By Bart Barry-

I was up before dawn Friday morning to begin the day for 20 minutes before I remembered I was up to watch my first live event on ESPN+, boxing’s newest app: Japan’s Naoya Inoue versus England’s Jamie McDonnell for yet another historic title attempt, this time at bantamweight. Such historic offerings happen no worse than monthly in our sport anymore, though history must record May and ESPN as twice-historic for their two historic broadcasts.

At great risk to my credibility as a surveyor of historic happenings, I must concede I do not recall before seeing McDonnell in a prizefighting ring. Which is to write my first impression of him was indeed a pathetic one. This is troubling because in order for me to certify Inoue as a historic talent I should first see him ply his wares against a competent opponent if not a historic one.

Call it stubbornly unfashionable but an undefeated puncher blasting his way through a boxer titlist in six or fewer punches heralds, for me, great matchmaking much as great punching. Time will tell how wrong I am about Inoue.

The ESPN+ app itself has a pleasantly lowbudget feel to it; my favorite part of Friday’s telecast was when some visionary made the decision to stop promoting upcoming mismatches flummery and simply go to a blank screen with a mainevent start time at the bottom. Would that we had more such honesty; we’ve run through our contingency material and welcome you, dear viewer, to set an alarm and go do something better with your time.

And now, dear writer, you may do the very same . . .

*

I am not a Philip Roth scholar or interested in being mistaken for one. I flatter myself to believe he influenced me during the year or so I read nearly all his works in 2003 or 2004. I later read his later works as they came out, thinking, I’m sure inappropriately, “The Plot Against America” was his worst novel since “Portnoy’s Complaint” (though “Our Gang” was proper dreadful, too) – and nearly every other of the novels he published after 2004, “Everyman” and “Exit Ghost” and “Indignation” and “The Humbling”, were excavation vehicles for incomplete scenes from his masterwork, “Sabbath’s Theater”.

That is the work of Roth I return to and return to for its relentlessness, for its boundless pleasure in offending, for its desecration of everything it encounters. Its arc is a parabola. I’m sure when I first read it, when it was about sex and sex and sex, I didn’t believe a writer could sustain such a pace for 30 pages much less 300 (years later, when I returned to it, I read death and death and death).

Here’s my favorite passage in all American literature, presented without context but deliciously offensive for those familiar with what precedes it:

“It couldn’t have ended otherwise. Final proof that life is perfect. Knows where it’s going every inch of the way. No, human life must not be extinguished. No one could come up with anything like it again.”

There’s not a Zuckerman-narrated novel I didn’t enjoy, though if pressed for a Roth book to rate immediately behind Sabbath, I’d probably choose “Operation Shylock” for its originality. I’m not a Jew or a misogynist or a feminist or whatever other political identify makes one cheer or boo Roth. I enjoyed Roth’s books as an American, and for me he is the quintessential American author of the last 40 years. He began with a tight ethno-religious identity and transcended it, first-person to third-. And that maneuver, first-person to third-, is the technique I enjoy most of his: First-person introduces an informality that permits the narrator later intrude on his story whenever he wishes, however formal its third-person progression.

At his worst Roth is political and screechy, a parody of himself recognized by itself, a product of the idealism of his times – at his worst, he just can’t help himself. The rest and best of the time he is mock heroic; Zuckerman behind drunken Jaga in “The Anatomy Lesson”, Mickey Sabbath as he “passeth the time, pretending to think without punctuation, the way J. Joyce pretended people thought . . .” Serious literature done by a writer whose narrators made you laugh at them.

Where does Roth rate in the canon of literary blah, blah, blah? Who, for heaven’s sake, cares! One should rate what he reads according to what joy it brings him, and to hell with every single other consideration.

Are you able to return to an author’s words and enjoy them more than once? Then you’ve found your version of great literature. Ranking art against itself is an empty, academic game, a game Roth subjected a character to when he wished torture that character a wee bit, like he did, and often, to Coleman Silk in “The Human Stain” – Rage!

Roth went gracefully, not tragically, when his time came. He stopped writing almost a decade before he passed, absolving his obituarists any cookiecutter lamentations about how much more he had to give. He wrote what he had, justified his gifts, and brought joy to his readers. It could have ended otherwise, but thankfully it did not.

*

Thus far in 2018 Showtime and ESPN are the two indispensable networks for aficionados. ESPN+ certainly is not that yet but might become so. Eddie Hearn’s DAZN is not likely to become indispensable this year, but it might. Which makes one premium network glaringly dispensable, does it not?

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Bart Barry-

One doesn’t know when the urge to experimentalism will strike but one learns indulge it until he learns not to (many efforts before he learns to indulge it once more, in the doubly helical way of creative and open systems). Saturday’s aficionado’s buffet – Lee Selby versus Josh Warrington and Gary Russell versus Joseph Diaz, for featherweight titles, and Adonis Stevenson versus Badou Jack for the light heavyweight championship – present a clean enough roster to explore biases and their possible origins.

This column happens in a coffeeshop as it has for a number of years now, ever since I discovered making the process a reward itself was more sustainable than making the process a thing that merits reward; a decade of Sunday morning procrastinations followed by struggles followed by coffeeshop rewards accidentally gave way to an obvious solution that became such only once it happened accidentally. Then a minor epiphany followed: It’s more fun, if not demonstrably better, to write in a loud and bustling place, and to allow the noises and bustles seep in the column, than run the fool’s errand of sealing your system off – what happens when one’s weekly fears shift from being blocked to being bored.

There are echoes and architectural debates and orders and gossiping happening all round – “flood zones” gets articulated but won’t be used – the workaday wanderings of a mind that spent 25 senseless minutes on haploid cells before sending himself northwards to one of the five coffeeshops of the Sunday morning circuit. The irony of exchanging, or having exchanged for us, immortality for rapid improvement, to become fitter, though alas no more adaptable, than bacteria, sets itself outside of irony for preceding irony by a few hundred million years.

No segue. No bridge.

I didn’t care who would win Warrington-Selby for at least a round. Then it became apparent via observation and commentary Warrington was the shorter busier guy, the volume-puncher to Selby’s boxer, and I began to favor Warrington. I’ve been the shorter busier guy far more often than the taller craftier one, and I initially cheer for whomever reminds me of myself, like you do, though not quite inflexibly as Roy Jones does.

Whither the ancient journalistic ideal of unbias? I’m no longer sure it exists or ever did; bias precedes interest a bit like friction precedes motion. Until we have a thought to prove or disprove, I suspect, we’re daydreaming.

No sooner was Selby bleeding from beside both eyes then I began rooting for Selby in the same halfhearted way I rooted for Warrington. Then Selby and Warrington bled together as different arms and legs of the same general body and I began to root for a fair decision, to root halfheartedly for prizefighting itself, until the decision got read. Then I took a nap.

No segue.

I didn’t care who would win Russell-Diaz for a round and a half. I believed Russell was way overrated when HBO hardsold him to us 6 1/2 years ago the same way I believed Vasyl Lomachenko was way overrated when HBO hardsold him to us four years ago. Then they fought, and by virtue of Lomachenko’s victory Lomachenko could no longer be overrated as Russell.

I interviewed Jose Ramirez six years ago for The Ring magazine and wondered if the California-born U.S. Olympian with a last name ending in ‘z’ mightn’t be Diaz until I spent a few minutes looking that up Sunday morning (since I stopped caring if he was, a minute into round 2 Saturday night). The guy I interviewed was too polished by half, too entrepreneurial, too much about branding, to show what composure Diaz showed 30 seconds into Russell’s flashassault on his gloves Saturday.

I’m so tired of hearing about handspeed, Russell’s or anyone else’s. Maybe because I can’t relate. Maybe because I think it’s an unimaginative way to describe a prizefighter – one doesn’t cultivate handspeed any more than he cultivates height or eyecolor.

Russell’s hometown crowd’s cheering his brief show of exhausting ineffectiveness in round 2 made me cheer against him. Then Diaz’s aggressive reply made me stop caring if Diaz was the young branding executive I spoke with in 2012. I continued to cheer for Diaz until the ninth or 10th round, when by virtue of Russell’s not wilting, howsoever many Diaz bodyshots made Russell’s narrow waste crinkle, I decided Russell was doing something very clever to disarm Diaz. The final round I cheered for suspense, and therefore Diaz, but I didn’t mind the decision.

And I admire Russell for giving himself a C+ and being vulnerable about what vulnerable knuckles keep him inactive. While we lament a talent wasted by indolence Russell finds solace and pride in concealed deficiencies overcome.

No bridge.

I didn’t care who would win Stevenson-Jack for its entirety – an acknowledged disinterest influenced in part by the hour when the match’s opening bell rang. At times I wanted the 40-year-old southpaw to do something reckless and violent with his left hand and end the fight because the fight was not entertaining most of its duration. Later I wanted Jack to wearout the old man and end Stevenson’s deeply unsatisfactory reign as world’s lineal light heavyweight champion.

I wanted to cheer for Stevenson because he won his title the right way, lest we forget, mowerstrapping a talented champion favored to outclass him easily, and because Stevenson has a certain roguish charisma, but finally I couldn’t because Stevenson is neither talented nor active enough to bias me. Stevenson obviously received the draw like a victory, not because he thought he won the fight, unconscious as he was when it ended, but because he got to leave the Canadian ring with his title, ensuring one more championsized purse.

Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev, today, form a pair of prizefighters that stands further from a once-desired rivalry than anyone does.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Adonis Stevenson defends the WBC Light Heavyweight title against Badou Jack.  The action begins around 11 PM ET / 8 PM PT

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Round 1: Stevenson lands a left

Round 2 Straight left from Stevenson..Left..Jack lands a jab..

Round 3 Jack lands a right to the body.  Another..Stevenson lands..Right from Jack..left from Stevenson..

Round 4 Right from Jack..right to body..Right to body..jab..Right..Left uppercut from Stevenson..

Round 5 Left hook from Jack..Right and left to body from Stevenson..Uppercut..Right uppercut from Jack..Right..Stevenson works on the inside

Round 6 Left to body from Stevenson..Lead uppercut and right hook..Counter right from Jack..Sweeping left from Stevenson..right to body..Straight left..Right uppercut from Jack..2 left hooks from Jack..Right from Stevenson

Round 7 Good right Jack..Counter right from Stevenson..Right from Jack..Good right

Round 8 Jab from Stevenson..Left..Jab from Jack..Jack warned for a low blow..Short left from Stevenson..Quick combination from Jack..right…left from Stevenson..2 rights from Jack

Round 9 Short right to body from Jack..Left from Stevenson..Left and right snaps Stevenson head back..Right from Jack

Round 10 Left hook from Jack..Right uppercut.Right..Stevenson lands a couple shots

Round 11 Stevenson lands a body shot..Left hook from Jack..right to body..Jack backpedaling..2 rights from Jack..Right hook from Stevenson..Right from Jack..Body shot..Left uppercut from Stevenson..Jab and combination from Jack..

Round 12 Good uppercut from Jack..Lead left from Stevenson..Uppercut on inside from Jack..Right hook from Stevenson..Jack lands a right to the body..Over hand right..

115-113 JACK; 114-114 TWICE —DRAW

Follow all the action as Gary Russell Jr. defends the WBC Featherweight title against Joseph Diaz, Jr in a battle of former U.S Olympians.  The action begins at 10:05 Et / 7:05 PT

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Round 1: Double jab from Russell..Jab to body..Diaz lands a left to body

Round 2 Right hook from Russell..Jab from Diaz…Good left..3 punch combination..Body shot from Russell..Left uppercut on inside…Diaz lands a right to the body Combination to the body..right to the head..Left to head..Left to body..left to jaw..Double left hand..body shot

Round 3 Left uppercut in inside from Russell..Counter left from Diaz..Lopping left from Russell..Counter left from Diaz….Body shot..Nice left..

Round 4 Combination from Diaz..Nice body shot and another..Right from Russell…Right to body from Diaz..Left to jaw from Russell..

Round 5 Jab from Russell..Left from Diaz..Good combination..Right to the body..Counter left..Good body shots and nice uppercut

Round 6 Combination from Russell..Left from Diaz..Right to the body..Nice combination..Left..Body work from Russell..Double right from Diaz..Double jab and over hand left…Counter right from Russell..Combination..

Round 7 Jab..from Russell..1-2…

Round 8 Left hook from Russell…Left to body..Nice left from Diaz..Jab from Russell..Left from Diaz..Double right from Diaz..

Round 9 Double jab from Russell

Round 10 Counter left from Diaz..Left to body..Double left hand..Ripping combination from Russell..Good counter from Diaz..

Round 11 Russell pot shotting..Body shots from Diaz..2 rights from Russell..body and head from Diaz..uppercuts exchanged on the inside..Left cross from Russell

Follow all the action as Lee Selby defends the IBF Featherweight title against Josh Warrington from Leeds, England.  The action kicks off at 5 PM ET / 2 PM ET / 10 PM in Great Britain

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Round 1: Trading left hands..Right from Warrington

Round 2 Good jab from Selby..2 good rights from Warrington..Selby is cut over the left eye..Hard left and right from Warrington…Good left hook to body from Selby..Good right from Selby..Right and left bucked Warrington..Cut caused by accidental clash of heads.

