By Norm Frauenheim-

TUCSON, Ariz. – They are first cousins. Sparring cousins, too. They even look alike.

Look into Thomas Valdez’ eyes, and you see Oscar Valdez Jr. looking straight back at you. Listen to Thomas Valdez speak, and you hear his cousin’s voice.

They went to the same schools in Tucson. They’ve worked out in the same gyms on the Mexican side of the border in Nogales. They’ve hit the same speed bags. They’ve hit each other, too. It sounds a little bit like a sibling rivalry. But it’s not.

“He’s my compadre,’’ Thomas Valdez said Thursday during a news conference for a Michelle Rosado-promoted card that will feature the super-featherweight against Jensen Ramirez on Nov. 17 at Casino Del Sol.

For Thomas and Oscar Valdez, it’s family, friendship and at times a significant business alliance. Oscar Valdez is not Mexican’s best-known fighter. That title belongs to Canelo Alvarez, and Canelo has unchallenged pay-per-view numbers for overwhelming proof.

At another level, however, Oscar Valdez Jr. might rank as Mexico’s most respected fighter. The World Boxing Organization’s featherweight champion earned lots of cred for all that blood he shed in a brutal decision over Scott Quigg on a rain-swept night on March 10 at the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.

They say it never rains in Southern California. But it did that night. After 12 full rounds, there were puddles all over the canvas. Puddles of water. And puddles of Oscar Valdez’ blood. He won, beating a bigger Quigg, who was allowed to fight after missing weight at the official weigh-in.

But there was a price. Oscar Valdez suffered a fractured jaw, although that diagnosis sounds too clinical, if not quite accurate.

Valdez’ jaw was twisted out of shape, so much so that his corner had trouble removing his mouthpiece. It looked awkward. It had to be agony. But he fought through it for a unanimous decision in a brutal bout that is at the top of the ballot for Fight of the Year. Since then, however, the question has been whether Valdez was forced to pay too steep a price. Was it costly to his career?

It’s a nervous question for Top Rank, Valdez’ promoter, and all of the fans he won over last March. Against Quigg, Valdez was transformed into a fighter worth watching. But it all depends on how he reacts in his comeback, which figures to happen early next year. What will happen when that first punch lands on that jaw?

Thomas Valdez thinks he has a pretty good idea. He was the first fighter to test Oscar Valdez a few weeks ago.

“I was his first sparring partner,’’ Thomas Valdez said. “He’s solid, 100 percent.’’

First cousins know best.

Top Rank hopes so.

For now, Oscar Valdez’ comeback is planned for mid-January, possibly in Mexico City for a tune-up — a test run for Valdez’ jaw and his new corner. He hired Canelo trainer Eddy Reynoso, who replaces Manny Robles. He has been training in Guadalajara.

Meanwhile, there are hopes that Oscar Valdez Jr. will be in Tucson, his second home, for Thomas’ fight, which has been scheduled for seven rounds. The odd number was a compromise struck by Rosado’s fellow promoter and mentor, Russell Peltz. One fighter wanted to go six rounds. The other wanted eight. Peltz mentioned seven and they had a deal.

For Thomas, the bout represents a chance to hit the re-set button on 22-fight career (16-4-2, 6 KOs). He is anxious to fight in the United States for the first time since 2013.

“It’s been five years,’’ said Thomas Valdez, who graduated from Tucson High School in 2008 before returning to Nogales. “This is a real chance for me to return to Tucson, get my name back out there around here and all through Arizona.’’

He is doing it with Oscar Valdez’ father, Oscar Sr., as his trainer. Mostly, he’s doing because of his cousin, whose last performance is as unforgettable as it was frightening.

“The way we fight is different,’’ Thomas said. “I’m a little bigger. Physically, we aren’t the same. But our hearts and minds are alike. Watching him against Quigg was kind of crazy. As a fan, I was so excited. As a cousin, I was so worried. I kept thinking: Is he going to be OK?

“But what I see in him, I see in myself. We’re fighters.’’

By Bart Barry-

Three broadcasts Saturday, and nothing that happened was quite great and some was very good but everything was at least good, and a block of five hours of good boxing, live sports programming not storytelling, represents an embarrassment of riches suddenly arrived for every aficionado nimble enough to cord-cut and app-embrace. In such case, we are, as the great man said, the aficionados we’ve been waiting for.

Things happened on two apps in three cities, and if a title or two unexpectedly changed owners it wasn’t the important part because the abundance of available boxing was, and there was at once so much of it and it was so good, one now suspects sabotage more than incompetence put our beloved sport in the dismal two-provider forest we just escaped, completely and enthusiastically.

How about a detour?

Not long after reading my 700th book – that looks like a lot but for a writer, truly, it isn’t – I realized, tardily one might say, the act of reading was doubtful to make me a better writer anymore, and based on my retention from the first 700 books, it, too, was doubtful to increase in any endurable way my knowledge of any new subject. If one imagines the average book length to be somewhere round 300 pages and one reliably reads a page every two minutes he spends about 10 hours with each book, and what does he consciously retain from the experience?

In the first year after reading the book about a paragraph’s worth of information – plot and character and style and other loose associations – and after five years perhaps two sentences and a decade later a sentence if lucky and prompted. Some books considerably more than that and most books a bit less. So I nearly stopped reading for a year. When I returned it was via a revelation of sorts: The only reason to keep reading was if I enjoyed it and the only way to enjoy it was to read books I enjoyed – every other consideration be damned. Unexpectedly, this brought me to reading more books generally and many many more books coincidentally.

Which is where in the hell this column is going in its pursuit of a new way to enjoy and enjoy covering and enjoy coverage of boxing: I now read between six and 12 books at once, and if I don’t try to blur them together I neither mind if they do. Someone famous or important once said or wrote something to the effect th’t were it financially feasible any true artist should choose anonymity. My new reading approach grants authors effectively that since I can’t hope to keep more than two or three voices straight at once when I’m making no effort to do so. I read till I have a thought that removes my eyes from the page, have that thought then pick up another book. I don’t have any order, and I don’t seem to get more than 10 pages deeper in one book before migrating to the next.

I impart this lengthily because if you’re reading this you enjoy reading and might try this approach and because, more to the point, it seems a proper fitness regimen for our new aficionado endeavor.

Perhaps this makes me look a quitter to the prigs amongst us; the day a person who’s given more than an average amount of his life to the sobriety and tranquility of the written word opts to ingest it like a teenager on Facegramsnaptwitter, the evilest faction of information technology has ruined us. Quite possibly. Though happily.

So went my Saturday of toggling between three fightcards on two apps. I went Roku (DAZN) to cell (DAZN) to Roku (ESPN+).

“Ain’t you got a laptop?” say my betters.

I do, but I realized I liked choosing more than absorbing a blitz; I didn’t want more than two playing at once and’ve developed an oddly enjoyable dependence on peripheral vision. What follows is by no means a factual report of what happened but an honest account of how I remember perceiving what happened:

Stephon Young is not in the WBSS, is he, better check, no, then what’s up with DAZN’s notification system, OK, over to the other DAZN to see the Tommy Coyle guy the Spanish-language broadcast from Boston likes, looks like he’s landing on the Pole, but whoa, that hook to the liver from Ryan Kielczweski just changed the fight entirely and the Spanish broadcasters missed it somehow, so let’s check ESPN+ to see if San Antonio’s Adam Lopez is on, he isn’t, but there’s the Irish kid with the middle finger from the Olympics, Michael Conlan, against some frightened Italian – now this belongs in Boston, south versus north, more than Las Vegas – and Conlan can’t cut Nicola Cipolletta’s escape which reveals Conlan is exactly basic as “Bomac” just gently implied; the leadin movies for WBSS look better than I expect Esquiva Falcao will so it’s over to DAZN in Florida where the turnout is poor but the fights won’t be because the Cuban with a name like Doritos can crack proper and the veteran Pole’ll have chin enough to make him, and after five rounds it’s true Yuniel Dorticos concusses more than Mateusz Masternak but after seven rounds it’s no longer true, and this fight is excellent and close just like Dorticos’ last fight, which makes me think the second mainevent, the one between the Aussie pingpong player and the Puerto Rican titlist, too, will be good and close, but there’s “The Monster” Inoue, and after five rounds of Rodriguez-Moloney I think Inoue could decision Rodriguez with the jab at the same time he flashfreezes Moloney with the cross so it’s time to give Top Rank’s next Asian ticketseller a second look, disappointing as he looked a year ago, and who’s this Rob Brant dude, does anyone else think he’s making Ryota Murata look like Murat Gassiev against Oleksandr Usyk, and bless Tim Bradley for choosing to score the fight before him, over and over, rather than scoring debate points on his cocommentator – Tim has found himself a new career, not a mere hobby – and bless the Vegas judges, too, for scoring the match, not its promoter’s best interests.

Three cheers for Rob Brant!

Power off.

After all that I thought of Top Rank and Todd duBoef’s Brand of Boxing concept, late Saturday, with its partial anonymization of fight-provider. A few times I was quite conscious I was watching Top Rank and a few more times I was quite willfully watching World Boxing Super Series, but most of the rest of the time I was watching boxing and enjoying watching boxing and feeling my 15 monthly dollars very well spent on ESPN+ and DAZN – whoever was doing the broadcasting.

For dropping HBO at the end of 2017 I’m still paying with the house’s money, anyway.

My loyalty to Showtime in 2019 is by no means assured.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s a huge bet on one fighter. That also makes it oh-so risky. But give DAZN, a global streaming service, credit for its courage. It made the investment, doubling down with a $365-million wager on Canelo Alvarez.

It was announced Wednesday as an 11-fight, five-year deal. In boxing terms, that’s an eternity, meaning time enough for the infinite variety of busted noses, broken hands and all of the other unforeseen circumstances that postpone opening bells and interrupt careers.

If all goes according to plan, Canelo will be 33-years-old and much richer than he is already when the astonishing deal ends in 2023.

The contract has been called the richest in sports. As of today, I guess it is. That could change with the next big deal in baseball, international soccer or auto racing. Let’s just say it has the potential to be one of the biggest ever. The last biggie was the Showtime/CBS deal with Floyd Mayweather Jr. That one was for six fights over 30 months.

At the per-fight level, Canelo’s deal is worth more than Mayweather’s. Canelo is guaranteed more than $33 million — $33,181,818.20 to be exact — for each bout, starting at a new weight, super-middle, against somebody named Rocky Fielding on Dec. 15 at New York’s Madison Square Garden

That’s nearly $2 million more per fight than Mayweather’s guarantee of $32 million on a contract valued at $192 million when it was signed in February 2013. The difference for Mayweather’s final take came against Manny Pacquiao in the deal’s fifth fight on May 2015.

He had beaten Robert Guerrero, a young Canelo and Marcos Maidana twice. Before wrapping up the Showtime contract against Andre Berto, his deal spiked in a victory over Pacquiao because of a contract that included profit sharing. His purse multiplied after the pay-per-view passed a threshold. According to varying reports, Mayweather wound up with between $230 and $240 million after all of the PPV’s record receipts were counted.

That means his Showtime contract would paying him between $422 and $432 million before he went on to add to an even bigger payday for one night in a mixed-mess spectacle against the UFC’s Conor McGregor. Mayweather walked away from the Showtime deal with $57 to $67 million more than the announced number in Canelo’s deal.

The presumption is that the DAZN contract also includes a profit-sharing clause that would allow Canelo to earn more if the buys exceed a certain number.

For the fight fan, there’s good news in that. It would seem to dictate at least one fight at middleweight with Gennady Golovkin, who is 0-1-1 against Canelo. They fought to a majority draw last year and Canelo won a majority decision last month. Both were controversial.

Both also were a big draw, including more than one million pay-per-view customers for each. According to various reports, Canelo collected $50 million for each bout.

At that rate, he might have to fight GGG a couple of more times to supplant Mayweather on boxing’s all-time dollar-for-dollar scale, which this week and perhaps in any other week has been a lot more relevant than the pound-for-pound debate.

By Bart Barry-

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – “How many services must one rent monthly to watch a championship prizefight?” went my thoughts Saturday from an apartment in nearby Zapopan, as ESPN+ and Roku and Sling, one after the other, collected my usernames and passwords then returned unhelpful errors about availability outside the United States. The next gambit, a virtual private network (VPN) that is another monthly service, brought only less helpful errors that implied: We don’t know where you are, pal, and that means you must be somewhere you shouldn’t be.

And so it went, miserably, until four monthly subscriptions took me limping to a compromise pathetic as it was welcome: A YouTube Live stream of a guy holding the camera of his phone at a 30-degree angle to a television, filling 2/3 of his screen with darkspace dark as deep space, while chatty fellow viewers warned him to keep the volume down lest ESPN dam his damned stream.

Without the tranquility of a reliable service and without an audio narration to help me know what I saw, frankly, Saturday’s match ended kind of suddenly, when welterweight titlist Terence Crawford beat to mushy Jose Benavidez Jr. on ESPN, a Disney property still beholden to ancient cable providers the way you and I are beholden to oxygen.

He notices there’s more talk of boxing on SportsCenter these days and imagines such talk representative of boxing’s ascendancy without quite getting his finger on the affiliate scheme that drives much of SportsCenter’s coverage of anything. There’s more boxing on ESPN now, too, which is further evidence of the sport’s ascendancy. ESPN, he assumes, in the few thoughts he bothers giving these sorts of things, has taken the sporting world’s pulse and predicted, accurately it turns out, boxing is rising in the American consciousness the same way soccer did a decade ago. He’s watched his share of Muhammad Ali documentaries and Mike Tyson knockout clips, and if he remembers correctly George Foreman used to do awesome commentary of Roy Jones fights on HBO, or maybe it was the other way around, and since boxing just came on after college football, well, why not?

