credits roll there’s a footnote about Malcolm X’s assassination though no mention of Cooke’s death two months before.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred estimates that owners have lost $3 billion. A shortened spring-training schedule cost the state of Arizona $281 million in economic impact. Baseball players took a 63-percent cut in pay. The National Hockey League chief says the NHL is skating toward a $1 billion loss. 

Teofimo Lopez says he wants $10 million to fight.

Apparently, Lopez hasn’t read the headlines from other arenas, both in sports and real life. Nothing is immune from a pandemic that is bankrupting optimism and eroding bank accounts.

It’s hard to blame Lopez, the emerging face of boxing’s new generation. The 23-year-old lightweight champion grew up watching The Money Team. His generation saw Floyd Mayweather Jr. count stacks of cash and collect exotic cars. Mayweather’s purse mattered more than the punches.

But Mayweather’s economic model is gone. Vaccines won’t save it, at least not in the short term. It’s time to climb out of the bubble and take a look around. Look at the seats, vacant because of COVID. Empty seats are a little bit like empty pockets.

Look at the news. Example: Los Angeles firefighters, 3,600 strong, agreed to the delay of a pay raise because of budget cuts that could lead to job losses. Don’t expect too many firefighters to shell out $50, $60, $70 in pay-per-view. It’s a new world. A painful one, too.

Yet, the ring craft remains the same. Compelling and crude, still painful no matter how big — or small — the purse. At some level, it’ll always be there.

Lopez’ arrival is simply a matter of lousy timing. It’s not his fault. But $10-million to fight Devin Haney or George Kambosos Jr. in Australia isn’t realistic, either.

Haney promoter Eddie Hearn told Boxing Social that Lopez demanded $10-million during an encounter in San Antonio during Canelo Alvarez’ one-sided decision over Callum Smith last month. Then, Lopez repeated the demand when Boxing Scene asked him about a proposed fight with Kambosos in Sydney.

Haney-Lopez is “a wonderful fight,” Hearn said.

But not at that price.

“In this world right now, it ain’t going to happen,’’ Hearn told Boxing Social.

The key has been – and continues to be – a live crowd not limited by the social-distancing mandated in the ongoing fight against COVID. Until then, purses will also be limited.

Maybe, vaccines will change all of that later this year. Then again, maybe not. The availability of vaccines and the process of getting an injection are still a hodgepodge of bureaucracy and politics. Hurry up and wait.

The uncertainty continues to be reflected in the where and when of the proposed Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua fight. If ever a fight belonged in the UK, Fury-Joshua is it. It would be a historical clash between UK heavyweights. It’s ridiculous to even say that it could go elsewhere. But elsewhere looks likely because there’s a lot more COVID than cash in the UK these days.

Somehow, Fury-Joshua in Saudi Arabia is akin to the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. But that happened. In 1967, the bridge over the River Thames was dismantled and relocated four years later above the Colorado River in western Arizona.

Ridiculous, yet real. Trouble is, what should just be silly threatens to further erode the fringe of what is already a fringe sport. Core fans are loyal, but their patience is a little bit like their money. It’s not limitless.

Lopez’ $10-million price is already being interpreted as his way of saying he just won’t fight Haney. Maybe, Lopez is just woofing. He’s entertaining, confident and likes to talk. He’s good for the game. But if the demand is real, the lightweight division is in danger of going the way of the welterweights.

Lopez’ dramatic upset of Vasiliy Lomachenko on Oct. 17 followed by Ryan Garcia’s seventh-round stoppage of Luke Campbell on Jan. 2 pushed the 135-pound division to center stage. If the welterweights can’t save the game, the lightweights can. Lopez, Haney, Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia have already been dubbed Four Kings. Add current 130-pound champion Shakur Stevenson and you’ve got a Fab Five.

But the danger in Lopez’s demand could turn a game-saving division into another never-never morass. At 147 pounds, there’s Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. They should have fought a couple of years ago. Increasingly, it looks as if they’ll never fight, or at least they won’t in their respective primes.

That’s bad for business.

In any time.    

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – Wednesday evening I received the first of two Moderna SARS-COV-2 vaccination shots in my left arm.  As there’s nothing to come in our beloved sport for some time, and as I’ve now little interest in revisiting anything that happened last year, what follows will be an account of the experience of being partially vaccinated for COVID-19.

A few years ago, round about the time both my parents passed and an inheritance came my way, I realized there is no grater virtue than generosity.  To those who would counter gratitude is a greater virtue, as I might have before, I would ask: Is generosity possible in an ungrateful person?  This renewed devotion to generosity manifested itself mostly in regular donations of money or time to various local charities and causes.  One such cause was San Antonio Report (formerly Rivard Report).  It is a small website that holds local officials to account the way newspapers used to do.

A perk of donating to this organization, early last year, became weeknightly updates on our city’s Covid situation.  Usually accompanied by some light editorial remarks, this weeknightly newsletter, The Curve, provided a trustworthy barometer during a time the head of the executive branch of our federal government, and our state government for that matter, had proved themselves deeply untrustworthy.

On New Year’s Eve at 7:30 PM a San Antonio Report email came in my inbox with a subject line that read Here’s how to get the COVID-19 shot starting Monday.  I’d not thought about it till then.

I can gratefully report my life has been minimally disrupted by Covid.  I had worked from home for 10 years already when everyone else in my industry, let’s call it “data analytics” to save words, got remanded to their home offices.  What recreational activities I most enjoy, anymore, happen in state parks.  Through the spring and summer and fall, I left my home only to make biweekly trips to the supermarket and have picnics with my daughter in city parks.

I have also been on a weightgain program unintentional as it is successful during lockdown (and I wasn’t svelte to begin with).  I have never placed stock in body mass index (BMI) as an indicator of health – it labeled prime Mike Tyson “obese” after all – but when I clicked from the CDC’s revised guidance to NIH’s BMI calculator I found I qualified for a Bexar County tier-1B inoculation more decisively than I’m pleased to admit.

I went to the registration website as much out of curiosity as intent, after reading vaccinations would be happening in a partially defunct mall five minutes away.  I clicked on a few time slots, got through registration then landed on an error page, indicating I’d failed to make an appointment.  Then I got caught up in the technical challenge of it.  Soon enough I was registered for day 3 of tier 1B.  I’d given the site minimal non-public information, nothing more invasive than the last four digits of my Social Security number, and added a comment about my BMI – as there’d been no other place to indicate why an otherwise healthy and happy 46-year-old should be registering.  