Round 3 Straight right from Warrington..Right..Right and left uppercut from Selby..Left hook..Good right..Right

Round 4 Good left from Selby…Double left from Warrington…Sneaky right from Warrington..Good left lead..2 body shots…Good left hook..Right from Selby

Round 5 Jab from Warrington..Straight right from Selby..Left from Warrington..Solid right..Good left hook from Selby…1-2..Good left from Warrington

Round 6  Good right from Selby..Good right…Right from Warrington..Left and right to the head..Good right..Doctor checking on cut as Selby is now cut around his right eye..Great combination from Warrington..

Round 7 Good body shot from Selby..Good body shot from Warrington..3 punch combination from Selby..Jab from Warrington..Good left to body from Selby…

Round 8 Good jab from Warrington..Good right from Selby…Nice right..Good left hook and another..Good right from Warrington

Round 9 Good uppercut from Selby..Right to body from Warrington..Good right..Left hook..Nice left hook in close..Right hand..Good work inside..3 punch combination..

Round 10  Good right from Warrington…

Round 11 Jab and right over the top from Warrington…Good right at the bell

Round 12 Good right from Warrington..Good right from Selby…Right to head from Warrington..Good right..Good left from Selby..

115-113 FOR SELBY….116-112 WARRINGTON…115-113 WARRINGTON

By Norm Frauenheim-

Canelo Alvarez’ enrollment this week in VADA, voluntary drug testing, represents relief for a nervous business still counting on big bucks from a rematch with Gennady Golovkin.

But don’t misinterpret it as a deal.

That would be foolishly premature, way too simple, especially after a contentious few weeks after the May 5 date was scrubbed in the turbulent wake of news that Canelo had tested positive twice for a banned substance.

The rematch is still very possible, probably likely. But circumstances have changed, all of which could have a significant impact on negotiations for a proposed Sept. 15 rematch of the controversial GGG-Canelo draw last September. The door on talks re-opened with Canelo’s tweet Tuesday that he’s back in the VADA program. But the table looks like a very different place from the day when the cancelled May sequel was announced on Jan 29.

GGG, whose evident frustration at the judging in last year’s draw morphed into obvious anger at Canelo’s after the PED controversy in February, said repeatedly before his stoppage of Vanes Martirosyan May 5 that he wanted more equitable terms.

That starts with money, of course. Ends there, too. There’s nothing to discuss without it. Canelo promoter Oscar De La Hoya was quoted in media reports that Canelo decided to re-join VADA for his fans. For the money, too. Where else is he going to get a chance at $50 million?

That’s was the potential for his final purse last September for a fight that did a reported 1.3 million pay-per-view buys. According to media speculation before the bout, the PPV number would have had to have been 1.5 million for Canelo to get the $50 million max. It not clear whether he did. But he got close enough to want to take another bite at about that, far and away, makes the most sense. And dollars.

This time around, however, it fair to guess that Canelo is going to want a bigger share. Based roughly on guarantees — $5 million for Canelo and $ 3 million for GGG — filed in contracts with the Nevada Athletic Commission last September, the final split of revenue was 62.5 percent for Canelo and 37.5 percent for GGG.

It’ll be no surprise if GGG demands a 50-50 split. The first fight, after all, was a draw. On the scorecards, it was demonstrably 50-50. In the court of public opinion, meanwhile, it’s still a debate, also an ongoing sales pitch for the rematch.

Then, there’s controversy surrounding Canelo’s PED tests for clenbuterol, a banned substance he says he got from unknowingly eating contaminated Mexican beef. GGG doesn’t believe him. Turns out, neither do a lot of fans, who expressed their skepticism throughout media reports of GGG’s decision to fight on Cinco De Mayo anyway, against Martirosyan, a late stand-in at StubHub Center.

The bout was panned by many in the media. Martirosyan was gone, knocked out and flat on the canvas, before the end of the second round. But the argument about Canelo and why he had not re-enrolled in VADA lingered.

Unintended or not, a forgettable fight provided a forum for criticism of Canelo in social and mainstream media. It grew, putting pressure on Canelo to do Tuesday what had to be done if the rematch was to have any chance at happening.

It’s a mystery as to why he didn’t enroll in VADA earlier. It’s a mystery, too, as to why he didn’t hold a news conference in late February to just say that he, like anybody else, sometimes gets a meal off the back of a taco truck. He ate one with some tainted meat. No crime there. A lot of people would not have believed him. A lot of people never will. But some would have.

Now, however, Canelo finds himself with a burden of proof he has never had to shoulder. The skepticism expressed about him over the last couple of months is perhaps symptomatic of an erosion in faith from fans whose unquestioned loyalty gave him leverage in negotiations. He could always say he was the draw. He still is, but maybe not by the margin he once had.

What happens within that margin figures to decide when and where – maybe even if — this rematch happens.

By Jimmy Tobin-

When Ukranian Vasyl “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko entered the ring at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night he did so as a nearly -1400 betting favorite. Those odds, near criminal, were soon rendered absurd. Across the ring, Venezuela’s Jorge “El Nino de Oro” Linares stood at the pinnacle of his career. For years Linares had traversed the globe, refurbishing himself, grinding his way back to relevance after a pair of brutal stoppages nearly extinguished him. Linares fought on this and that opponent’s turf, off television, away from the bright lights he was supposed to occupy fixedly nearly a decade ago—all this to stand cornered in what looked very much like a cashout well-earned.

He met the end those odds predicted, did Linares, but not in the manner they implied. Linares was subducted by Lomachenko, like the ocean’s crust rolled over by its continental counterpoint, and the result of their collision was fittingly volcanic. Lomachenko and Linares produced as compelling a prizefight as the year is likely to offer, one whose finish, sudden and satisfying, was both apropos and unexpected. In the tenth, Lomachenko shanked Linares with a left hook best discerned by the agony in its aftermath. Try as he might, Linares could not beat the count; unable to straighten himself, the fight ended with him stuck in a bow, a gesture he had every right to take.

You have what you wanted now, don’t you? You who have long wanted to see Lomachenko challenged, who have gnashed your teeth and cramped your thumbs fighting against the “Hi-Tech” hyperbole. Because Lomachenko looked appreciably human against Linares. Those confounding angles of his? Linares had an answer for them, mirroring Lomachenko’s pivots and firing straight shots as soon as he set his feet. The volume, those cascades of punches both throwaway and evil that Lomachenko uses to plague and punish? Linares met them in kind, knowing—as any opponent must—that Lomachenko’s chin cannot securely be hidden in such activity, and daring—as few opponents do—to find it.

Linares tagged Lomachenko with some consistency, but never more cleanly than he did in the sixth, when his right hand speared an arrogantly lackadaisical Lomachenko square in the face and spilled him for the first time in his professional career.

And it was here that you too got what you wanted, didn’t you? You who have bided your time while Lomachenko dismissed opponents uninspiring and outgunned, while you waited for him to prove himself deserving of the present if not historical—or mythical—accolades those paid to fawn over him have shoveled tirelessly. He earned enough of those Saturday to stop wondering about his grit, his champion’s comportment. Lomachenko is a fighter; it took three divisions and a significant size disadvantage to prove it—it also only took twelve fights.

Because there is nothing Lomachenko failed to deliver Saturday night. If you thought Linares hit him too frequently, too hard, then you are forced to concede that Lomachenko can take a lightweight punch. If you saw him slip, parry, roll with many of the punches Linares was credited for landing, well, all the better. Did you wonder how he would react when hurt? Linares showed you in the sixth—because Lomachenko was indeed hurt by that right hand, evidenced both by how uncharacteristically hurried he was in proving otherwise and how he fought the seventh.

He learned from it too, acknowledging his miscalculation afterward: “I knew about this punch, but I thought I already did what I needed to do. I was wrong and he caught me,” before adding, “He’s [Linares] a great fighter and he gave me one more lesson in boxing.” Post-lesson, Lomachenko adjusted his range and took the fight inside to first unseam and then hepatectomize his most dangerous opponent yet.

Was Saturday not confirmation of Lomachenko’s championship mettle? Is not getting up from a knockdown to win by stoppage what champions do? And would you not rather a fighter get caught for his pursuit of the knockout, than have him skirt the perimeter of peril, eschewing drama for dominance and the excuses such (even artful) preservation demands of a man who fights for a living?

The fight was reminiscent of last year’s rumble between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko, where the victor’s vulnerability served primarily to further ratify him, and the loser, through his valiance, his agency in that ratification, earned greater accolades than he had garnered in any victory; where we learned the winner is not flawless, no, but that he is something better: a fighter who will calibrate his performance to the stakes, and in doing show why boxing, at its finest, knows no rival.

That does not make Lomachenko a historically great fighter (yet), and anyone with the time and interest could find a way to begrime his winning titles in three divisions quicker than any fighter in history. Such is the nature of boxing, such is the nature of its fans. The talk, spouted by manager Egis Klimas, of Lomachenko moving to junior welterweight should be tempered for now, especially considering the qualifier Klimas offered for the move: that Lomachenko won’t be at his best until he is challenged. Linares provided that challenge, teaching Lomachenko the perils of physics (that moving up in weight inevitably brings a fighter closer to his ceiling). Mikey Garcia could deliver that message with greater force, and so long as both Lomachenko and Garcia prowl the lightweight division both have unfinished business there—and both twiddle their thumbs with any other opponent.

But for perhaps the first time since his third bout, when he dismantled Gary Russell Jr., the answer to the question of what we want from Lomachenko is “more of the same.” This column once remarked of Lomachenko that he is a fighter who “in the minds of aficionados live primarily in the future.” Saturday the future arrived.

By Bart Barry-

Ukrainian prizefighter Vasyl Lomachenko and his promoter Top Rank accomplished something pretty extraordinary Saturday when Lomachenko stopped lightweight champion Jorge Linares with a liver shot in the 10th round of a primetime ESPN match at Madison Square Garden. They justified a mountainous pile of euphoric forecasting and premature acclaim so high as to appear unjustifiable. Top Rank did this by putting its star in a fight he could lose – scorecards were a split draw after nine rounds – and Lomachenko did this by riding the moment to a transcendent version of himself.

In one punch Lomachenko indicted most of our current era’s best fighters but especially what prizefighter The Ring currently ranks world’s best. That punch was one Lomachenko took, too, from the middle knuckle of Linares’ right fist square on his pretty nose. It was a punch only a larger champion might deliver a fighter of Lomachenko’s talent and craft. It showed, in one moment at midfight, how much margin-for-error disappears when a man’s courage and ambition command him fight progressively larger men. And it showed the Gennady Golovkin reign for the fraud it has been.

I leaped from my seat and cried at my elderly Mexican companion, “¡Ya, vamos a ver que realmente es (now we’re going to see what he really is)! ¡Ya, vamos a ver!” It was a moment both feral and euphoric – finally a favored, celebrated fighter (other than Roman Gonzalez) in a nationally televised fight intentionally challenging himself enough to be dropped. Finally!

Lomachenko rose too quickly, his pride damaged much as his balance, but got through the round abetted in part by Linares’ hesitation – for which Lomachenko deserved much credit as Linares’ previous vanquishers. Lomachenko fought from that moment forward like he was in a fight, not a danceoff or freestyle floor routine. He surpassed himself, too, he accomplished what he’d taken on faith to that point: If circumstances render my routine inadequate, I will respond creatively and it will be glorious. It was.

He finished Linares with boxing’s version of a southpaw encryption key: 2-2-3-1-6-1-6-3-1-4: cross, cross, hook, jab, left uppercut, jab, up-jab, left uppercut, hook, jab, left hook. What should Linares have done differently? Who the hell knows? None of that can be trained for because there’s no history of it. Lomachenko himself did not expect the combination; his left hook to Linares’ body (when the palm faces up, it’s not a cross, whatever latterday purists may tell you) was the first punch in a threestrike combo Lomachenko raced past Linares’ collapsing form. Lomachenko observed Linares on the canvas and pumped his fist with the realization he’d touched the button, inaccessible usually to a southpaw, and Linares couldn’t possibly be conditioned enough to recuperate from it in the 10th round. He wasn’t. Linares didn’t beat the count so much as get unwilted by referee Ricky Gonzalez’s helping him to his feet.

Lomachenko justified the anticipatory hype about him Saturday in a way few modern athletes do. What usually happens, instead, is television promoters, scripts written by boxing promoters, get themselves in front of each story by calling everything they see greatness – across the dial on Saturday Night Fights, a telecast missing only its Just for Men spots, the names Mike Tyson and Tommy Hearns were invoked in the same minute of a 122-pound comain – cynically certain audiences will forgive decades of hyperbole in the event some athlete actually becomes what telecommentators say every other athlete will be. For it is better to call 100 Danny Jacobses elite than call the next Muhammad Ali only above-average.

Which leads to a few recent thoughts about contemporary television commentary. Watching a series of highlights from Tiger Woods’ round 3 at The Players Championship after reading an interesting essay on metamodernism led me to reconsider the role of live sports commentary and entertain the possibility it is becoming more an expression of sincerity than cynicism. For the last two decades its formula has sounded like: You, dear viewer, wish to believe you are extraordinary and unique and consequently curate only what else is extraordinary and unique, and so allow us to tell you everything you watch on our network is extraordinary and unique. That 6-4-3 doubleplay you just saw? Only the seventh time since 2012 a second baseman of Lithuanian descent has assisted a Dominican-born shortstop in ending a scoreless inning on a Tuesday. Historic!

But now, as a generation of secondstring actors, ironists and models makes its historic way off the world’s stage, congratulating itself on historic journalism, television commentary is infiltrated by something professionally sincere. As in:

We are looking for someone to help promote the Tiger Woods brand by accepting applications from energetic public speakers who know how to cheer like drunks in the gallery do.