I didn’t get to a shark metaphor in 5 1/2 previous years of watching Crawford but it came along clear Saturday night after a day at Acuario Michin (admittedly), this city’s new aquarium and its country’s largest – to complement this city’s zoo, its country’s most populous. After the Friday weighin antics, unexpected as a Monday morning, and the symmetrical hatred they supposedly evinced one imagined Crawford’s eyes would flash Saturday if they were capable of it, and they didn’t. Not in the veiny enraged way one understands the term. They were unknowable, like Crawford. They observed Benavidez and did not blink. Which made me wonder if Crawford’s sadism hasn’t been overstated a bit by me and others. Crawford is a predator true. The better a creature is at preying the more indistinguishable be his satisfaction and euphoria, the more lesser predators and prey alike project a euphoria, an almost erotic joy, on his violent activities. Mining such acts for mindfulness, though, introduces an autoimaginary element – how could I do such a thing without it brought me pleasure?

He likes the depictions of street credibility ESPN’s leadin biopics offered before Crawford – “Bud” is a weird nickname for a fighter, but whatever – and “Junior” went after each other Saturday. Lots of athletes come from bad places, but boxers get to really do something about it. The hatred between the fighters was real, anyone could see that. When the opening bell rang he expected the two men to throw the ref out of their way and frenzy violently, but they didn’t because of strategy.

I sat a few feet behind Crawford in February as Benavidez worked through someone named Matthew Strode in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the prevailing emotion Crawford expressed was polite boredom. Some local-sponsor type asked him – “hey, champ!” – what he thought of Benavidez’s performance, and Crawford gazed blankly up from his seat to say, “What do you think?” At 135 pounds, it’s safe to infer, Crawford’d not have been allowed in a ring with Benavidez without first procuring a license to hunt. But at 147 Benavidez was a far abler foil.

He knows these men are smaller than heavyweights, his bailiwick, but there’s this pound-for-pound thing that makes these guys better than heavyweights on a sliding scale of some sort. Crawford is able to drain the spirit out of a bigger man like Benavidez by punching his body. Crawford, too, does this thing with switching his stance that makes him able to hit and not get hit, even if it looks like he’s getting hit. Definitely.

I want men who are not heavyweights to climb weightclasses because doing so reveals their weaknesses in the unfair way of physics. Crawford has few if any weaknesses, but physics precluded him from dashing through Benavidez because Benavidez was a significantly larger man who knew what he was doing better than he was able to do it. Forget not, while an unknown Crawford made fights in Knoxville and Iowa City, 8 1/2 years ago, Benavidez made his third prizefight in a banquet room of our fightweek compound in Texas the night before Manny Pacquiao starred in Cowboys Stadium – Benavidez, not Crawford, would be Top Rank’s successor to Pacquiao.

He sort of sees what the ESPN commentators mean about Benavidez being a good counterpuncher, but he wishes Crawford would just leap in and dominate him like everyone says he can. Crawford’s controlling the outside foot and stuff, and he obviously hits harder, so why not go for it? Can’t be that complicated!

I enjoyed the tension in the ring early, the portentous feeling the wrong man might just win and ruin a whole lot of Nebraskans’ night out. I liked how Benavidez disrespected the champ, hands at his waist, and how Crawford saw something, some honest signal, that dissuaded his attacks for a halfhour, no matter his superior quotient of skill. Benavidez possessed magical skills for a 16-year-old while Crawford possessed them for a 30-year-old, advantage Crawford, sure, but if one were to tally athletic assets then return to Benavidez’s side of the ledger what being shot in a leg took out, the final accounting would be damn close, do not doubt.

I enjoyed the fight.

He loved the ending.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action LIVE as Terence Crawford defends the WBO Welterweight title against Jose Benavidez, Jr.  The action kicks off at 10:30 PM ET / 7:30 PT with Shakur Stevenson taking on Viorel Simion in a featherweight fight

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY.

Round 1: Trading jabs…Benavidez mocking Crawford..2 Jabs from Benavidez..Jab from Crawford..Straight lrft to body

Round 2 left to body from Crawford..Jab

Round 3 Combination from Crawford..Body shot from Benavidez..Body shot from Crawford..Double right and body punch..More body work

Round 4 Good right from Benavidez..Body shot..Left from Crawford..Hard body shot from Benavidez.

Round 5 Uppercut from Crawford..Short Right from Benavidez..

Round 6 Body combination from Crawford..Combination..Right hook to head..Good exchange..Right from Benavidez..3 punch combination from Crawford..another 3 punch combination…right to the body

Round 7 Right to body from Crawford..Straight left..Combination to head..Right hook..

Round 8 Good combination from Crawford..Left to body..3 punch combination..Left..right to body.

Round 9 Benavidez walks to the ropes…Crawford sticks his tongue at him..Crawford lands a right to body..Hard left..Right to body..Left hook from Benavidez..

Round 10 Flush left from Crawford…Right to body..another body shots on the ropes..Body shot Drives Benavidez to ropes..Benavidez lands a right..combination..Short left hook

Round 11 Right from Benavidez..Right hook from Crawford..Another

Round 12 Head and body shot from Benavidez…Right..HUGE UPPERCUT AND DOWN GOES BENAVIDEZ..Big right..BIG RIGHT..BENAVIDEZ FALLS INTO THE ROPES AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 BIG RIGHT HOOK AND DOWN GOES SIMION…COMBINATION AND RIGHT HOOK AND SIMION GOES DOWN AGAIN..Body shot..Short right to the head...HUGE RIGHT HOOK AND SIMION GOES DOWN AGAIN…FIGHT IS OVER…TIME: 3:00 OF ROUND 1

By Norm Frauenheim-

OMAHA, Neb. – Terence Crawford and Jose Benavidez Jr. did more than exchange insults Friday as escalating tensions led to a weigh-in scuffle that included a shove from Benavidez and a missed punch from Crawford, who threw a long right that could have knocked out ESPN’s main event Saturday had it landed.

Both welterweights face possible penalties, likely a fine that the Nebraska Commission could take directly out of their respective paychecks.

“We’re going to discuss it,’’ Brian Dunn, a Nebraska deputy commissioner, said after the wild weigh-in.

According to documents filed with the Nebraska Commission, Benavidez’s purse is $450,000. Crawford’s paycheck is $2 million, although he is expected to wind up with more $3 million after he collects a bonus from Top Rank, which signed him to a contract extension last summer.

“If this were Las Vegas, the Nevada Commission would levy significant fines,’’ said Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who warned both fighters Thursday that they would not get paid if they scuffled during the traditional nose-to-nose pose after a news conference. “This is boxing. You have to keep your emotions in check.’’

Benavidez pushed Crawford with both hands when the two were asked to face each other after both came in under the 147- pound limit – Benavidez at 145 and Crawford 145.4. Crawford then followed with right that missed as Benavidez stepped back.

Benavidez (27-0, 18 KOs) denied he started the incident at the CNI Health Center in a crowded ball room near the arena where the bitter rivals will finally face each other in a fight governed by rules, instead of chaos. The televised card is scheduled to begin at 10:30 p.m. ET (7:30 p.m. PT).

“He got in my face,’’ said Benavidez (27-0, 18 KOs), a Phoenix fighter and big underdog against Crawford (33-0, 24 KOs), the World Boxing Organization’s champion and an Omaha fighter ranked among the top two in the pound-for-pound debate. “It looked like he was trying to kiss me.’’

Crawford was not available for comment in the scuffle’s immediate aftermath. However, Crawford trainer Brian McIntyre said he would ask the Nebraska Commission to fine Benavidez. Crawford, he said, should not be penalized.

“He pushed him, Jose Benavidez pushed him,’’ McIntyre said. “I’m sorry, but if a man pushes me, I’m going to respond. He shouldn’t have touched him. Terence didn’t start it, didn’t do anything but respond. He shouldn’t be penalized. I’m going to ask the Commission to take a piece of Benavidez’ purse.’’

The scuffle was another moment in a week full of escalating tensions. The fighters exchanged words at a public workout Wednesday at an Omaha gym. The insults continued Thursday at a contentious news conference.

Friday, things went off the scale.

By Norm Frauenheim-

OMAHA, Neb. – There’s not much left to say, or even places to say it. They’ve insulted each other in the gym. They’ve insulted each other at a news conference. They’ve insulted each other’s family and friends, teeth and tastes. They’ve even insulted each other’s favorite food. Apparently, Terence Crawford likes chicken. Apparently, Jose Benavidez Jr. prefers burritos.

Give me an opening bell, please.

Fortunately, one is about to happen, a relief from trash talk’s version of a food fight. Or is it the other way around? Whatever it is, it’s been as noisy as it has been repetitive. Only a fight Saturday night in an arena on the banks of the Missouri River can settle what has evolved into what looks to be genuine hostility. Say it often enough and everybody will believe, including those saying it.

“It’s been real since Day One, since the fight has been announced,’’ Crawford said. “It ain’t been nothing but real.”

So real, the fighters are staying at different Omaha hotels, according to Top Rank promoter Bob Arum. So real, that uniformed police were there and vigilant throughout Thursday’s news conference. So real, that Arum warned both against pushing or punching seconds before they faced each other in the ritual stare-down for the cameras after the newser.

“They can say whatever they want,’’ said Arum, who has taken steps to ensure there is no sequel to the near-riot that erupted last Saturday after the Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov UFC bout in Las Vegas. “No screwing around. You don’t get paid if you punch the other guy out here. No physical stuff.’’

There was only more of the same.

Over weeks, months and perhaps longer, Crawford (33-0, 24 KOs) and Benavidez (27-0, 18 KOs) have talked themselves into believing the worst about the other. Perhaps, that changes after a welterweight title fight in an ESPN televised bout (10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT) at CNI Heath Center Omaha.

On Thursday, however, their mutual contempt sounded as stubborn as ever after the contentious newser. Each said they would not shake the other’s hand after it was all over. That was about the only thing they could agree on.

“I won’t shake his dad’s hand, either,’’ Crawford said of Jose Benavidez Sr., also his son’s trainer.

The threatening words have filled gyms, ballrooms and social media for days before a bout that appears to be little threat to Crawford’s WBO title or his hopes of moving on to a 147-pound showdown with Errol Spence Jr. Odds are stacked, all in favor of Crawford, who will fight in front of a hometown crowd for the fifth time.

“Bet a thousand dollars on me and you can collect $13,000 when I win,’’ said Benavidez, who says he is motivated by one-sided odds for what will be only his third fight since he suffered a gunshot wound to his right leg from a still unknown assailant while walking on a Phoenix canal bank in the summer of 2016. “I’ve got nothing to lose.’’

Benavidez, a Phoenix fighter and a former WBA junior-welterweight champion, said he hasn’t placed a wager on himself. His father Jose Sr., said he would not agree to a bet with Crawford trainer Brian McIntyre, who challenged him to a $10,000 wager during the middle of Thursday’s news conference.

The stakes are high enough, as it is. Benavidez’ words include an intangible meaning. There’s pressure, self-imposed.

“You guys ain’t scaring nobody,’’ Benavidez said to Crawford and a news-conference audience that recorded every word. “You best bring your A-game on Saturday because you’re going to get your ass beat.

“Guaranteed.”

Crawford, who is either No. 1 or No. 2 in the various pound-for-pound polls, smiled, almost ominously. Throughout his career, he says, he has always been motivated by fighters with brash words and threatening promises.

“Absolutely,’’ said the unbeaten Crawford, whose versatility in switching from left to right and back again has left its mark, including 26 stitches around Australian Jeff Horn’s eyes in his last fight. “I’m not worried. I’m just going to go out there and shut him up.

“That’s it.

“That’s all.”

By Bart Barry-

Sunday morning on DAZN Japan’s Naoya “The Monster” Inoue performed the feats of scoring his second knockout as a bantamweight and completing his first round as a bantamweight, in a two-second span. He snatched Dominican Juan Carlos Payano’s consciousness with the first combination he threw in the second season of the World Boxing Super Series. Since arriving at 118 pounds in 2018 Inoue has needed but three minutes and two seconds to go 2-0 (2 KOs).

Actually, that report is unjust to Inoue. To measure properly Inoue’s knockouts by rounds or minutes is to overgeneralize. There’s a more granular method. Punches landed. His knockouts increasingly come in opening rounds, but incredibly the term “first-round knockout” understates what Inoue is up to. “Seventy-second knockout” brings us closer but not even halfway, since Inoue generally does not throw a punch for a match’s opening minute. What he did Sunday with a former world titlist who made his pro debut 13 pounds (and four weightclasses) heavier than Inoue did, needs be measured in punches landed.

Two. Naoya Inoue landed two punches, and Payano was headbanged to boardstiff.

Whatever one opines of Payano as a person or puncher, fact is, a man does not slumber in the gym where he trains then travel across the globe to get atomized by a twopunch. Even in a match betwixt a man who knows how to punch and a man who doesn’t, more than two punches be near always the rule. You could pay your children’s college tuitions by wagering the largest man in every city $100 he cannot take your consciousness with two punches – no matter how great he and meager you.

It’s very difficult to take an unsuspecting man’s consciousness that quickly and nigh impossible to do it a man whose fists are raised. But a twotime Olympian like Payano? A man for whom the gym is both workplace and habitat, with a twodecade dossier of dissuading boxing’s most basic combination? Impossible such a man’s lights might be cut, jab cross, and yet. Inoue so surprised and unbalanced Payano with a jab, the 1, a punch you learn within two minutes of your first handwrapping, Payano somehow had no expectation Inoue’s cross was next.

A halfdecade of squandering the word “devastating” on a Kazakhstani attrition fighter leaves some of us now entirely beneath the task of describing what Inoue’s gloves conceal. It sure ain’t sixth-round-corner-stoppage power or controversial-decision-loss-to-a-smaller-man power, and so let us be chastened by the misdeed of our past embellishments. If we can’t pledge to abstain from exaggeration in the future we might at least pause to concede some of us unduly weakened the language all of us use by pandering to the invention of a disintegrating network reduced to pandering to our beloved sport’s casualest fans.