Wednesday evening I arrived 30 minutes early with only a hardcopy of my confirmation email and drivers license in hand.  I was nigh whisked through onsite registration; there was only one person in line before me.  I was assured my being early was no issue, handed a stamped CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card and directed down a hallway.  A minute later I was in a small conference room with five nurses performing injections.  A nurse asked me if my left shoulder was an acceptable target, I said sure, and that was that.  A minute later my record card was stamped with a follow-up-appointment date and time, and I was directed to a 10-minute-observation room.  Ten minutes after that I was out the door and walking to my car.

My left arm was a bit sore for a couple days.  That is the only physical side effect I can report.  The entire experience was effortless bordering on pleasant.

Wednesday night I registered for the CDC’s v-safe program, tweeted a picture of my #WeCanDoItSA certificate and went to sleep.  The next morning, unexpectedly, I did experience a psychological side effect: Almost euphoric relief.

That’s why I’m writing this column.  I was more frightened by Covid than I realized.  The caveats: I’ve not had a Covid scare, no one I love has tested positive, I live more comfortably today than I ever have, and I have meditated for about an hour every morning for seven years; I had no empiric reason to be scared of Covid and every reason to believe I’d know if I were.  And yet.  Thursday morning brought a sense of openness and possibility for which I was unprepared.  I now believe the psychological toll this pandemic has exacted and continues to exact on every one of us is something we dramatically underestimate.

My unsolicited advice goes: Get vaccinated soon as you are eligible, be patient with one another in the meantime, and prepare for everything to lift as infection rates drop.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Canelo Alvarez finished 2020, which ended amid relief and hope that business as usual will be there sometime in a new year. Then, Ryan Garcia started 2021 with a bang as loud as a firecracker and yet still haunted by concern that the new will be a lot like the old.

Canelo’s decision over an overmatched Callum Smith on Dec. 19 promised a resumption of some lost reliability. That was followed by some real momentum in Garcia’s powerful stoppage of Luke Campbell on Jan. 2.

But it gave way to a hiatus, which is a polite word describing the same void that descended on boxing like a curtain last year. There were more postponements, cancellations and quarantines than opening bells. For a haphazard 10 months, there was no way out of the bubble.

Are we there all over again? Hope not. But there’s no boxing for nearly two weeks, or at least until Jan. 20 when ShoBox is scheduled to begin a 20^th season with junior-welterweight “Marvelous” Mykquan Williams (15-0-1, 7 KOs) against Colombian Yeis Gabriel (15-0, 10 KOs) in a bout between unbeaten prospects at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut.

Scheduled is the operative word, of course. Maybe, maybe not. Tomorrow is as tentative now as it was a month ago. The calendar has changed, but not much else.  

Big fights are getting shut down for the same reason that everything else is. Only COVID is unbeaten. The killer pandemic rages on. Anybody remember when they had a sit-down meal inside a restaurant? Didn’t think so. I haven’t had one since about the last time I had a seat near ringside. The plate remains mostly empty for now.

No big fights are imminent, mostly because of the surging Pandemic, which has forced a shutdown in the usually busy UK until at least the end of the month.

On Jan. 23, junior-featherweight Angelo Leo is scheduled to defend a 122-pound title against Stephen Fulton, also at the Mohegan Sun, on Showtime.

A week later (Jan. 30), Caleb Plant is scheduled to stay in line for a shot at Canelo in a 168-pound title defense against Caleb Truax on Fox.

On the same day, shopworn ex-light-heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev is scheduled to re-appear for the first time since getting knocked out by Canelo (Nov. 2, 2019). Kovalev is scheduled to face Bektemir Melikuziev on DAZN in Moscow in a bout that presumably hinges on whether the Sputnik V vaccine really works or is just another piece of fictional garbage from some Russian hackers.

Meanwhile, there will be mostly talk:

·    Talk about how Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. should fight in perhaps the best welterweight bout in many years, but probably never will.

·    Talk that Teofimo Lopez is willing to fight anybody in the lightweight division. He just told The Athletic he wants to fight Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis and Garcia.  ‘We’ve got to face one another’, he said. Hopefully, he also wants to fight Shakur Stevenson, currently a junior-lightweight champ. Lopez, Haney, Davis and Garcia are already being called Four Kings, a nod to the terrific George Kimball book on Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns. Guess here: The predicted Four Kings will become The Fab Five. Expect Stevenson, perhaps the best of them, to move up the scale to 135.

·    More talk from Tyson Fury about how he plans to knock out Anthony Joshua. And more talk from Joshua about how he’ll silence Fury. And more crazy talk from Deontay Wilder.

·    More talk from Canelo that, yeah, he’ll fight Gennadiy Golovkin in a decisive third bout. But, first, he plans to fight a mandatory super-middleweight defense against Turk Avni Yildirim and then pursue title unifications against Plant and Billy Joe Saunders. Check back in January, 2022. Canelo will still be talking about a third date with GGG.

A belated Happy 2021, a new year that defies plans and predictions. Just a prayer works. Pray that the vaccines work. Pray we can all meet at ringside and then at a restaurant to celebrate the fights, the fighters and lost friends.

By Bart Barry-

New Year’s Eve, Japan Standard Time, Japanese super flyweight Kazuto Ioka defended his title by eight-round stoppage over undefeated Japanese super flyweight Kosei Tanaka in a fight televised by YouTube hours after it finished, or some other way more-committed viewers discovered in realtime.  It was an excellent match and a wonderful showing by Ioka.

There’s something prickly insular about aficionados who fixate on lower weightclasses, but that doesn’t make them wrong.  If heavyweight-only casuals are boxing’s beer-drunk frat boys, flyweight fixators ain’t the kids who got picked first for kickball.  They like knowing things most fans don’t, they’re often smug, they correct your pronunciation, and for being so esoteric they must watch their heroes at times so symmetrically middle-of-the-night they can’t decide whether to awake or remain awake.  This last halfdecade, though, they’ve been rewarded more often than their cool peers.

This habit continued New Year’s Eve in Japan and sometime between Wednesday and Sunday in the U.S.  Truthfully the best super flyweight prizefighters currently in practice are Western Hemisphereans, but enough superb 115-pound fighting happens in Asia to be disproportionate.  One of the world’s three best fighters at any weight – quite probably the world’s single best fighter if not most accomplished – is a 118-pound guy from Japan.

Unlike others who travel to these shores for larger paychecks Asian fighters bring their power and honor with them.  Many years ago, when Golden Boy Promotions was believed an innovator of sorts, there was an event called World Cup of Boxing that pitted Mexico against Thailand in a casino outside Tucson, Ariz.  Mexico won all but one of the many title fights, as I recall, but the Thai fighters acquitted themselves with such professionalism and toughness, the wholly Mexican crowd applauded them often and loudly.  These were the previous generation of guys who survived a culture that made Srisaket Sor Rungvisai possible.