Why, I have a degree in communications and I love Tiger – I just didn’t think I could get paid for it. I’m in!

There’s no longer a pretense of objectivity, which is oddly refreshing. It’s a performance that requires energy more than skill. Saturday’s ESPN team rehashed the same story of Lomachenko’s dance classes for at least its 83rd public iteration but did so with a fanatic’s sincerity. As Lomachenko, a southpaw, endeavored to keep his front foot outside his orthodox opponent’s – something you learn in boxing just after jab-cross and before hook – the onus fell upon Timothy Bradley and Mark Kriegel to join this pedestrian thing to the legendmaking decision Lomachenko’s dad took to make his son’s footwork the best in all sport, and Bradley and Kriegel were not cowed by the challenge. Even while the fight was tied Bradley assured us Lomachenko was something never before seen while Kriegel reiterated father-son dynamics once more for whatever male viewers are neither fathers nor sons.

Then Lomachenko did something excellent, and it all felt pretty good.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action from ringside at Madison Square Garden as Jorge Linares defends the WBA Lightweight title against 2 division world champion and reigning Fighter of The Year Vasyl Lomanchenko.  The action kicks off at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT with a welterweight bout featuring undefeated Carlos Adames taking in Alejandro Barrera

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Round 1: Lots of feeling out,,Left from Lomachenko..Right from Linares..Left to body from Lomachenko..Left from Linares..

Round 2 Left from Linares..Hard body shot..3 punch combo from Lomachenko..left on inside..Right from Linares..Body shot..Combination from Lomachenko..

Round 3 Right to body from Linares..Right hook from Lomachenko..Left from Linares..Uppercut from Lomachenko..

Round 4 Combination from Linares…Uooercut from Lomachenko..Right hook from Linares..Right from Linares..Combination from Lomachenko..Uppercut..Straight left..

Round 5 Left to body from Lomachenko..3 punch combination..combination from Linares..Hard jab from Lomachenko..Straight left..Combination finsiged off by a hard right

Round 6 Linares warned for a low blow..rippimh 5 punch combination from Linares..left hook..HUGE COUNTER RIGHT AND DOWN GOES LOMACHENKO

Round 7 Right from Linares..Right hook from Lomachenko..Right from Linares..Combination..Left from Lomachenko

Round 8 Uppercut from Lomachenko…Uppercut and right hook inside..Hard jab..

Round 9 Uppercut from Lomachenko..Hard right from Linares..Right to body..Counter right

Round 10 Body and head shots from Linares..Right hook from Lomachenko..good jab..Right from Linares..BIG COMBINATION..BIDY SHOT..DOWN GOES LINARES…FIGHT OVER

Round 1 Right from Adames..Right from Barrera..Jab..Left drives Barrera Back..hard left.Straight right..

Round 2 Left from Adames..Hard left..Right from Barrera..4 punch combination..Trading body shot..Left to body from Adames..Good right..2 Body shots..right to body from Barrera…Left buckles Barrera…Right

Round 3 Left to body from Barrera..Uppercut..Left to body..Good right from Adames…Good right from Barrera..Left from Adames..Left from Barrera

Round 4 Right from Adames..Flush right..Uppercut..Left to body from Barrera…Hard right from Adames…Good counter right

Round 5 Body work from Adames..2 more body shots..Straight right….Left to body from Barrera..Hard left from Adames..Right to body..1-2 ..Right drives Barrera into ropes..another ripping right

Round 6 Left from Adames..3 punch combination from Barrera..Jab..Adames switching southpaw..

Round 7 Left to body from Adames..Left to body from Adames..Left to body from Barrera..Jab from Adames..Good right from Barrera..Trading body shots on the inside..Combination that is punctuated by a right from Barrera

Round 8 Both are trading heavy shots..Barrera coming forward..Left from Adames..Hard left off the ropes…Right cross..Head combination…Hard right from Barrera

Round 9 Barrera lands 5 shots on the ropes..Good left from Adames..Good counter right..Jab..

Round 10 Left/body-right from Adames..Right from Barrera..Body work from both..Body from Barrera..Counter right..Left and right from Adames..

98-92, 97-93 and 96-94 for ADAMES

By Norm Frauenheim-

Vasiliy Lomachenko-Jorge Linares Saturday at New York’s Madison Square Garden is an opportunity to reset the table on a year that began amid promise and yet has been muddied by the May 5 cancellation of Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez and the continuing controversy over when — or if — Canelo will enroll in VADA, the voluntary testing procedure that appears to be fundamental to any chance of reaching an agreement for a rematch in September.

There’s no controversy about Lomachenko-Linares. There’s just intrigue, anticipation and the pound-for-pound argument.

Lomachenko’s bid for a third title at a third weight, 135 pounds, is the first half of a 2018 debate about a further claim on the pound-for-pound’s mythical title. At the end of 2017, Lomachenko, a former featherweight and junior-lightweight champion, held a slight edge in the various polls and among the voters.

But Terence Crawford was always in the hunt. Still is.

Crawford, a former lightweight and junior-welterweight champ, will deliver his bid next month, June 9 at Las Vegas MGM Grand, in his first bout at 147 pounds against Australian Jeff Horn.

Guess here: Both Lomachenko and Crawford will prevail.

The real question rests in who will have looked better in their first fight at a heavier weight.

It’s a debate that figures to continue for a while. Lomachenko and Crawford are the same age. They’re both 30.

Lomachenko (10-1, 8 KOs) possesses an unprecedented array of angles in his variety of punches. For the ringside aficionado, there is a cutting-edge style to what Lomachenko does with his gloved hands.

In Crawford, there’s ruthlessness matched by ambidextrous hands quick to strike from just about anywhere.

Both Top Rank-promoted fighters are fascinating to watch. Take your pick and be prepared to change it over the next few years. They figure to energize the pound-for-pound debate no matter what happens with GGG-Canelo.

Saturday is the opening salvo. Linares (44-3, 27 KOs), the World Boxing Association’s 135-pound belt holder, says he is not fooled by all that has been said about the creatively-dangerous Lomachenko.

“I am going to prove that Lomachenko is not an invincible fighter,’’ Linares said this week during the promotional build-up to the main event on the ESPN-televised card (8 p.m. ET).

Linares, who is an inch taller and has a 3 1/2 -inch advantage in reach, is promising to take Lomachenko into later rounds. But the cutting-edge adjective so often applied to Lomachenko might to be more than just a rhetorical embellishment of what Lomachenko does to Linares. Linares has suffered bad cuts in at least three bouts, including successive losses to Antonio DeMarco and Sergio Thompson in 2011 and 2012. Lomachenko’s many angles can put a real razor-like affect into that cutting edge.

We’ll see.

Then, we’ll see Crawford.

Bart Barry-

A genuine pursuit of greatness is not exasperating. It may be breathtaking or ridiculous or sobering or exhilarating, but it may not be exasperating. What many of us sensed late Saturday night and early Sunday morning was exasperation: This was not the best you could do with the resources allotted you, so stop telling us it was.

Let this be a warning to Ukrainian prodigy Vasyl Lomachenko. If after you decimate limited men in American arenas you tell us in broken English you will fight anyone, you should mean it because eventually we will know if you didn’t. We now know it about Gennady Golovkin. We hope not to learn it about Lomachenko. But there are enough similarities between the men’s backgrounds, ascents and sources of popularity, and limited enough evidence of Lomachenko’s true ambition, to worry a bit.

I don’t know what’s going to happen Saturday when Lomachenko makes fists with Venezuelan lightweight champion Jorge Linares, a former prodigy, and was unsure enough to check betting odds before even typing this sentence. Oddsmakers have a professional obligation to weigh reality against publicity in a way the rest of us do not, and they’re not often seduced. Evidently they’re unconvinced by Linares’ recent farmleague showings and remember his being slapjiggled by Juan Carlos Salgado and bled by Antonio DeMarco and gaffherringed by Sergio Thompson.

Linares is The Ring’s lightweight champion, and that is meaningful, and he’s the most accomplished unsuspended fighter in the Golden Boy Promotions stable, which says little and even less when he’s only a nominal part of that stable. Linares has benefited greatly from HBO’s Canelo-retention moves – though still less than Danny Jacobs has benefited from the network’s AJ-capture gambit (though even Linares and Jacobs must’ve watched Saturday’s midnight snack with jaws agape at what lengths the network now goes for any fighter whose father once sang “Be Glorious, our free Motherland”) – but years before Canelo was a glimmer in Oscar De La Hoya’s eye HBO was hardselling Linares as the Golden Boy’s goldenest successor.

He surely wasn’t that. Now Linares is a hardened professional more than a gorgeous usurper and a tactician whose ferocious mien benefits appropriately from what rehabfare composes his diet for years and years after his each knockout loss. But here’s the thing: Linares is sorta precious the same way Lomachenko is sorta precious, and watching them punch one another should be fun. And Linares has been a 135-pound fighter punching and being punched by other 135-pound fighters five years longer than Lomachenko.

Lomachenko is way nearer his prime than Linares is, but if Linares is able to land a punch – and he may not be, according to Juan Carlos Salgado – he will strike Lomachenko with a quotient of force and accuracy Lomachenko has not yet felt. It is doubtful Lomachenko will next melt; Orlando Salido was about big as Linares when Salido made war on Lomachenko’s codpiece four years ago, and Lomachenko did not complain during or after. But he didn’t dance, either, did he?

There’s something frontrunnerish about what prizefighters come from the former Soviet Union – if they don’t quite fade in later rounds they’re neither known for their comebacks. If they know they’re superior when the first bell rings, they may be jab-and-grapplers (Wlad Klitschko) or tigers (Golovkin) or sociopaths (Sergey Kovalev) or performance artists (Lomachenko), but once their actual noses get punched by actual equals who actually know how, they let caution preside. Or as the kids might put it: They. Are. Not. Reckless.

Yes, comrades, I know there are deep cultural reasons for this, attributable to Lenin or Stalin or Collectivization or Glasnost, but before we virtuesignal about atrocities leading to cautiousness we might also, or at least coincidentally, consider Cold War bogeymen making for great modern marketing. All the guys mentioned above were considered great before they did anything to prove it. While boxing historians will someday marvel at Floyd Mayweather’s handicapping his way to an historic-looking resume they might also marvel at the way this era’s fighters from the former Soviet Union didn’t even have to bother.

In this sense Golovkin’s obliteration of Vanes Martirosyan on Saturday marks GGG’s signature win – seeing the middleweight titlist tear apart an unretired junior-middleweight sub reminded us all why we have whatever strong feelings we do about Golovkin’s reign. Those who believe Golovkin is way more than he actually is now tell themselves fairytales that begin like: “In his 40 previous fights Vanes Martirosyan had never been stopped . . .” The rest of us wonder how the fight even got licensed. Then we talk past one another and write for those who already agree with us.

To date Lomachenko has benefited from this dynamic but that might soon change. As he gets taken literally by his promoter and moved up in weight commensurate to his stated ambitions Lomachenko may soon find his accomplishments outpacing their praise. Top Rank, after all, just spent a dozen years promoting Manny Pacquiao; they know what it looks like when a man climbs weightclasses in pursuit of greatness, and they know there was an Erik Morales for every David Diaz, and they know we know the difference. They also know when they make real fights these days they get an extraordinary platform in primetime, and when they make balderdash they get remanded to an app. Lomachenko-Linares gets you 8-10 pm ET on ESPN, and less than Lomachenko-Linares gets you anytime on WiFi.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as world Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin depends his title against Vanes Martirosyan.  The action kicks off at 11 PM ET / 8 PM PT with the 1st ever Female bout on HBO as Cecilia Braekhus takes on Kali Reis in a welterweight title bout.

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Round 1: Jab from Martirosyan..Left hook from Golovkin..hard left from Martirosyan

Round 2 Hard right from Golovkin..Hard uppercut..Right from Martirosyan..Hard left hook from Golovkin..3 lefts and DOWN GOES MARTIROSYAN..HE DOES NOT GET UP …FIGHT OVER

Round 1 Reis lands a left hook…

Round 2 Reis lands a combination..Solid right from Braekhus

Round 3 Good right from Braekhus..Reis lands a right..Good right from Braekhus..

Round 4 Good combination from Braekhus..

Round 5 Combination and left from Braekhus..

Round 6 Brakehus lands a good left hook..Good right from Reis..Reis bleeding from the nose..Good right from Reis

Round 7 BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES BRAEKHUS…

Round 8 Good left hook from Braekhus..quick left hook on the inside.Body shots..1-2..Good right from Braekhus…Big right from Reis drives Braekhus back

Round 9 Good right from Reis..Right

Round 10 Good right from Braekhus..Uppercut..Body shot from Reis..Good right from Braekhus..

Braekhus outlanded Reis 115-78

97-92, 96-93 TWICE FOR CECILIA BRAEKHUS

Follow All the action as former world champions, Tony Bellew and David Haye meet in a heavyweight rematch.  The show begins at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT / 6 PM UK time with a 5 fight undercard featuring the IBF Bantamweight title bout between Paul Butler and Emmanuel Rodriguez.  Also 2 more title fights as Martin J Ward Battles James Tennyson for the EBU, Commonwealth and WBA International Super Featherweight title and a Commonwealth Heavyweight title bout between 2016 Olympic Silver Medal Winner Joe Joyce and Lenroy Thomas.