A pox on such pandering henceforth!

There are sundry lessons for broadcasters to glean from the pending extinction of HBO Boxing, but an accessible one is this: The easiest way to attain 500,000 viewers is to begin with 2 million and replace matchmakers with storytellers.

Since when does boxing need postmodernist cant about contextual empathy in lieu of evenly matched combat? Not only needn’t one be savvy with a textbook to make great matches, but as it turns out, too much textbooking be a liability.

If DAZN doesn’t know this, thus far in its American incarnation it’s doing a workable imitation of a network that does. In 15 days DAZN has broadcast to Americans a heavyweight championship fight attended by 80,000 Brits, the conclusion of a super middleweight tournament in Saudi Arabia, an entertaining many-fight card from Chicago and the opening of two new tournaments in Japan. An aficionado’s total adjusted cost for all this is $5.

That comes with no Gatti List and no pettifogging commentary team. Blessedly. No Game of Thrones, either, which ought be acceptable to adults.

If there’s a criticism for DAZN it lies in the contrast of commentary crews the network trots out for its American cards. Brian Kenny’s mining every act by an official for controversy is tiresome already, Sergio Mora’s too salesy, and why is Sugar Ray Leonard involved? To lend his immortal name. That’s fair, Leonard is genuinely among our sport’s greatest living practitioners, and he’s gracious, too, but there’s no need for him to have a microphone since nothing is lost when he’s quiet.

More to the point, enough with the threeman commentary crews – for if you pay a man to talk, talk he will. Disagree? Check out DAZN’s singleman broadcasts. Whoever that man is, he’s excellent and unintrusive (and naming him would miss the point widely).

*

But if we don’t narrate for the casual fans, why, they’ll go elsewhere to cross-pollinate cultural issues for their lens humanizing mission.

So be it, really, since evidently they are not empathetic enough to be contextualized.

*

The second half of Sunday’s WBSS kickoff, a super lightweight tilt between Belarusian Kiryl Relikh and Russian Eduard Troyanovsky, a match Relikh won by close and unanimous scores, was competitive and entertaining if partly shaded by its predecessor match. There’s simply no following Inoue right now.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as it happens as Khabib Nurmagomedov defends the UFC Lightweight title against former two-division champion Conor McGregor

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

Round 1: Conor lands a left…Khabib gets Conor’s Ankle..Conor gets taken down against the cage..Khabib on top od Conor…

Round 2 Khabib lands a huge right.  He takes Conor down again..Khabib landing ground and pound..Big rights from Khabib…Khabib landing huge shots on the ground..He is going for a choke..Conor gets up..Huge round for Khabib

Round 3  Conor starting to land left hands…Big right from Khabib..Conor landing…good exchanging..Conor blocks 2 take-downs

Round 4 Front kicks from Conor…Take down from Khabib,..REVERSE CHOKE AND CONOR TAPS OUT

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s a role nobody ever foresaw for Jose Benavidez, Jr.

At 19, he was shy and talented, a prodigy embarrassed by what he heard from his seat in the back row of undercard fighters during a trash-talking rant from Joel Casamayor at a news conference before the Cuban’s last fight, a knockout loss to Timothy Bradley at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in November, 2011.

After the final expletive, I remember asking Benavidez what he thought of Casamayor’s profane monologue. He said that wasn’t him. He said he was more fighter than talker.

After seven years in a craft that can leave expectations and faces unrecognizable, however, Benavidez finds himself cast as the talker before his steep challenge of Terence Crawford on Oct. 13 in an ESPN-televised bout.

“While he’s talking, I’m working,’’ Crawford said during a conference call Thursday from his Colorado Springs training camp.

It’s a Benavidez role that was cast last February before a victory in Corpus Christi, a comeback from a gunshot wound above his right knee sustained while walking his dog on a canal bank in Phoenix in August 2016.

During the weigh-in, Benavidez spotted Crawford in the crowd. After stepping off the scale, he confronted Crawford. Benavidez accused him of ducking him and invited him to step outside. It was a well-chronicled exchange, often repeated. That, of course, was the idea.

Benavidez talked his way into the fight. He also talked his way into what figures to be the biggest paycheck in his career.

For him, it makes sense, dollars too, for a bout that also was an easy choice for Crawford, who can further embellish his pound-for-pound credentials in only his second fight at welterweight. What’s more, both are promoted by Top Rank, which signed Crawford to a contract extension in early September.

With a new deal at a new weight, Crawford figured he’d grant Benavidez his wish. To paraphrase an old line, the Phoenix welterweight might regret it. One-sided odds put his chances at an upset in Crawford’s hometown at slim to none. But that also means there’s not much to lose for Benavidez, who has been training in Omaha for the last couple of weeks, according to Top Rank.

If Benavidez can hang on, go the full 12 rounds against the feared Crawford, he might gain the kind of respect that could earn him a shot at other welterweights with belts and name-recognition. Most have not been willing to take the risk against Crawford.

Only Errol Spence says he wants the fight in what looms as the biggest welterweight bout in years. Keith Thurman avoids talk about Crawford. Manny Pacquiao doesn’t mention him at all.

But Benavidez sees an opportunity. Give him credit for that.

He’s been talking about and to Crawford for the last two-to-three years. Perhaps, Benavidez sees something in him that nobody else has. On the tale of the tape, Benavidez has advantages. At 6-feet-2, Benavidez is an unusually tall welterweight. Crawford is listed at 5-8. Benavidez has about a three-inch advantage in reach.

It all adds up to a fighter taller and rangier than any Crawford has ever faced. But the tape’s tale doesn’t include any mention of Crawford’s instinct. It’s hard to quantify. He switches from left to right and back to left without any apparent hesitation. Switch-hitting is often considered a weakness, a sign that a fighter isn’t any good with either hand.

In Crawford, however, it’s a strength augmented by power end precision in each hand. Depending on the moment and what he sees, he’ll jab with traditional left, then lead with the left, all within an almost imperceptible split-second. So far, there has been no way to defend against it, or even prepare for it. In an old sport that has seen it all, Crawford has re-introduced a versatile weapon he uses with an effectiveness as unprecedented as it is lethal.

A looming question is whether Benavidez will resort to a controversial tactic that allowed him to escape with a WBA 140-pound title in a 2014 decision over Mauricio Herrera. He stood upright, his back on the ropes and his face behind upraised hands. It was a rope-a-dope posture, and it worked because of precise jab that landed enough to gain an edge on the scorecards. But the crowd booed.

“I think he’ll want to make a real fight of it in front of my hometown fans, but if he does that, we’ll counter it,’’ Crawford said Thursday in what might prove to be the last word on Oct. 13.

By Bart Barry-

Friday in an excellent conclusion to the World Boxing Super Series’ excellent first season, super middleweight edition, England’s Callum Smith stopped England’s George Groves in round 7 to win the tournament and become The Ring world champion. The match happened in Saudi Arabia on DAZN, a broadcaster that, in six days, at a weekly rate of $2.33, featured the world’s best heavyweight and the world’s best super middleweight, each, in competitive matches that ended with knockouts.

Let that sentence mark how much our beloved sport will miss HBO.

Smith won a world title exactly as you are supposed to turn the feat, with one’s opposite number beaten till he cannot continue – whether via unconsciousness or in Groves’ case a deep desire to relent. Groves was awake and headshaking halfway through the count, Friday, emptied, beaten in every sense of the word.

Groves’ foldings ever come suddenly. While nothing incriminating happened much before the Smith lefthook that made Groves consider other careers, something happened between the men in round 6. Groves became a touch more theatrical and Smith more cunning. Groves began an incongruous tactical pairing of throwing punches harder while circling wider. Smith ignored Groves’ noisy punches and inferred Groves’ true signal. Groves’ twitching did little to dissuade Smith in the fight’s opening and much less as Groves did connect with what blows his feints threatened. And all the while Groves made the much wider circles on the blue mat, and Smith knew conditioning’d become a factor eventually.

It wasn’t conditioning that turned Groves into Smith’s dandy hook – “a peach” as DAZN christened it properly – but it was fatigue that made a fully conscious Groves decide to rise at 10 1/2 and not bother protesting as he did when Carl Froch origamied him 4 1/2 years ago. With a minute to go in round 7 Groves had every right to continue and no desire whatever. It taught Groves a little something new about himself, which is ever the most devastating thing you can do a fighter like George Groves.

Groves more than most considers a prizefight a search for character weaknesses and believes his weaknesses fully inventoried before any opening bell rings. He fancies himself both introspective and psychologically superior; Groves has answered every one of hundreds of questions he’s asked himself about George Groves but he’s not so sure you’ve done the same. There’s a fragility to you Groves sees, while any fragilities you sense in him are mere traps, blemishes on his facade he applied like decals to fool you, definitely not cracks. This set of autobeliefs has taken Groves pretty far indeed, confirming him twice the second best man in his weightclass while getting him stamped number 2 by getting stomped by numbers 1. Groves has tangible talents – quickness and form, a good chin and fitness, interesting offense and an eagerness to counter – but not championship intangibles in the ring to match what brand awareness and marketing intangibles he employs outside it.

Smith on the other hand has these intangibles, not unlike Froch – which is not, yet, to liken one to the other. Each beat the spark out Groves, but the comparisons stop there. Smith does things classical well, and he recognizes as an enormous super middleweight he begins any match with what initiative the other man must seize. By virtue of his size and technique Smith enters any title fight at 168 pounds up a round or two, and he does nothing to squander this lead. He maintains a masculine poise, or perhaps it’s juxtaposition coloring this Yank’s view of things.

Twenty-four hours before Smith unmanned Groves an entirely different sort of confrontation happened before American eyes. The testimony of a man who would be, and probably still improbably will be, a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. What follows is neither political nor partisan; it is instead a measure of what sort of public manliness Brett Kavanaugh tried to display, Thursday, a performance subverted effortlessly by Callum Smith’s manly comportment on a small and foreign platform Friday.

Sniffling and barking, his face contorted in something mean and measly, Kavanaugh sought to intimidate septuagenarians and women with a performance he no doubt imagined wrathful. Instead he disgusted most, the septuagenarians wishing they were 20 years younger to punch his mealy mouth, and every woman knowing perfectly well what he was up to. The performance, Americans quickly inferred, was not for us but for our President, alone, a man whose timing and method were learned in the improvisational crucible of professional wrestling. There was something a touch regional about it, too, the audiencemembers on Kavanaugh’s stageleft hailing from professional-wrestling hotbeds like the Carolinas and Texas, those on his right hailing from places where ice-hockey tryouts often outpopulate even football, states like Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota. Professional wrestlers are gigantic and flamboyant performers who publicly swear to inflict unthinkable violence on other men before (albeit athletically) enacting rehearsed and premeditated spectacles. Ice-hockey players, conversely, are men of comparatively unexceptional physiques who publicly compliment their opponents before committing nightly acts of unpremeditated assault.

On a spectrum of masculinity, with a five-year-old Shirley Temple at one pole and a 25-year-old Roberto Duran the other, Brett Kavanaugh was no nearer Duran than Temple during his Thursday performance. And on Friday, Callum Smith damn near touched the Duran pole by coolly separating George Groves from his aggression while showing no fear and evincing no weakness to a man both desperately seeking it and possessed of the tools for its discovery.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

The headlines said HBO is leaving boxing. Truth is, the premium network has been leaving for the last few years.

The long goodbye was official Thursday with news first reported by the New York Times. Yeah, it’s sad. HBO’s 45 years enriched fighters, promoters and advertisers throughout a run that will probably be remembered as a golden era for the unprecedented money it generated.

HBO also sustained and created generations of fight fans, many of whom expressed shock at a move rumored for a while and probably made inevitable with AT&T’s acquisition of the network in mid-June.

But 45 years are a long time to be in the ring. For fighters. And networks. HBO’s exit after one more fight in late October took on a sense of inevitability. It was like watching a great fighter grow old.

In the end, HBO was still around to pick off a few big events, the last one being Canelo Alvarez’ majority decision over Gennady Golovkin in a Sept.15 middleweight rematch in a pay-per-telecast that did a reported 1.1 million buys. It was clear then that HBO’s days were numbered. At least, it was clear to Top Rank’s Bob Arum.

“HBO doesn’t belong in boxing,’’ Arum was quoted as saying before GGG-Canelo 2. “Showtime doesn’t belong in boxing.”

“They’re entertainment networks. I think they’re beginning to realize that.”

Translation: For HBO executives, boxing is just another show. Like Sex And The City and The Sopranos, it has run its course. Time to move on. Boxing has begun to do exactly that. It has begun to stake its future on streaming with ESPN+ and DAZN.

From this aging perspective, streaming video is a media platform that feels like a couple of centuries beyond the black-and-white Friday Night Fights, the most memorable part of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. Those days are mostly forgotten. In the wake of the HBO news, however, it’s important to mention them. The Friday Night Fights lasted for about 10 years. Boxing moved on from that, too. A historical footnote, the end of that boxing foothold on 1950s’ television represents a moment in a business defined by resiliency. Like it’s best fighters, the business is always getting up from knockdowns.

It has always moved on to other technology and venues. I watched a closed-circuit telecast in 1964 of Muhammad Ali (then, still named Cassius Clay) against Sonny Liston in their first fight at a movie theater. From the Ali era to Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, it followed technology, mostly because it had to. From pay-per-view to streaming video, boxing has always been something of a sports-industry pioneer. That hasn’t changed. Nobody could ever silence opening bell, not even HBO, which left open the door for further boxing telecasts after the Daniel Jacobs-Sergiy Derevyanchenko middleweight bout on Oct. 27. According to news reports and a prepared statement, HBO would still be interested in the right fight. But the biggest attractions have to be cultivated, in much the way Roy Jones Jr. was.