Sor Rungvisai deserves mention because of his place in the 112-pound ratings and what he accomplished as a virtual unknown in a 2017 match with the world’s best prizefighter at the time, and because his position in the ratings, second, between Gallo Estrada and the aforementioned Chocolatito Gonzalez, lends a bit of sobriety to this treatment of Ioka’s accomplishment.

Ioka hasn’t been in a hurry to match himself against any of the guys atop his division, even while defending the WBO’s title a few times.  His name doesn’t come up much.  That’s unfortunate because what he showed against Tanaka was proper compelling.

Whatever the scale said about it, Tanaka appeared the larger man in frame and physicality, Ioka an old, soft guy with high blood pressure.  Were it not for his composure Ioka might’ve looked overmatched from the opening bell.  This is where the difference between super flyweights and super heavyweights, and the divisions’ diverse super fans, pops up.

You don’t have to know very much at all about boxing to know in 30 seconds who’s going to win most heavyweight fights.  The size disparities are often gross, the skill disparities nearly so, and the 1-2s unfurl slowly enough for even the dullest of viewers to ascertain what’s happening.  Things are quite different at lower weightclasses.  The size disparity is usually negligible, and to get on any stage grander than TikTok you must be exceptional.

Back to Ioka’s composure.  Tanaka looked to be moving Ioka with a number of his punches early.  But Ioka undid the larger man like the master Juan Manuel Marquez did to Juan Diaz in Houston and Michael Katsidis in Las Vegas.  Ioka bet on straighter punches.  He fought with a certain obliviousness of whatever Tanaka was doing.  Is he hitting me with straight punches?  No?  Then I’ll win.

There was some irony, then, in it being an Ioka left hook that ruined Tanaka’s night.  Tanaka went down hard and never got back to the aggressiveness he needed if he were to unsettle Ioka – which he weren’t.  If Ioka wasn’t quite the finisher Marquez was it’s because nobody is.  Ioka did just fine.  

If the stoppage were a touch early, especially by American standards, let it be.  I don’t know enough about Japanese fight culture to do more than suspect this, but here it is: The stewardship referee Michiaki Someya took of Kosei Tanaka’s wellbeing is a major reason Japanese fighters comport themselves bravely as they do.  The referee, like any good regulator, is a braking mechanism, and until you install brakes on a racecar you daren’t shift it out first gear.  Too, there’s a homogeneity to Japanese culture, very different from America’s, that allowed all three men in the Ota-City General Gymnasium to see themselves as part of the same ecosystem and behave accordingly.  Both fighters were free to exert hard as possible, knowing their contest would be well and honorably regulated.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim–

A welcome chance to say goodbye to a lousy year begins amid reasons for skepticism about whether the new one will be any better.

The calendar changes.

The mood doesn’t.

Not with comments from Errol Spence and Terence Crawford that seem to eliminate any chance of them fighting in 2021 or any other year. Not with Canelo Alvarez headed for a mandatory title defense against Avni Yildirim, a super-middleweight with less name recognition and perhaps fewer skills than Callum Smith.

Yet, the year’s second day offers some promise, a glimpse perhaps at an emerging new face that can drag boxing out of a balkanized never-never land crisscrossed by rival promoters, networks and acronyms.

The promise is there, in Ryan Garcia’s unscarred face. There, too, in power augmented by hand speed. There, too, in charisma, the so-called “it” factor. It isn’t quite the intangible it once was. Garcia can put a number on it.  His social-media audience is reported to 7.8 million. That’s not a following. It’s an empire.

That it, and all of its expectations, will be watching Saturday when Garcia’s star potential undergoes its first substantive test against Luke Campbell on DAZN at American Airlines Center in Dallas.

News broke Thursday that no more tickets were available for seats allowed under the socially-distancing protocol mandated by Texas. It wasn’t exactly clear what the sellout means in terms of numbers. But there’s a sense that Garcia would generate a capacity crowd no matter how many seats.

It’s easy to dismiss the social-media aspect. It’s a target, an inevitable one for Campbell, a UK Olympic gold medalist who says Garcia’s popular appearances on video are a one-man show. In the ring’s reality, he’ll be facing – fighting — Campbell instead of just a stationary bag and a camera.  Yet in an unexpected twist for fans skeptical of social media, Garcia’s huge following is a reason to like him.

He was a fighter before he was a social-media star, unlike the new generation of YouTubers. They gained social-media fame before they ever stepped through the ropes. On a YouTubers’ tale of the tape only the social-media number counts.

To wit: Garcia is real, the Paul wannabes aren’t. I wouldn’t know Jake from Logan or Rand. I just know one of them is supposed to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. some time in February in an exhibition that figures to make them money and a few fight fans exasperated.

The fear is that the YouTubers are poised to become the future face of the game. From this corner, that’s a future that won’t last long. But Garcia is the potential counter. He has a real chance at putting some reality back in the virtual. Can he? Will he?

A lot will be learned Saturday in a bout that is also another sign that the 135-pound division will be boxing’s best in 2021. There’s Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis and Australian George Kambosos Jr. There’s still Vasiliy Lomachenko, who doesn’t figure to disappear after his loss to Lopez. The vanishing prospect of Spence-versus-Crawford makes the welterweights less interesting, even irrelevant. Crawford recently tweeted that, bleep it, he’d go back to lightweight. He, too, can see that things look a lot more interesting at 135 than 147.

On Saturday, the lightweight division’s many possibilities may continue to unfold. For Garcia (20-0, 17 KOs), it’s a risky step, mostly because Campbell (20-3, 16 KOs) knows what he’s doing. In his only world-title shots, the Brit lost a unanimous decision to Lomachenko and a split decision to Jorge Linares.  He also lost a split decision to Yven Mendy nearly five years ago.

Campbell, 33, has been hit by punches from angles never seen by the unbeaten Garcia, who is coming off four straight stoppages, the last two in the first round. Campbell is a good body puncher. His pressure figures to back up Garcia, who has never shown he can fight off his back foot.

More important, perhaps, Campbell has never been stopped. He’s tough, a seasoned fighter against a young one who has never gone 12 rounds. The 22-year-old Garcia has gone 10 rounds twice, both in 2018.

For Campbell, the fight looks like A Last Chance. For Garcia, it’s A Beginning.

The pick: A Beginning.

Garcia’s punches travel at a rate never seen by Campbell. He still won’t see them, especially the left which will land more than once for Garcia, who will win a significant measure of proof along with untold numbers of additional social-media followers in a seventh-round TKO. 