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Round 1: Jab from Haye..Good jab from bellew..Right hand..Good right from Haye

Round 2  Right from Bellew..Combination from Haye..Right to body..Right..Right from Bellew

Round 3 Right from Haye..Body shot from bellew…HUGE COUNTER RIGHT AND DOWN GOES HAYE…BIG LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES HAYE AGAIN

Round 4 Big right from Bellew..2 huge rights.Big right..Right from Haye…

Round 5 Combination from Haye..BIG RIGHT AND DOWN GOES HAYE..BIG RIGHT AND LEFT ON THE ROPES AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Right from Ryder..Working on the inside..Body shot from Cox

Round 2 BIG RIGHT TO THE HEAD AND DOWN GOES COX.  HE GETS UP AT 10 AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1: Good body shot from Butler..BIG LEFT HOOK AND DOWN GOES BUTLER..BIG COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES BUTLER..Good uppercut

Round 2 Butler lands a combination..jab from Rodriguez..Right Hand..

Round 3 Butler lands a right to the body..Rodriguez lands a right..Combination..Blood from the nose of Butler..Right from Rodriguez

Round 4 Combination from Rodriguez..Right drives Butler off-balance..right over the top

Round 5 Butler lands a combination to the body..Jab from Rodriguez..Good jab

Round 6 Jab from Rodriguez..Good left hook..Good right hurts Butler

Round 7 Body shot from Butler..Right from Rodriguez..1-2 from Rodriguez..Right hand..Jab..Right from Butler

Round 8  Left from Rodriguez…Butler lands a jab

Round 9  Uppercut from Rodriguez..

Round 10 Body shot from Rodriguez..Swelling around the right eye of Butler

Round 11 Rodriguez jabbing and moving..coasting

Round 12 Body shot from Rodriguez

120-106 twice and 118-108 for RODRIGUEZ

Round 1 Thomas lands a left to the body..Combination from Joyce…Good body shot..Big right..RIGHT AND LEFT TO BODY AND DOWN GOES THOMAS AT THE BELL

Round 2 Left from Joyce..BIG COMBINATION AND 2 CRUSH RIGHTS..DOWN GOES THOMAS…Joyce lands 9 heavy..Body and head shots..2 good body shots from Thomas..LEFT TO THE CHIN AND DOWN GOES THOMAS..HE DOES NOT BEAT THE COUNT..FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1: Good body shot from Buatsi..Left to the body..Right to body..another body shot..Jab..left to body

Round 2 Left hook from Buatsi..Double jab..3 punch combination that ended with a body shot..Right from Cuevas..Left..Good right from Buatsi

Round 3 Nice left hook/right hand from Cuevas..Good right hook..Left hook drives Cuevas to the ropes..@ good rights..Uppercut and left to body

Round 4 Cuevas lands an uppercut on inside..Good right from Buatsi..Short right hand counter from Cuevas..Long right from Buatsi

Round 5 Buatsi LANDS A BIG COMBINATION,,CUEVAS IS HURT…FIGHT STOPPED

Round 1 Right from Ward..Jab to body

Round 2 Ward lands a left hook..Good body shot..Nice left from Tennyson..Jab from Ward..Left..Good left hook..Body shot..DOWN GOES TENNYSON…

Round 3 Good counter left hook from Ward..3 hard body shots..Tennyson bleeding from the nose. Good uppercut from Ward..4 more body shots..Good left hook from Tennyson snaps Ward’s head back..Counter right..Short uppercut on the inside

Round 4 Ward lands a left to the body..Sharp right..Right from Tennyson..right from Ward..Hard uppercut from Tennyson shakes Ward..Body shot..Good left..Heavy right..Hard jab..Big left at the bell

Round 5 Right to body from Tennyson..Right..Body shot from Ward..HUGE 3 PUNCH COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES WARD..HUGE UPPERCUT AND DOWN GOES WARD AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

By Norm Frauenheim-

LOS ANGELES – Gennady Golovkin smiled. Said thanks. He might have kissed a few babies, too.

The middleweight, best known for his GGG acronym, did everything he had to Friday at a hotel just a few miles of roadwork from the LAX runways. Oh yeah, he made weight, too.

GGG (37-0-1, 27 KOs) was supposed to be at 160 pounds and that’s exactly what he was, not a digital fraction over or under the mandatory for a defense of two of his titles, the WBC and WBA, against Vanes Martirosyan on HBO (9 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET) Saturday at StubHub down the freeway in Carson.

Martirosyan (36-3-1 21 KO), a huge underdog from nearby Glendale Calif, was at 159.6 pounds for his first bout at middleweight.

There were no missteps on the scale or anywhere else from Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) in a moment that was as political as it was pugilistic. It was almost as if GGG wanted to let the contrast with his original opponent, suspended Canelo Alvarez, say it all.

For weeks, GGG has been saying plenty to the media about his contempt for Canelo, who tested positive twice for a banned substance and then withdrew from what would have been a rich Cinco de Mayo rematch of last September’s controversial draw in Las Vegas. At the weigh-in, however, GGG only had a couple of words, which he repeated after the ritual weigh-in and nose-to-nose pose for the photographers in a jammed ballroom.

“Thank you, thank you,’’ he said to the crowd, which included lots of fans wearing shirts and caps saying Mexicans For GGG.

The thanks came in the wake of further news that casts a shadow on whether there will be a Sept. 15 rematch with Canelo, whose six-month suspension from the Nevada Commission will end in mid-August. Before the thanks, GGG said Canelo was bad for boxing in an interview with ESPN and BoxingScene. He told Yahoo that, at best, there was only a 10 percent chance of the rematch happening. If he beats Martirosyan as expected, no telling what he’ll say at the post-fight news conference. May be, he’s only negotiating. If so, the negotiations have a long, perhaps rocky way to go.

For now, it sounds as if GGG is no rush to get the rematch, even though it would – far and away – represent his biggest payday. According to contracts filed with the California Commission Friday, GGG’s guarantee for Saturday is $1 million.

It’s believed he will get more, perhaps three times as much, after percentages are included for a card that promoters began to put together just two-and-a-half weeks ago. Whatever his final take is, however, it will be a fraction of what he and Canelo made in September.

According to various sources, Canelo collected $50 million. GGG, who can tie Bernard Hopkins’ record for 20 successive title defenses Saturday, got less than that. There are conflicting reports, but whatever it was, it was several multiples more than what he’ll see for fighting Martirosyan, a former junior middleweight whose guarantee for Saturday is $225,000.

Saturday night televised card will also include an HBO first. Welterweights Cecilia Braekhus and Kali Reis will be the first women to appear in a co-main event.

By Norm Frauenheim-

CARSON, Calif. — Going the distance with Gennady Golovkin is a dead end.

That, at least, is big part of the sales pitch for GGG’s starring role in a Cinco De Mayo bout that is still an annual rite despite Canelo Alvarez’ withdrawal and subsequent six-month suspension for two positive PED tests in February.

The Fiesta has moved west, from Las Vegas to StubHub Center at Carson, Calif. The opponent has changed too, Vanes Martiroysan instead of Canelo. But, make no mistake, the story is about GGG, who is a little bit older and angrier than the friendly face who once was known for saying “Big Drama Show.’’

The GGG smile is still there. But mention Canelo and a grin once considered cute suddenly looks menacing. He has no patience for the rival middleweight. He doesn’t believe Canelo when he says he tested positive for Clenbuterol because of eating meat the Mexican says he didn’t know was tainted with the banned substance.

Inevitably, the Canelo question has been asked. There really is no other question, at least not in the two-and-half weeks promoters had to stage the HBO bout at a new location and against a different opponent. Time has been a challenge, also the biggest one of all for GGG, a fighter entering middle age and furiously pursuing a legacy. In Canelo, perhaps, he sees a fighter who has stood in his way, first with judging that he called “terrible” in a Las Vegas draw last September and now with a PED suspension.

There are moments when GGG’s frustration flares. These days, it’s as if it is always there, a little bit like that grin was. And, for the most part, still is. Hard to blame him. He’s 36, an age when most fighters are beginning to exit their prime. He doesn’t want to be kept waiting for any reason. He can’t afford it. Finances are just one factor.

According to multiple sources, he is guaranteed close to $3 million for Martirosyan, a capable junior middleweight who is moving up to 160 pounds after a couple of years of inactivity. That’s a fraction of the $15 million GGG reportedly got for last September’s draw. There were reports he could have collected $20 million for a rematch originally scheduled for Saturday. Now, there’s talk that the Canelo rematch will happen on September 15.

But most of that talk is coming from Canelo’s Golden Boy promoters. GGG continues to throw cold water on the possibility. He did so again this week when he told Yahoo there was only a 10 percent chance the rematch will happen. Guess here: He’s already negotiating. He wants to make Canelo pay, both financially and in the ring.

In the ring, at least, the rematch has emerged as the one fight fans want to see, in part because GGG seems to be saying that he intends to punish Canelo in what would be defining moment for the Kazak.

That brings us back to what GGG promoter Tom Loeffler and trainer Abel Sanchez have been saying about him.

“Once you go twelve rounds with Golovkin, you are never going to be the same,’’ Sanchez said Monday during an international conference call.

It was a comment that Sanchez made when asked about Danny Jacobs, who won a decision over Polish middleweight Maciej Sulecki in Brooklyn last Saturday. Jacobs is 2-0 since losing a 12-round unanimous decision to GGG in March 2017. Sanchez said he has seen a decline in Jacobs since the 12-round battle with GGG.

“It’s not only Jacobs,’’ Sanchez said. “If you go back to (David) Lemieux, to (Curtis) Stevens, to (Dominic) Wade, to Willie Monroe, they are never the same. (Martin) Murray, also. They are never the same after they go rounds with Gennady.’’

The danger in all of this, however, is that GGG often looks as is if he’s not exactly who he was anymore, either. He took a lot of punches against Jacobs in a bout that some thought Jacobs won. Bruising, often an early symptom of aging in a fighter, has been evident.

Against Martirosyan, GGG is expected to win easily. But Martirosyan, who fought at the 2004 Olympics when GGG won a silver medal, is clever. He knows his way around the ring. He might not win, which is another way of saying he doesn’t have much to lose.

Going the distance against GGG would be victory for Martirosyan. But don’t expect it, not in a bout that looks a lot like the first step in his angry plan to add Canelo to a Sanchez list that already includes Jacobs, Lemieux, Stevens, Wade, Monroe and Murray.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday on an HBO telecast from Brooklyn middleweight mandatory challenger Danny “Miracle Man” Jacobs dropped and decisioned Polish junior middleweight Maciej “Certainly Top 10, Maybe Top 5” Sulecki. Before that American heavyweight contender Jarell “Big Baby” Miller didn’t drop but did decision French journeyman Johann Duhaupas. Watching the 24 rounds felt heavy, damp, soggy even, like the card wasn’t primarily intended to entertain but to portend entertaining happenings some other time.

Twas another mediocre broadcast for HBO, but writing that feels bullying, unseemly, beneath oneself – uninsightful because anyone who already doesn’t know it anyway feels it. This column has lacked charity for boxing’s former heart and soul for sometime now, and since its writer isn’t sure such ungraciousness be merited, he needs err to the bonhomous side of the truth on occasion. Let’s try and make this that occasion.

Closing arguments are set to happen today in the Department of Justice’s case against a merger between communications company AT&T and media company Time Warner, parent to HBO, parent to HBO Sports, parent to the World Championship After Dark family or whatever brandnames boxing currently hides under (c’mon now, keep it gracious). These last two years of merging and not merging have to have hamstrung HBO’s coverage of our sport and serve to emphasize the importance of corporate continuity howsoever much business selfhelp literature still fetishizes disruption. Some clarity from a federal government that, under any other executive leadership of the last halfcentury or so, would’ve rubberstamped such a merger – does it obviously harm consumers in the next three months? well, in that case, 30,000 layoffs down the road is just the market god’s way – must be welcomed by those who operate within budgetary constraints. The case against the merger looks arbitrary and spiteful, of course, but it may set an unintentional precedent of asking how a corporate merger benefits customers and employees, not solely shareholders, rather than applying an eroding threshold of how much it harms them.

None of that helps HBO Sports’ nearterm outlook. If the merger gets blocked, a return to business-as-usual sees HBO continue to reexamine its relationship with our beloved sport, writing of erosion, under a new set of assumptions about how essential boxing is (we know boxing is in a bit of a renaissance right now, but the old data in the old bulletpoints of the old slideshows upon which old executives of old media companies make their decisions, why, those are probably partying like it’s 2014). If the merger happens, which even in our current war-is-peace moment still appears probable, HBO must immediately set about the task of seducing its new master, and does anyone think Danny Jacobs or Maciej Sulecki or Jarell Miller or Johann Duhaupas (or Vanes Martirosyan) composes a compelling case for more money?

Nobody does, no. Even those who would pay these guys whatever they were paid see them as a way to bring Anthony Joshua to HBO, or barring that, as a promotional tool for the GolovCanelo rematch that won’t happen Saturday. It’s the only obvious reason you pay the Miracle Man to fight the last weekend in April against a fortunately unknuckled Polish junior middleweight like Sulecki: To ensure by contrast a captive audience for the fifth installment of GolovCanelo 24/7. Untethered from that nearly nothing about Saturday’s broadcast makes sense much less resonates.

Jarell Miller is not very good; there’s not imagination enough in the known universe to call a 300-pound man who doesn’t hurt people compelling. “Oh, but he’s really active and his chest protrudes more than his belly!” – not a recommended bulletpoint for HBO Sports’ first presentation to AT&T management.