Jones, who shares the all-time lead for HBO bouts with De La Hoya at 32, was a beautifully-skilled athlete. Without HBO, I’m not sure Jones would be the acknowledged star he was and still is. HBO took a chance and invested in the fighter from small-town Pensacola. I think of Jones when I watch welterweight Terence Crawford, another wonderfully-skilled welterweight from Omaha, another small market.

If Crawford – perhaps the most instinctive switch-hitter in boxing history – isn’t underrated, he is under-appreciated. But he is a victim of bad timing, at least in terms of how fighters are marketed. HBO elevated Jones, Pacquiao, De La Hoya and others to worldwide celebrity and wealth. In a changing era, Crawford might have to follow a different path to the same fame and money.

It won’t be as easy. The path has changed. It’s uncertain, but it is still there, a new opportunity for a business that has a history of always finding new ways to sell a very old game.

Bart Barry-

Saturday world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua once again filled a gigantic football stadium and successfully defended his multitude of titles by knocking silly a man one doubted any man might knock silly. This time it was former Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Alexander Povetkin, possessed of both fists and chin. Joshua punched him till Povetkin’s trainer pleaded for mercy on the apron while the match’s referee tried to soften Povetkin’s second plunge to the blue mat.

Whatever happens next, let us pause and rejoice at a present good fortune so aptly illustrated through the pair of Povetkin challenges that just concluded. Before anyone scoffs or even dares consider it, he’s invited, first, to watch this fight, every last second of its 36 minutes, and see what Joshua so blessedly rid us of.

Have you forgotten how awful most Wladimir Klitschko title defenses were? I sure had. Then I took what happened Saturday and subjected my memories of it to what happened five years ago when Povetkin made his first title challenge. The aesthetical disaster of it, the frightfulness that made a man gargantuan as Klitschko fistfight in a way best classified as passive-aggressive: jab-jab-hook-bellyflop-armwrap-tackle | where’s the ref? | leapback-dolphinbreach-armwrap | where’s the ref? | jab-gloveswaddle-headtuck | where’s the ref?

We’re properly spoiled by Joshua if as aficionados we’re not genuflecting to him semiannually. He didn’t untitle Klitschko the way Tyson Fury did, by outwladding Wlad, but rather he made the temperamentally temperate titlist go man-to-man for once and beat him into retirement, beat him right, gave Klitschko a last stand more honorable than the sum of its 20 predecessor stands. And Klitschko thanked him for it in part because, as a 40-year-old man whose career began before YouTube, Klitschko hoped longsuffering fans long since driven to welterweight spectacles instead of his might recall of his legacy only the images of those final rounds in Wembley and the text of his resume.

But do notice how very little anyone misses the Brothers Klitschko, how fully this new era of heavyweights makes us forget the last era’s insipid sibling monopolists.

A brief recap why. Saturday the heavyweight champion of the world, in round 1, stood near enough and grappled little enough with a puncher who knew how to get his nose bloody bloodied and his equilibrium briefly beggared. No preceding quarterhour of guardslapping (what infamous 2008 tactic against Sultan Ibragimov got Wlad exiled a sevenyear from American arenas) – instead a man throwing hands with another man and letting come what might. Then a change in tactics that concerned punching, actual punching, a new target, a changed trajectory, but still punching, not fleeing, not landing the grand jeté, but punching a challenger who wanted to hurt the champ with every offering. And finally the finale, a gorgeous cross thrown at a man still plenty dangerous followed by a pursuit ferocious to a point near recklessness.

Joshua wanted to be tested in a way the heavyweight division’s previous princes never did. He justified once again his enormous following’s faith in him by competing and winning in entertaining a fashion as possible. Then he demonstrated an uncanny rapport with what 80,000 Brits braved the raw conditions of an outdoor arena where the skies drizzled them. He had a laugh at his promoter’s expense. He conceded a sense of the pressure so many folks’ reliance on him brings. He promised an April return. He named fellow titlist Deontay Wilder as his preferred opponent.

Not so fast, there, AJ. Whatever the oddsmakers say there’s good a chance as not a countryman of yours will wear the WBC belt in the new year, not Wilder. My, how fully we’ve forgot, on the evidence of a single showing a halfyear ago, how bad Wilder can be at boxing. And where Joshua should probably outclass the winner of Wilder-Fury nobody should be surprised if Fury outclasses Wilder, 11-1, in a soggydamp spectacle Americans in attendance do not forgive quickly.

There’s a mounting momentum that assumes Wilder deserves a win against Fury because of Fury’s apparent madness, and that’s not how our beloved sport works. Much as Wilder eschews traditional technique is how much Fury eschews traditional entertainment demands. Fury fights nothing like a man his size should, but his style is likely a full foil for Wilder’s. Everything that looked right about Saturday’s spectacle is what will look wrong in December.

Saturday’s challenger attacked, tried to take the champ’s crown by offing the head that bore it. And the champ replied with measure and mastery. Povetkin got in with clever aggression, throwing punches leveraged to devastate. He clipped Joshua with an uppercut-hook combo textbook as it was unexpected. He made an honest confrontation from the opening bell: I’m going to hit you hard as I can, and if that means you do the same to me I’m prepared for it. Before the match Joshua predicted a violent game of chess but it was blessedly more belligerent than that.

December, contrarily, will see a challenger actively endeavor to shame a champ from attacking him – making Wilder hate him so much before the opening bell Wilder hates the idea of failing to hurt Fury slightly more than he hates Fury. It’ll bring entertainment in both a different way and in the bizarre way only heavyweight prizefighters, among all athletes, can. Life’s greatest attestation to this may forever remain the number of German venues Wladimir Klitschko filled.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Anthony Joshua defends his unified Heavyweight titles against Alexander Povetkin at Wembley Stadium in front of more than 80,000 fans.  The action kicks off at 1 PM ET / 6 PM UK time with a 4-fight undercard featuring former world title challenger Luke Campbell as well as a heavyweight slugfest between undefeated Sergey Kuzmin and David Price.

THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY.  NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED

Round 1 Good body shot from Joshua..Short hook from Povetkin..Uppercut rocks Joshua

Round 2 Jab from Joshua..Joshua nose bleeding..Hook from Povetkin..Jab from Joshua..Right from Povetkin..Nice Jab from Joshua..16-7 for Povetkin in Power Punches through round 2

Round 3 Right from Povetkin..Hook from Joshua..Good left hook from Povetkin…Good right from Joshua..

Round 4  Povetkin bleeding over the left eye (From a punch)

Round 5 Right from Povetkin..Body shot

Round 6 Good hook from Joshua..Good jab and right from Povetkin..Lead left from Joshua..

Round 7  RIGHT..LEFT …BIG RIGHT …DOWN GOES POVETKIN…HUGE RIGHT ON THE ROPES…POVETKINS FALLS AS THE REF STOPS THE FIGHT

Round 1 Left from Mendy..Straight left from Campbell..Combination from Mendy

Round 2 Body shot from Campbell..combination..Sharp right from Mendy..Right..Good body shot from Campbell..Hard right from Mendy

Round 3  Left to body from Campbell..right from Mendy..Left from Campbell..Body shot..body..Body

Round 4 Right from Mendy..Body shot from Campbell..Combination..Body….Good body..Campbell out;anding Mendy 47-30 through 4 rounds.

Round 5 Campbell boxing well..Body work from Mendy..

Round 6 Good jab from Mendy..Right..Good straight left from Campbell..

Round 7 Right from Mendy…Body shot from Campbell..Right hook..

Round 8 Body shots from Campbell..Counter left

Round 9 Combination from Campbell..Right hook..2 right hooks and straight left

Round 10  Campbell lands a right hook to the body…Campbell lands 130- 752; Mendy lands   98-488 through 10 rounds

Round 11 Good right from Mendy…Right..Sharp left from Campbell

Round 12  Sharp left from Mendy…Hard body shot from Campbell.body shot

119-109, 118-111, 116-112 FOR LUKE CAMPBELL

Round 1 Left hook from Askin..Jab from Okolie…

Round 2 Sharp hook from Askin

Round 3 Okolie lands a body shot..Jab..Askin lands an uppercut..Okolie being warned for using his shoulder.. Okolie landing 32-150 punches…Askin 6-43 through 3 rounds

Round 4 Askin lands a body shot..Counter right

Round 5 OKOLIE DOCKED A POINT FOR A HEADBUTT…Askin lands an uppercut…Okolie warned for a low blow…

Round 6 Jab from Okolie

Round 7 Okolie lands a hard right hand..Right from Askin…Okolie outlanding Askin 53-28 through  7 rounds

Round 8  Right from Okolie.,,OKOLIE DOCKED A POINT FOR HOLDING

Round 9 Jab from Okolie..Body shot

Round 10

Round 11 OKOLIE DEDUCTED A POINT FOR HOLDING…

Round 12 Jab from Okolie

116-110, 114-112, 114-113 FOR LAWRENCE OKOLIE

Round 1 Good combination from Price..Body shot from Kuzmin..Left hook from Price..Good body shot from Kuzmin..Good left hook from Kuzmin..Double jab from Price..

Round 2 Good body shot from Price..Clubbing right..good body shot..right from Kuzmin..Over hand right

Round 3 Good counter right from Price..Hard flurry..Right from Kuzmin..Uppercut from Price..Body shot from Kuzmin..

Round 4 Uppercut from Kuzmin..Price warned for an elbow..Hard right from Kuzmin..Good right for Price….FIGHT IS OVER PRICE QUIT ON HIS STOOL..Price cites an arm injury

Round 1:  Right from Giyasov…Exchanging right hands..Right..Left to the head

Round 2 Good right from Giyasov..Body..Good right..Right down the middle..Left hook..Flurry on the ropes..Body shots..Straight right

Round 3 Overhand right from Giyasov..Good uppercut…Good counter..Body shot..Body shot from Laguna..GIYASOV LANDS A HUGE FLURRY AND DOWN GOES LAGUNA…FIGHT OVER

By Norm Frauenheim-

The heavyweights were supposed to be back. That, at least, was the overdrawn conclusion on that memorable day about 21 months ago when Anthony Joshua got up and stopped Wladimir Klitschko in a fight that was notable for what happened on both sides of the ropes.

To wit:

The fight was terrific.

The crowd, a reported 90,000 at London’s Wembley Stadium, was epic.

But a heavyweight resurrection was – still is – an illusion.

The momentum vanished about as quickly as Klitschko retired amid Joshua’s subsequent performances, both forgettable. Anybody remember his stoppage of Carlos Takam and his decision over Joseph Parker? Didn’t think so. Meanwhile, off-and-on talks for Joshua-Deontay Wilder are a tiresome reminder that business-as-usual means no business-at-all.

The good news, perhaps, is that there’s a renewed chance – there is always another one, of course – to at least revive the heavyweight division.

It begins with Joshua’s return to Wembley Saturday against Alexander Povetkin in front of a projected crowd of 80,000 in a bout that will also introduce UK promoter Eddie Hearn’s DAZN streaming service to the U.S.

Three months from now, Wilder is expected to fight the wildly unpredictable Tyson Fury. An announcement is reported to be imminent for a date sometime in December, perhaps in Los Angeles.

On the blueprint, both bouts look to be penultimate steps toward the only heavyweight fight that matters: Joshua-Wilder. Late last year, it was near the top of every wish-list for 2018. But it didn’t happen for all of the usual reasons. Whatever — whoever — is to be believed, the best hope now is sometime next year. Trouble is, Joshua-Povetkin and the projected Fury-Wilder is a dangerous combination. Both – either – has a real chance to knock Joshua-Wilder off those wish lists altogether.

Guess here, Joshua beats Povetkin, wears him out and down with his powerful upper body. At 39, Povetkin is down to his last chance. There’s motivation in that.

The Russian, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist, also knows his way around the ring. For Joshua, that’s the problem.

Povetkin knows just enough to survive in what could be an ugly 12 rounds against Joshua, who has said he hopes to stop the Russian in the eight. He’ll clinch. He’ll grab. He’ll hold on, beaten on the scorecards yet still standing. Joshua then will find himself having to answer questions about another forgettable performance.

Povetkin is physically limited, but smart enough to threaten a Joshua career that needs a dramatic encore of the dynamic resiliency and power displayed in the Klitschko classic.

If Joshua wins, yet wins ugly, it’ll be up to Wilder to provide the kind of drama that fires up a worldwide appetite for a showdown with Joshua, who is an huge hit in the UK, yet has generated mediocre television numbers in the U.S. Wilder is the kind of trash talker who can win over American fans and offend the UK audience.

But can he beat Fury?

More to the point, perhaps, which Fury?

His litany of problems brought on by a crazy lifestyle and substance abuse are no secret on either side of the Atlantic or any other ocean, for that matter. When Fury is right, however, he is as clever a boxer as any among today’s heavyweights. He looks to be exactly the kind of skilled fighter who can give Wilder fits.

Wilder has been written off as one-dimensional for just about as long as he has been a pro. But that one dimension has proven to be unbeatable. His right hand is the biggest punch in boxing, and it might explain why we still haven’t seen him fight Joshua. Joshua got floored by a Klitschko right. Had Wilder landed that right, he’d still be on the canvas.

Nobody has figured out how to elude the Wilder right, or counter it. Fury might be that boxer, if – and precedent suggests it is very big if – he is conditioned and committed to remembering using everything in his versatile skillset.

Best scenario: Joshua gets his eight-round stoppage of Povetkin and Wilder’s right does what it has always done.

Fury-Povetkin isn’t on anybody’s wish list.

By Bart Barry-

“The war’s over. It’s over. I saw it on television. I saw it on TV.” – Conrad Brean, “Wag the Dog”

Saturday in Las Vegas Saul “Canelo” Alvarez narrowly decisioned Gennady “GGG” Golovkin to become the middleweight champion of the world. The fight was excellent, and there was blood if no knockdowns. That should make the judges’ decision irrelevant to most of us.