By Kyle Kinder-

Over the last decade-plus, Hawaii has quietly emerged as a breeding ground for world class fighters.  Amongst them include an elite few who have fought their way to stardom, headlining Pay-Per-Views and capturing world titles in the process.

Of course, those fighters compete inside a caged octagon, not a boxing ring.

Save for Brian Viloria, the state’s lone male boxing champion this century; Hawaii hasn’t produced many buzz-worthy pugilists of late.

Enter Waianae’s Asa “Ace” Stevens. 

A former 2019 National Golden Gloves Champion and 2018 World Youth Boxing Champion, Stevens shed his amateur status in November 2019, but has yet to make his pro debut. He’ll finally get his chance Saturday January 2 on DAZN.  

“I’m super excited…my first pro fight on a big stage, fighting on the undercard of Ryan Garcia.  I’m excited and anxious for a fight already to get it going,” Stevens said.

In February, Stevens, who is managed by Split-T Management under the guidance of Tim VanNewhouse, inked a promotional deal with Golden Boy Promotions.  He thought he would turn pro the following month.

“We were going to fight in March and then the whole COVID thing came.  Then we were told we were going to fight in July and then July came and COVID was just getting worse,” Stevens recalled.  “Then we thought maybe we’ll get a fight in October and then on December 5 we were supposed to fight, but the main event…Luke [Campbell] got COVID, so they pushed it back another month.  It’s kind of frustrating, but we’ve been working hard this whole time.”

Though disappointing, the constant postponements never derailed Stevens’ determination.  Day after day, the 20 year-old southpaw headed to the Nito Boxing Academy in Waianae — a less glamorous part of O’ahu on the island’s western shore  —  where he and trainer Carlos “Nito” Tangaro worked to sharpen his skills and stay in fighting shape.  

“I’m more of a counter-puncher, a boxer,” Stevens said about his style.  “I like to figure out what my opponent is doing, I like to use the jab a lot, I’m very defensive, but I can work on the inside if I want and throw hard shots…and work on different angles.” 

As an amateur, Stevens racked up gold medals and tournament trophies at various weights 125lbs and below.  On Saturday, he’ll debut at 118lbs (bantamweight), what he calls “a comfortable” weight.

And while carrying 118lbs within his 5’5” frame may feel comfortable — fair or unfair — he’s also aware he carries the hopes of Waianae on his shoulders.  After winning Gold at the 2018 World Youth Boxing Championships in Budapest, the young Hawaiian was catapulted to local celebrity status.  Upon his return to US soil from Hungary, Waianae gave him a hero’s welcome, complete with a victory parade.  Since then, Hawaiian cable news channels and other media outlets have kept tabs on Stevens’ every move — covering his 2019 National Golden Gloves title, his shocking withdrawal from the US Olympic trials, as well as his signing with Golden Boy and all updates about his ever-elusive pro debut.

“It’s kind of motivating knowing that there’s a lot of support and a lot of people out there looking at me,” Stevens said of his community.  “But it’s kind of like a little pressure because there’s a lot of high expectations out of me,” he admitted.  

Being asked to operate under the brightest of lights is nothing new for Stevens, however. 

“You can say I thrive under pressure situations,” he remarked.  “I’ve had to travel all throughout the country, I’ve had to go into uncomfortable situations, and I’ve always come out on top.”

And winning is something that just might be in his blood.  Stevens’ cousin is Max Holloway, the MMA superstar and former UFC Featherweight Champion.  

“I admire his hard work, the work he puts in the gym, the way he cuts off distractions,” Stevens said of his cousin.  “He’s always in shape. I can learn a lot from him and his hard work and consistency.”

There was a brief moment when Stevens considered following in his cousin’s footsteps, opting for the MMA route like many other young fighters from the Aloha State.  “I actually had a couple kickboxing fights when I was 13 or 14 years old,” recalled Stevens.  

But it was in the summer of 2015 that boxing officially hooked Stevens.  “There’s not too many boxing tournaments around here, so we had to travel all over…to Kansas City…to Las Vegas,” he said.  “And it was in 2015 when I really got attached to boxing because I traveled all over.  We went to three tournaments and I won all three.  So I was like damn…this is for me.”

With such a storied amateur career in his rearview, it’s safe to conclude that Stevens has the potential to reach any goal he sets his sights on as a pro.  “I want to become a world champion in multiple different weight classes,” declared Stevens.  “And I want to financially help my family and take care of the people around me.”

As a means to reaching his goals, he’ll look to punish those placed before him, starting with Mexican Francisco Bonilla (6-8-3, 3KO) on January 2.

“You should expect a great performance by me, a great show,” Stevens said.

In all, more than thirteen months will have passed from the time Stevens announced he was turning pro to the time he’ll hear the opening bell on Saturday in Dallas.  He’s had more than enough time to prepare for his first test as a professional boxer.  It’s up to him to Ace it.

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – Nine days since we put an irresponsible number of aficionados in Alamodome this city hasn’t time to calculate new infections because we’re readying for Tuesday’s kickoff of Alamo Bowl – and yes, fans will be in attendance in an indoor stadium yet again because you can’t tell Texans what to do, especially when they’re trying to protect wealthy people’s fortunes for them.

It’s written 30 miles in near every direction from this city: Trump 2020 flags defiantly still flying on poles outside most every ranch.  Wealthy ranchers’ enduring fealty to a defrocked and deregulating protector of their interests is understandable, in a shortsighted and greedy kinda way, but I’ll be damned if I can figure what’s in it for their ranches’ hands.  Something about culture war this or guns that.  Heavens, such aspiring predators are but dimwitted prey.

I started teaching myself the ancient Chinese game of Go a few months back.  No, not because I saw A Beautiful Mind – as a few acquaintances asked.  Rather it came via what inspiration I feel helping my six-year-old daughter learn how to read.

When we began our weeknightly episodes in August the haul looked impossible.  Suddenly something incredibly important to me most of my life, reading, a thing I do not remember learning to do, required immense amounts of memorization and exceptions to rules overwhelming most reasons for committing rules to memory, even.  Why isn’t “enough” pronounced enoo if you’re not going to pronounce “through” like throff?

But in four months, against all expectations, my daughter’s speed of reading has improved fivefold.  Which set me to wondering if there were an activity at which I might improve myself so much so quickly.  I settled on the game of Go.

Years ago a guy in a coffeeshop told me if he were to do it all again for complexity he’d learn Go, not Chess, and towards the end of October I told myself that if I were going to replicate the miracle every first grader accomplishes with phonetics and brute repetition, if I were going to need but a few months to make a 500-percent improvement, why, there was no need to worry about lost time.  After all, it’s a relative measure.  I’m not trying to beat a 9-dan pro (I’m not even trying to beat her six-year-old daughter); I’m just trying to be five times better in four months than I was when I started.  I’m pretty much there, too.