Danny Jacobs is a b-level talent with an interesting story that is now threadbare. He’s a cool guy you cheer for when he’s an underdog, but if you have to squint to see nextlevel talent against a tailormade b-side like Sulecki there isn’t nextlevel talent. “He went rounds with GGG!” – a mark of excellence solely within the ranks (measurably reduced since September) of an alternate reality that insists Golovkin is a historic talent. Anyway, when a unanimous-decision loss to Gennady Golovkin is the second-best victory of a prizefighting career begun in 2007 its bearer is not the future of the middleweight division.

Perhaps, then, Vanes “Former U.S. Olympian” Martirosyan is.

No.

A controversial and surprising conclusion, that, I know, but one written by a man who wears with understandable pride this distinction: I attended Martirosyan’s pro debut 13 years ago. That evening at Fort McDowell Casino the man then known as “The Nightmare” had Freddie Roach in his corner but couldn’t stop a 4-3-1 Texas trialhorse named Jesse Orta, foretelling a mildly disappointing career mildly full of mild disappointments.

Saturday Martirosyan becomes the third non-middleweight of the last four men to challenge middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin who is so dominant no middleweight will face him. Surely then, you’re thinking, if the most feared puncher in the history of the middleweight division hasn’t been fighting too-frightened middleweights he must’ve spent the last two years decimating light heavyweights or at least super middleweights? Why, no, actually. Golovkin’s reign of terror at 160 pounds has been perpetrated on two light-middleweights, and get this, a welterweight – 154, 154, 147 – a streak broken by an aforementioned victory over Jacobs inconclusive enough to be part of Jacobs promotions ever since.

But as this column nominally sought a philanthropic spirit towards HBO Sports’ prospects, let us end with a clarifying question about future budgetary items: How do the purses of HBO’s mainevent b-sides, Sulecki and Martirosyan, compare with the stipends paid for those events to Jim Lampley, Max Kellerman, Roy Jones and Harold Lederman?

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action ringside from The Liacouras Center in Philadelphia as Jessie Magdaleno defends the WBO Super Bantamweight title against Isaac Dogboe.  The action kicks off at 7 PM ET with a heavyweight bout featuring Philadelphian’s Bryant Jennings and Joey Dawejko.  The co-feature will pit super middleweights Jesse Hart against Demond Nicholson

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Round 1 Dogboe working the body..Left to body from Magdaleno..counter left..LEFT AND BIG COMBINATION..DOWN GOES DOGBOE..Straight left drives Digboe back..Straight left wobbles Dogboe..Hard combination

Round 2 Right from Dogboe..Flush right..Body shot..

Round 3 Body shot from Dogboe..Left to body from Magdaleno..Combination..Body shot from Dogboe

Round 4 Left from Dogboe..Right..left to body..Hard combination..Jab from Magdaleno..Straight right..Right..Jab from Magdaleno

Round 5 HUGE COUNTER RIGHT AND DOWN GOES MAGDALENO,,Dogboe all over Magdaleno.. Magdaleno lands a hard right hook.  Dogboe swarming and landing all over the ring

Round 6 Straight right from Dogboe…Right hook from Magdaleno..Left from Dogboe..left from Magdaleno..Hard right from Dogboe

Round 7 Action heating up again..Magdaleno lands a left,,right from Dogboe,,another right..Straight right..Right..left and an uppercut..Good counter left from Magdaleno..Straight left

Round 8  Right from Dogboe..Counter left from Magdaleno..Left..right hook

Round 9 Body shot from Magdaleno..Right from Dogboe..Hard left from Magdaleno..Left from Digboe..Left from Magdaleno

Round 10 Right hook from Magdaleno..left..Hard right from Dogboe..Hard flurry on ropes..Another flush right..Right and right to body..Left from Magdaleno

Round 11 Left to body from Magdalwno.right from Dogboe…HARD BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES MAGDALENO…4 hard body shots from Dogboe…HUGE BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES MAGDALENO…FIGHT IS OVER

Round 1 Left to body from Nicholason..right from Hart..Right from Nicholson..Jab..Jan from Hart..Uppercut..Huge right wobbles Hart at the bell

Round 2 Counter right from Nicholason..Hard jab..Uppercut from Hart..

Round 3  Uppercut from Hart..RIGHT HAND AND DOWN GOES NICHOLSON..Uppercut from Hart..Jab..2 left hooks..RIGHT OVER TOP AND DOWN GOES NICHOLSON..2 hard rights

Round 4  Hart land a left on the inside.  Straight right..Triple left hook..2 body shots..Right from Nicholson

Round 5 Jab from Nicholson..Right from Hart…Clipping right

Round 6 Left from Nicholson….2 Hard lefts from Hart..2 rights..Uppercut from Nicholson and another

Round 7 Jab from Hart…6 HUGE PUNCHES AND DOWN GOES NICHOLSON..THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

Round 1 Jennings jabbing..Right from Dawejko..Right to body from Jennings..Left to body from Dawejko..Right from Jennings..

Round 2 Jab from Jennings..Right …Right from Dawejko..Right to body from Jennings..Jab from Dawejko..Jab..Dawejko warned for low blow..Flush right from Jennings

Round 3 Jennings jabbing..Dawejko lands a left to body and a right..Uppercut..Left hook and combination from Jennings..Left to body from Dawejko..

Round 4 Right from Dawejko..Jab..Left hook from Jennings..Right to body from Dawejko..jab.2 body shots from Jennings….hard right..Left to body from Dawejko..Trading body shots..Jennings lands a low blow//2 lefts from Dawejko …Right from Jennings

Round 5 Jab from Jennings..Left from Dawejko..Body shot from Jennings..Combinaton..Left hook from Dawejko..3 jabs..Jab from Jennings..Body shot..Hard right

Round 6 Left to body from Dawejko..Quick combination from Jennings

Round 7 2 body shots from Dawejko..Body/Uppercut from Jennings..Right to body from Dawejko..Body work..Uppercut from Jennings..Straight to body

Round 8 3 Punch combination from Jennings..left to body from Dawejko..Blood from Nostril of Dawejko..

Round 9 Right to body from Dawejko..Left to body..Flush right from Jennings..2 body shots from Dawejko

Round 10 Left to body from Jennings..Left to body from Dawejko..3 hook from Jennings..Body work from Dawejko..Right from Jennings..Left hook..Combination

JENNINGS WINS 98-92 ON ALL CARDS

By Norm Frauenheim-

Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez are linked only by mutual contempt, genuine in tone and intensifying in the wake of the May 5 bout canceled by Canelo’s withdrawal from the rematch before his subsequent six-month suspension for two positive PED tests in February.

After the Nevada Athletic Commission announced an abbreviated suspension of Canelo last week, the prevailing assumption was that the middleweight sequel would happen in September in what would eventually look more like a postponement than a cancellation. Guess here: That’s still a pretty good assumption. Economically, it’s still the fight that makes the most sense. Dollars, too.

But GGG’s anger, rooted in his frustration at scoring in last September’s draw, continues to be loud, clear and amplified by his mistrust in Canelo’s assertion that the PED, clenbuterol, was simply the result of tainted Mexican meat.

There are moments when GGG just sounds as if he’d like to walk away from the prospect of any further business with Canelo.

“Canelo?” GGG asked this week in response to a question during a media session for a stay-busy fight against Vanes Martiroysan in a Cinco De Mayo party re-scheduled for StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. “Right now, he is over. Do I want to have the rematch in September? We’ll see. It’s a different deal. The boxing business is crazy. I’ll fight Canelo again. Ask him if he wants to fight me.

“I no longer think about Canelo.’’

It’s pretty clear that Canelo is anxious to fight – make that punish – GGG in September, about a month after his suspension ends. His promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, has been talking almost as if the September rematch is a done deal. It’s not, of course. First, there’s Martiroysan. GGG is a huge favorite. An upset would be a shocker. Then again, Canelo’s positive PED tests were a shocker, too.

The last couple of months are an inconvenient reminder that bleep and head butts happen. GGG has to win easily and cleanly, meaning he has to finish it without suffering an injury – a fracture or cut — that could sideline him beyond the projected September 15 rematch.

If everything happens as hoped, however, GGG will prevail with a victory and without mishap. Then, it’s on to the negotiations, where the real fight awaits. By now, we know the fighters don’t like each other. There’s enough tension there to suggest that the talks will be difficult.

There are options, good ones for each, if no agreement can be reached. One will play out this Saturday with likable Danny Jacobs in his second fight since a debatable loss by unanimous decision to GGG in March, 2017.

Jacobs made Golovkin, 36, look vulnerable, or at least older. Now he faces a mostly unknown, yet unbeaten Pole, Maciej Sulecki (26-0, 10 KOs) in an HBO-televised bout (7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET) at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. At 31, Jacobs is in his prime. If he looks good against Sulecki, he would have a pretty good claim on a GGG rematch for the right to be the world’s best middleweight.

Another option is Jermall Charlo, whose emergence at 160 pounds continued with a stoppage of Hugo Centeno last Saturday. Then, there’s Ryota Murata, an Olympic gold medalist with only 15 pro bouts (14-1, 11 KOs), yet big television ratings in Japan.

Jacobs, however, looms as real threat to both GGG and Canelo. On the business scale, Jacobs represents more risk than reward. Charlo might still be a middleweight fight or two away from climbing into contention. Murata looks like good money and an introduction to the rich Asian market.

With every option, however, there’s no match for the interest, significance or money attached to GGG-Canelo II. Even the current level of mutual contempt is stoking public interest for a September showdown. In the here and now, it’s still the only fight that matters.

By Bart Barry-

Saturday at Barclays Center overweight Ohio junior welterweight Adrien “About Billions” Broner lost a majority draw to Jessie “The Pride of Las Vegas” Vargas in a pair of unique six-round prizefights the men split, more or less, 6-6. Vargas brought a jab and proper technique, Broner supplied reflexes and a chin, and each man showed plenty of will. Neither man, though, willed himself to a convincing win in round 12, so a draw was just and just fine.

AB was in another excellent fight. That’s not all there is to it, not for this era’s sportsfan and not with a whole lot of blank page between here and column’s end, but that’s what’s important to this and any who should read this.

Broner grates on everyone – lest you think it’s an ethnic thing, look at Sam Watson’s uncharacteristically grim mug leaving the ring Saturday – and if such grating’s not exactly Broner’s appeal it is a sizable part of his staying power, and howsoever unjust it makes the universe, Broner does have staying power. Broner is a ham and a fraud. He’s been those things since we met him on HBO seven years ago, but by virtue of our still watching him seven years later, no matter how maniacal our hopedfor schadenfreude, he is a ham whose hamfattering overcomes its fraudulence in a reflexive way; the object of his hamming is retained visibility no matter how poorly he does at his dayjob. And check this: he’s a perfectly mediocre 6-3-1 (2 KOs) in the last 4 1/2 years and still attracting 13,000 Brooklynites to a catchweight match. He’s got something, in other words, tangible or otherwise, that makes him watchable, the genetic structure of which fully eludes men like Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara – men who follow the rules and bore our pants off.

The day Broner quits on his stool everything dissolves for him, and he absolutely gets this. So long as he gives us the pleasure of his atonement by ordeal every halfyear we inadvertently forgive his criminal acts and bottomless boorishness by paying him in the ratings currency that now rules the American realm. And before any fellow American takes his hindlegs to teeter on principle like a fatigued crossfitter at the stability ball, look around, look at our infatuation with branding, look at our President – in the world’s eyes AB isn’t nearly so much of a caricature as we content ourselves to think he is.

“Not my champion!”

You sure about that, bruh?

In this way Broner’s chin is his best asset; we may not relate to his buffoonery but when we allow our hypothetical selves to be him (and we should, too) we probably conclude like: I’d never wish to arouse so much disgust in so many strangers, but if by chance I did, I would hope I’d make it to the closing bell each time I got tested.

Perhaps by this model featherfisted Jessie Vargas was not the ideal inquisitor, no, but Mikey Garcia was, and Broner toed the line 12 times, then, too. Vargas, himself a mediocre 2-2-1 (1 KO) since 2014, transcended himself a goodish bit Saturday, and had he kept his jab pistoning he’d have won a decision lopsided. Instead he succumbed to who he is and will be: a 144-pound fighter who, on his best night, is equal to Adrien Broner. Every single round Saturday opened with a 10-second forecast of itself. If Vargas landed a jab, he won the round on any honest card. If he did not land an early jab, he made scoring the round the sort of subjective thing that invariably favors a ticketseller.

This was because Broner has no transition, defense to offense. Broner’s defense is a terrible mess concealed by a fabulous chin (which, were it found on an upstanding lad’s pink face, honestly, we’d attribute to incredible conditioning wrought by otherworldy discipline). Broner gets unsettled and imbalanced by other men’s punches so thoroughly he resorts to avoiding them by pocketing his gloves or throwing them overhead while he yanks himself backwards. There isn’t a contortionist the circus over who can throw from such a windup.

That Broner’s perennially overrated new trainer, Kevin Cunningham, installed no patches for this flaw in Broner’s operating system is likely the reason Broner, when asked to list Cunningham’s greatest effects, postfight, named only Cunningham’s giving Broner the chance to thank Broner’s old trainer for his graciousness. However uncouth Broner may be, he has a very high physical IQ – you cannot have his poor form and survive the opponents he’s survived without you read and understand other men’s bodies at least as well as they understand themselves – and Broner intuitively senses his technique is not improved and won’t be by an hysterical disciplinarian like Cunningham.

As an aside, how uncouth is Broner, truly? He appreciates another man’s graciousness, after all, and remains friendly with his former opponents, and holds Jim Gray in contempt.

A quick few words about that: Gray is now the only point of weakness on boxing’s best broadcast crew. Best by a noticeable margin. Al Bernstein has never not been better than Max Kellerman, and Paulie Malignaggi is three times better than an HBO threeway parlay of Jones-Ward-Hopkins, which brings us to Mauro Ranallo. He is hyperbolic at every turn, admittedly, but his heart is in the right place, he cares deeply about the language, and he makes his teammates look good. He is now better than Jim Lampley in the exact proportion Showtime boxing is better than HBO’s.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action ringside from Barclays Center in Brooklyn as Adrien Broner takes on Jessie Vargas in a battle of former world champions.  In the co-feature, Jermall Charlo takes on Hugo Centeno, Jr. for the WBC Interim Middleweight title.  The action kicks off at 9 pm ET / 6 PM PT with Gervonta Davis taking on Jesus Cuellar for the WBA Super Featherweight championship.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY

Round 1: Vargas jabbing..Broner counters with the left..1-2.Jab from Vargas….Jab..

Round 2 Right from Vargas..Right..Right..Right to body and 2 jabs..Body

Round 3 Right from Vargas..Left from Broner..Trading body shots..Jab from Vargas,,2 body shots..Right from Broner..Left hook from Vargas..Sharp right from Broner..uppercut..Good exchange at the end of the round

Round 4 Right from Broner..Good right..Jab from Vargas..Right from Broner..Counter left..Good right from Vargas..Trading hard body shots..Body work from Vargas..Right from Broner..

Round 5 Left to body from Vargas..Chopping right from Broner on inside..Right from Vargas..another..Straight right from Broner..Counter left and right

Round 6 1-2 from Broner..2 lefts from Vargas..right..Counter right from Broner..Left to body..Left to head..Left from Vargas.Right from Broner..Left From Vargas..

Round 7 Right over the top from Vargas..Left..Counter left from Broner..Jab from Vargas..Right from Broner..

Round 8 Flush right from Vargas…1-2 from Broner..Good right..right..Left from Vargas..Left from Broner…Big left from Vargas..Body shot from Broner..

Round 9 Right from Broner..sraight right..Jab..Jab from Vargas..Hard left..Left to body from Broner..Right from Vargas..right and left..Right from Broner..another right./Hard uppercut..great toe to toe action

Round 10 Jab from Vargas…Body shot.Jab..Counter right..Good right from Broner..Straight right from Vargas..Right from Broner, and another

Round 11 Left and hard right from Vargas..Left..Vargas bleeding around the left eye…

Round 12 Left from Vargas..

115-113 BRONER; 114-114 TWICE —FIGHT IS A DRAW

Round 1 Left from centeno

Round 2 BIG RIGHT AND HUGE LEFT AND DOWN GOES CENTENO AND HE DOES NOT GET UP

Round 1 Jab from Cuellar..Body shot..Left to body from Davis..Straight left..Good counter left..Hard body shots..Cuellar backing up..hard right hook from Davis..Counter left to body

Round 2 Jab from Davis..Hard body shot..LEFT TI THE BODY AND DOWN GOES CUELLAR..Right to body..left to head..Sharp counter left..

Round 3 Hard right hook from Davis..Right to body..Quick jab..Uppercut..3 HARD PUNCHES..STRAIGHT LEFT TO BODY AND DOWN GOES CUELLAR..HUGE COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES CUELLAR…FIGHT OVER

Follow all the action as Carl Frampton and Nonito Donaire fight for the Interim WBO Featherweight title.  The fight begins at 5:15 PM ET.

NO BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY 

Round 1: Short left hook from Frampton..Body shot from Donaire..Body shot..Left hook

Round 2:  Hard right from Framptom..Left eye of Donaire is swelling..Right from FramptoN..Right

Round 3 Good right from Frampton..Left hook..Right from Donaire..Right from Frampton

Round 4 Straight right from Frampton ..Chopping right and a body shot…Left to the head..3 punch combination

Round 5 Good jab from Frampton..Right uppercut from Donaire..2 good uppercuts..Good jab from Frampton..Good right

Round 6 Good right from Frampton..Right..Good jab from Donaire..

Round 7 Good left from Frampton..2 Hard uppercuts hurts Frampton..

Round 8  Right and left from Frampton

Round 9  Body shots from Frampton

Round 10

Round 11 Body shot from Donaire..Jab from Frampton..Left..Right and body shot from Donaire..left hook..Big left

Round 12  Right uppercut and left hook from Donaire..Left from Frampton..Left from Donaire..6 punches on ropes from Frampton

117-111 ON ALL CARDS FOR FRAMPTON

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS – Canelo Alvarez insists he is clean. Now, he has a chance to prove it.

The Nevada Athletic Commission gave him that opportunity Wednesday with a unanimous approval of an agreement that means he will serve a six-month suspension instead of a full year for the banned substance, Clenbuterol, that showed up in two tests in February, subsequently forcing him to withdraw from a Gennady Golovkin rematch scheduled for May 5.

The abbreviated suspension means he can still fight Golovkin in September. For now, the cancellation looks more like a postponement. That was the good news for hotels, cab drivers and bartenders up and down the Vegas Strip. They can still look forward to a Cinco De Mayo-like windfall on Sept. 15, the day before Mexican Independence. Yeah, money is still a factor here. Somebody has to pay for those slot machines.

There’s more, however, to it than just that. But it’s up to Canelo, who says the prohibited drug wound up in his blood stream unknowingly. He told Nevada he did not intentionally ingest the steroid-based substance. He blamed it on tainted Mexican beef. In so many words, he makes it sound as if he were an unwitting part of a corrupted food chain. From the butcher to his plate, he says he never knew he was ingesting a compound that has wound up being a very expensive piece of meat.

There’s plausible deniability in all of this, of course. There’s precedence, too. Mexico’s cattlemen have been using the substance to keep their product lean. Mexican boxers and soccer players have tested positive. Meanwhile, The Nevada Commission, a state agency, is bound by law. It played by the book, including Canelo’s status as a first-time offender and his willingness to cooperate as factors in its unanimous approval.

But the court of public opinion is not constrained by law, much less decorum. It’s been a free-for-all, especially on platforms where snark, suspicion, allegation and profanity are part of the digital disorder. It’s social media in name only. Since Wednesday’s ruling in Las Vegas, Canelo has been a convenient target, one of many. No surprise there. Canelo must have known it was coming.

The surprise here, however, is that he wasn’t proactive in addressing the inevitable criticism.

If he had been, he would have been enrolled in VADA – Volunteer Anti-Drug Testing Agency – before it was announced that the Nevada Commission had voted 5-0 in favor of the agreement for his shorter suspension.

Minutes after the hearing, VADA’s Dr. Margaret Goodman told 15 Rounds and the Los Angeles Times that “he was not enrolled at this time.’’ Sure enough, a check of Canelo’s page on www.boxrec.com showed he was not in the testing program that is aligned with the World Boxing Council. Meanwhile, a notation on GGG’s page shows that, yes, he is enrolled. Just checking.

Maybe, Canelo has already turned in the docs that will enroll him. Maybe, he’s doing so while this is being written. Maybe, it’s just process. Or, maybe, it’s just an oversight. But the maybes are an opening for everybody who just doesn’t believe him. There’s not much presumption of innocence left for anybody anywhere any more. But boxing has never enjoyed that presumption any way. There are no innocents, just the usual suspects.

But Canelo has a rare opportunity, one the Nevada Commission gave him Wednesday. He can provide a record, a clean slate of tests supporting what he said after the positive tests were disclosed. The burden of proof awaits him.

By Norm Frauenheim-

LAS VEGAS — Canelo Alvarez agreed to a six-month suspension and the Nevada Athletic Commission unanimously approved that agreement Wednesday, opening the way for him to fight Gennady Golovkin on Sept. 15 in a rematch that had originally been scheduled for May 5.

The Commission voted 5-0 to accept a signed settlement from Canelo, whose 12-month ban for two positive drug tests was cut in half and will be dated back to the initial test, Feb. 17.

Canelo, who underwent what was reported to be minor knee surgery last week, did not attend the hearing. He was represented on the telephone by attorney Ricardo Cestero.

Canelo, a first-time PED offender, met with Commission Executive Director Bob Bennett and Chairman Anthony A. Marnell a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas for an hour-and-twenty minutes. Bennett said he answered his questions.

“’He did everything we asked for,’’ Bennett said.

Cooperation from Canelo, who blamed positive tests for Clenbuterol on tainted Mexican beef, allowed the Commission to reduce his ban by 50 percent, according to new rules written by the state regulatory board a year ago.

Golden Boy Promotions, Canelo’s promoter, said it was satisfied with the Commission’s approval of Canelo’s agreement to the reduced ban. Golden Boy’s prepared statement:

“As we have maintained all along, the trace amounts of clenbuterol found in Canelo’s system in February came from meat contamination, and we provided the Nevada State Athletic Commission with a great deal of evidence to support those facts.

“Although most professional sports, international anti-doping agencies and United States boxing commissions treat meat contamination differently from other positive tests, Nevada does not. Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions respect the rules of Nevada and are therefore satisfied with the settlement agreement reached today.

“Canelo looks forward to returning to the ring in September for Mexican Independence Day weekend to represent Mexico and boxing in what will be the sport’s biggest event of the year. He is ready to continue his remarkable record of fighting at the highest level.”

If all goes as planned, Golovkin’s suspension will be over in mid-August and he’ll be able to fight on the weekend celebrating Mexican Independence, presumably at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. That’s where the Cinco de Mayo fight, the rematch of a controversial draw last September, was supposed to happen. Canelo withdrew on April 3.

But a lot has to happen before Canelo and GGG can meet again. First, GGG has to win what now appears to be an interim fight against Vanes Martiroysan on May 5 at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., in what looks like a Cinco de Mayo bout for some of his most ardent fans.

“He has been looking good and he really wants to fight well for the fans who are at the grass roots of his popularity,’’ said GGG trainer Abel Sanchez, who attended Wednesday’s hearing. “You worry a little that some of this might be a distraction. But he knows what he has to do.’’

GGG is a huge favorite against Martiroysan, who hasn’t fought in a couple of years. If GGG wins as expected, the next step is a deal with Canelo. That might be more difficult than it sounds

If the rematch returns to Nevada, the state Commission will subject Canelo to testing. At this point, however, no fight is scheduled. Nevada only has jurisdiction over fights within its own borders. Meanwhile, Canelo is not currently subject to VADA, the agency that does testing for the World Boxing Council.

“I do not have him (Canelo) enrolled at this time,’’ VADA’s Dr. Margaret Goodman said after the hearing.

Golovkin is enrolled.

GGG representative Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions said Canelo would have to join VADA for there to be a deal for a September rematch.

“Absolutely,’’ said Loeffler, who also attended the hearing. “Definitely, that would be a condition.’’

By Bart Barry-

ESPN2 broadcast a middleweight title fight between Japan’s Ryota Murata and Italy’s Emanuel Blandamura at 0800 ET on Sunday morning. Right network, right timeslot. And if Murata’s next opponent is weak as Blandamura, ESPN has a smartphone app and 0500 spot ready to go, too.

Turns out Sunday morning boxing is unlikely to replace church services in America, but it’s not a terrible thing to do with the seven o’clock (CT) hour if you’re already awake. Logging my second Murata fight, Sunday, convinced me he’s not worth setting an alarm for.

Promoter Top Rank has its reasons for vending any ticketseller, be he Mexican (Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Salvador Sanchez II) or Chinese (Zou Shiming) or gigantic (Butterbean), though often the reasons feel reducible to a Bob Arum autochallenge – Watch this! – and now ESPN has found the perfect programming slot for such fare. Murata-Blandamura sated a demographic like: Bored Italo-Japanese sportsfan undecided between SportsCenter and an abridged NBA replay.

Nothing inspiring happens during a Murata fight. There is bodypunching, sort of – it reliably happens when Murata misses with his cross – and what robotic offensive determination happens when a man is unthreatened by his opposition. We’ve seen this approach, though, ad nauseum, in HBO’s conjuring of Olympic silvermedalist Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin. The only obvious difference thus far is the timeslot and commentary.

Teddy Atlas, apparently back from exile, though as yet not allowed ringside, saw a b-level prizefighter Sunday morning and said exactly as much. Howsoever wrongheaded Atlas can be the man is independently wrongheaded. Such independence is refreshing when set against HBO’s tickle-me-Elmo promotion of GGG, one that took a b-level prizefighter matched with c-level opponents and caused a nationwide hyperbole drought.

One is tempted to see comeuppance in the ongoing search for a May 5 Golovkin victim; Golovkin is not an a-side in the pay-per-view sense of the term, and initial attempts to make him one went where they belonged. Now Golovkin and his handlers attempt to find some nohoper desperate enough to take short money on shorter notice.

There has long been something cheap about Golovkin’s ascent. Few serious efforts were made to pay serious men like Andre Ward or Carl Froch enough to give Golovkin what opposition might’ve revealed him worthy of the praise so shamelessly heaped on him, and the first such effort – making Golovkin the b-side against Canelo Alvarez – revealed a talent well shy of generational (no, it doesn’t matter if Golovkin deserved the decision; his inability to hurt an oversold junior middleweight damned the whole enterprise).