Canelo and GGG proved their equality, a re-proof that reproves much believed about Golovkin by his champions, a group that long resided along a spectrum of gullible to incredibly so. Before the scorecards were read Canelo won the series for being upright and triumphant after 24 rounds with Golovkin as he was before 24 rounds with Golovkin, just as Golovkin’d’ve won the same way had he remained upright and triumphant after 24 rounds with Andre Ward (stop laughing – HBO’s opening salespitch for GGG included an ability, nay, willingness, to fight any man between 154 pounds and 168, while Ward was still super middleweight champion). But let’s right the hands on that clock one last time: You don’t lose the aggregate of 24 rounds on an aggregate of five judges’ scorecards to a man who made his pro debut at 139 pounds and see one closing bell with Ward, much less two.

But, but, what about everything they told me Golovkin was on television?

Yes, let’s address that, as Golovkin eventually follows his promotional network into boxing obscurity. HBO’s schedule for Golovkin’s debut, lo these many years ago, featured an intriguing match with Dmitry Pirog, the man who cracked open Danny “The Golden Child” Jacobs like squares on an icecube tray. Through no fault of Golovkin’s, Pirog withdrew from that match and boxing itself, and then Golovkin’s ace PR guy, Bernie Bahrmasel, by dint of hardwork and will, persuaded two generations of HBO executive and one tiring generation of commentator Golovkin was the middleweight of their lifetimes. The callouts began – never to men larger, alas – along with the mismatches, and soon the hyperbolic became true to a generation raised on the wisdom of Conrad Brean’s lines above.

This was all over last week’s prediction panels, which read wonderfully similar to last year’s prediction panels; Golovkin’s otherworldly power didn’t imperil Canelo once in 2017’s match because of Adalaide Byrd’s scorecard. Next year’s prediction panels, should Canelo do the quixotic thing and forego easier paydays to grant Golovkin an immediate rubbermatch, will follow last week’s: Golovkin, a puncher of historic might, despite striking Alvarez 452 times in 72 minutes, didn’t fell Alvarez once because Vegas judges scored the boxoffice.

OK, enough practicing on the disappointed, let’s address the only memorable thing, which is the fight. No, not quite yet. A last note for those whose Saturday experience got ruined by the scorecards. Learn to prize knockouts so fantastically much that when one doesn’t happen in a championship prizefight you’re at the refrigerator or in the bathroom when the cards get read. If you didn’t bet on the match you should trust your sense of things and caren’t a whit what the officials officially say, and realize all the pundits who tell you to care about it are being paid to peddle outrage their employers hope to monetize. Better put, if outrage brings you a pleasurable spike, embrace it, by all means, but if it doesn’t, go forward in the faith it genuinely doesn’t matter – no one with a valuable opinion will opine more or less of you for such apathy.

Both guys did one thing incredibly effectively Saturday and succeeded incredibly well and will look back with great surprise how effectively their opponent’s one incredible thing offset that one incredible thing each did. For Golovkin it was the jab, which succeeded viscerally more than anything a scorecard might report. Golovkin tormented Canelo the way Muhammad Ali tortured Floyd Patterson 53 years ago. Like this: If you jab a man’s forehead while his chin be properly tucked the force of the blow traverses his spine and collects in a pool of pressure on his lower back.

Canelo touched his toes before and after every middlelate round, and found his lead leg stiff and almost useless in rounds 10 and 11. For about four minutes Canelo was no more mobile or dangerous than Matthew Macklin or Daniel Geale. He was there for Golovkin’s having but Golovkin had him not.

Because Canelo’s committed bodypunching (and occasional hipstriking) throughout the match’s opening 2/3 detorqued Golovkin’s delivery. Canelo had no way to run or hide precisely when Golovkin had nothing for Canelo to run or hide from.

This was a Golovkin fan’s crowning frustration. The act to justify six years’ fidelity appeared with an unmistakable clang, the finish to whisk a Golovkin fan from gullibility to sagacity happened obviously as Canelo’s frightened retreat, and nothing much after it but a couple 10-9 rounds. It’s not enough to say Canelo’s hand raised a quarterhour later salted this flayed sensibility – it’s worse than that: Golovkin’s hand raised a quarterhour later would have brought no true balm. One doesn’t know how deeply Golovkin felt this, how much of his palpable disappointment was empathy with his unrequited supporters, but it’s there now. Even to the most avid, a whiff of fraudulence will accompany Golovkin’s next act of carnage on a super welterweight, loyally accompanied by an HBO soundtrack of inane historical references and overwrought lectures.

These fights, entertaining though they be, take out of Canelo something disproportionate to their reward. He’s no incentive to do it again in May when he can otherwise continue his predecessor’s reign over undersized aspirants. For moving up a weightclass and fighting a world champion, he was already a greater man than Golovkin before Saturday’s match even opened.

Bart Barry can be reached @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Gennady Golovkin defends the WBC/WBA Middleweight titles against Canelo Alvarez in a highly-anticipated rematch.  The action begins at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT with an action-packed undercard featuring Jaime Munguia defending the WBO Jr. Middleweight title against Brandon Cook.  David Lemieux takes on Gary O’Sullivan in a middleweight grudge match.  The action kicks off with Roman Gonzalez taking on Moises Fuentes.

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Round 1: Golovkin jabs...Body shot from Canelo..Jab from Golovkin..Canelo lands a jab..Jab..another jab..Jab from Golovkin

Round 2 Redness around Golovkins’ right eye…Hook from Golovkin..Good left from Caenlo..Jab..Body shot..Double jab..Jab from Golovkin..Good body shot from Canelo..2 lefts from Golovkin

Round 3 Body shot from Canelo..Right from Golovkin..Left..Right

Round 4 Left hook from Golovkin..Left Hook..Hard uppercut..good body shot from Canelo..Good body shot..Body shot from Golovkin..Good body from Canelo..

Round 5  Golovkin lands a jab…Canelo cut over left eye..Right from Canelo..Hook from Golovkin..Trading jabs..Golovkins lands a right..Jab from Canelo..Good body..

Round 6 Jab from Golovkin..Good left to body from Canelo..Left from Golovkin..Uppercut from Canelo..Straight from Golovkin..

Round 7 Body from Canelo..Hard jab..Left hook from Golovkin..Left hook and uppercut

Round 8 Good right from Alvarez..Hard right..Good right from Golovkin..Jab..Straight from Canelo..Left hook..

Round 9 Jab and right from Golovkin..Counter and right from Canelo..Jab..Right lead..Good body..Hard rightBig left from Golovkin..Right

Round 10 2 hard rights from Golovkin..Hard body from Canelo..Hard right from Golovkin..right…Jab from Canelo..Right to body..Good hook..Body from Canelo..Hard right from Golovkin

Round 11 Hard right from Golovkin hurts Alvarez….Hard right from Canelo..Hard left from Golovkin..Hard left from Canelo..Right from Canelo

Round 12 Hard left from Golovkin..Jab..uppercut..Alvarez lands a counter..Golovkin cut around the right eye..Trading power shots…trading uppercuts..Uppercut from Golovkin..right

Alvarez lands 202-622    Golovkin 234-879

114-114; 115-113 CANELO ALVAREZ

Round 1 Hard combination rocks Cook..Wicked combination at end of round

Round 2 Cook trying to work the body..Hard uppercut from Munguia..Hard body shot..Hard combination,,,Right to body from Cook

Round 3 Muguia lands a riGHT TO HEAD AND DOWN GOES COOK..Wicked body shot…Cook in trouble AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1: Right to body from Lemieux..Hard jab drives Lemieux back…BIG LEFT AND DOWN GOES O’SULLIVAN…AND THE FIGHT IS OVER…2:44

Round 1 Left to body from Gonzalez..

Round 2 Fuentes coming out aggressive…Fuentes bleeding from right eye..Straight right and left hook from Gonzalez..Good boy work..Right to body..Hard 3 punch combination..

Round 3 Right from Gonzalez..left uppercut…Body shot..two 3-punch combination

Round 4 Left hook from Fuentes…Right from Gonzalez..Right hand..Combination..

Round 5 Uppercut from Gonzalez...PERFECT RIGHT AND DOWN GOES FUENTES…FIGHT OVER

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – It was more fracas than Face-off and perhaps it was a hint at the sort of violence some have promised and many more expect.

After months of avoiding even eye contact, Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin finally stood in front of each, forehead onto forehead, while their respective cornermen pushed, shoved and circled like the outer bands of an incoming storm.

Finally, there were tangible signs that all of the insults really were motivated by mutual contempt. Golovkin and Canelo, GGG trainer Abel Sanchez and Canelo’s father-and-son corner of Eddy and Chepo Reynoso really don’t like each other. A crowd of about 9,000 at T-Mobile Arena Friday for the formal weigh-in before the middleweight rematch Saturday night almost saw a choreographed ritual turn into an off-the-scale brawl.

Sanchez stepped between the fighters. Then, Eddy Reynoso appeared to put a hand on Sanchez’ shoulder. Sanchez was pulled away from Eddy, who then began to scream at a rival trainer who has been mocking Canelo ever since his positive test in February for a steroid Canelo says came from eating tainted Mexican beef. Triple G’s trainer is calling Canelo “Triple C, “Canelo Con Carne.’’

Eddy started waving his arms at Sanchez. Then, Chepo started shouting. Finally, cooler heads prevailed. The scrum ended, even if the shouting didn’t. Perhaps, there was enough wisdom amid all of the hostile emotions to know that only the fighters can settle this with controlled violence scheduled to begin on an HBO pay-per-view telecast at about 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET).

When asked what he saw when he looked into Canelo’s eyes, Golovkin said he saw a clown.

The clown, GGG (38-0-1, 34 KOs) said, will “see real war. Not regular fight. Special war. I want knockout.”

There was no clowning around in the rhetorical counter from Canelo.

“I defeated the weight’’ Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) said. “Now, it’s time to defeat him.’’

The trip to the scales was almost an afterthought. Both fighters were right under the 160-pound limit – GGG at 159.6 and Canelo at 159.4.

GGG, who looked weary at a news conference Wednesday, entered the arena with a familiar smile that always seems to say: What, me worry? On the scale, he looked a fighter who had trained to withstand big combinations and throw many of his own, including some of the body punches that were missing in his controversial draw with Canelo a year ago. In their first fight last September, GGG was credited with landing only eight body shots.

In Canelo’s trip the scale, he looked lean, leaner than he was a year ago. That raises inevitable suspicions about whether clenbuterol had been a factor in what appeared to be a more heavily-muscled upper body. Whatever the reason, a leaner Canelo is a sign that he hopes to augment his speed. Neither fighter is quick. But Canelo’s hand speed appears to be an advantage over GGG.

“Speed is important, especially against a fighter as slow as Golovkin,’’ said Canelo, who has hinted he would not be lured into risky brawl by Sanchez long-running commentary.

Sanchez has repeatedly said that he hopes Canelo fights “Mexican-style.’’ Sanchez suggests that he ran away from GGG last September. Since then, Canelo has undergone surgery on his right knee. A cyst was reportedly removed. The procedure was called cosmetic, which is one thing this rematch won’t be. It started to look very real Friday.

The pay-per-view portion of the card is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET) with former pound-for-pound champ Roman Gonzalez (46-2, 37 KOs) in a comeback at super-flyweight against Mexican Moises Fuentes (25-5-1, 14 KOs)

There are to other PPV bouts – middleweight David Lemieux (39-4, 33 KOs) against Spike O’Sullivan (28-2, 20 KOs) in a heated rivalry and emerging junior-middleweight Jamie Munguia (30-0, 25 KOs) of Mexico against Canadian Brandon Cook (20-1, 13 KOs).

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The fighters have yet to look each other in the eye, promoter Oscar De La Hoya says he is running for president and the talk continues.

It’s been an unusual week for a middleweight rematch that figures to be anything but ordinary at T-Mobile Arena when Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez finally exchange punches Saturday instead of insults. But the rest is just a guessing game. Who wins and how are questions in an ongoing mystery.

It’s about as close to a pick-em fight as there is. GGG was still a slight favorite at the MGM Grand’s sports book late Thursday. By opening bell, that could shift, especially when the Canelo fans arrive in time for a bout that coincides with Mexico’s Independence Day.

For now, there’s even a question as to whether Canelo and GGG will pose for the cameras in the ritual face-off after Friday’s formal weigh-in. No betting odds on that. But there is precedent to think it might not happen. They avoided the nose-to-nose tradition after the final formal news conference Wednesday at the MGM Grad’s KA Theater.

Canelo, reportedly angry at insults from GGG trainer Abel Sanchez, said no the face-off. Apparently, he wanted to reserve all of his energy and rage for opening bell, expected to be at 8 p.m. PST (11 p.m. ET). If Canelo was mad Thursday, his anger might be even more intense at Friday weigh-in.

In a news release Thursday, Sanchez is quoted as saying “Triple G versus Triple C is finally here.” Triple C means “Canelo Con Carne”, according to the release. That, of course, is mocking reference to Canelo postive drug test in Feburary. He blamed the clenbuterol on tainted Mexican beef. It might be anther reason not to look GGG in the eye until the referee gives them direction in the ring Saturday night.

Meanwhile, middleweights David Lemieux and Spike O’Sullivan filled the face-off void Thursday with one of their own. O’Sullivan took off his sunglasses, appeared to head butt Sullivan, who countered by pushing O’Sullivan. The two were quickly separated.

“I don’t why they won’t do it,” O’Sullivan when asked about Canelo and GGG.

O’Sullivan initiated the contentious face-off by calling Lemieux a greasy piece of bleep during his trip to the podium during the news conference. Maybe, the pushing-and-shoving was a reason Canelo said no to Wednesday’s face-offs. But will he change his mind at Friday’s weigh-in? It’s just one of many questions in fight week full of them.

By Norm Frauenheim

LAS VEGAS – They were in the same room for the first time in months. They sat at the same long table, separated by a pulpit that on this day was missing a bully. They could hear each other. But they didn’t look at each other. Not once.

Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin avoided eye contact on an occasion usually set aside for the first of at least two ritual stare downs staged for cameras and often measured as an early sign of who might have an edge in the hostility that awaits. To blink or look away first is said to be symptomatic of intimidation.

But Alvarez and Golovkin weren’t giving away much of anything Wednesday throughout a formal news conference at MGM Grand’s KA Theatre. Golovkin entered first. Then, Canelo. But they stayed on their side of the room, one predator seemingly wary of the other just days before their middleweight rematch Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in an HBO pay-per-view bout. In the end, there was no stare down, a rare departure from a story line as old as worn canvas and sagging ropes.

Depending on the source, there was no stare down Wednesday – and there might be one Friday at the weigh-in — because Canelo is still angry at insults hurled at him from a GGG corner led by trainer Abel Sanchez, who mocked him for a positive drug test in February and his safety-first style in a controversial draw last year.

There’s all kind of garden-variety psychology about who Sanchez is trying to provoke and why. There’s one theory that he wants to enrage Canelo enough to lure him into firefight of an exchange in the early rounds. But there’s no real sign that Canelo will take the bait

“I’m a fighter who thinks in the ring,’’ Canelo said without any edge in his voice during media round table before the formal news conference. “I know I can win fighting in any style.’’

Sanchez, however, argues that the fans expected more aggressiveness from Canelo last September. There were scattered boos a year ago because Canelo didn’t fight in the so-called Mexican-style. Since then, there have been signs of ambivalence among some of Canelo’s Mexican fans. There’s one way to win back their undivided loyalty, says Sanchez, and that’s to fight with the go-for-broke aggressiveness that has identified so many of Mexico’s greatest fighters.

But Canelo has own answer for that one.

“Anyone can support who they want, but authentic Mexicans will support the Mexican,’’ said Canelo, who is confident he will still be the favorite against the reigning champion, GGG, a Kazakh.

Yet, on the betting board late Wednesday GGG was a slight favorite at about 9-5 odds. There are still unanswered questions about how Canelo will react to a controversial suspension for clenbuterol, a steroid he says he ingested from eating tainted Mexican beef. Not everybody believes him, hence there are inevitable questions about a Canelo who appears to be slimmer than he was last September. Canelo addressed that one by suggesting that a slimmer body is quicker one.

“Speed is always important, especially when you are in there against a slow fighter like Golovkin,’’ Canelo said in what could be viewed as a comment intended to defy Sanchez’ attempt to lure him into a brawl.

All of it has made the rematch a guessing game between a couple of corners that evidently don’t like each other. At the news conference, Canelo, trainer Eddy Reynoso and manager Chepo Reynoso sat stone faced when GGG and Sanchez were introduced. The crowd applauded; they didn’t.

“Much has been said,’’ Chepo Reynoso said. “But in the ring, the truth will come out.’’

Only then, perhaps, Canelo and GGG can look safely into each other eyes.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday in Brooklyn welterweight “Showtime” Shawn Porter outworked Philadelphia’s Danny “Swift” Garcia for the WBC’s suddenly coveted iteration of a 147-pound title. The scorecards were fair, and the fight was even enough a draw wouldn’t have outraged anyone who wasn’t already outraged by other goingson. But the fight otherwise adhered to Premier Boxing Champions’ strange template of abundant drama followed by little suspense but Jimmy Lennon Jr.’s cardreading.

Until the final halfminute when a bang of heads caused an abrasion halfahead from Garcia’s chin and some blood meandered its way to Garcia’s cheek in time for the final bell it had been another miraculously bloodless and upright championship match for PBC. Were the manners reversed – were prizefighters unable to break smoke rings suddenly starching fellow champions – conspiratorial thoughts would bubble. But this PBC conspiracy is something else entirely (and counterintuitively): Howsoever do so many competitive 12-round fights with men who can crack end so anticlimactically with their fighters no more scarred, severed or swollen than chiefseconds?

There has long been suspicion PBC’s founder is a pacifist – so drawn he is by defensive specialists and quicktwitch feinters. But even so, how does he get contracted agents to comply? Perhaps by the sublime oddity of his request.

A thought like this happened between one of the 12 selfsame rounds of Saturday’s comain, when Cuban Yordenis “Yawn” Ugas got beseeched by his corner not to be such a nice guy to Argentine Cesar Miguel Barrionuevo.

Anyone else find this curious?

OK, anyone else make it through half the comain?

Men by their 23rd prizefights may have adopted all type of bad habits, but excessive sympathy is a rare one. Maybe Ugas’ tenure on La Finca taught him boxing’s only point was points, and his knockout record does betray this, but how did anyone rub the bad intentions off Garcia’s and Porter’s gloves before Saturday’s main?

By moving one up in weight, is the likeliest answer. Porter has never struck hard or accurate as champions do, but Garcia sure as hell once did.

Oh, good point: Not at welterweight. Garcia’s greatest gambles and payoffs happened at 140 pounds, where if he wasn’t an A fighter he at least never let anyone prove it publicly. He’s been a B- since scaling those seven pounds. He hits hard enough to stand pocketwise and torque the right shoulder backwards but he barely dissuades other titlists now and chloroforms nary a contender and never a champion, which is altogether too bad.

I find myself pulling for Garcia for the purest of reasons. We have nothing in common, not age or ethnicity or home decor; gravity makes Tyson Fury a more weight-appropriate avatar for me than a guy at 147; and frankly the Puerto Ricans with whom I often watch fights make only nominally more claims on Garcia than Kermit Cintron. But I verily love Garcia’s composure when blitzed. It enchants me how he stands and fixates on cocking his left shoulder and another man’s chin even while that other man helicopters right at him. If it’s not the opposite what life’s conditioned me expect from a man in animal prints, it’s at least refreshingly different. It’s an irregular type of fearlessness but it’s certainly fearless more than cerebral.

Garcia, it bears repetition, fights nothing like a six-toed weirdo in a Phantom mask – he plants and preys. He’s a faith if he can get you to throw your best punch at the moment he throws his best punch his will snatch your consciousness and often gives the impression he doesn’t much care what befalls his own consciousness in the offing. The rest of the time, admittedly, he’s quite average. He’s not bad, of course; he’s contender-level in his other facets but nowhere near so special as when he wings the lefthook, and admittedly admittedly, he no longer wings it gorgeous recklessly as once he did. Another unfortunate consequence of his outgrowing 140.

Let this not detract from Showtime Shawn. He is a coach’s overachieving fantasy and the nearest thing we’ve had to Timothy Bradley since Manny Pacquiao ankled Desert Storm in 2012. Saturday Porter wanted it more than Garcia enough to overcome Garcia’s palpable pride and more-palpable delta of talent above Porter’s.

But a confession: I didn’t watch Porter much. There was a string of rounds, latemiddle, when you couldn’t watch the combat and set your eyes elsewhere from Porter, but most of the rest of the match’s 25 minutes it was easier to watch Garcia loadspring his traps. Which Porter navigated expertly. It appeared Porter took Garcia more seriously, as an adversary, than Garcia took Porter. Some of that is style much as temperament – Porter must prepare himself for a specific opponent where Garcia needn’t – but some of it is mean will. Porter bounced in Saturday’s ring imploring the boxing gods like: Let all other things be equal, tonight, and I’ll do the rest with desire. Garcia slid through the ropes like: All other things aren’t going to be equal, Shawn.

Both men fought best they could and executed about as expected, Porter busier, Garcia sharper. Both men had their frustrations, Porter neutralized, Garcia unconcussive. In a fair if close accounting, though, Porter’s evening won the quotient; slightly more execution, slightly fewer frustrations.

For purposes of forecasting, too, one sensed Porter thought his evening might’ve gone even better whereas Garcia was complacent about his work if not the judges’. Garcia might yet jinx some overrated prospect as he hardens in his welter-gatekeeper role, à la Robert Guerrero or Luis Collazo, but he’d need a titlist’s offnight to win another belt at 147 pounds. Porter, meanwhile, promises to make a fun scrap with anyone but especially Errol Spence whose canned postfight callout Saturday suffered in equal parts from his decency and Porter’s. Spence should win that fight with Porter, since they’re effectively the same fighter and Spence is better, and it, too, should prove surprisingly bloodless.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

For now, twice looks as if it is more than enough for two dangerous men who these days have only a craft and contempt in common.

From late winter, throughout spring and through most of summer, their Sept. 15 rematch at Las Vegas T-Mobile Arena has been preceded by talk that says they don’t even want to be in the same ballroom, much less on the same stage, any more.

They will have to be – or at least they are scheduled to be – next week in a news conference Wednesday at the MGM Grand and weigh-in next Friday at T-Mobile that are suddenly a lot more interesting than the usual dates on a Fight Week’s traditional calendar. On the stage, at the podium and on the scale, there will be heightened attention – perhaps anticipation – at how the middleweights react when they see each other and maybe look each other in the eye.

This is no ordinary fight, because of all of the circumstances, reasons and insults that have been reported and repeated over the many months since Canelo’s positive test last February for clenbuterol resulted in a suspension and postponement of a bout, initially scheduled for May 5, that by now might have been long forgotten. The subsequent controversy and evident tension might make the September date memorable, even historical. It’s hard to predict, other than to say it won’t include too many of the traditional niceties.

In an almost deadpan tone, Golovkin, who has grown weary of all the talk, summed it up best this week in a conference call. First, GGG said he wanted to “punish” Canelo, “to size him down and to put him and his team in their place.”

Then, he said he didn’t know how it would end.

But, GGG said, “nobody is going to congratulate anybody, that’s for sure.’’

That might be the only thing on which he and Canelo agree. Both middleweights promise a victory decisive enough to end any reason for a third fight.

“It’s definitely more personal now,’’ Canelo said a couple of weeks ago “I really don’t like him. It’s personal, and I take it that way. It will make me train harder and give it the extra push to knock him out.’’

Translation: They’re sick of each other.

Yet, money, circumstances, time and more money – did we say money? – can change everything all over again. GGG and Canelo might forget their mutual contempt, especially if the September sequel’s HBO pay-per-view telecast goes the same way as last year’s bout, which ended in a controversial draw. Despite all of the hostility from both camps, neither fighter is a Mike Tyson-like hot head. Both are poised and smart, especially at opening bell. Incautious rhetoric won’t necessarily lead to reckless aggression.

“No, he’s not angry,’’ GGG trainer Abel Sanchez said during this week’s call when asked if anger had changed Golovkin’s approach. “He’s not angry. He’s got a purpose in the gym and he’s got a purpose for what he wants to do inside the ring.

“Canelo has done some things that Gennady feels he needs to pay for and he’ll do that. In the gym, it’s just another day of training. He’s the same guy that he was before. He trains hard. Just his mentality to this fight seems to be very, very focused on trying to punish Canelo — as he was when he fought Curtis Stevens.’’

But the Stevens fight in 2013 came and went in the matter of a few weeks. The GGG-Canelo hostilities have lasted as long as an NFL season.

“The reason it’s going on is because they keep accusing us of insulting them, and all we’re doing is telling the truth,’’ Sanchez said. “All we’re doing is telling you what is happening as we see it, as it’s being reported. He’s the one that tested positive, he’s the one (responsible for) the consequences for what happened on May the 5th and who we had to fight and what was done. He’s the one that created that. It wasn’t us. To continue to sweep it under the rug and to continue to not acknowledge the fact that you have screwed up is why this keeps going.’’

Don’t blink. It isn’t over yet.

By Bart Barry-

There is ever much thought given to layers and how they might best be created in a thing linear as the written word but some new thoughts on the subject. The layers be supplied by the reader and the rest is anxiety about how uncontrollable be that reader – the bolding and italicizing and capslocking and footnoting, and, to a lesser extent, the rigid overapplication of commas, howsoever grammatically justifiable. Ultimately it appears folly no matter where its writer’s heart.

Hi Mom . . . had these thoughts while enjoying a bout of what turned out to be a virile and viral strain of food poisoning in the Ecuadorian township of Otavalo – who orders a steak medium-rare in South America (possible answer: hardly anybody; the waitress failed thricely to dissuade my prep instructions)? – and its 48 hours of refractory restlessness, a mashup of thoughts and sensations occasioned by zaniness and immobility 18 storeys above Quito. I was staring out a pair of windows, as you know I’m wont to do, and reading a book I found in my borrowed apartment, “Envisioning Information” by Edward R. Tufte, and thinking about my futile chase in words of what visual artists do in a different sort of collaboration with the human eye. The book did nothing so much as convince me graphic artists, like my Quito host, practice applied visual arts the way racecar (a palindrome!) engineers practice applied physics. Along we go . . . Bart

Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz comes first to mind when I think after a boxing incarnation of the Labor Day spirit for these reasons:

1. He applied a template of constant pressure.

1a. If he relented, everything would collapse – his defense, his footwork, his identity.

2. He wore blue.

3. He was workforce, not management.

3a. He punched-in for a full, 36-minute shift.

4. When he was put in a bad system (against Juan Manuel Marquez) the system won.

Marquez doesn’t spring to mind as a Labor Day prizefighter, and yet, how else did he attain such technical mastery but via hundreds of thousands of repetitions, and isn’t that workmanlike?

A Brief Oral History of Why Marquez Was Not Workmanlike . . .

MONEY: I’m the reason he changed his physique, you know?

MEMO: I don’t know about that, but I truly did not hear from him until after you fought him.

MANNY: I went crazy when he hit me to the mat with that loop right hand in our four fight. The punch was not happy. The punch was a lie.

MEMO: But you opened the door to that when you didn’t want to do testing.

MONEY: Only reason people know he didn’t want the test was because of me.