Were I having to find locals with whom to play on a 9×9 board I’d be nowhere near my goal.  But thanks to what AlphaGo has wrought there are lots of artificial-intelligence-inspired apps for playing the game against a machine.  This allows you to learn via repetition – making similar mistakes and being punished in similar ways thousands of times quickly.  (These programs, beginning in the 1950s with machine-learning Checkers, attained their primacy by playing themselves millions of times.)  I suspect those of us who learn to play against machines, not humans, will be different sorts of players than those who learn the traditional way.  This might worry me if I were trying to become a professional or even a competent amateur, but since I’m only trying to be better compared to myself, well.

All of this has a bit to do with how I saw Canelo Alvarez’s undressing of Callum Smith, believe it or not.  In Go there’s fighting and there’s acquiring territory, and they’re only the same thing to beginners.  One wins at Go by acquiring territory, not winning fights.

When you start playing, though, especially as a westerner, you tend to shortcircuit with a misplaced pride that makes you hit back every time you’re struck.  He takes two of your stones, you take three of his!  You obsess yourself with a single fight in a small corner of the board and keep your eyes set till you’ve won.  Then you look up and see you’ve lost the game, bigly, while fixating on your terrible little patch.

Callum Smith didn’t obsess in any such way, a couple Saturdays ago, but he looked up at the closing bell of every round and seemed surprised to have lost so dramatically.  There were invisible lines on the mat, lines and rules visible only to Canelo, and Smith didn’t even know he crossed them, or Canelo crossed them.  But those lines told Canelo all he needed to know; so long as his lead foot got to position A within three steps, it didn’t matter what Smith’s jab or hook did.  Smith was so badly overmatched, so elegantly handicapped by Canelo’s prowess, he would need to fight that exact same Canelo making those exact same moves a dozen times before he’d have a chance at a draw, and 50 times before he’d win a decision.

Impressive to be so many levels beyond a Ring super middleweight champion.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

One more week to go. A forgettable year is ending. Good-bye, good-riddance, 2020. But any farewell is worth a look back. Besides, Saturday is Boxing Day in Britain, Canada and other countries. Not sure about the name’s genesis.

Historically, it’s supposed to be a time to give money collected in Christmas boxes to the poor. Yet these days, it’s also a bank holiday. That sounds a little bit like an oxymoron. Nobody goes to the bank for charity. Then again, Boxing Day in this country could mean pay-per-view. Still, it’s as good an opportunity as any for a last look.

The good, the bad and the silly:

Fighter Of The Year: Tyson Fury. The heavyweight champ did exactly what he said he would on a memorable night on Feb. 22 in a rematch with Deontay Wilder. Fury talks a good game. He executes an even better one. He went straight at Wilder, confusing him and dropping him twice. Wilder’s corner threw in the towel midway through the seventh.

Fighter Of The Year, Honorable Mention: Teofimo Lopez. The lightweight champ displayed poise, patience, and – in the end – power for a unanimous decision on Oct. 17 over Vasiliy Lomachenko, No. 1 in several pound-for-pound polls. It propelled Lopez to his first ranking among the pound-for-pound top 10. Expect him to be there for a long time in an emergence that could put could put in contention for the top spot in 2021.

Best Music For A Ring Walk: Fury entered the ring to Crazy, Patsy Cline’s country classic. It was an acknowledgement of Fury’s own battle with depression. But it also foretold how Wilder would behave for weeks after the crushing defeat. He went crazy. Wilder blamed his comic book costume – an armored medieval-like number for fatigue in his own ring walk. Then, he went for weeks before firing trainer Mark Breland for throwing in the towel. Then, he alleged his water bottle was spiked and Fury’s gloves were loaded. Crazy.

Fight Of The Year: Jose Zepeda vs. Ivan Baranchyk The junior-welterweight bout on Dec. 12 would have been a Fight of the Year in almost any year. There were eight knockdowns over five rounds. Up and down, it went, a dizzy drama from start to finish. Zepeda, down twice in the first round, got up a total of four times, finishing Baranchyk with a right-left combo. Baranchyk, unconscious as he fell, landed on the canvas on the back his head. His right leg was pinned at wrenching angle beneath him. It was crazy. It was stunning.

Knockout Of The Year: See Fight Of The Year.

Welcome Back: Errol Spence Jr. Questions followed Spence into the ring on Dec. 5 for the first time since the welterweight champion was thrown through the windshield of a Ferrari as it flipped in midair in a frightening accident in October, 2019. Spence answered them all, scoring a unanimous decision over a dangerous Danny Garcia.

Think Again: Spence’s successful return seemed to re-ignite talk about a 147-pound showdown with Terence Crawford. But Spence quickly threw cold water on the speculation, however, in an interview before Canelo Alvarez’ beatdown of UK super-middleweight Callum Smith on Dec. 19. For the fight to happen, Spence said, he would have to get the lion’s share of the total purse. A 60-40 or 70-30 split, he told DAZN. Translation: He’s not fighting Crawford, at least not any time soon.

Prospect Of The Year: Edgar Berlanga Jr. The 23-yerar-old super-middleweight tweeted he would have knocked out Callum Smith “within six rounds” on the night Canelo scored a 12-round decision over the super-middleweight champ in A San Antonio MISMATCH. Who’s going to argue? Berlanga is perfect. That’s perfect, as in 16 fights, 16 victories, 16 first-round knockouts.

The Debating Game: There’s no end to it. Who’s pound-for-pound No. 1? Canelo or Crawford? Depends on the network. ESPN has Crawford on top of its poll. DAZN ranks Canelo No. 1. The debate is really about the two networks. Crawford has been fighting on ESPN. Canelo sued in a split with promoter Oscar De La Hoya and DAZN. De La Hoya is gone, but Canelo’s still fought on DAZN.

Year’s Biggest Loser: Pay-per-view. Lots of numbers get reported. But the sources are never identified. Be skeptical. It’s safe to say the PPV market has been slammed by a Pandemic that has lot boxing’s traditional customers struggling to pay the rent.

Year’s Biggest Winner: Top Rank’s Bob Arum. At 89, he still understands the market place better than anyone. Pay-per-view is the wrong model for tough times. Throughout the Pandemic, Arum has kept his cards in the Bubble and off pay-per-view. It’s time to preserve the customer base. A PPV price tag for forgettable fights only chases away potential buyers.
Happy Boxing Day.