This current rash scramble for a sacrificial offering sets the mind racing backwards 15 years to Lennox Lewis versus Vitali Klitschko, a fight for the lineal heavyweight championship of the world made on two weeks’ notice. That’s not a typo. Kirk Johnson withdrew from his June 21, 2003, match with Lewis on June 7, and in a turn of matchmaking that now appears miraculous, Vitali (the Klitschko with a chin), who was scheduled for the undercard, signed to fight Lennox. And Lennox signed to fight Vitali. Lewis was unready for Klitschko, and had he not cut Klitschko to the bone early in the match, Lewis likely’d’ve lost. Lewis did not fight again.

To be charitable, all that likely precludes Golovkin from fighting a fellow titlist like Billy Joe Saunders or Murata in June is money. Saunders fights in June, anyway, and will make weight; Murata just made weight and hardly taxed himself sleepstalking Blandamura. It would be an appropriately vengeful tack for Golovkin to take, writing Canelo out of middleweight-title contention: I make fight Saunders June, I make fight Murata September, I forget Clen-elo.

Here’s the less-charitable reason these fights won’t happen: Saunders undresses Golovkin, and Murata loses to Golovkin but shortens what’s left of the GGG salesblitz.

No, Top Rank is not hurrying to match Murata with anyone who’s won a fight outside his native land – a feat Murata may never accomplish – but Top Rank is savvy enough to take a long payday for Murata in a fight that will be dynamite for a few rounds, rather than see its unidimensional Godzilla decisioned by some other tiertwo journeyman on ESPN.

That’s written in good faith, too: I believe Golovkin-Murata would be spellbinding since neither man believes any other 160-pound man in the world hits hard as he does, and both have prepared their defenses accordingly. Golovkin’s not going to eat a Murata righthand and land a knockout punch in the same second, and Murata’s not going to miss high with the cross just to land the hook; both men would be initially bashful, sure, but as neither man has the dexterity or impetus or chief second to fashion a plan b, Golovkin and Murata eventually would resort to smashing one another until the better man wins. Probably that’s Golovkin, but then, he’ll not be the Olympic goldmedalist in the ring that night, will he?

ESPN could use Golovkin-Murata as a meaningful launchparty for ESPN Plus, and maybe even offer HBO Sports some much needed step-aside money (as LL Cool J put it: “With a third of my deposit / I’ll buy your whole crib, plus the clothes in the closet”). Having a pay-per-view match cancelled on account of a drug test was unfortunate and fully unexpected, so how about we not respond predictably with safetyfirst matchmaking rubbish?

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

By Norm Frauenheim-

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is as good at staying in the news as he was at staying a top the pound-for debate.

Evidence of that played out all over again throughout this week with speculation that he might make another comeback, this time in mixed martial arts. As usual there were a lot of mixed messages about whether he will or won’t, could or should. Who knows? If last August’s bizarre boxing bout with UFC star Conor McGregor is any guide, it’s safe to say he probably will.

Whether it would be safe to his health is another issue altogether. Remember, he once talked about retiring before a punch – or perhaps a kick to the temple – left him hurt and without the capacity to enjoy all of the unprecedented money he has collected. I’m not sure he really wants to fight again. Against McGregor, he didn’t look to be in the best condition, although he appeared to carry the novice boxer for several rounds before ending it with a TKO in the tenth round.

The guess from this corner is that people are telling Mayweather to stay away from the ring, or the cage, or any other version of harm’s way. Trouble is, he can’t resist the media, a siren’s song that reminds him and everybody else that he is as relevant and rich as ever.

It stokes his ego.

It re-fills his garage and bank accounts.

And it works.

The best and most recent example was the McGregor match. After months of stoking media speculation and criticism, interest was high enough to attract a reported 4.4 million pay-per-view audience in the U.S. That was just short of the record 4.6 million he posted for his decision over Manny Pacquiao. I can’t help but think that Mayweather-Pacquiao II will happen one day in a cage. But that’s another story for another day.

This is about Mayweather and his uncanny ability at manipulating the media. He does at as well as he eluded a punch. A hint here, a shoulder roll there and, before long, what looked like a feint suddenly becomes real. It creates a momentum all its own and inevitably sweeps Mayweather, now 41, back into the dangerous place he vowed to avoid about five years ago. Maybe, Mayweather can duck and dodge strikes, kicks, elbows and knee caps. Maybe, he can command enough money and clout to amend rules in such a way that only a cosmetic cage will make his UFC debut look like the real thing. But, maybe he’s made a Faustian bargain that ends in a disabling blow.

It’s no coincidence perhaps that media attention on combat sports is at a place similar in April to what it was last August. Then, the media focus was on Mayweather-McGregor just three weeks before opening bell to the Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez draw. Eight months later, circumstances have changed. Boxing has only itself to blame this time. But the names and attention are the same. GGG promoters were scrambling this week to find an opponent for May 5 after Canelo’s withdrawal in the wake of a positive PED test. A news conference was held Thursday. It was announced that there was no announcement.

About three weeks before what would be opening bell, we’re back to where we were in August: Talking about Mayweather. Yeah, there’s McGregor, too. But after the Irishman allegedly caused a near riot at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center at UFC media event last week, there were questions about his future.

Video shows him attacking a bus. He was released on $50,000 bond. According to witnesses, he and his crew stormed the backstage, broke a window and injured fellow UFC fighters. He was arraigned on one count of felony criminal mischief and three counts of misdemeanor assault. He was allowed to return Ireland, but has been ordered to appear in court in New York on June 14.

If convicted, he might be spending more than just few a rounds in a cage.

By Jimmy Tobin-

Jarrett “Swift” Hurd defeated Erislandy “The American Dream” Lara by split decision at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Saturday night, consolidating a little hardware and his claim to the division’s crown. More importantly, Hurd and Lara managed this junior middleweight sorting in a manner befitting a rematch were not one of the brothers Charlo ready to determine the class of the division. Hurd’s reputation for belligerence already precedes him, but incredibly Lara too was responsible for salvaging a mostly dismal card in a mostly vacant arena on mostly Sunday morning.

Why did this card, one that seemed somewhat promising, need salvaging? In the opener, Julian Williams went the distance with pedestrian Nathaniel Gallimore, showing recovery enough in his three fights since being decapitated by the other brother Charlo to become a mandatory for another remarkable beating, this time at the fists of Hurd. In the equally forgettable co-main, James Degale avenged by ugly decision his loss to Caleb Truax, proving that he is barely better than the fighter who lost to Truax in December. As for the version of Degale that drew with Badou Jack? That fighter is no more. And after all this, a Lara fight that began at 12:30am on the east coast?

Yet while rightfully maligned for his brand of inaction, Lara fought Hurd with an aggression he typically spares even his most overmatched opponents. He drew many a proverbial line in the sand, and when Hurd shuffled inexorably through it, threw not to escape Hurd but to punish him. When the punches landed—as they tend to against the ironically monikered “Swift”—and Lara again moved beyond reach, instead of preserving that range he readied himself to impose once more this aggression-tax.

This was not a man sublimating his instincts, mind you, as Wladimir Klitschko did in his valiant defeat to Anthony Joshua. It would be wrong to recast Lara on the basis of his performance Saturday night—he was courageous, yes, but fell short of endearing. Because Lara owed his decision to stand and fight his most imposing opponent yet to age, to the absence of a viable alternative. And, of course, to Hurd, who gladly let Lara draw those lines in the sand, believing full well that at some point the fight Lara dared Hurd to bring would be the only one unfolding—and that that fight, made earnestly as all Hurd fights are, would be too much for a fighter with aging legs and a negative style. There is no choice when options are removed, and even had Lara chosen (rather than been forced) to fight more doggedly, the price of stalling Hurd was clear enough to make a spectator await expectantly the fight’s second half.

It was over the last six rounds that Lara, whatever the camera angle, slowly disappeared, his dimensions seemingly shrinking with his prospects for victory. He became lost under Hurd’s shoulders, pinned away from view behind Hurd’s back. Glimpses of Lara first skipping, and then slipping, and finally tripping away from his looming opponent, revealed a fighter more and more broken the more infrequent his escapes. No surprise then, that the midround moment when they were longest and most clearly separated, when Hurd floored Lara in the eleventh, was the one that delivered Hurd the victory. That knockdown, a protracted crumpling of the legs, not chin, one born of attrition more than power, provided Lara his longest respite.

Yet Hurd did not have his way with Lara, at least not entirely, something that should not be lost in how he carried the action. His way reflects his physicality, his ability to absorb punishment as much as administer it. Because it is near impossible to believe a fighter can be coached to take as many flush punches as Hurd, as though wager of his chin were a calculated risk instead of simply a flaw uncorrected or ignored. Lara hit him hard, cleanly, and for a few rounds with impunity, and Hurd shrugged off convincingly that abuse, though it was difficult to watch him take leather and not think about how every Margarito meets his Mosley. Interviewed after the fight, future Hurd opponent, Jermell Charlo, quite rightly observed that Hurd cannot fight Charlo as he did Lara, that the penalty for closing distance behind his chin that night could be one Hurd might have to wake up from to fully appreciate.

Not that Hurd is likely to heed any such warning. He is not one to deny his opponent’s success because their success has yet to eclipse his own, and perhaps because he interprets their success as proof that every fight, regardless of its beginnings, turns inevitably in his favor. Yet one gets the sense there is less arrogance at work here than honesty, that Hurd appreciates the cost of imposing his advantages and thus sees no reason to deny it. A fighter whose primary and most mischievous tools are left hooks to the body and rear uppercuts doubled, even tripled, and who accepts all consequences of this, is honest. And honesty, a trait especially endearing and uniquely instantiated by volume punchers, is reflected not only in Hurd’s work but in its result: an ass whoopin’.

Hurd’s attempt to grind down the boxer Charlo, to confirm the matchmaker’s formula, will be one to watch. And if it isn’t next, because that makes too much sense, the least they can do is slate it for the day the broadcast starts.

By Bart Barry-

Editor’s note: For part 15, please click here.

*

STOW, Mass. – This town has doubled in density since I grew up here. All the way to 6,000 residents. It’s unkempt today in a way it may ever have been but doesn’t remember that way. The old spots, the yards and houses and ponds, are overgrown. The new houses are imported from Ikea. It was, then, trying to become something more. It is today exactly what it wants to be.

Well aware there was a prizefight Saturday night that included the through-April-at-least consensus favorite for round-of-the-year, but as I’m on Eastern time, not Central, here’s a show of solidarity with my coastal confreres: You send a mainevent off after midnight, you make a Saturday night event into Sunday morning fare, you don’t make the deadline for a Monday column. I know this is the time to write Erislandy Lara accomplished more respect in defeat than through the aggregate of his victories, or something equally symmetrical, a chance to reheat what sentiments Wladimir Klitschko inspired in his farewell defeat last year, but again, you lard a broadcast till the mainevent doesn’t go off the same day as its undercard, and you subvert goodwill a bit.

There were weekend events enough to autoforgive my way past a missed opportunity to write Lara performed courageously, hedgefully enough to leave both erected and mostly intact all previous criticisms of his performances but especially his footwork. Onward, then.

There’s a curious optical thing that happens when you return to a place where you had all the experiences of your youth, decades later. It’s not what happens at the bookends of a championship prizefight that concludes with a knockout – where both men enter like giants and one exits more gigantic still while the other exits a fraction of yourself and a fraction of a fraction of his previous self – but it serves to remind how entirely unreliable be the narrative combination of sight and memory. You see the places of your childhood with very small eyes, necessarily. But you record them like primary symbols: this is what a supermarket is, this is what a road is, this is what a library is. Then you overlay these symbols with a pastiche of new images until what remains of your memory of the originals are words more than pictures. You return to your first zipcode and get startled by how tiny everything is.

Especially if you hail from a small town. Every road you’ve driven since your first year with a license is much larger and straighter and faster than your first road, but because those are roads and your first road was a road your memory has fetched an increasingly larger image with each “road” query until you discover your memory of your first road – which, to be fair, you haven’t had occasion to fetch in decades – has made a fourlane thoroughfare of a winding country stretch zoned at 25 mph. Then you drive some miles to the golfcourse of your first gainful employment, distance enough to’ve been a halfhour bike ride in a bygone era when 14-year-olds unthinkingly commuted to full summer workweeks on their 10-speeds, and you find yourself disappointed nothing has changed, denying you a chance to lament all has changed to a point of unrecognizable.

You want the change. You want the unique experience of believing your experience was unique. And it was, so long as you keep it private (editor’s note: so much for that).

There’s snow on the course, spring having sprung in New England, and one car in the parking lot. You peek in windows, and the club pro invites you in the proshop, which is sanitized-modern and emphasizes nothing nearly so much as the decrepitude into which its surrounding building descended, and you hear yourself making a sentence that must have been impossible the last time you stood there: “Would you believe I worked here 30 years ago?”

Well of course he would. He probably gets this exact visit from a different (or same) nostalgia hunter at least monthly but probably weekly in the summertime.

But he’s generous enough to endure your musing and phonebooking names you stopped knowing you knew decades ago until he realizes with a start he’s reached the end of your intelligence about the previous regime, you’ve started telling stories he heard dozens of times so many years ago they almost feel fresh now, and that’s that. You’re dismissed with a handshake and good wishes in that New England way that is not discourteous but absolutely final. Didn’t miss that.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, today is more like Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, than it is like Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, years ago. Museums have replaced malls – the popular ones now boast four restaurants and three giftshops and works organized by celebrity more than merit. They feel like places to see the creatures you’ve seen previously in documentaries (maybe museums now resemble zoos more than malls; or maybe this metaphor is collapsing), which is different from being places of discovery. And if you travel to look at art chances are decent you’ve seen the best works of most famous museums’ permanent collections somewhere else already.