If you posit those who use modern scientific methods to enhance their performance are undeserving of Labor Day recognition you foolishly imply, at least partially, anyone with the same cocktail regimen of whatever these guys ingest would, too, become world champion. And before this finds you on hindlegs asserting it’s all so unfair to those who adhere to whatever arbitrary group happens currently to be enforcing arbitrarily agreed-upon standards, maybe ask a few questions about the testing agencies’ agents’ self-interests and just how pure you’re certain all the publicized adherents are actually. Marquez didn’t need PEDs to be elite and neither did Barry Bonds, but the sort of ambition that brings eliteness is not slumberous. It rarely obeys a threshold and hasn’t an off switch. Which is to imply in an era of PEDs any argument about any athlete not needing PEDs to be elite is self-invalidating.

[Hit to start]
Thank you. Please take your seats. Thank you. (PAUSE) (Spread hands) Congratulations to Prizefighting University’s class of 2018! (((((())))))) When I was asked to give this commencement address, I did a lot of thinking. What might I say to send y’all off from the amateur ranks of boxing and scoring to the (raise crooked fingers in air quotes) hurt business? (Lower hands to podium) Then it came to me. (Pause) Two things, actually, came to me. (Take sip of water) The first was a five-word admonishment from a trainer friend of mine. The second was about layers, levels, what have you. (((((())))))) First the five words. (Raise right hand and count on fingers) You. Ain’t. Gonna. Reinvent. Boxing. (PAUSE) Keep your damn chins tucked and your damn guards high. (((((())))))) Now I’m going to riff a little about layers. (Signal grandly with right hand for TelePrompTer to be powered-off) (((((())))))) Conclusion: The year of your graduation, one way or the other, will see a Ukrainian named Fighter of the Year. Supply your own metaphor.

These thoughts about creating a threedimensional experience with a twodimensional medium like words-arranged-in-paragraphs began in 2001! A few writer friends had a magical vision: To spread goodwill by making the already enjoyable reading experience way different by departing from proven methods. Whether in an effort to hide stylistic shortcomings or in the name of literary revolution (founder’s note: Or boredom!) these writers sought to celebrate a subversive experience for their readers by applying a “rigid standard of ultimate quality, craftsmanship and creativity” like Happy Socks!

In conclusion, whatever happened to labor in America or appreciation of those who do labor – and if you’re reading this from your job on Labor Day, why, that’s the point – things shall certainly worsen before they betteren. Employers flatten and automate, making entrylevel a permanent level, now that leveraged shareholders have replaced customers and workers, and so, and still, if boxing does not repay fully what vicarious expectations – better put: expectations for vicariousness – we lend our beloved sport, it ever holds the possibility a man, some man, may rise from hopeless circumstances, may overcome derogatory socioeconomic factors numerous, and improbably become celebrated and secure while entertaining us. If Oleksandr Usyk, world’s unified and undisputed and undefeated cruiserweight champion, possessed of a quirky workhorse style that requires constant motion and occasional improvisation, does not represent every American everyman’s Labor Day ideal, he represents ideals enough.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

PHOENIX, Ariz. – They stood in 103-degree temperatures on both sides of Central Avenue Thursday just to see the hearse. They stood in line for three hours in the desert’s relentless, late-summer heat Wednesday just to see his flag-draped casket above Arizona state’s seal at the Capitol Rotunda.

John McCain, the People’s Champ.

I’m not sure McCain would have called himself that. A great sports fan, the longtime Arizona Senator was first and foremost a boxing fan. In my days as a sportswriter who covered everything from the Phoenix Suns to the Olympics, my conversations with him would always wind up with talk about the legends who had captured the public imagination, no matter what the scorecards or promoters or writers thought of them.

McCain — called “the Boxing Senator” by Bob Arum in a story I wrote for The Ring Saturday https://www.ringtv.com/542243-bob-arum-on-the-passing-of-the-boxing-senator-john-mccain-he-was-a-great-american/ — was fascinated by Manny Pacquiao, the last true People’s Champ throughout his astonishing rise from Filipino street kid to four titles in four weight classes. He named his federal boxing bill the Muhammad Ali Act. He led the fight for the pardon of Jack Johnson, the historical icon who became a People’s Champ for later generations who never saw him fight but knew about his role in the civil rights’ fight.

I don’t know exactly why McCain liked boxing. At times, I’m not so sure why I do either. On the politically-correct scale, it ranks somewhere near the bottom for all the cliched reasons. I’m sure many of McCain’s colleagues looked at him and wondered why. I’ve seen it myself from fellow sportswriters who look at boxing as though it’s something that should be scraped off the bottom of a dirty shoe.

But where there’s dirt, there’s drama. In boxing, it’s all there. Better writers have called it life in a shot glass and I think that’s what appealed to McCain. There are sports that are safer. And sports with greater public appeal. But none is as 100-proof genuine as boxing.

For all his flaws, McCain was genuine. In part, that explains why all of those people waited on hot Phoenix streets just for a glimpse of his hearse and his casket. Populism is a dirty word these days. It’s been muddied up, trampled and misused in a daily tweet storm from Washington D.C. Little is believable. Few are accountable. If Donald Trump were a boxer, he’d blame Google for a loss.

But McCain has blamed himself for lots of mistakes, including a failed marriage and his role in the Keating Five in 1989.

Acknowledging mistakes, I think, is fundamental to success in the boxing ring. I’m not sure what kind of a boxer McCain was at the Naval Academy. My guess he was physically limited, yet always there in the end.

To use a cliché, he always found a way, mostly because he was honest with himself, first and foremost. Perhaps, that’s something he learned in that Hanoi Hell Hole, no Hilton, during his five-plus years as a Viet Nam POW. Only he could figure out to survive and do so with his life and honor intact.

Trump has derided his POW experience, saying that he only likes people who weren’t captured. Trump doesn’t know, or conveniently forgets, that McCain was targeted by the North Vietnamese because his father was a prominent admiral, who was given the CINCPAC post – Commander-In-Chief Pacific – not long after McCain’s fighter jet was shot down. They offered him early release. McCain turned it down, knowing North Viet Nam would use it as propaganda that would stain him as a collaborator forever.

Put Trump in the same situation and I’m guessing you’d have seen a Trump Tower in Hanoi a few years later. He’d have been out of Hanoi and back home, saying ad nauseam there was “no collusion, no collusion” with his North Vietnamese captors.

In McCain, there has never been much guessing about how he would fight. Often, there was disagreement with his reasons. With the why. But rarely the how. McCain was about the good fight in a life that ended with crowds who will remember him as their champion, a People’s Champ.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Gila River Arena in the greater Phoenix area Ghanaian super bantamweight titlist Isaac Dogboe raced through Japan’s Hidenori Otake in about two minutes of their comain tilt. Those two minutes got so filled so well with courage and technique and menace as to make any who saw them suddenly more interested in querying the Dogboe videovault than staying awake till Sunday morning for ESPN’s mainevent.

Just as baseball scouts celebrate Dominican batters’ promiscuous strikezones by saying “no one walks off the island” so should aficionados acknowledge African prizefighters’ chins by saying “no one runs off the continent” – before you saw Dogboe tested, then, you already knew by virtue of his Ghanaian birthplace he had a chin. But then so did countryman Joshua Clottey.

No, what makes Dogboe special is his audacity. Isaac Dogboe is a bad man. How good it feels to write that without irony or hyperbole or satirical smirk.

It feels like when this column began it needn’t be written often because it was assumed often; Pacquiao, Barrera, Morales, Marquez – none of them was mysterious about his intention in a prizefighting ring. His role was to hurt the other man unto unconscious or the closing bell, whichever came first, but he wasn’t to relent trying to hurt the other man unto unconsciousness till the closing bell clanged. That was his brand. That was his legacy.

For reasons of culture or simple good wiring those men doubted the next morning’s risen sun more than a belief like this: If I fight every man unto unconsciousness, his preferably but mine otherwise, I’ll have done my job and should be beloved. If these men feared pain and mortality much as the next they did not fear humiliation; their professional code of conduct drew for them a straight line. They stood apart from the twitchy brand-obsessed Americans who followed, the men who for reasons of culture or simple poor wiring feared nothing so much as public humiliation and fought like it.

Things are getting better by dint of volume – the more airwaves contracted to provide prizefighting the more committed the search for fighters who follow a code in lieu of building a brand. For this, too, we probably ought thank the PBC, for believing so completely in the power of branding above every other consideration as to show our beloved sport the logical ends of the gambit, for not pausing to glance at a Ghanaian bantamweight like Dogboe during the outfit’s Olympic courtship of an American flyweight like Rau’Shee Warren.

Dogboe might’ve succeeded regardless, Errol Spence has somehow, but Dogboe’s chances of succeeding as a fighter if not a brand were improved by his alliance with Top Rank, an outfit that develops prizefighters best. Everything else belongs to Dogboe. His commitment to punches, so full, is uncommon for a man who places them well as Dogboe does. Saturday’s left hook sent every man jack with internet access to YouTube to see what he missed by way of a bullshit filter that kept him offline in April when Dogboe first entered the collective consciousness of American aficionados. Far too many champions and contenders and prodigies and prospects, even, have been prematurely blazoned these last 10 years for any reasonable man to attribute to anything more reliable than Stockholm syndrome most sudden socialmedia enthusiasms. Too hungry are we for something credible to doubt reflexively (as we should) the publicist-readied origin stories that reach us well before our fighters’ first meaningful tests.

Oh, I know, I know, it’s not careful matchmaking that keeps a fighter from being tested his first halfdecade but rather his otherworldly talent, and that’s why I should care about his stepdad or immigration status years before I know if he’s the whiskers to be entertaining or elite.

If that reads like an indictment of Saturday’s mainevent it is one, if only partially. After what Dogboe showed, after the obviousness of Dogboe’s presentation, it was ugly hard to appreciate the subtlety of whatever Jose Pedraza and Raymundo Beltran did one another in their sweepstakes drawing for a December cashout against Vasyl Lomachenko. Saturday’s mainevent was, in a word, mediocre. That’s not to besmirch Beltran’s I-485 application to register permanent residence or audit what paternal love got showered on young Pedraza but more to report yet again none of that matters a whit if what happens in the combat itself is dull, and it was.

Aficionados are a generally shameless lot, but just in case, let’s reiterate: Be not ashamed to call a halfhour of grappling punctuated by an uppercut what it is.

For it cheapens what Dogboe did to call what followed it more than that. Perhaps Dogboe’s mother is a real taskmaster, maybe his dad strapped him with the leathery rinds of a studded soursop, or maybe Dogboe fights for his people – you know not of it matters truly because you didn’t need to know any of it to appreciate the hook he pronated on Otake’s chin in round 1, the same hook he pronated on Cesar Juarez’s chin in January. What’s wonderful about that hook is when it’s thrown – against Otake, before Dogboe knew if Otake could cut his lights, and against Juarez after Dogboe knew the Mexican could pepper him if Dogboe snapped his chin on Juarez’s left knuckles.

Which is most of Dogboe’s charm – he imperils himself for our amusement. Is he open for a counter when he launch-land-plants himself for the lead hook? Why, certainly. But Dogboe wagers his consciousness no opponent’ll combine precision and commitment at that same instant fully as he does. More of that, please.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Ray Beltan defends the WBO Lightweight title against Jose Pedraza.  The action begins at 10:30 PM ET / 7:30 PM PT with the WBO Super Bantamweight title bout between Isaac Dogboe and Hidenori Otake.  Also featured will be a women’s bout between Mikaela Mayer and Edina Kiss.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY 

Round 1 

Round 2 Right from Pedraza…Uppercut..Beltran gets in a left to the body..Cut around the left eye of Beltran..Right from Pedraza..Straight left..Body..Good right from Beltran…Pedraza out-lands Beltran 24-13 in round

Round 3 Body shot from Beltran…Jab from Pedraza..2 more..Left drives Beltran back

Round 4 Beltran lands a left to the body..Pedraza lands a right hook..Right from Beltran..Combination

Round 5 Beltran lands a left hook..Jab…2 chopping rights from Pedraza..

Round 6  Uppercut from Beltran..Beltran out-landed Pedraza 17-8 in round

Round 7  Little swelling under left eye of Pedraza…Lunging left hook from Beltran

Round 8  Beltran lands a right..Hard straight right..Good right hook from Pedraza..Left..2 punches from Beltran..

Round 9 Jab from Pedraza..

Round 10 Uppercut from Pedraza..Right from Beltran..

Round 11 Jab from Pedraza….UPPERCUT AND DOWN GOES BELTRAN..

Round 12 Huge combination from Pedraza at the end of the round that battered the head of Beltran

Beltran landed 137-515      Pedraza landed 160-556

117-110 twice and 115-112 FOR JOSE PEDRAZA

Round 1 Mayer lands a jab…RIGHT HAND AND DOWN GOES KISS..Right to the head..Right..

Round 2 Mayer jabbing…

Round 3 Right from Mayer..Jab..4 body shots….KISS QUITS ON STOOL

Round 1 Dogboe lands a body shot,..Uppercut and left hook..Left hook lands solid..HUGE LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES OTAKE…BIG RIGHT AND OTAKE’S GLOVE TOUCHES THE CANVAS…Big left..and another,,,HUGE COMBINATION AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

By Norm Frauenheim-

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Jose Pedraza looks at Ray Beltran and sees something he recognizes. Call it opportunity. There aren’t many. After nearly two decades, Beltran finally gets his chance to hear himself introduced as the defending champion.

Pedraza has experienced that moment. But it was fleeting. The belt was gone, almost faster than the celebration. But the lesson remains. This time, Pedraza hopes to take a title that will stick around for a while, too.

“I feel very fortunate,” said Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs), who will attempt to take the World Boxing Organization’s lightweight title from Beltran (35-7-1, 21 KOs) tonight on ESPN at Gila River Arena. “This is a great opportunity and I am going to take full advantage of it. Everything happens at the right time.”

Both fighters made weight Friday. Pedraza was ta 134.4 pounds; Beltran at 134.6

Pedraza, a former junior-lightweight champion, created a mild buzz this week with an impressive public workout at Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal’s 9th Street Gym in downtown Phoenix. He looked agile, athletic and mobile enough to give the 37-year-old Beltran some trouble, especially if the bout goes into the later rounds. Above all, Pedraza has the advantage of youth. He’s 29.

“Another world title would mean a lot to me because not everybody gets the opportunity to be a two-time champion,” said Pedraza, a Puerto Rican who won’t be the favorite of Mexican and Mexican-American fans expected to be in the crowd for Beltran.

Pedraza has won two fights since his lone loss by stoppage to Gervonta Davis in January, 2017. Since then, he’s won two fights and watched his home island struggle to come back from Hurricane Maria.

“For the island, a victory would mean a lot too because we need happiness and positive vibes,’’ he said. “After the first loss, I kept training but the opportunities didn’t come and then Hurricane Maria happened, so that stalled things even more. So, we had to wait to get back in the ring.”

Early signs indicate he can’t wait to step back through those ropes. For the experienced Beltran, that probably means aggressiveness early in an attempt at stoppage before perhaps the eighth. If the bout goes into the final four rounds, Pedraza’s younger legs might carry him to a scorecard victory.

The ESPN telecast includes WBO super-bantamweight champion Isaac Dogboe (19-0, 12 KOs) against Hidenori Otake (31-2-3, 14 KOs) of Japan. At Friday’s weigh-in Dogboe was 121.0 pounds; Otake 121.4. The ESPN telecast is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 p.m. ET).

The undercard will begin at 3:30 p.m. PT. It can be seen on ESPN+.

By Norm Frauenheim-

PHOENIX – Going the distance is more than another cliché for Ray Beltran. It’s life. He’s fought 12 rounds for a title. He’s endured another 12 against feared Terence Crawford. He’s gone 12 and wound up with nothing more than frustration at feeling as though he had been robbed. Within the ropes, there’s always been one more. Bouts start. Bouts end.

Outside those ropes, however, there’s one fight that continues. Beltran is winning that one, too. His U.S. immigration process is further along than it has ever been. His manager, Steven Feder, said Beltran has qualified for his work permit and his travel permit. He’s waiting to receive those documents.

His application includes an important addition for an outstanding accomplishment, the World Boxing Organization’s lightweight title. Now, he’s waiting on a date for an interview with an immigration official, probably in Phoenix where he’ll defend that title Saturday night against Puerto Rican challenger Jose Pedraza at Gila River Arena in suburban Glendale in an ESPN-televised bout.

After the expected interview, Feder says he’s one step from acquiring a green card, a legal title that represents some security in a thoroughly unpredictable world. The long, winding labyrinth through process and bureaucracy appears to be as close to finished as it can be. But don’t tell that to Beltran. For him, it’s an ongoing quest and still a powerful source of motivation.

“I won’t feel like I’m fully free until I’m fully legal,’’ Beltran said Wednesday in 100-degree temperatures at Michael Carbajal’s 9th Street Gym.

Beltran’s first defense of a title he won in February is about a lot of things, of course. At one level, it’s about home. He arrived in Phoenix from his native Mexico in the late 1990s, but left to live in Detroit with late Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward and then to Los Angeles for a long gig as Manny Pacquiao’s primary sparring partner. But he liked life in the desert, even summer those temperatures that had everyone searching futilely for a breeze Wednesday. The heat and the city suit him. He wears a logo with the town’s symbol, a mythic bird, on his shorts and T-shirts.

The message is clear: Phoenix is where Beltran (35-7-1 21 KOs) intends to make a stand for himself and his family against the skilled Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs). Along the way, he could get a shot at a good payday. Beat Pedraza and it looks as if he might get a career-high check against Vasiliy Lomachenko, Crawford’s main challenger in the pound-for-pound debate.

But turning that dream into reality is still a fight for the 37-year-old, who found himself back in the gym where he sparred with Carbajal before Carbajal finished his Hall of Fame career with an 11th-round stoppage of Jorge Arce in 1999.

Beltran made a vacant title his own in his last outing against Paulus Moses in Reno by going that familiar distance despite an injury to his left hand. The bout was difficult, yet the motivation was never absent. Beltran could hear it from his cornermen, who shouted ‘’Green card, Green card” in the later rounds. A victory over Pedraza, he says, will put him that much closer to a legal title worth more than an acronym-sponsored belt ever could.

“It’s there, right there, but I still have to fight for that green card,’’ said Beltran, who says his next step is to acquire citizenship. “Winning Saturday would be like some insurance on what I’ve been fighting for, fighting for a long time.’’

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: For part 16, please click here.

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QUITO, Ecuador – No telling where this’ll head as its teetotaler writer’s synapses get tickled by the nutrients of a café bombón after what 48-hour involuntary fasting now evidently succeeds any hike he conducts more than 9,000 feet above sealevel. The empty stomach and mindful, not moral, abstinence from any substance stronger than chlorophyll, whose benevolent effect can be noticeably strong at altitude, already do their work: Who knew teetotalism (probably once t-totalism) had nothing to do with tea but rather extra totaling – the same way the Spanish prefix “re” takes the writing of this column from divertido, fun, to redivertido, absurdly so?

This city is lovely gentle by any measure but especially the measure of Andean capitals. Gentler is the word that presents itself more than another here. Among its sierra siblings, somewhere betwixt Bogota’s relentless vice and Lima’s suffocating virtue, Quito balances gently and invitingly, courteously curious, not professionally so as in Colombia, not stonefacedly unso as in Peru, interrogating an American tourist the way you might question a newly arrived and friendly seeming Martian. With one outlier worth noting:

A Venezuelan taxista so distraught with his country’s freefall into monstrous disrepair – 4,000: that’s the number of daily Venezuelan refugee arrivals to Quito everyone cites – he declares, in Spanish, without a sense of hyperbole much less irony or recourse to a plan b: “Trump! Trump is our only solution!”

Gentler is this city but not gentle, as the Andes are not gentle. Nothing soft grows above 10,000 feet. The plants, though plentiful and often gorgeous, make no outstanding effort to shade you from a sun that glares very much in the transitive sense of the verb, taking an object – namely your oncepink flesh. There’s not the same sense of pending elimination one gathers from subzero temperatures so much as a flinchless indifference; you do not exist to the Andes.

Burned and fatigued after four hours and a thousandfoot ascent, wandering dispiritedly away from homebase while wondering about fractals and how the circumference of a volcanic lake, if measured by microscope, might be infinite, you lose any doubt how unimportant you are. Ambivalence is all: I got myself in this ordeal (empowered) and nothing for 3,800 km is careful enough to get me out (powerless) so I can continue (empowered) or not (powerless) but there will be no conscious witness to my plight while I’m still conscious (ambivalent).

Whysoever more ambitious souls than mine freesolo mountains, I realize I punch at hikes well above my weightclass (by recommending bodyweights well below) not because they’re there but because they can be done, primarily because others not only did them but did them so comfortably and found their doing so worthwhile as to return them with infrastructural equipment – stones in Cusco, logs in Cotacachi – to ease others’ ascents. It may not be gratitude, quite, as one oftentimes resents these handmade staircases as they finish with him, but it is at least a small homage to one’s betters.

Writing of which, the tens of hours of idle thinking that mark this trip much as its altitude, the Airbnb vistas chosen to encourage mindless gazing, arrived unexpectedly at the works and thoughts of a Quiteño painter, a British bodybuilder and an American novelist: Guayasamín, Yates and Wallace.

Capilla del Hombre (Chapel of Man), designed by Oswaldo Guayasamín though not completed before his demise in Baltimore, makes Quito every bit what an aesthete’s destination is Donald Judd’s Marfa or Antoni Gaudí’s Barcelona. A stone box the majority of whose contents are subterranean, La Capilla’s cupola depicts in part those indigenous women of the Spanish conquest who perished in South American mines. But “perished” doesn’t approach what happened.

These persons were born in the mines, bred like livestock in the mines, and discarded in the mines, without once they saw sunlight. If it’s a feat anylonger to horrify in the 21st century Guayasamín’s tribute does it; imagining a life considered so disposable as to be denied even natural light touches a place anymore invulnerable to expertly arranged statistics and expertly layered depictions of man’s cruelty.

Whatever his myriad of influences Guayasamín’s works themselves feel like a synthesis of the Mexican Siqueiros’ murals and the Briton Lucian Freud’s portraits.

Thoughts of a Brit good at layering brings us to Dorian Yates, a letter to whom in Flex magazine in 1994 marked my first “published” “work” and whose lat spread was in its time a transcendental grotesquery. What an interesting journey Yates has taken himself on since injuries ended his Mr. Olympia run 21 years ago, and thanks to whatever YouTube algorithms mixed my affinity for Ravishing Rick Rude ringwalks and comedian Norm MacDonald compilations to recommend Yates interviews that’ve filled many of my Andean-dark evenings in Ecuador.

All but one, actually. That evening got filled by an excellent Netflix offering called “The End of the Tour” – a movie about David Foster Wallace, the American writer whose novel “The Pale King” may be the joyleast posthumous work ever published. Wallace, though, as depicted by actor Jason Segel and subsequently confirmed in hours of interviews, had at least as much a capacity for joy as a capacity for postmodern irony (or whatever Wallace’d’ve preferred we call it).

Wallace’s legion of imitators, too, are perfectly if not quite intentionally portrayed by the actor Jesse Eisenberg – anxious little anglers desperate to achieve literary acclaim by footnoting every sentence, written or spoken, with fauxinquisitive annoyances like “let’s unpack that word ‘desperate’” and “what do you actually mean by ‘acclaim’?”

A last observation unrelated to anything above or anything pugilism (no kidding, bud). Spirals figure prominently in the patriotic signage of both Ecuador and Peru, the latter choosing a font like Maya script and the former choosing a versicolor underlined by “ecuador ama la vida (Ecuador loves life)”. Amen to all that!

*

Author’s note: The picture that accompanies this column features a mixedmedia piece, “Vencedor condenado a la derota por agotamiento sucesivo (Victor condemned to defeat by successive exhaustion)”, created by the Ecuadorian artist José Luis Celi and displayed in Museo Nacional de Quito. The scrolls in the boots read “LA DIGNIDAD” and “LA ETICA”.

*

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-PHOENIX, Ariz. — If life is a logo, Ray Beltran has one that hints at where he’s been, where he’s going and mostly who he is. It’s the Phoenix bird, a symbol of inexhaustible resiliency, with his initials at its heart.

The R is reversed, the young Ray facing left and perhaps looking back on who he was. It backs up to the B, the mature Beltran facing right and looking forward to a career that continues to unfold. In some ways, it represents nearly two decades that have come full circle, a round trip bringing Beltran back to a city he has never really left. The desert town and its mythic symbol are his identity.

He’ll stage a formal homecoming a week from Saturday, August 25, at Gila River Arena in suburban Glendale in his first Arizona bout in more than a decade. It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that it will be his first fight — here or anywhere else — as a defending champion. The title dreams he brought with him to Phoenix in 1999 were finally fulfilled with a unanimous decision over Paulus Moses in Reno for the World Boxing Organization’s belt last February in Reno.

“People know me, know who I am,’’ said Beltran, who faces a tricky challenge against switch-hitting Jose Pedraza of Puerto Rico in an ESPN-televised bout. “They know what’s real, what’s not.’’

If time is any measure, few have been as real as Beltran. At 37, he’s something of a late bloomer. That’s a perilous place to be in an unforgiving craft. But Beltran is there, sure of who he is as a fighter. There have been times when he wasn’t certain. In part, his career has been about figuring out just who he was within the ropes.

It wasn’t exactly an identity crisis. But it was a learning process. When he arrived in Phoenix in 199 with late Hall of Fame trainer and mentor Emanuel Steward, he was called Brown Sugar. That suggested he would be an elusive fighter, finesse first and power second. But he was never really that guy. Instead, he discovered through time, trial and error that his instinctive aggressiveness was his real strength.

That time included about 10 years as Manny Pacquiao’s primary sparring partner. Beltran guesses that he sparred about 3,000 rounds with Pacquiao. To a degree, that meant a lot of role playing. For a while, he’d be Miguel Cotto. Then, Antonio Margarito. Then, Shane Mosley, Then, Juan Manuel Marquez. Then, Timothy Bradley. Then, Floyd Mayweather. A little bit from each can add up to a lot in one. It gives Beltran experience for which there is in match.

There’s also time with Steward, who brought Beltran up from his native Mexico and put him on Phoenix cards he promoted in 2001. Then, Beltran followed Steward to Detroit and the famed Kronk Gym.

“I had nowhere to live, so I lived with Emanuel at his house in Detroit for a year,’’ Beltran says.

Dinner with the Hall of Fame trainer was a lesson plan, Then, there all those rounds with Pacquiao before some of the biggest fights in a new millennium. There’s not much that Beltran hasn’t heard, hasn’t seen. His is a comprehensive resume, one that could get an intriguing addition if he beats Pedraza. A win on Aug 25 probably sets up a title defense against Vasiliy Lomachenko, perhaps in December. That would mean Beltran would be the only fighter to face two of the leading contenders in the pound-for-pound debate. Lomachenko and Terence Crawford are either No. 1 or No. 2 in several of the subjective ratings. Beltran lost a unanimous decision to Crawford in 2014.

His unique experience puts him line to be in a singular position. But he is also there because of the resiliency, the rising-from-the-ashes quality symbolized in the personal logo he designed. Beltran’s 44-fight record includes seven defeats and a controversial draw in 2013 with then WBO champion Ricky Burns in Scotland.

In an era defined by protection of an unbeaten record through optimization of the risk-to-reward equation, a fighter with seven losses is a retired fighter. But there is no modern equation that explains Beltran. Only a logo can.