By Bart Barry-

SAN ANTONIO – Into this friendly city whose citizens have been generally vigilant about Covid, vigilant as local officials have required, many multiples more vigilant than state officials have, strode Canelo for his fourth Texas prizefight, second in Alamo City.  If it wasn’t his easiest Texas fight it wasn’t his most difficult either.  Which is a surprise and a half – since Callum Smith, the man Canelo beat up Saturday, was by far the most accomplished prizefighter Canelo has fought in Lone Star State.

What you opined of Saul Alvarez’s Saturday performance depends mostly on what you opined of Smith on Friday, what you opined of an undefeated Ring champion who’d won his title by knockout in the finals of a single-elimination tournament.  I learned this lesson about opinion’s effect, contrasting my feelings about Spence-Garcia a few weeks back and Alvarez-Smith Saturday.

I did not think particularly highly of welterweight Garcia, after opining quite highly of him at 140 pounds, and Spence’s workmanlike decision did next to nothing for me, aesthetically.  I opined quite highly of Callum Smith, and it rendered me thrice as susceptible to commentator hyperbole about Canelo.

It’s probably in the word subtlety.  When man’s most primal impulses manifest themselves subtly, perhaps someone with a microphone’s shining you.  While lots of subtle things happen in any confrontation, there is nothing subtle about a man’s consciousness being removed from him on television; in the absence of that spectacle recourses to subtlety deserve be discounted.

Canelo has come a long way since his last Alamodome match, hasn’t he?  Then, Canelo made his sixth defense of his first WBC title, a 154-pound trophy he won beating Matthew Hatton (the EBU European welterweight titlist at the time).  Canelo won a fair, unanimous decision over Austin Trout.  I was ringside for that.  Till that point I rated Canelo below “Son of the Legend” Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. among anointed Mexican prizefighters.  If Canelo wasn’t fully a promoter-manufactured entity he was having an awfully easy run – that would end in humiliation with Floyd Mayweather, five months after the Trout fight.

Watching Canelo from ringside afforded something watching Chavez Jr. did not, though.  On television Canelo didn’t have much an identity more than redhaired horseman from Jalisco.  With Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez still active, at various levels of decline, Canelo mightn’t have been among his country’s best five prizefighters, while being promoted as if he’d eclipsed all of them.  I went to Alamodome in 2013 half expecting Trout to undress him.

I was disabused of that in round 1.  The first time Canelo let fly a hook, actually, I noticed he had access to an entire other level from Chavez Jr.’s.  I’ve written about it before, but Canelo has a different sort of intensity than television shows.

Back then, too, Canelo was given to one defensive-clinic round every fight, a round when he tried to be Will o’ the Cinnamon, showing aspirational levels of head and shoulder movement.  It was corny – like a voluptuous Instagram model in prop glasses with a caption that reads “Beauty AND BRAINS!”  Saturday showed Canelo’s cornball defensive rounds weren’t wrong but early.  Across from Erislandy Lara, Mayweather and Trout, men with better reflexes, Canelo was too slow to make his feints look even hopeful.

The higher Canelo moves in weight, though, the more a defensive genius he appears.  Against Callum Smith he showed a defensive awareness that set Twitter ablaze with comparisons.  It might be inferred the worst loser Saturday was not Smith, in fact, but “Saint George” Groves and by further inference late-career Carl “The Cobra” Froch.  How bloody sluggish must Groves’ve been to make such a bull and bully of a man limited as Callum Smith?

Smith was wholly unprepared for Canelo’s intensity, for his presence, for his speed even, Saturday.  A giant of a man, Smith went from graceful athlete to gangly reluctant in fewer than three minutes.  Late as round 6, I continued hoping like a loon a limited Brit might surprise a fully actualized Mexican prizefighter with a left hook – makes me chuckle at myself, typing that – then Canelo just about broke Smith’s left arm in half with a righthand or two.  By round 9 Smith’s corner was threatening its charge with the white feather.  The championship rounds were about one more hopeless UK fighter’s grit.

There wasn’t an obvious opportunity to ice Smith so Canelo didn’t try very hard, which earned him some derision from what GGG deadenders Canelo sneered at in his incompetently translated postfight chinwag.  Healthy as he feels and looks at 168 pounds Canelo hasn’t an inkling to weigh one ounce less to retire Gennadiy Golovkin, who didn’t rehydrate to the super middleweight limit Friday.

Without HBO around anymore to sensationalize Soviet Bloc fighters to feed Canelo, and without any obvious rivalries between 168 pounds and whatever Andy Ruiz weighs right now, and with his agency as a selfpromoter freer than ever, Canelo has some planning to do.  If he’s serious about unifying titles at 168 pounds – he needn’t be; he has The Ring title already – he should forego whoever holds the IBF belt and unify WBC titles in a match with David Benavidez, who at age 24 is at least as good as Canelo was when he lost to Mayweather at 23.  Maybe that fight would go the way of Crawford-Benavidez.  Maybe it wouldn’t.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Canelo Alvarez takes on Callum Smith for the WBA/WBC Super Middleweight championship.  The action begins at 8 PM ET /1 AM in England with an undercard featuring some top undefeated Prospects.

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Round 1: Right to body from Alvarez

Round 2 2 Body shots from Alvarez…Jab from Smith..Good Jab..Pawing jab…Hard jab from Canelo

Round 3 Right from Canelo..Good jab and right hand..2 jabs..Jab and right hand

Round 4 hard jabs from Smith..Hard right from Canelo..Body shot from Smith…Hard right from Canelo..Hard body shot..1-2…Good combination on the ropes..Good uppercut..

Round 5 Hard body shot from Canelo…

Round 6 Good right from Canelo..Body shot..Right…

Round 7 Combination from Smith..Hard body shot from Canelo..Long jab…uppercut..Long right

Round 8 Right from Canelo..Lead uppercut and right hand..Combination from Smith..Good right..Thudding right and uppercut from Canelo..snapping jab..Nice right and uppercut from Smith..

Round 9 Right and jab from Canelo..Uppercut..Blood from nose of Smith..Hard right from Smith..Hard body shot and right from Canelo..Big right Hurts Smith…Uppercut from Canelo..Uppercut and right..Canelo starting to bust up Smith..Hard right hurts Smith..Hard right

Round 10 Hard body shot…Hard uppercut..Smith being punished…4 hard body shots..Hard body shot..Hard right and a body shot

Round 11 Body shot from Canelo..Hard left hook..Snapping jab..Hard right hurts Smith..Another right..Jab to the head..