Boston’s roomful of Monets, while wonderful, were viewable at Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, on the Las Vegas Strip, gasp, a few years back. The collection remains deservedly esteemed nevertheless, and not simply for the famous universities that crenulate it on either side of the Charles River.

Boston has in some ways followed every other American city anyone can name into overpriced theme-parkery. But still and all Updike had the region pegged years ago when he wrote New Englanders are pinchfists in all but education – in education they invest ostentatiously.

Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry

Follow all the action as Erislandy Lara and Jarrett Hurd fight in an IBF/WBA Junior Middleweight unification bout.  The co-feature will be a rematch for the IBF Super Middleweight belt between Caleb Truax and James DeGale.  The card kicks off at 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT with a Junior Middleweight contest between Julian Williams and Nathaniel Gallimore.

NOW BROWSER REFRESH NEEDED.  THE PAGE WILL UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY 

Round 1: Left from Lara…2 more lefts..Counter left

Round 2 Right from Lara..left..Left to body from Hurd..Combination..Left uppercut and another left..Left..Uppercut from Hurd..right

Round 3 Counter left and right from Lara..Right and left..Good left..Counter right from Hurd

Round 4 Hurd landing a nice combination..Lara looks at Hurd..Nice combination from Hurd..Good right..4 punch combination..Good right

Round 5 Hurd lands a right..Chopping right from Lara..2 rights from Hurd..Left to body and right to Hurd..Combination from Lara..right from Hurd..Right from Lara..

Round 6 Right from Hurd..Left from Lara,,Nice right from Hurd..

Round 7 Good right from Hurd..Short uppercut..Good right from Lara..Left..Uppercut from Hurd..Combination from Lara..Good Hook from Hurd at the bell

Round 8 Body shot from Hurd..Right..Nice combination..Good right from Lara..Good right from Hurd..Nice uppercut..good left to the body

Round 9 5 jabs from Hurd..good straight right..3 Jabs..Good straight left from Lara..Swelling around the right eye of Lara..Body shots from Hurd..Left from lara..2 lefts from Hurd..Nice uppercut..2 shots from Lara..

Round 10 Hurd opening up..Left from Lara..Counter left from Lara,,.Left..Right

Round 11 Nice left from Lara..Body work from Hurd..Big left from Lara

Round 12 5 punches from Hurd..Nice work from Lara on the inside..Uppercut from Hurd..Straight right from Hurd..left from Lara..Uppercuts from Hurd…right to head..Big right from Hurd..2 rights and and a uppercut..left and right from Hurd..combination..Left from Lara..Right from Hurd…SHORT LEFT AND DOWN GOES LARA..2 Uppercuts from Lara

114-113 for Lara; 114-113 Hurd; 114-113 for HURD

Round 1 Good double right from Truax…Hard left from DeGale..

Round 2 Combination from DeGale..Left from Truax..Uppercut from DeGale..Uppercut..Body work from Truax..Good right..Good body shot from DeGale..Right from Truax

Round 3 2 jabs from Truax..Good right drives DeGale into ropes..DeGale cut around the right eye of DeGale..Right from Truax

Round 4 Good right from Truax..Jumping left from DeGale..

Round 5 Double left hook from Truax..Good right..Jab from DeGale..Right from Truax..Body shot from DeGale..

Round 6  Body punches and good left from DeGale..right

Round 7 Right from Truax..Left from DeGale..Truax is cut along the left eye from a headbutt.

Round 8 Left from DeGale.  Right.  Right..Right uppercut..Short right..Left.. Truax cut over his right eye.

Round 9 Good body shot from DeGale

Round 10  Uppercut from Truax..another uppercut…Left hook..Right from DeGale..DEGALE DOCKED A POINT FOR HOLDING..Left and combination from DeGale…

Round 11 Good left from DeGale…Nice right..Combination..Good combination

Round 12 3 Punch combination from DeGale..2 Punch combination from Truax

117-110 AND 114-113 TWICE FOR DEGALE

Round 1 Quick right from Williams..Hard jab..Jab/Right..Right from Gallimore

Round 2: Left hook and right from Williams..Jab ad right hand..Counter right from Gallimore..

Round 3 Jab and right from Williams…Body work..Left to body..4 punch combo..left and uppercut from Gallimore..

Round 4 Combination from Williams..3 body shots..left and right from Gallimore..3 punch combination..Good body shot..Hard left..Right from Williams

Round 5 2 jabs from Williams..Williams cut over the left eye..Combination and right from Gallimore..Uppercut and right and a uppercut

Round 6 Counter left from Gallimore..3 punch combination..

Round 7 Right from Gallimore..Nice left hook from Williams..uppercut

Round 8  Left from Gallimore..Chopping right from Williams

Round 9 Good left from Williams..Combination and big uppercut..2 Body shots from Gallimore..Right..Good right from Williams

Round 10  Good body shot from Williams..uppercut..Body shot..right over the top..Good right from Gallimore

Round 11 7 straight punches from Williams..Right hand..Right and uppercut from Gallimore..Right from Williams and 2 uppercuts..Big left and right..Gallmiore is hurt..Right..left..2 uppercuts..chopping right..Chopping right..staright right..6 punch combination,..Gallimore on shaky legs..

Round 12  4 Punch combination from Williams…Body shot.Double jab and right hand…Uppercut from Gallimore

117-110, 116-112 and 114-114 ..MAJORITY DECISION FOR WILLIAMS

By Norm Frauenheim-

It’s not a promising year when the most anticipated moment is a hearing instead of an opening bell.

For now, however, that’s what boxing has at the top of its agenda after a disappointing first quarter and now a second quarter dominated by a Nevada Athletic Commission meeting on April 18 that is expected to determine the length of Canelo’s suspension for two positive PED tests he says were the result of tainted meet.

Much hangs in the balance, including when or even if the Canelo-Gennady Golovkin rematch will happen. It’s off the schedule after Canelo’s withdrawal from a bout originally set for May 5 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. For now, it’s a cancellation. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it looks more like a postponement six months from now. Money is still a factor here and there’s still plenty of it.

The guess from this corner is that Canelo’s withdrawal, despite his denial about knowingly ingesting Clenbuterol, will be viewed as cooperation by the Commission. Canelo and Golden Boy Promotions took the reasonable step. Even if they had fought the allegations and retained the right to fight on Cinco de Mayo, there just wasn’t enough time for fans, promoters and Vegas hotels to properly put on the show. The MGM Grand was already offering ticket refunds. HBO had pulled its advertising. Fans were canceling room and flight reservations.

Canelo’s withdrawal was a pragmatic way to hit the re-set button on the middleweight sequel to their controversial draw last September. Perhaps, a cynical way, too. Whatever you think of it, there’s plenty of reasonable speculation that Canelo, a first-time PED offender, will serve a six-month suspension that will be dated back to the first test, Feb. 17. That means he’ll be eligible to fight again on August 18. The rematch could be re-scheduled for Sept. 15, a Saturday on the weekend celebrating Mexican Independence.

But there are no safe assumptions here, especially after a wildly unpredictable three-plus months since New Year’s Day. Terence Crawford’s intriguing welterweight debut against Jeff Horn was postponed from April 14 to June 9 at Vegas’ MGM Grand because of an injury to his right hand. Welterweight champion Keith Thurman postponed his comeback from elbow surgery, scheduled for May 19, because of an injury to his left hand.

Then, there was Anthony Joshua versus Joseph Parker. Other than another-rock-and-roll like crowd for Joshua at Cardiff, Wales, the fight was a dud. Lots of heavyweight hype produced a lot of ho-hums. Joshua won a decision, his first after winning 20 bouts by stoppage. A conservative Joshua fought mostly not to lose. Perhaps, he was playing possum in anticipation of a showdown with Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury. But fan-friendly, it wasn’t. I said it before and I’ll say it again: Andre Ward must be tempted.

For now, the Fight of the Year is featherweight Oscar Valdez Jr.’s epic show of guts in a decision over Scott Quigg on March 10 at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. It was riveting. It was scary. It was bloody. The drama unfolded on a night when there were more puddles than patrons at StubHub’s open-air arena. It rained, water mixing with the blood that poured from Valdez’ busted jaw. It was a fight that drained everything from Valdez but his courage.

But it also left questions, ones that might have been avoided had Quigg agreed to do a secondary weigh-in on the morning of the bout. He said no after missing the 126-mandatory by 2.8 pounds the day before opening bell. At fight time, Quigg repeatedly outweighed Valdez by nearly seven pounds.

In Quigg’s thudding punches throughout and in Valdez’ battered face after the carnage, however, it looked like a lot more. It might have happened without the reported weight disparity. Valdez takes chances, a risky style that leaves him wide open for damaging shots. A lighter Quigg might have busted up Valdez anyway. But we’ll never know, and those haunting questions will linger as Valdez battles to recover for what figures to be a challenging comeback for a fighter who has been an emerging star.

If anything, the last three-and-half months have been an almost uninterrupted sequence of moments that exemplify just how vulnerable those stars and their plans really are. I’m not sure a hearing can correct any of that. For now, however, it’s about all we’ve got.

By Jimmy Tobin

Heavyweight, Anthony “AJ” Joshua won a unanimous decision over Joseph Parker before a capacity crowd at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, Saturday night. The scorecards, lopsidedly in Joshua’s favor, reflected clearly the privilege he enjoys across the pond, but were hardly egregious as a tally that would edge the fight to Parker. So let us not bemoan too long judging that, however predictable, however convenient, renders the proper verdict. Joshua-Parker was anything but an entertaining fight, but the right man won, and if that is scant consolation for a dreadful 12 rounds, it is worth remembering that boxing often fails to provide even that justice.

It takes two earnest fighters to deliver a spectacle—no, wait, that is not what Saturday taught us, is it? No, the alchemy of the spectacular includes two parts earnest fighter and one part competent referee—and Saturday proved that by means of negation. Referee Giuseppe Quarterone injected himself into the action with a frequency and timing that left the fighter’s themselves confused. Too often he shimmied between Joshua and Parker, who took barely a step back between them, expressing not quite intent befitting the moment, but indifference enough Quarterone’s involvement as to make that involvement merely intrusive. The least a referee in a dull fight can do is become invisible when aggression percolates through the drudgery. Yet it was at these times that Quarterone was impossible to miss.

But enough about the officiating: it, like the judging, showed a preference for Joshua, but not one he needed to secure victory. Besides, referees, like judges, can be rendered irrelevant by the action. That involves some danger, of course, something neither Joshua nor Parker was particularly compelled to tempt.

Parker found enough success with his jab, his feints, his counters to make Joshua largely holster his weapons. But when the moment came to capitalize on that success, to add a right hand to the double jab, or weave inside behind it, when the moment for daring arrived, Parker passed. If his was a winning strategy, it might conceivably be expected to have won him the fight; yet Parker only fought to win until it became clear that his plan, absent the quantum of spirit demanded by the stakes, was not a winning won—whereupon he settled for a moral victory, handing Joshua his first decision win.

Nor is Joshua absolved of his role in what was his first eminently forgettable fight. He may have opened up enough to wed Parker to his inconsequential mix of jabbing and feinting, but when it was clear that Parker was either content to lose or unable to win, Joshua, perhaps because he was unnerved, perhaps because he was at a loss for how to deliver a stoppage, perhaps because he was content to coast, simply chaperoned Parker to defeat. He must reckon every fight, the future of boxing, not only with his opponent but with the expectations he has engendered and profited from, and on this night fell markedly short of the latter.

Is Joshua suspect then? Hardly. Had he knocked stiff Klitschko, Takam, and then Parker, he would earn, even grudgingly, the respect of his critics. Yet somehow, wins over all three, including stoppages of Klitschko (inarguable) and Takam (suspect) diminish significantly Joshua’s present and potential. Strange that, especially from those who hold Parker in some esteem. There is a chance Joshua benefitted from his history with Klitschko, their sparring sessions instilling in Joshua the confidence to take forcibly the mantle. Takam though has made a few bones begriming idols of late and Parker is fighter enough to trouble anyone in the division.

It would appear then, that Joshua is one of the few fighters denied the charity of a difficult night. He was an accomplice Saturday, yes, and that might be crime enough to deep-six him were he the only champion ever guilty of it, were he not in but his twenty-first fight, were the style matchup not so poor—were he defeated or even clearly hurt. Grant-Golota this was not. How quickly people discredit a fighter for simply winning. Better a return to the days of Tyson Fury? Have you forgotten what a miscarriage of violence his title-winning performance against Klitschko was? And the carnival that was his defenseless title reign?

Such short memories. Boxing, perhaps more than any other sport, makes us prisoners of the moment. Something about the action, the way the image of one man unmaking another (or not) not only refashions our recollection of the past but, often with too little evidence, manipulates our projections into the future. The schedule conspires here as well, for with so many quiet months between fights a fighter’s last performance often becomes his defining one—until, of course, he fights again and that definition changes, until the irons of another moment shackle us to its message. You can see this process at work with Joshua: reverse the order of his last three fights so that he rebounds from his first decision win over Parker to knockout Takam and Klitschko and how easily does Joshua defeat incumbent nemesis, Deontay Wilder? As if Joshua or his future has changed so drastically over the course of a year.

Matchmaking will set Joshua again on his concussive way, because Eddie Hearn understands that the best way to remedy a bad night is to give people something else to talk about and, more importantly, because the list of opponents who can stymie Joshua is short. Soon after Joshua will make the fight everyone wants from him. And the moment that night will imprison us, and perhaps even the fighters, for some time.