Round 12 Right from Canelo..Snapping jab and right hand…Combination from Smith..Right from Canelo..Combination..Hard thudding right hand

119-109 TWICE; 117-111 FOR CANELO ALVAREZ

Round 1 Right from Sanchez..Hook and right hand…Hard right..Hard right and another..right to body..Uppercut…Body shot
Round 2 Big hook from Sanchez…Ferandez hurt…Sanchez lands a right over the top..Right..
Round 3 Sanchez lands a right behind the head..Hard right from Sanchez
Round 4 Hard body shot that is followed by a jab from Sanchez
Round 5 Hard right from Sanchez
Round 6 Hard right from Sanchez
Round 7 Body shots from Sanchez…HARD RIGHT DOWN GOES FERNANDEZ..FERNANDEZ FALLS OUT OF RING…FIGHT OVER

Round 1: Jab from Ford…hard left drives Lopez fight..Right to the body..hard left hurts Lopez..RIGHT HOOK AND DOWN GOES LOPEZ
Round 2 Hard jab drives Lopez back..Lopez lands a left…combination from Ford..
Round 3 Hard left from Ford
Round 4 Hard uppercut from Ford…Double jab followed by a left ..Lopez lands a left
Round 5 Hard left from Ford..Jab..hard body shot
Round 6 Good jab from Ford..Sharp right hook..Uppercut…Slapping left from Lopez..Left to head from Ford
Round 7 RIGHT HOOK AND DOWN GOES LOPEZ…HE TAKES THE 10-COUNT–FIGHT OVER

Round 1 Jab from Jones..Left from Williams..Jab..HARD LEFT AND JONES IS HURT…WILLIAMS ALL OVER JONES AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Right from Castro..Right to body and head…3 punch combination..Right to body from Valdes///Right from Castro
Round 2 Right snaps back Valdes head..UPPERCUT AND DOWN GOES VALDES…Hard Body shot..Hard body shot
Round 3

Follow all of the action as Gennadiy Golovkin defends the IBF Middleweight Title against Mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta.  The action begins at 5 PM ET / 4 AM in Kazakhstan / 11 PM in Poland with a five-fight undercard featuring Ali Akhmedov against Carlos Gongora and John Ryder battling Mike Guy

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Round 1: 2 jabs from Golovkin..Jab..Redness on the face of Szeremeta..Right from Szeremeta..Good upperccut from Golovkin…LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES SZEREMETA

Round 2 Right from Golovkin..COVERHAND RIGHT TO THE HEAD AND DOWN GOEZ SZEREMETA…Golovkin lands a left hook..jab..Nice uppercut..Hard right

Round 3 Nice uppercut from Golovkin…Grazing right..Body shot…Good left to the liver

Round 4 double left hook from Golovkin..OVERHAND RIGHT AND INSIDE LEFT AND DOWN GOES SZEREMETA…Hard body shot..

Round 5 Good right from Szeremeta…Left hook to body from Golovkin…Uppercut to the body..Right to the ear…

Round 6 Hard uppercut and left hook from Golovkin..Right from Szeremeta..Body punch from Golovkin…Left..Good right 

Round 7 Clubbing right from Golovkin…JAB AND DOWN GOES SZEREMETA…FIGHT STOPPED AFTER THE ROUND

Round 1: Jab from Ryder..Right from Guy
Round 2 : Left From Ryder
Round 3 Not much 
Round 4 Ryder jabbing and trying to set up the left
Round 5 Left from Ryder
Round 6
Round 7 Hard left from Ryder
Round 8 Guy missing a lot
Round 9 Good body shot from Ryder

Round 1:

By Norm Frauenheim–

A media call with Gennadiy Golovkin this week was preceded by a warning not to ask a question. The question. Don’t ask about Canelo Alvarez, the electronic missive said. You will be muted.

Give me liberty or give me muted.

Saying no to reporters is a little bit like ordering lions not to eat red meat. If not defiance, it often ensures an artful attempt at a round-about way to ask the prohibited without mentioning the letter-of-the law.

But there was nothing artful and surely no defiance during a Zoom session a few days before GGG’s return to the ring Friday night against Kamil Szeremeta (21-0, 5 KOs) in Hollywood, Fla.

Promoter Eddie Hearn answered questions about Canelo. But Hearn’s history tells you he’ll talk about almost anything. After all, he once promoted Logan Paul. Meanwhile, Golovkin (40-1-1, 35 KOs) was asked about his future. (Hint, hint). He was asked about his legacy. (Hint, hint, hint).

He never went there. Not once. He later was quoted about Canelo in a story reported by AFP, the international press service headquartered in Paris.

“I don’t think about this because I’m tired of thinking about it,” Golovkin told AFP. “It’s been over two years that we’ve been throwing this around. It’s not my fault that this fight has not taken place. Currently, it’s too early to say, but there is a possibility this fight might never happen.”

Done. Enough said. For once, a prohibition on one question makes sense. There nothing left to say about GGG-Canelo 3. No outrage necessary, mostly because a third GGG-Canelo fight is way beyond its past-due date.

The question lingers this week only because of the DAZN schedule. By coincidence or not, GGG’s middleweight title defense (DAZN/5 p.m.ET/2 p.m. PT) in his first fight in 14 months is followed 24 hours later by Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) in a super-middleweight bout against Callum Smith (27-0, 19 KOs) Saturday (DAZN/8 p.m.ET, 5 p.m. PT) in San Antonio. The scheduling is a sign that DAZN still wants a return on GGG and its initial investment in Canelo, who is now a free agent after suing both the streaming network and his former promoter, Oscar De La Hoya.

“I really think the challenge he wants is Canelo Alvarez,’’ said Hearn, who will be in San Antonio Saturday as Smith’s promoter.

But, Hearn said, “a lot has to happen.’’

Maybe too much.

From the looks of it, GGG is in terrific condition. He stepped on the scale Friday at a sculpted 159.2 pounds, safely under the 160 mandatory. He’s never missed weight. Truth is, there’s been any doubt that he ever would. GGG has been the consummate pro. But a scale isn’t a clock. GGG is 38. Presumably, he’ll be near or at 39 the next time he fights. His birthday is April 8. His hourglass is running out of prime time.

Meanwhile, Canelo is 30. He’ll be 31 on July 18. Best: A couple of prime-time years are still on Canelo’s clock. But the scale indicates he has moved up and beyond middleweight. There’s a reason he’ll be at super-middleweight (168) in his first fight since his 11^th-round stoppage of Sergey Kovalev at light-heavyweight (175) more than a year ago (Nov. 2, 2019).

“I personally don’t see Canelo coming back to 160,’’ Hearn said.

The question, then, is whether GGG, a natural middleweight, can ever really fight at 168. Then again, that’s a question that Canelo might have to answer Saturday against the unbeaten Smith.

It’s hard not to conclude that GGG and Canelo missed the optimum moment for a decisive third fight. They fought to a controversial split-draw in September 2017. Canelo won a debatable majority decision in September 2018. The third fight, a trilogy’s definitive chapter, should have happened a year later, September 2019. But it didn’t because of personal animosity. The contempt is mutual and real.

Perhaps, big money can change that. But an opportunity has been missed, more by Canelo than GGG. Canelo’s claim on pound-for-pound supremacy is attached to skepticism from fans who argue that Canelo did not beat GGG decisively, if at all.  A chance to deliver the proof was there in 2019, Pre-Pandemic, at a time when Canelo was improving and GGG appeared to be in decline.

Now? Who knows? Or who cares?

From a historical perspective, there’s a parallel. In September 1981, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, then welterweights, fought one of the most memorable bouts ever. Leonard, then 25, beat the 23-year-old Hearns, scoring a fourteenth-round TKO in an outdoor ring on the tennis courts behind Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace. The fight begged for a rematch. Begged for a trilogy. But it took nearly eight years for even a rematch to happen, in part because Leonard retired and then came back because of a detached retina.

But they had lost their moment. Time robbed them of it. By today’s standards, they were still young. Leonard was 33; Hearns was 30. But the fight at super-middleweight, also at Caesars Palace, was a bust. It was a draw, despite two knockdowns. Hearns floored Leonard, once in the third and again in the eleventh. But it was more than controversial. It was forgettable.

Not worth asking about, either.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Wembley Arena, in its cafeteria or lobby, British heavyweight titlist Anthony “AJ” Joshua went through in nine rounds a limited old Bulgarian named Kubrat “The Cobra” Pulev in four or so rounds longer than Wlad Klitschko did in 2014.  Saturday in San Antonio, Mexican middleweight champion and light heavyweight titlist Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will challenge British super middleweight champion Callum “Mundo” Smith.  DAZN brought and brings us both.

AJ won the first match of his AR (After Ruiz) career by convincing stoppage that made some new fan, someone who discovered boxing Saturday, there must be one, think AJ is an indestructible force other heavyweight champions’d be wise to avoid.  What that means is a fresh round of socialmedia negotiations commences.  They’re all hypothetical at this point, exactly as most contemporary prizefighters and their followers prefer them.

Until a Covid vaccine is widely distributed round the world and its effect widely proven round the world all plans for heavyweight superfights are noise.  Here in the U.S. we know all about cacophony (and handling a pandemic catastrophically badly).  Bob Arum and Tyson Fury will do their part to ensure failed negotiations for AJ-Gypsy King get blamed on someone else – they’ve already begun that campaign.  Fury has been lucid for a couple years now, blessedly so, but Arum and others know tomorrow is promised to no promoter and waiting for things to marinate “until we can have fans in the seats again” mightn’t be perspicacity’s own path.

Joshua knows to wait favors him.  So long as the AR charade holds up with Eastern Bloc guys – a Pulev to Usyk to Povetkin run has to be the preferred course – there’s no need to go the riskier route of a Fury fight or, God save AJ’s chin, a match with Deontay Wilder.  Saturday AJ proved against a smaller, older, lighter-hitting, less-athletic version of himself he is a monster.

Even still the sheen is off.  There’s no longer an inevitability to AJ.  One no longer thinks of the kid who dethroned Wlad Klitschko but the man who went wobbly woebegone against a fat little guy who could punch in combination.  That AJ, though, had something like pride and initiative – he was trying to finish Ruiz, remember, when his career comically unwound.  Better for AJ that we remember that bemused countenance and refusal to step forward till he good and felt like it, not the way he ran from the Snickers spokesman six months later.

Tentative as he got after Corrie Sanders denuded him Wlad never had athleticism enough to run like AJ did in Saudi Arabia; Wlad had the heart for it but not the coordination.  Pulev wasn’t much of a matchmaking risk for AJ’s braintrust.  He was a mandatory of some sort, a proven victim, and at age 39 near to immobile as a credible challenger could be.  He also wasn’t much of a finisher.  If AJ chose to plant and punch and his righthand arrived in second place, it was essential he’d have time to settle things before he had to punch or defend again.  Pulev was not a man to rush forward.  

Actually, who cares?  Until AJ fights Fury or Wilder he’ll not be considered credible by aficionados, so why shoehorn anything more into Saturday’s match?

Especially when we can be treating Canelo’s upcoming fight with Callum Smith.  Saturday at Alamodome in a city whose daily new Covid cases are now about the worst they’ve been and eight times or so worse than they were in October, there is a misery of an undercard followed by a properly compelling mainevent, for those dumb enough to put themselves in an indoor arena.

After his excellent win at World Boxing Super Series, Smith has been in hiding.  He fought well 18 months ago and badly five months after that.  He is the Ring champion at super middleweight and deservedly so.  Canelo is the Ring’s pound-for-pound champion, having fought at too many different weights recently to be considered anything other than one of the world’s best fighters, regardless of weightclass or belt.

If Canelo is not the world’s very best fighter it is not for reluctance.  He has made a fight with everyone aficionados have asked him to, especially those men aficionados suspected would make him look bad.  He hasn’t given Gennadiy Golovkin a rubbermatch because he doesn’t believe Golovkin deserves one – an assertion Golovkin is doing his damndest to prove by fighting a 31-year-old Pole with a 24-percent knockout ratio, this Friday.

Yes, the world’s most-feared man, one willing to fight anyone, even career welterweights, between 154 pounds and 168, though not at 154 pounds or 168, will, to his credit, be matching himself against his third career middleweight in a row when he makes a good boy out of the Ring’s number-six-rated middleweight, Kamil Szeremeta, in yet another worst-opponent-the-broadcaster-would-approve showcase for GGG.

Golovkin and his enablers consider his rivalry with Canelo unfinished.  Canelo doesn’t even recognize Golovkin as a rival.  Canelo’s right.  After icing a former light heavyweight champion in his last fight Canelo is about to fight the undisputed super middleweight champion of the world.  Golovkin, 0-1-1 (0 KOs) in career superfights, meanwhile, has returned to making war on mediocre middleweights – though, noticeably, without foundering HBO to overestimate wildly his achievements as he does.  Better put: Did you even know GGG was fighting this week?

Canelo-Smith should be excellent.  Smith has all the tools, and talent aplenty too, but not a fraction Canelo’s experience.  Neither suffers a want of selfbelief.  Had Smith kept improving or challenging himself after WBSS he’d be a favorite Saturday.  Unfortunately he hasn’t.

I’ll take Canelo, UD-12.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry