LAREDO, Texas – A small but committed group of partisan-Mexican fight fans gathered to see how real Juan Diaz’s comeback was in its second test. The crowd was relieved to find it pretty serious thus far.

Saturday before a sparse crowd at Laredo Energy Arena, Houston lightweight and former world champion Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz (37-4, 18 Kos) outworked and outhit Brazilian Adailton De Jesus (30-8, 24 KOs), eventually causing the De Jesus corner to stop the match before its midway point, at 1:51 of round 5.

From the opening moments of Saturday’s main event, Diaz swarmed and struck De Jesus, attacking him as if after the Brazilian’s very spirit. De Jesus, who wore a noble face and made manly gestures of indifference through the next 15 or so minutes, was not in the fight and knew he was not in the fight, finding himself in the position so many Diaz opponents have, the realization that punching back at Diaz is the only way temporarily to make him stop punching you, until you tire – which you inevitably will.

“I went right to the body to break him down,” Diaz said after stopping De Jesus. “I felt good doing it.”

Each round became like its predecessor, by its closing bell, with Diaz whacking elbows and gloves when he could not find De Jesus’ softer spots, and each new round began with the waistband of De Jesus’ gray trunks pulled higher and higher in the hopes of fooling referee Jon Schorle into warning Diaz, but Schorle was not fooled.

“I threw a lot of hard, accurate punches,” Diaz explained.

The assault continued, with Diaz’s trademark activity rate, until De Jesus’ corner could abide no more and threw not one but two white towels in the ring, bringing an end to the match and a continuation to Diaz’s comeback, one promoter Top Rank envisions eventually concluding with a title match.

“I am still young, only 29,” Diaz said. “And I have a lot of fight left.”

IVAN NAJERA VS. ROGER ROSA

Undefeated San Antonio lightweight Ivan Najera goes by the nickname “Bam Bam,” and every fight symmetry dictates Najera supply one Bam, and collect the other. With an action-making style that relies on a flying chin and talent for turning into opponents’ blows, Najera has yet to encounter a man who is unskilled enough for the San Antonian to make a dull fight with. And Najera’s Saturday opponent, Brazilian Roger Rosa, was not unskilled as his record indicated.

The evening’s third match was its undercard’s best, with Najera (12-0, 9 KOs) winning a unanimous decision by scores of 59-54 and 58-55 and 58-55 over Rosa (4-4-1) – a man of small stature, short muscles and enough chin and confidence to test Najera several times in their six rounds together.

A Najera counter left hook dropped Rosa in round 1, making the official scorecards somewhat wider in margin than the fight they evaluated. The right man won ultimately, but aficionados can be forgiven their concerns about the longevity of a prospect like Najera who makes wars in six rounders against opponents without knockout power.

ALEX SAUCEDO VS. RAMON PENA

There is one young fighter matchmaker Bruce Trampler travels to see wherever he fights, and he is Chihuahuense Alex Saucedo, an undefeated 19-year-old welterweight who calls himself “El Cholo” and fights out of Oklahoma City. And each time Saucedo steps in a ring, Trampler’s wisdom is confirmed more deeply.

Saturday’s second fight saw Saucedo (10-0, 7 KOs) hurt Mexican opponent Ramon Pena (7-4, 5 KOs) with every punch he threw, and hurt him badly with every punch he landed. It was a Saucedo left hook to the head, officially, that was the match’s final punch, at 1:00 of round 1, but it was actually a couple left hooks to Pena’s liver that stopped the overmatched man from Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and kept Saucedo’s record perfect.

DENIS SHAFIKOV VS. SANTOS BENAVIDES

Promoter Top Rank is well known for cultivating talent, but undefeated Russian lightweight southpaw Denis Shafikov appears to have come to them ready-made. Much like Shafikov’s opponent, Nicaraguan Santos Benavides, came to Shafikov in Saturday’s opening match, a 10-round affair that was effectively finished after its first minute, though didn’t end officially till the bell rang to conclude round 6 – when Benavides’ corner wisely called an end to their guy’s evening.

One minute was how long it took Shafikov (32-0-1, 17 KOs) to decipher the secret to Benavides’ (23-4-2, 17 KOs) jab, the southpaw brings it home slow, and begin blasting him with left crosses that made Benavides’ legs shake every time they landed. And they landed with more ferocity as rounds went on until Benavides’ corner did the sage and merciful thing and ended the mess.

Shafikov might just be good as his record anticipates.

UNDERCARD

Saturday’s first televised fight was a 66-second drubbing that saw U.S. Olympian Jose Ramirez (5-0, 4 KOs) drop hopeless Oklahoma super lightweight Mike Maldonado (6-2, 1 KO) three times, twice with body shots, bringing an end to the match barely a minute after it started.

Rangy California super welterweight Danny Valdivia (1-0, 1 KO), who appears extremely tall for a 154-pound fighter but doesn’t seem to know it, fighting behind a short man’s high guard and relying on inside punching, blasted-out Texan Jamaris Chaney (1-2) in fewer than six minutes, Saturday, winning his professional debut at 2:51 of round 2 and then launching an exuberant cheering routine of jumps and kicks.

The evening’s final match, a six-round super bantamweight tilt between Connecticut’s Tramaine Williams (8-0, 2 KOs) and Californian Raymond Chacon (4-6), ended in a no contest at 0:51 of round 3.

Opening bell rang on an empty Laredo Energy Arena at 7:05 PM local time.

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ–Darren Barker wrestled the IBF Middleweight championship with a 12 round unanimous decision at The Revel Hotel and Casino

The action was fast paced from the beginning with Geale coming in swarming with shots that missed that left opening for Barker to counter. Barker seemed to win the early rounds sue to the more effetive punching. Geale was fighting well but his punches did not seem to have the same affect as did Barker’s.

Geale looked he scored a fight ending knockdown in round five when he landed a perfect left hook to the solar Plexas the sent Barker down for a nine count. Geale jumped all over Barker only to have the tide turn as it looked like Barker may have hurt Geale towards the end of the frame.

After that the two took turns taking control of the action and had some furious exchanges down the stretch with a lot of close rounds.

Barker, 159.5 lbs of Barnet, England won by scores of 116-111, 114-113 while geale took a card at 114-113.

Barker is now 26-1. Geale, 159.5 lbs of Mt Annan, Australia is 29-2

Kiko Martinez won the IBF Super Bantamweight title with a sixth round stoppage over Jonathan Romero.

In round one, Martinez came out with fire as he landed some crushing shots mostly on the ropes and hurt Romero with a hard right hand in between body shots. Romero had a nice bounce back round in the second and started out well in the third but in round four he got cracked a few times in that round and started to retreat. A cut over the right eye of Romero was a result from a headbutt. Martinez continued to stick to Romero like glue and he kept firing and landing hard rights. Romero did show good defense but was starting to wear down.

In round six, Martinez was all over Romero as he battered him all over the ring. Romero showed an amazing chin as he ate some vicious shots that saw his head snap back several times. The fight could have been stopped at any point passed the half way mark of the round buy referee David Fields finally called a halt to the action at 2:40 of round six.

Martinez, 121.5 lbs of Alicante, Spain is now 29-4 with 21 KO’s. Romero, 121.5 lbs of Cali, Colombia is now 23-1.

Yordenis Ugas scored a workmanlike ten round unanimous decision over John Williams in a Jr. Welterweight bout.

Ugas started turning up the tempo in round two as he started to land hard shots to the head and body. He trapped Williams in the corner with a series of punches just before the bell rang. Ugas continued to dominate and landed some more hard combinations in round five.

In round six, Ugas landed some nice body shots on the ropes and got in a perfect uppercut. Ugas continue to pound away at Williams, who showed a terrific chin as he took some solid blows and many body shots but was never in serious danger of hitting the canvas. The two went toe to toe down the stretch with each landing that thrilled the crowed in attendance.

Ugas, 141.5 lbs of Miami via Cuba won by scores of 98-91, 98-91 and 99-90 and is now 15-1. Williams, 18 1/2 lbs of Charlotte, NC is now 11-3-1.

Thomas Dulorme scored an eighth round stoppage over Frankie Figueroa in a scheduled ten round Jr. Welterweight bout.

Dulorme used his height over the first two rounds. Figueroa came out agressive in round three until he got caught with a hard right. Seconds later that same punch put Figueroa on the canvas. In round four, Dulorme continued to jump in with the right hand with Figueroa occasionally countering with his straight left. In round five, a solid combination that was finished off by a left hook sent Figueroa to the canvas for a second time.

Dulorme started round six with a hard right hand and continued to stalk Figueroa. Dulorme would later land a wicked right hand that drove Figueroa to the ropes. Finally in round eight, Dulorme pounded Figueroa all over the ring until the bout was stopped at 47 seconds of round eight.

Dulorme, 141 lbs of Carolina, PR is now 19-1 with 14 knockouts. Figueroa, 142 lbs of Bronx, NY is now 20-5-1.

Jonathan Maicelo scored a tenth round stoppage over Jose Alejandro Rodriguez in the final scheduled round of a ten round Lightweight bout.

Round one was a feeling out process with Maicelo landing a solid right hand just before the end of the frame. In round two, Maicelo pumped in a hard one-two. Rodriguez tried to use his length and jab in round four. Rodriguez got in a nice right in round five which was his best punch of the fight up to that point.

Maicelo came out swinging in round seven and landed a hard left hook. Towards the end of the frame, he landed a perfect counter right. In round ten, Maicelo landed a hard right hand that dropped Rodriguez for the ten count at twenty-two seconds of round ten.

Maicelo, 136 lbs of Callao, Peru is now 20-1 with 12 knockouts. Rodriguez, 134.5 lbs of Guadalajara, MX is now 19-12.

It didn’t take long for Angel Garcia to erupt. He’s complaining to media that his son, Philadelphia junior-welterweight Danny Garcia, isn’t getting a fair shake in coverage of his bout with Lucas Matthysse on the Sept. 14 card featuring Floyd Mayweather Jr.-versus-Canelo Alvarez at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

It’s hard to judge whether his apparent anger is real or just an act. There are times when Angel Garcia, his son’s trainer, seems to enjoy throwing a temper tantrum. The more profane, the better. His insults and epithets before his son’s upset of Amir Khan in July, 2012 were enough to wonder whether he’s one of those Philadelphia fans known to boo Santa Claus.

But, come on, Angel Garcia shouldn’t complain about coverage that includes Matthysse on The Ring’s current cover. Angel Garcia, another in the long line of boxing dads behaving badly, should thank the media for a gift that allows him and his son to play the underdog, a role as effective as it is familiar to them. Now that Matthysse has gotten the glossy cover-boy treatment, Angel Garcia has a convenient target and an inexhaustible source of motivation.

Here’s a hunch that The Ring’s cover will show up, pasted onto Danny Garcia’s favorite heavy bag throughout the rest of training camp. It’ll probably make a good dart board when he isn’t training. Angel Garcia might cover the walls in Danny Garcia’s sleeping quarters with Matthysse looking down on him from several angles. Dad wouldn’t want his son to wake up and not be reminded of how badly his honor has been wronged.

It’s an old enough trick to be a cliché, of course. Still, it works. Bernard Hopkins is a master at seizing upon some perceived slight and turning it into controversy that seems to energize him and pay-per-view sales. Politicians use it to demonize their opposition. College football coaches call it bulletin-board material. But it’s the same thing. Alabama is No. 1 again this season, in part because Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban is more frightened of complacency than Georgia or Florida or Texas A&M’s Johnny Football. From Hopkins to Saban, it doesn’t matter whether the enemy is real or a mere straw man. It only matters that there is always some point to prove, some score to settle, some dragon to slay.

Danny Garcia, the grown-up in his relationship with a combustible dad, seems to have an instinctive understanding of the role. He has used it to fashion an undefeated record and ownership of two acronym-sanctioned pieces of the 140-pound title. Yet, he has almost become the understudy, the B-side to Matthysse’ starring role. Garcia addressed it in a matter-of-fact tone Wednesday during a conference call that did not include his dad.

“I’ll defend my titles and I’ll still be champion,’’ Garcia said. “The people who don’t believe, that’s their problem. It’s not supposed to be my time now. But I made it my time.’’

The twice-beaten Matthysse, The Ring’s 140-pound champ, is getting most of the attention and perhaps a nod as the favorite because of a crushing third-round stoppage of Lamont Peterson in May, the Argentine’s last outing. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer called Matthysse the next Manny Pacquiao. It made you wonder if Garcia was going to be the next Peterson.

A further complication, at least for Angel Garcia, lurked in media reports suggesting that Danny Garcia’s face was frozen in fear at the way Matthysse battered Peterson into submission. From a ringside seat, Garcia witnessed Peterson hit the canvas three times in the violent third.

During Wednesday’s conference call, Leonard Ellerbe of Mayweather Promotions dismissed the idea that Garcia has ever been frightened of Matthysse or anybody else, other than perhaps his dad.

“I know first-hand that Danny has been very, very adamant that he wanted this fight,’’ said Ellerbe, who was privy to conversations with Al Haymon, an advisor to Mayweather and Garcia. “Day-after-day, he was bugging Al Haymon to make that fight. Again, I know first-hand that they (father and son) had been demanding it.

“Besides, there’s no such thing as being scared of each other. Nobody is scared to make money.’’

But sometimes, just a little fear is powerful currency in its own right, especially if it’s a fear of losing. Matthysse was included in Wednesday’s call. But he refrained from saying a provocative word, perhaps because he knows Garcia has gained some emotional momentum in a controversy generated by a dad who has only begun to provoke.

NEW YORK—Dibella Entertainment, in association with SMS Promotions, put together another exciting installment of the Broadway Boxing series. The co-main events of the evening featured Boyd Melson in a rematch against Jason Thompson and Tor Hamer against Kertson Manswell.

Melson looked very calm and boxed well from the outset, keeping his distance and landing with hard shots from a southpaw stance.

The middle rounds got interesting though as Thompson was able to close the gap and turning the bout into a bit of a war.

Thompson opened a nasty cut over the right eye of Melson in the sixth round causing the referee to call a time out so the ringside physician could get a closer look. With blood streaming down his face, Melson smiled at the doctor, telling him that there was no way he was stopping the fight.

In the seventh round, Melson returned the favor, cutting Thompson over his right eye. In the eighth and final frame, both fighters stormed off their stools and met in the center of the ring and immediately began throwing bombs. As the fighters were exchanging shots, Melson dropped Thompson with a short right hook. Thompson seemed to be a little off balance, but nonetheless the knockdown was rightfully counted.

In the end, Melson was awarded the well-deserved and hard-fought decision, winning by scores of 78-73 twice, and 77-74. With the victory, Melson improved to 12-1-1, 4KO’s, After the bout, the victor was accompanied in the ring by award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. Melson discussed his foundation “Team Fight to Walk” and the “Just a Dollar Please” organization, which raises money for stem cell research. For more information on the cause visit www.justadollarplease.org

In a strange bout between two big heavyweights, Tor Hamer (20-2, 13 KO’s, 225lbs) took on Kertson Manswell (23-7, 17 KO’s, 280lbs). During the referee instructions, both fighters refused to touch gloves at first, and the referee had to order them twice before they finally gave in. The round opened up with Manswell throwing looping overhand rights. Hamer maintained his composure despite the fact that Manswell’s 280lbs body was constantly crashing into him, often knocking both fighters back. Countering a looping punch, Hamer landed a right hand that knocked Manswell off balance and down. He beat the count, and the fight continued. As the round came to a close, Hamer landed a series of short punches on his off balance opponent, sending him to a knee. The bell to end the round sounded, and Hamer was still throwing. Manswell, on a knee, dramatically fell face first to the canvas, in a performance that not many people believed. Most importantly, the referee wasn’t buying it, and ruled a TKO victory at 3:00 of the first round to Hamer.

In a four round bout, Justin Robbins(1-2, 138lbs) made things sloppy against Donte Strayhorn (2-1, 139.5lbs). Strayhorn worked behind his jab and right, while slipping in viscous body punches in between, while Robbins lunched in with wild hooks. Despite the difficulties that Robins posed, Strayhorn was able to maintain his composure and coast to a 40-36, 40-36, and 40-36 unanimous decision victory.

Michael Doyle (1-3, 131lbs) had the tough task of containing the talented Neuky Santelises (5-0, 4 KO’s, 130lbs) in a bout scheduled for four rounds. The first thing that was noticed was the size disparity between both fighters. Santelesis had a huge height advantage over Doyle. Soon after the opening bell rang, Santelises worked Doyle towards the ropes. Doyle responded by ubleashing a powerful left hand that landed perfectly on Santelises, sending him down on his back. He made it up to his feet quickly, but the referee didn’t like what he saw and stopped the fight. Some at ringside felt that it was a quick stoppage. Still, Doyle won by way of upset TKO victory at 1:19 of the first round.

The very popular Sonia Lamonakis (7-1-2, 1 KO, 216lbs) was in another brawl Wednesday night. This time her opponent was Tanzee Daniel (4-2-1, 1 KO, 240lbs). Like any other of Lomanakis’ fights, she was able to work her opponent into the corner repeatedly with her non-stop hooks. Daniel wasn’t much of a slouch herself. She was able to land cleanly on occasion, but there was very little power behind her blows. After another Lomanokis flurry, Daniel’s response was to taunt in the center of the ring. Lomanokis followed that up with working Daniel into and continuing her assault. The bout continued in this fashion until the final bell sounded. The final scorecards read 60-54, 60-54, and 59-55 all in favor of Lomanakis for the unanimous decision.

Patrick Day (4-0, 2 KO’s 154lbs) took to the ring amid cheers before his bout against Donald Ward (5-1, 3 KO’s). Day was an amateur national champion, and is highly regarded as a young professional. The bout started off with Day aggressive. He was much taller than his opponent, who took to bending low at the waist to avoid Day’s right hands. Defensively, Ward was very skilled. He ducked and dodged away from many of Day’s lightning quick punches.

Day was able to land some hard blows that hurt ward. All right hands that came in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th rounds. While Ward seemed hurt, he reacted to the punches by being aggressive himself, and even briefly hurting Day in the 2nd. The problem with Ward was that he telegraphed all of his punches, and Day was able to capitalize nearly every time. The final scores 60-54, 60-54, and 60-54 in favor of Day.

In a battle of two brawlers, Amos Cowart (7-0, 5 KO’s, 135.5lbs) took on Chazz McDowell (6-3, 1 KO, 137lbs) in a bout scheduled for six rounds. Cowart pressed the action, moving forward behind big blows to the body. McDowell often waited for Cowart to stop his onslaught, and then proceeded to land hard lows of his own. The entire bout saw lots of this back and forth action, and the crowd really gathered behind McDowell. The final scores read 58-56, 57-57, and 57-57 resulting in a majority draw. Promoter, Lou Dibella, announced afterwards that both fighters have agreed to a rematch for the next installment of Broadway Boxing.

Lennox Allen scored a six round unanimous decision over Michael Gbenga in a Light Heavyweight bout.

Scores were 60-54, 59-55 and 59-55 for Allen, 169 lbs of New York and is now 17-0-1. Gbenga, 170 lbs of Washington, DC is now 13-9.

Jeremy Abram made a successful pro debut with a four round unanimous decision over Micha Branch in a Jr. Lightweight bout.

Scores were 40-36 on all cards for Abram, 128 lbs of Cleveland. Branch, 128 lbs of Cincinnati is now 1-8-1.

SAN ANTONIO – Saturday at Laredo Energy Arena, about 150 miles southwest of here, Houston’s Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz will make a 10-round match with Brazilian Adailton De Jesus, as part of the second fight of a however-many-fight comeback Diaz plans to pursue till peril massively outweighs treasure and he returns to a retirement he apparently did not enjoy in 2011 and 2012. I will be there because Laredo is not too far, Diaz is one of my favorite fighters – in part because of the match he made with Juan Manuel Marquez 4 1/2 years ago – and because Diaz’s new promoter, Top Rank, has not been in Texas nearly as much as hoped this year.

Juan Diaz’s comeback may be sincere and well designed and likely to succeed or it may not, and as there’s no way to tell at this point what it is, Top Rank has chosen for Diaz an opponent who may or may not be serious himself. Adailton De Jesus is a Brazilian lightweight whose talents do not travel particularly well. He was last seen in the United States losing an uncomplicated decision to Marco Antonio Barrera three years ago at Alamodome. That Barrera bore little resemblance to the man who twice decisioned Erik Morales; the Barrera who fought De Jesus returned from a 15-month sabbatical, almost three years after announcing a “retirement” caused by his one-way rematch loss to Manny Pacquiao (a forgettable fight historic only for bringing a cessation to Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions’ first feud) to investigate how much money Barrera could raise on the nostalgia circuit before he careered into broadcasting full-time.

De Jesus’ career, a venture apparently paused when his first-round knockout of a 14-14-1 opponent in 2011 was nonviolent enough to warrant investigation by Brazilian officials, a knockout that came just three Saturdays after De Jesus was stretched in four rounds by Mexican Humberto Soto in Mexico, was a one marked by losses on the road complemented by resume-builder wins at home. Nothing about the Brazilian lightweight’s 19-month vacation, which will end Saturday in Laredo, indicates a new desire to compete; likely this is a fight made by a matchmaker who spoke to a matchmaker who spoke to a manager – “Adailton always was tough, and Diaz never could punch” – that will get De Jesus a new truck in Sao Paulo and/or VIP passes to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

If the unforeseen comes to pass and De Jesus upsets Diaz, the Brazilian’s team will see if they can’t parlay the victory towards a guaranteed loss in a staybusy fight for Miguel Vazquez or Mike Alvarado or Brandon Rios or whomever Top Rank envisions someday feeding a plate of Baby Bull. Diaz-De Jesus, then, will determine nothing about the lightweight or junior welterweight divisions we do not already know, but it will afford an opportunity to see Diaz in action, which, for a small band of aficionados, is a treat not to be missed.

For a number of reasons Diaz was never popular with the masses as hoped; not as Don King hoped, when, by his own admission in 2006, King slipped a DKP contract over Golden Boy’s, with Diaz’s pen dangling portentously above, to get Diaz on a Liakhovich-Briggs card at Chase Field, when it became apparent nobody in Arizona knew Scottsdale’s Sergei Liakhovich, victimized just Friday on ShoBox, and the reliable Latino revenue stream would need be tapped. But Mexicans never much related with Diaz, a volume puncher with an everyman physique – long, loose muscles framing a midsection that jiggled – who possessed neither knockout power nor a fixation on opponents’ livers.

A couple years and some televised fights later, King got Diaz’s title lost to Nate Campbell in Mexico, which led Diaz, finally, to Golden Boy Promotions, an underappreciated decision over Michael Katsidis and the 2009 fight of the year with Juan Manuel Marquez, a man for whom, posterity now says with a chuckle, Diaz appeared structurally too large at 135 pounds, bulling Marquez for much of the match’s opening 18 minutes before succumbing to the finest counterpunching seen in a generation and being stopped by a gorgeous right uppercut in round 9.

Diaz’s rehabilitation tour did not go as planned; he decisioned Brooklyn’s Paulie Malignaggi in Diaz’s native Houston, and then Malignaggi premiered what can fairly be called his signature postfight speech about boxing’s evilest forces, money and corruption, being allied against a fighter from the economically irrelevant township of New York City. A lackluster rematch with Malignaggi got the “Magic Man” his desired decision, and eight months later got Diaz handed to Marquez in another rematch no one asked for – certainly not Las Vegas, the match’s unfortunate and unfortuned host, enjoying then its second year of 18-percent unemployment – and Diaz feinted at more fighting then said goodbye to attend law school or become a lawyer or some other narrative thread nobody pulls anymore because Diaz is a good guy and it’s unkind to ask if a rising Houston attorney would subject himself to other men’s fists for UniMás (formerly Telefutura) money.

How relevant is any of that to me? Not at all, honestly. Volume punchers are my favorites – whether their names are Juan Diaz, Timothy Bradley or Nihito Arakawa. Some aficionados have justified grievances with volume-punching types – they tend to outpoint the stylists whom purists pride themselves on adoring – and most casual fans hate them even more for neither scoring highlighted knockouts nor having what euphonious names garner from aficionados’ faces the admiring expressions casual fans love to cause at sportsbars. Diaz’s ability to relax in the presence of stronger punchers and stronger men, though, has enchanted me most of his career, and if his retirement did not go as planned, at age 29 he is welcome to keep plying his trade.

Expect me at ringside any time the Baby Bull fights in Texas.

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

BETHLEHEM, PA–Gamalier Rodriguez scored a ten round unanimous decision over Jorge Pazos in a Featherweight bout at Sands Casino.

Rodriguez was the stalker as he landed some solid shots over the first two rounds. In round three, Rodriguez started to turn up the heat on his punches as he landed some good hooks to the head and body.

Rodriguez ripped hard combinations to the body in round six. He opened up round seven with a hard right to the head. He finished out the frame by pounding Pazos numerous times with both hands. In round eight, Pazos mounted his best offense as he landed a crisp three punch combination in the middle of the ring and later landed a counter left hook.

2012 Puerto Rican Olympian Felix Verdejo was tested but scored two knockdowns en rout to a six round unanimous decision win over Guillermo Delgadillo in a Lightweight bout. Having built up a big lead, Rodriguez picked his spots between fighting and backing up. Rodriguez punctuated the fight by landing a big right hand at the bell.

Rodriguez, 125.3 lbs of Batamon, PR won by scores of 99-91, 99-91 and 98-92 and is now 22-2-3. Pazos, 125 lbs of Guamuchil, MX is now 19-6-1.

After Delgadillo came out aggressive, Verdejo landed a left hook that grazed off the top of the head and send Delgardillo to the canvas. Delgadillo continued to pressure Verdejo in round two but kept getting picked off on his way in. Delgadillo wouldnt go away and rocked Verdejo twice and round five. that seemed to incite Verdejo as he came back to land a hard right that had Delgadillo spitiing blood. In round six, Delgadillo tried to pressure Verdejo once again in the corner but was caught with a beautiful left hook that sent Delgadillo to the canvas. Verdejo tried to close the show but ran out of time and had to settle for the unanimous decision victory that saw all three judges score the bout 60-52.

Verdejo, 134.7 lbs of San Juan, PR and is now 7-0. Delgadillo, 133.2 lbs of Walla Walla, WA is now 4-5-1.

Ronald Cruz got back in the win column with a crushing second round knockout over Rodolfo Armenta in a scheduled eight round Welterweight bout.

Cruz landed a hard three punch combination in round one that slightly buckled Armenta. Armenta seemed to want to wind up and throw a home run punch throughout the first frame. Cruz started his vaunted body attack in round two as the two fought at close quarters until unleashed a vicious right and left that set off a nasty barrage of bunches that put Armenta down for referee Gary Rosado’s ten count and the bout was over at 2:40 of round two

Cruz, 147.8 lbs of Bethlehem, PA wins after dropping two straight bouts and is now 18-2 with 11 knockouts. Armenta, 145.2 lbs of Rio Rico, AZ is now 12-11-1.

In a fight between undefeated Welterweights, Arturo Trujillo scored a four round unanimous decision over Yurii Polischuk.

Trujillo scored a knockdown in round two on a hard straight left off the ropes. Trujillo landed some nice power shots in round three. Both guys had moments in round four but Trujillo built up a solid lead to get the victory.

Trujillo, 146.1 lbs of Easton, PA won by scores of 40-35 on all cards and is now 2-0. Polischuk, 145.6 lbs of Alexandria, VA is now 1-1.

Jerome Rodriguez was impressive in scoring a six round unanimous decision over Ariel Duran in a Jr. Welterweight bout.

Rodriguez landed some hard power shots in round two and rocked Duran with a hard straight left. Duran showed a solid chim upon being hammered with two lefts as the bell rang to end round four. Rodriguez continued to break Duran down in round five as he landed a nifty multi-punch combination that was followed by some hard body work. Rodriguez landed six hard lefts for good measure to in round six.

Rodriguez, 140.7 lbs of Allentown, PA won by scores of 59-55, 59-55 and 60-54 and is now 5-0-1. Duran, 139.9 lbs of Queens, NY is now 7-7-1.

In the opener, David Williams scored a four round unanimous decision over William Miranda in a Heavyweight bout.

Williams landed the better power shots the cut Miranda as early as round two.

Williams, 223 lbs of Philadelphia won by scores of 40-36, 39-37 and 38-37 and is now 7-7-2. Miranda, 242.2 lbs of Allentown, PA is 6-7-2.

Toka Kahn Clary scored a four round unanimous decision over Jose Valderrama in a Jr. Lightweight bout.

Scores were 40-36 on all cards for Clary, 131.6 lbs of Providence, RI and is now 7-0-1. Valderrama, 133.2 lbs of Manati, PR is now 3-5.

Jesse Hart scored three knockdowns in eighty two seconds and took out an overmatched Steven Tyner in a scheduled four round Light Heavyweight bout.

Hart, 171.6 lbs of Philadelphia is 9-0 with 8 knockouts. Tyner, 177.1 lbs of Akron, OH is now 3-12-2.

The search for a great American heavyweight is turning into a job for archaeologists.

Maybe, Deontay Wilder can begin to drag the endangered division out of antiquity and into modernity Friday night against Sergei Liakhovich in Indio, Calif., at Fantasy Springs Casino in a bout that is part of Showtime’s ShoBox series. A perfect element in Wilder’s unbeaten record makes him worth a look. Twenty-eight stoppages in 28 victories add up to power almost impossible to ignore.

Yet, there’s skepticism. Wilder is preceded by Seth Mitchell and Johnathon Banks in the line to claim the leading role as the next great American. Mitchell generated a lot of excitement a couple of years ago. Even reigning heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko, one of the Euro Zone’s most reliable commodities, saw Mitchell as a potential foe, a business partner in his attempt to re-enter the U.S. market.

Yet, Mitchell got bumped from the head of the class by Banks, of all people. Banks, Wladimir’s trainer, beat Mitchell in a crushing, second round TKO last November. Mitchell came back and won the rematch in June by unanimous decision. But the dull bout didn’t eliminate a lot of the questions about him, Banks and – in turn – Wilder.

Increasingly, it looks as if employment as an American heavyweight is an alternative way to make a living.

If not for a knee injury at Michigan State, Mitchell would probably be an NFL linebacker today. Banks, a student of the late Emanuel Steward, might be a better trainer than fighter. They are heavyweights, in large part because there just aren’t many in the U.S. any more. It’s not their fault. It’s just bad timing. The business has moved on from an era when heavyweights were the so-called flagship division. Thanks to Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Canelo Alvarez, Juan Manuel Marquez, Gennady Golovkin, Mikey Garcia, Sergio Martinez and whole host of others, fighters have gotten smaller and revenues bigger since then.

The September 14 clash at 152 pounds between Mayweather and Canelo has a chance to break the pay-per-view record set by Mayweather-De La Hoya in a 2007 junior-middleweight fight. A whole new generation of fans has grown up since Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, America’s last great heavyweights. In a way that nobody would have predicted, the game is thriving, thank you very much. Bob Arum’s Top Rank is trying to create a brand new market in China with a junior flyweight, Zou Shiming, who at 108 pounds is lighter by more than half of Wilder’s expected weight Friday night.

There are all kinds of theories about what happened to the American heavyweight. They’re either in the NFL, or in line at the dessert bar. Take your pick, but there’s no doubt they are making a negligible impact on the American side of the business scale.

Skepticism of Wilder is rooted in his relative inexperience. Unlike Mitchell, he has some solid amateur experience. He won a bronze medal, America’s only medal, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Still, Wilder is a newcomer. He didn’t start boxing until he was 19 in 2005. Instinctive skill acquired by Holyfield and the Muhammad Ali generation was not part of Wilder’s growing-up process.

While other fighters were learning the trade in their mid-teens, Wilder had other dreams at Tuscaloosa Central High School, not far from the University of Alabama campus. He wanted to be a receiver for the Crimson Tide’s famed football team or a forward for Alabama basketball. The birth of daughter with a spinal condition and academics got in the way. Boxing was the alternative.

Can Wilder turn it into something more than Mitchell or Banks has? Yeah, maybe. Depending on what happens against the 37-year-old Liakhovich (25-5, 16 KOs), a Wilder fight against Mitchell and/or perhaps Banks could be interesting.

Then again, it might provide further evidence about a vanishing bit of Americana that works in a museum, but not as a main event.

Most American prizefighters are damaged necessarily, damaged from taking others’ fists and hopes, damaged by youthful experiences that guided them through amateur boxing’s comparative tenderness to a career hurting others. In this era when most Americans who cover prizefighting do so without compensation, it is fair to assume a fair number of us, too, are damaged, and as much as we chose to write about prizefighting because it is one of three sports, with baseball and golf, that reliably lend themselves to good writing, we also got chosen by prizefighting in a way neither golf nor baseball chose us.

Monday was unexpectedly pleasant for me. Summoned for jury duty, my first as a resident of Lone Star State, at the Bexar County Courthouse – an edifice majestic as the county comprises, something one can say for a courthouse in most any Texas county – I sat in an enormous room with crisp air, a delightful rarity in these parts from now till October, and comfortable chairs and sternly polite strangers and wonderfully absent television sets (those are kept in adjoining rooms with walls thick enough to be soundproof).

From eight in the morning till the last jury panel was threatened but not assembled at nearly four in the afternoon, I read George Saunders’ “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” a collection of six short stories and one novella that are absurd and violent, primarily, but also imaginative and humorous and the standard to which contemporary American satirists should aspire. A day or so later, I happened on the recently published text of Saunders’ address to Syracuse University’s class of 2013, a speech that could be titled “Try to be Kinder,” and thought it was all too coincidental, or if it wasn’t, well, what was happening in our sport this week that I couldn’t wander off the left/right/left path?

Vulnerability, it seems, is the best place to follow Saunders’ convocational advice, and prizefighting is fine a place as anyone might look for vulnerability – its expression and discovery and expression. So is the writing it inspires, or perhaps more ably put: so are those who write about our sport. There is a disappearing middleground in our craft (I had “business” there at first, but it looked preposterous), like so much of American life, lamentably enough, and we now line up on a side that is either too gracious or not fractionally gracious enough. If as the old saw has it, academic politics are vicious because their stakes are small, boxing-writing’s stakes, tiny by comparison, have brought a proportionate viciousness that is profoundly offputting to the very few persons who still care what we do.

For years I believed this was an unpleasantness blogs wrought – young writers proselytized by misanthropic editors telling them one’s soul, or at least his backbone, was traded for a ringside credential – but now see I was wrong, as increasingly our clan’s comity is undermined by men who should expect to see one another at ringside this year, an actuality that tends to govern tongues and once governed keyboards. “Please don’t bring this pettiness to ringside” – that is what I find myself thinking as I peruse Twitter, an activity that once made every hour’s last five minutes at my dayjob nearly euphoric but now discomfits me more than my dayjob.

Ringside, you see, is a gracious place; it’s where the very voice of Arizona boxing, Norm Frauenheim, spoke to a first-year boxing writer about the craft, for hours at a time, many times, simply because they were sat beside one another and the young writer had questions and questions, and because Frauenheim is the first boxing person I thought of while reading Saunders’ address; ringside is where online boxing-writing’s trailblazer, Doug Fischer, made a point of being friendly and vulnerable with any young writer who introduced himself, and interrupted his own deadline reporting to jog to row’s end and pose for pictures with ticketholders; ringside is where our craft’s most celebrated practitioner, Thomas Hauser, still goes hours before he is due in a main-event fighter’s dressing room, to sit with young writers and impart wisdom about boxing and things that have nothing to do with boxing.

One trip to a Major League Baseball pressbox: that’s what it took to convince me how special ringside was, with its jovial regulars and enthusiastic newcomers and everyone ready to answer standard inquiries from their neighbors, like “Did you get the time on that one?” or “But it was a left hook that started it, no?” That MLB pressbox was, as my host would later call the Associated Press tent at the Beijing Olympics, the unhappiest place on earth, one filled with large suspicions and mean jealousies, reporters shoulder-blocking laptop monitors lest someone with a Visitors badge steal their peerless prose and decide, on second thought, the catch by the centerfielder in the third inning was actually unbelievable, not amazing.

See that, what’s above? It’s ungracious, and were this not a piece, in part, about vulnerability, it’d get struck on rewrite, but it will stand for purposes of illustration. There is no reason not to be gracious to one another, to suspect the other guy is doing his best the same as I am, to forego occasionally the hasty and public rebuttal, safe in the knowledge none of it will be remembered by the damaged people who now anonymously cheer it on.

Damaged is good a word as any for them, for us, a word to invoke empathy from most who read this. A desire to cover prizefighting, men who beat one another for money, percolates upwards from a spring of injury often as a willingness to beat another man for money does. Most of us who write about this sport, and a goodish number of our readers, are damaged, simply, complicatedly, and what good might come of damaging one another further, for free?

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

Curtis Stevens entered tonight’s middleweight bout against Saul Roman with the knowledge that a solid performance could assure him a big money title fight against Gennady Golovkin in his next appearance. His execution couldn’t have been better.

Early in round one, Stevens stunned Roman with a left hook and proceeded to unload shots, finally dropping him with a hard left hook. Roman was able to beat the count and was trying desperately to survive when a brutal counter left hook put him out cold.

So viscous was the KO that it all but put ink on the Golovkin-Stevens contract. Stevens does have legit power and assuming Golovkin-Stevens does get made, it’ll be fun while it lasts. Stevens improves to 25-3 (18KO’s) while Roman slides to 37-10 (31KO’s).

In what amounted to a stay busy fight, heavyweight Tomasz Adamek soundly outpointed the aging Dominick Guinn over 10 one-sided rounds. Adamek was initially scheduled to take on Tony Grano in a more significant fight, but a neck injury forced Grano to withdraw from the fight and Guinn took his place on short notice.

The fight between Adamek and Guinn, despite being a downgrade,turned out about as well as could be expected. Neither fighter was ever in any trouble, but Adamek was able to keep the crowd entertained by putting together 3, 4 and 5 punch combinations during each of the rounds.

Guinn, a once promising prospect who is now out of shape and in the twilight of his career, still possessed enough defense and power to keep Adamek from overwhelming him. Guinn has never been stopped and the punches he did land throughout the fight clearly kept Adamek honest.

A cut opened over Guinn’s eye in round three from an accidental headbutt but it had little effect on the fight. It was all Adamek throughout and the scores reflected it: 98-92 and 99-91 (twice) all in favor of Adamek.

Although the fight didn’t do much to raise his stock in the division, Adamek did get 10 solid rounds in and remains in place to mix it up with any of the current heavyweight contenders. His record now stands at 49-2 (29KO’s).

Guinn has become the consummate journeyman and still has enough pop in his shots to remain in the role for the foreseeable future. He drops to 34-10 (31KO’s).

If Eddie Chambers was hoping to excite people about his entrance into the cruiser weight division, his debut tonight against Thabiso Mchunu was a disaster on all counts. A lethargic Chambers seemed content to follow Mchunu around the ring, alternately posturing and flicking out the occasional jab. Mchunu did little to help, as his strategy was to counter and Chambers’lack of activity offered little to work with.

So for 30 minutes, the two circled around the ring and stared each other down. Nearly the only scoring blows were produced by Mchunu left hand counters. Each round was nearly a mirror image and few could blame Mchunu for pot-shotting his way to the biggest win of his career. Scores were 97-93 and 99-91 (twice).

Mchunu improves to 13-1 (9KO’s) and it remains to be seen how good he really is simply because Chambers looked so terrible. For Chambers, (now 36-4 18KO’s) it seems time to reassess whether or not he wants to continue to be a professional prize fighter; because his performance tonight was one of a man who has lost all interest in boxing.

Up and coming heavyweight Vyacheslav Glazkov displayed his power and annihilated journeyman Byron Polley in less than two rounds. Midway through round 1 Polley hit the canvas via a hard right hand from Glazkov. Polley rode out the 8 count on one knee but when he rose, was met from another flurry from Glazkov that put him on the canvas for the second time.

Polley survived the round but was overpowered seconds into round two. A left hook, right hand left hook combo from Glazkov dumped Polley to the seat of his pants and referee Harvey Dock waived off the fight without a count.Time of the stoppage was 30 seconds of round two. Glazkov remains unbeaten at 15-0-1 (11KO’s) while Polley slips to 25-16-1 (11KO’s).

Glazkov’s manager, Egis Klimas said after the fight that Glazkov was looking to fight Dereck Chisora in his next bout.

In a 6 round lightweight tilt, East Hartford native Joseph “Chip”Perez dropped a unanimous decision to Staten Island, NY’s Mike Brooks. Brooks opened with a strong body attack and stuck to his plan throughout the fight. Perez was busy but largely ineffective for the first 4 rounds. He picked up the pace in rounds 5 and 6, but was docked a point for an elbow in round 6 that effectively put the fight out of reach. Scores at the end were 57-56, 59-54 and 60-53 all in favor of Brooks; who now stands at 11-0 (2KO’s). Perez drops his second in a row and is now 10-3 (3KO’s).

In the opening bout of the evening undefeated junior middleweight Tony Harrison made short work of his opponent Gilbert Alex Sanchez, blitzing him out before the end of the second round. Harrison was mostly inactive during the first round and he allowed Sanchez to wing punches at his body and head with limited success.

Halfway through round 2, Harrison started sitting down on his punches and scored a delayed reaction knockdown with a jab right hand to Sanchez’s head. Sanchez was slow to rise but to his credit mounted spirited effort to get back into the fight before being dropped for good by a Harrison body shot. Referee Harvey Dock waived off the fight at 2:10 of round 2. Harrison improves to 14-0 (11KO’s) while Sancez drops to 2-3 (2KO’s).

Welterweights Jimmy Williams and Greg Jackson plodded through a 4 rounder in a fight in which neither fighter was willing to risk opening up in order to secure the win. Jackson tried counter punching for most of the fight but the strategy was ineffective because Williams was hesitant to display much more than a jab in each of the four rounds.

The result was an ugly split draw. One judge had it 39-37 for Williams but was overruled by the other two who had it even at 38-38. Both fighters remain undefeated: Williams at 4-0-1 (2KO’s) and Jackson at 3-0-1 (1KO).

There may never be a Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight and there’s no reason to review, ad nauseam, all of the things that have made it unlikely. Yet, the two will be linked forever by a debate about an element that defines what they do.

If all goes as predicted on Sept. 14 with Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas and again on Nov. 23 with Pacquaio-Brandon Rios at Macau in a Vegas re-creation on the Chinese island of Macau, 2013 will end with talk about legacy. What is it? What does it mean? Does it even matter?

It’s a word that gets thrown around often and easily these days, which means it could be about anything and a mouthful of nothing. For all that it matters, legacy could be just another fast-food chain during an era when everybody seems to have a super-sized one.

But Mayweather-Canelo and Pacquiao-Rios have the potential to re-focus the argument, if not re-define the word. Besides, it might be all we have as a way to judge who was the best of his generation.

It breaks down this way:

For Mayweather, the assumption has always been that his legacy hinges on retiring unbeaten. There’s nothing to counter that. He could finish 49-0 if he decides to retire at the conclusion of his Showtime contract.

For Pacquiao, it isn’t an assumption. It’s an urgent bit of reality. He has to beat Rios in a style that says he wasn’t finished at the very second he fell, face-first and lifeless, onto the canvas from Juan Manuel Marquez’ right-handed shot in December. Add to that, Pacquiao is coming off successive losses – first by a controversial decision to Timothy Bradley and then Marquez.

In one of those spontaneous moments of candor that have always made Pacquiao likable, the Filipino Congressman acknowledged that the stakes were high, even daunting.

“I am feeling a little pressure for this fight,’’ Pacquiao said in Macau during a world-wide media tour with enough frequent-flier miles for a free ride on the next trip to an international space station.

The pressure falls more on Pacquiao than Mayweather, mostly because nobody – not even Pacquiao — can be certain about who the Filipino is anymore. Then, there’s Rios, who is as tough as he is wild. The pre-Marquez Pacquiao might have knocked out Rios as surely and dramatically as he did Ricky Hatton in 2009.

But the post-Marquez Pacquiao?

In that gray margin of uncertainty, there’s adversity. Pacquiao has already overcome some in his comeback from a 2005 loss to Erik Morales. He dealt with defeat and conquered the lingering doubt by beating Morales twice in subsequent rematches. But the adversity was never at this level and never in China where he is a key to Top Rank’s designs on a new market.

If Mayweather’s blueprint plays out as intended, we may never know how he deals with defeat. In Canelo, he faces a tough and emerging star. Power in Canelo’s combinations gives him an early chance. But the prevailing guess is that Mayweather is catching him early in his career and few years before his prime. For Canelo, the predicted consolation is a good lesson in a loss, his first. For Mayweather, the fight looks like another step toward an unbeaten career.

Let’s assume all of the early predictions are correct: Mayweather wins a unanimous decision and Pacquiao conquers early uncertainty en route to a definitive victory by late-round stoppage.

Whose legacy counts for more? From this corner, dealing with defeat – coming back from it – is a key to judging a fighter’s career. To wit: Would Muhammad Ali have become the icon he is today had he not had to come back from the 1971 loss to Joe Frazier? Ali’s resilience and character were illuminated in how he subsequently dealt with a crushing loss.

Mayweather has a chance to equal Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record. He might even surpass it if – as he has hinted – he decides to extend his career by beyond his current Showtime deal. Unbeaten is impossible to ignore. The NFL’s 1972 Miami Dolphins and college basketball’s 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers are reference points in their own sports.

But adversity, perhaps more than in any other sport, is as much a part of boxing as blood, bruises and scars. It’s part of the drama. Why we watch. A record without a comeback from defeat is somehow incomplete. That explains, in part, why Marciano doesn’t rank higher on all-time pound-for-pound lists.

If Pacquiao deals with the pressures, potential demons and scores a predicted stoppage a couple of months after Mayweather wins a decision, he’ll overtake Mayweather and hold a narrow edge on at least this legacy card. But the devil in the details is a wildcard called Rios, who could make the debate moot and turn Mayweather into the decade’s runaway winner.

SAN ANTONIO – I like to think I write quickly, finding words within the readymade template, lede to nut to quote to body, that governs ringside reporting and probably has for centuries. Yet Saturday, as I groped to describe what happened during Andre Berto versus Jesus Soto-Karass, as fine a main event as our sport may see for the rest of 2013, I was entirely alone. Before I was within 300 words of filing, there was nary a soul in AT&T Center’s other 10 rows of particleboard tables.

Turns out, half the writers left after the co-main, and those who stayed did not have editors that wanted more than a line about the walk-out match, and raced back to the media center to reserve a seat at the press conference. Such is the drawing power of Weslaco’s Omar Figueroa in South Texas, and such was the match he made with an indomitable Japanese lightweight named Nihito Arakawa.

Figueroa is every good thing South Texans say about him, but there, too, was Arakawa, all through their 36 minutes of mutual belligerence, cussedly stomping forward, making the volume puncher’s compact with Figueroa who was prepared as possible for a meaningful and violent confrontation but necessarily unprepared for the grotesquerie of Arakawa’s bottomless capacity for absorption, as if punches were an ocean and he was set on the task of patiently mopping the beach and emptying its seawater in a bucket.

That was exactly how futile Arakawa’s task appeared to three judges – a Californian, a Mexican and a Nevadan, no Texans, who scored an intensely fine match 119-107, 118-108, 118-108, grading Arakawa’s performance somewhere between Short Notice and Heavybag – yet Arakawa did not relent. There is a momentum to prizefighting, of course, but it hasn’t nearly the fluidity professional scorekeepers observe at ringside, where every fighter who won the previous round begins the next with a symmetrical lead, and keeps that till his opponent overcomes a judge’s mental inertia with force great enough to convince him something materially different has occurred. Chuck Giampa, deservedly famous for taking Showtime viewers inside the mind of a judge, instructs aficionados, elsewhere and here: There is not an iota of infallibility to be found at ringside, so do not look for it or rage at its unjust absence.

Arakawa’s secret to absorbing punishment is a kin to his having informidable punching power; he does not commit fully to any punch because he’d rather remain within himself, in full self-possession, working to a rhythmic tempo he alone hears, keeping his southpaw hands and feet in motion, right hook and shoulder and left cross and shoulder and left to the body and right to the head, shoulder, shoulder, backwards step, overhand left, backwards stutter, right foot shuffle, shoulder, left hook . . .

Arakawa’s mental resilience is not a matter of making adjustments to an opponent in mid-fight but one of preparation and self-knowledge, of reducing his required thoughts in combat to a simple yes/no question – “Am I comfortable?” – that he can answer even when partially or fully out of his mind. It is not the simpleton’s approach for which it is mistaken, always, by those who’ve not employed it, either for having natural gifts of power or reflex too great to sacrifice, or for having never worn gloves; it is the choice of our sport’s most introspective and intellectually hardy practitioners, an intelligent choice that asks, in all humility: What am I not as good at as another, and how can I reduce his advantages?

Arakawa, blasted repeatedly in the opening six minutes by a South Texas lad with 17 knockouts in 22 fights, a lad yet to meet man or beast capable of absorbing more than a baker’s dozen of his best strikes, a lad, coincidence would smilingly note, who shares a trainer with Timothy Bradley, boxing’s finest practitioner of the very style Arakawa applies pretty damn well himself, a lad who said two Fridays before he would have to strip naked in the breathless heat and pitiless light of a South Texas supermarket parking lot at two o’clock on a July afternoon that if the time came for his mind to blank in an orgy of attrition, like Bradley’s did in March, he prayed not to solicit the white feather, wilting before another man’s greater desire – blasted repeatedly by that lad, Arakawa relaxed, found his comfortable place, and forced his will on Figueroa’s fighting spirit, and Figueroa did not wilt.

But he did tire. As he took the scale Friday afternoon, he looked somewhat drawn, in the tradition of longarmed Mexican prizefighters who bring severity to other men at a weight no fewer than 25 pounds below a physique nature would not begrudge them, and then he missed by a quarter pound, 135 1/4, and had to disrobe entirely. It was an interesting spectacle of modesty and awareness, that. Figueroa, who emphasizes his desire to be a role model to kids in the Rio Grande Valley where Weslaco sits, requested a barricade of blinding towels, a square perimeter of white terrycloth, and then took to the scale, package in hand, cupping his manhood in his right fist, and made weight – disproving one physics-defying myth of Mexican prizefighters: Raising your arms overhead and inhaling will begin a negotiation with gravity that reduces slightly your weight. This curious show of modesty brought a tiny, unexpected touch of further likability that explained why Figueroa was, by far, AT&T Center’s most popular prizefighter.

And that was before Figueroa and Arakawa made a historic show of valor and sportsmanship, elevating one another’s public standing, making even wizened fight scribes grateful.

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

NORTH BERGEN, NEW JERSEY — The Scheutzen Park Ballroom in North Bergen, New Jersey played host to many “firsts” on Saturday night — first professional fights; first wins; first losses; and, perhaps, a first in the history of boxing.

Well, if not in the history of boxing, at least it was something Harold Lederman has — and I quote — “NEVER!” seen.

The originally scheduled main event was supposed to feature Union City’s Juan “The Beast” Rodriguez vs. Massachusetts native Zack Ramsey. That all came undone when sometime last week Ramsey was hit by a motor vehicle while riding his bicycle. The NJ State Commission refused a few potential replacements, and all of the sudden the night’s scheduled main attraction shifted from a welterweight scrap to a heavyweight bout.

—

At Friday’s weigh-in, Jersey City firefighter Patrick “Paddy Boy” Farrell stood nose to nose with Chicago’s Phillip Triantafillo. It was all the normal pre-fight smack talk, until Triantafillo literally smacked Farrell across his face, prompting Farrell’s brother to interject and try to beat the living hell of Triantafillo.

So on Saturday when Triantafillo made the short and heavily escorted walk from the dressing room to the grand ballroom, the electric pro-Farrell crowd showered him with predictable boos and profanities. Paddy Boy, conversely, endured nothing but words of encouragement and roars of “Paddy! Paddy!” during his entrance to the ring. After introductions were read, but before gloves were touched, an extremely agitated Triantafillo forced his way past his cornerman, shuffled his 232 pound frame through the ropes and walked out of the ring. He simply LEFT and the fight was off. No explanation given.

As he made his way back toward the locker room to a chorus of “PUSSY! PUSSY!”, Triantafillo shot the Scheutzen Park crowd a Randy Moss style ‘moon’ — that is, he went through the motions, but his trunks (thankfully) never left his hips.

The ring announcer declared Farrell the winner by disqualification, but the Commission will likely have a different take. They’ll likely, and if so, correctly, rule that since the bell did not ring, the fight did not take place. Deputy Commissioner Sylvester Cuyler told me that the matter will be looked into and an official result would not be declared Saturday, but seemed to hint that this bout will be wiped off the books.

Now to the actual action between bells, which was brought to actualization by KEA Boxing …

Nydia Feliciano and Crystal Hoy squared off in a highly entertaining ten round battle for the IWBF bantamweight title.

Punches came one after another from bell to bell throughout all ten rounds, but unfortunately for Hoy, she found herself continually on the receiving end Feliciano’s fists.

Feliciano was smoother and slicker, smarter and quicker fighter. The Bronx native was best served throwing her jabs, landing a few straight rights, and moving her feet; get in and get out. But even when Hoy had it her way, and forced the fight to the inside, it was still Feliciano getting the better of her counterpart, at one point finding a home for four consecutive lefts while Hoy clung on to Feliciano’s torso.

In the end, all three judges, Pierre Benoist, Kason Cheeks, and Waleska Roldan scored the fight 99-91 for the new IWBF bantamweight champion, Nydia Feliciano (7-4).

The most shocking result of the night came when Justin “Baby Boy” Johnson scored a well-deserved unanimous decision victory over former New Jersey Golden Gloves champion Anthony Gangemi … ” The tone for this one was set early on in the first round when Johnson rocketed a right hand over an outstretched Gangemi jab and sent the 23 year-old flying backward to the mat. Gangemi recovered well and dominated the second round bell to bell, seeming to have turned the page. But in the third round, he once again found himself on the mat courtesy of a Johnson right. In the sixth and final round, Gangemi – sensing that he needed a knockout to win – started throwing a bit more recklessly, trying to catch Baby Boy. But Johnson exploited his opponent’s aggression and found an opening in Gangemi’s defense to send him down one last time. In the end, all three judges scored the bout in favor of Johnson — John McKaie seeing it 59-53, John Poturaj 58-53, and Eugene Grant 57-54. Johnson’s record now reads 6-4-1, while Gangemi’s previously unblemished record now stands at 4-1, 3 KO.

Jersey City heavyweight Tyrell Wright scored a TKO victory against a game, but still winless, Eric George of Niagra Falls. After two rounds of swinging wildly, and putting all his strength behind his punches, George found himself gassed in the third round. Wright, sensing this, turned up the heat and spent the entirety of the shortened round beating George like Rocky beat frozen meat. Referee Ricardo Vera called a halt to the action when George clumsily turned his back to Wright and stumbled toward a vacant corner. Wright moves to 3-0, 2 KO with the win.

In a battle where someone’s “O” had to go, with two fighters making their pro debuts, Newark’s Dion Richardson overpowered Montclair, New Jersey’s Dwayne Holman. Richardson sent Holman to the canvas four times in the first round — leaving referee Sammy Viruet little choice but the stop the fight.

Anthony Jones of Newark improved his undefeated record to 4-0, scoring his first TKO victory when he stopped Adrian Armstrong (3-3) in two rounds.

Kyle Kinder can be reached at KyleKinder1@gmail.com

Follow all the action from the AT & T Center in San Antonio as former world champion Andre Berto battles Jesus Soto Karass. There will be two world championship bouts as Omar Figueroa battles Nihito Arakawa for the Interim WBC Lightweight title and Keith Thurman takes on Diego Chaves for the Interim WBA Welterweight title. The action begins at 9pm est / 6 pm pac

12 rounds–Welterweights–Andre Berto (28-2, 22 KO’s) vs Jesus Soto Karass (27-8-3, 17 KO’s)

Round 1 Soto Karass landing to the body…Jab from Berto..Right from Soto Karass hurts Berto..right…Counter right from Berto..Soto Karass lands another hard right…10-9 Soto Karass

Round 2 Berto lands a counter right..Soto Karass lands a left to the body and head…20-18 Soto Karass

Round 3 Berto lands a combination…Soto Karass lands a left and right..Counter right from Berto..left and right..jab..right…jab..Soto Karas lands a left hook…Left and right to the body from Berto..Soto Karass lands a left…Counter right from Berto..SK lands a left uppercut..29-28 SK

Round 4 Crisp left hook from Berto..Jab/short left uppercut from SK…double jab from Berto…left/right to body from SK..Left hook from Berto..Counter jab from SK…Huge counter left and flurry…Berto hurt...39-37 SK

Round 5 Berto hurt and his shoulder is injured….Berto is wobbling all over the place..49-46 SK

Round 6 Berto lands a left uppercut/left hook..left hook to the body…SK lands a left hook to the body and an uppercut...58-56 SK

Round 7 Berto lands a good body shot…SK lands a left to the body..straight right hand…3 uppercuts from Berto..lead right..Swelling around thr right eye of SK…3 left hooks from Berto..67-66 SK

Round 8 Straight right from SK..uppercut on inside..combination…swelling around left eye of Berto..left hook..straight right..Berto lands an uppercut..left uppercut from SK..right..counter..77-75 SK

Round 9 SK lands a straight right..Berto lands a right Uppercut..left from Berto..86-85 SK

Round 10 Berto backing SK up..left hook…95-95

Round 11 Counter left from Berto…shoRT SHOT AND DOWN GOES SK…Berto lands a left…straight right from SK…right and left…left to body from Berto..Right from SK..upercut from Berto…big shot from SK..left hook from Berto..Body.right from SK…105-103 Berto

Round 12 Toe to toe in the center of the ring…Right from SK..LEFT HOOK DOWN GOES BERTO….THE FIGHT IS OVER

12 Rounds–WBC INTERIM LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP–OMAR FIGUEROA (21-0-1, 17 KO’S) VS NIHITO ARAKAWA (24-2-1, 16 KO’S)

Round 1 Arakawa landing…3 punching combo from Figueroa..Big right..Right to the head..Phone booth fight…10-9 Figueroa

Round 2 Arakawa lands a left to the body..counter let to body from Figueroa..HUGE RIGHT HURTS ARAKAWA…HE TAKES A KNEE..Rigt to the body and left to the head from Figueroa..Arakawa coming back…20-17 Figueroa

Round 3 Body and head from Figueroa..Body from Arakawa…right from Figueroa..Left uppercut..2 lefts from Arakawa…hard left..left uppercut from Figueroa..double right to the head..right…hellacuous shots…a war...30-26 Figueroa..

Round 4 Accidental head butt causes cut on Figueroa’s nose..Left hooks by both men…counter from Arakawa..Left hook from Figueroa..Left to head and body from Arakawa…3 hard shots from Figueroa..right and left to the body from Arakawa..39-36 Figueroa

Round 5 Left hurts Arakawa..49-45 Figueroa

Round 6 Right from Figueroa..Right uppercut and right..Right hands stuns Arakawa…right and left…on ROPES RULED A KNOCKDOWN...59-53 Figueroa

Round 7 Straight left from Arakawa..Double left and right from Figueroa..Arakawa works body…69-62 Figueroa

Round 8 Left from Figueroa…Right..Right..Right…double left hand…swelling around left eye of Arakawa…Figueroa batering and hurting Arakawa..left hook..79-71 Figueroa

Round 9 Right from Figueroa…great uppercut and left hook..counter from Arakawa..89-80 Figueroa

Round 10 Figueroa lands a left to the liver..flurry off the ropes..99-89 Figueroa

Round 11 Arakawa lands a combination on the ropes…Figueroa lands a straight right..Arakawa landing in the ropes..Right to body and left to the head by Figueroa..Right from Arakawa..left upper cut/right from Figueroa..108-99 Figueroa

Round 12 Figueroa lands power shots..Right…this is a bloody war…wow…great 118-108 Figueroa

118-108. 118-108 and 119-107

12 ROUNDS–WBA INTERIM WELTERWEIGHT TITLE–DIEGO CHAVES (22-0, 18 KOS) VS KEITH THURMAN (20-0, 18 KO’S)

ROUND 1 Chaves jabs to the body..Jab..Thurman lands a left hook..Right to the boy..Chaves lands a left to the body..Thurman lands a left to the body and head..Chaves lands with a combination..10-9 Chaves

Round 2 Right from Chaves..Thurman lands a double left hook…right…19-19

Round 3 Chaves lands a left..Good counter from Thurman…good left hook…Jab..Thurman lands a right lead…counter from Chaves…29-28 Thurman

Round 439-37 Thurman

Round 5 Double jab from Chaves…Right from Thurman…double jab…counter jab…49-46 Thurman

Round 6 Chaves lands a right to the body..Big right from Thurman..Good left uppercut..Chaves jabs to the body…another jab to the body..Chaves nose bleeding..58-56 Thurman

Round 7 Chaves lands to the body…Counter left from Thurman..nice left hook…3 punch combination..Chaves lands a body shot..Thurman lands a right…Combo from Thurman..1-2..Thurman lands a left..68-65 Thurman

Round 8 Chaves lands a left hook…Thurman lands a right..left combination…Chaves lands a combination…77-75 Thurman

Round 9 THURMAN LANDS A BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES CHAVES…87-83 Thurman

Round 10 THURMAN LANDS A BIG COMBINATION AND DOWN GOES CHAVES AND THE FIGHT IS STOPPED

The furor over major league baseball’s suspension of Ryan – or is that Lyin’? – Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers in the never-ending and ever-widening PED scandal already includes a reported link to one boxer, Yuriorkis Gamboa. Would anybody be surprised if more fighters are mentioned?

Didn’t think so.

Fighters figure to be a footnote to an unfolding story about celebrity athletes whose ability to lie has to be among those things that get enhanced in the bums’ rush to run faster, fly higher, hit harder and get richer.

Enough already has been said about haphazard testing by state commissions. What’s more, there’s still no resolution to controversy about whether the procedure should be outsourced to vigilant agencies that know what to test for and how to test for it. Put it this way: If Lance Armstrong were a boxer, his reign as the pound-for-pound champion would have lasted longer than his Tour de France reign.

But testing technology and protocol don’t really matter. Major-league baseball, after all, is supposed to a have a rigorous, state-of-the-art procedure in place. But did it stop the PED plague? Within a couple of years after Braun tested positive and had a potential suspension overturned by a weekend delay in the specimen’s delivery to authorities, he was back, knocking at the door to Biogensis, a south Florida clinic that advertised anti-aging, yet was simply trying to recreate Balco.

Despite a litany of denials offered beneath a slick veneer that politicians would envy, Braun was cheating all over again, according to a Miami New Times story based on records kept by the Biogensis owner, Anthony Bosch. Braun couldn’t talk his way out of it this time this time. He knew he had been caught.

He accepted his 65-game suspension this week by hiding behind a prepared statement. He had to hide somewhere. It would have been hard to mask a smirk that had to have been there. Braun got away with another one. After all, the Brewers still owe the 2011 National League’s Most Valuable Player more than $100-million dollars on a contract signed two years ago.

Follow the money and the crooked bottom line tells you that PEDs are an investment. A young fighter doesn’t need directions to follow Braun’s path. There will be some accusations, fines and suspensions along the way. But a good fighter who hopes to become great enough to warrant a fraction of Braun’s contracted wealth won’t hesitate to reach for them. Braun is hardly a role model, but he is an example of how it pays to cheat.

It’s safe to assume that PEDs put Braun in a position to land a contract that will make him rich for the rest of his life. If you took a poll of young prize fighters in a dangerous game ruled by the risk-to-reward ratio, how many would say they’d do the same thing? The Biogensis story might tell us that most of them would. PEDs are just the method. But don’t blame the chemistry. Blame the culture.

AZ NOTES
Spotted at ringside: Jose Benavidez Jr. The prospect, unbeaten at junior-welterweight, took a break from his return to the gym on July 20 for a well-matched, entertaining card staged by Iron Boy Promotions at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix.

Benavidez has been inactive since he was nearly knocked out in the final round of a victory by unanimous decision last October in Carson, Calif. He has since undergone a second surgery to his right hand. He had a pin placed in the small finger.

“It feels fine,’’ Benavidez said as he held up the problematic hand. “I’ve been working and it’s strong. I’ve been working for about three weeks now. I just really want to get back into the ring. How long has it been? Eight, nine months? Whatever it’s been, I just want to get back in there.’’

SAN ANTONIO – The promotional posters for “Knockout Kings II” that arrived in some writers’ inboxes these last few weeks were different from the original posters that featured Haitian-American Andre Berto and Mexican Jesus Soto-Karass, the men who will fight in the main event Saturday at AT&T Center. The new posters featured Texan Omar “Panterita” Figueroa, who will fight Japan’s Nihito Arakawa for the WBC’s interim lightweight title and have to sell more tickets than Berto, Soto-Karass and Arakawa, combined, for Leija-Battah Promotions’ first post-Canelo event to succeed at the box office.

“(Arakawa) is going to be tough,” Figueroa said Friday morning. “Usually Japanese fighters are a lot like Mexicans in the fact that that they fight with a lot of pride, a lot of heart. There’s no quit in them either. I’m preparing for a good 12 rounds, hopefully . . . I mean, hopefully, it doesn’t go that long.”

There has been a gradual but pronounced shift away from the main-event fighters and towards Figueroa, as it appears circumstances have confirmed what was long known about Saturday’s headliner, Andre Berto: He does not sell tickets. Berto makes interesting fights when he is matched with someone who can beat him, a scenario to which he was rarely treated during his deservedly maligned HBO tenure. Berto was no more the next Floyd Mayweather than Victor Ortiz was the next Oscar De La Hoya, despite programmers’ hopes, though both men were close enough in appearance to make network executives believe otherwise. Now on Showtime, Berto is in the precarious place where his next loss may be his last televised loss.

He is aware of this, or aware as Berto can be; at the announcement press conference in this city’s famed Mi Tierra restaurant in May, Berto mentioned coming close to a Mayweather fight twice, against Ortiz and then Robert Guerrero, losing both tryouts, and being determined not to lose a third. How enthusiastic anyone might be about a Mayweather-Berto fight is dubious, else Golden Boy Promotions would not have announced Matthysse-Garcia, a casting call for Mayweather’s next opponent, as its Sept. 14 co-main, last week. Since Berto is not an introspective lad, though, it’s best for all parties to have him believe Saturday’s fight is to win the Mayweather lottery. There is something about the way Berto claps that bears watching as a metaphor, or insight into his connection with fans: He doesn’t mirthfully slap his hands together but rather does a two-fisted, right-pinky-knuckle-to-left-index-knuckle touch, that says: I am too cool for all this.

Omar Figueroa is the draw upon which Saturday’s gate relies. Berto’s opponent, Jesus Soto-Karass, is the fabled tough Mexican, of course, but Mexicans are quite familiar with him subsequently, and will never see him as more than Antonio Margarito’s limited stablemate. And while the third Knockout King, Florida’s Keith Thurman, might become a draw someday, he’s not known well enough to sell tickets in Texas against a welterweight who’s only once fought outside Argentina.

Figueroa is from Weslaco in the Rio Grande Valley, a four-hour drive south of San Antonio, a city in South Texas (so is the awesomeness of Lone Star State: “South” Texas begins 250 miles north of Texas’ southern border) – a place known by Texans as “The Valley” and home to more than a million persons who are Texans by both birth and generations. More than 80-percent of them share ethnic origins with the Mexicans just a few miles south of Figueroa’s Weslaco, but most of them have been in the United States, or at least Texas – whether during its time as a Confederate state, its own republic or part of Mexico – longer than your family has.

“Honestly, I do not know, but I’m glad they do,” Figueroa said, when asked why fellow Valley residents drive four to five hours to see his matches. “We’re mainly Mexicans in the Valley, and Mexicans, we have such a passion for everything we do.

“It’s a mutual thing. They support me, and I put on my best face when it comes to fighting.”

Figueroa’s fans are Texans in the very core of their being, and Texans support their own, especially when their own looks as they do and fights ferociously as Figueroa does.

“I go in there to just punish my opponent as much as possible, in the sense that the knockout will kind of, sort of, come – sooner or later?” Figueroa said. “That’s our plan, I guess.”

“Panterita” – the affectionate diminutive of the Spanish word for panther – has power in both hands and a willingness to engage in attrition fighting, the kind both Mexicans and Texans thrill to. Figueroa is trained by Joel Diaz in Indio, Calif., where Timothy Bradley shares his camp.

“Bradley, whom I have the pleasure of working with, has a lot of heart and a lot of brains,” Figueroa said, then addressed his campmate’s March showing against Ruslan Provodnikov. “If I’m ever in one of those – in that circumstance? – I hope that I react the same way, that I don’t cower and quit. I don’t know if anyone else, except for the Mexicans, those types of fighters who live to fight fights like that, would have put up with that sort of punishment and try to keep the fight going.

“It was just an amazing feat for a human being to take those kinds of punches and fight on.”

Bradley is the name Figueroa mentions first and solely when asked for prizefighters he models himself after; he hopes to react to semi-consciousness in the mindless and miraculous way Bradley does, and while he does not admit to seeking such a chance, one detects in his voice a sense he would not mind it. If somehow Nihito Arakawa takes Figueroa to that state, endures the Texan’s attack without wilting then catches him on the way in, and Figueroa fights his way through it, comporting himself with even some of Bradley’s honor, on national television, South Texas will have its new draw, and Leija-Battah Promotions will have still more of what leverage it has already earned.

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

Chris Algieri thrilled his hometown fans and scored a ten round unanimous decision over former world title challenger Mike Arnaoutis at the Paramount Theater in Huntington, New York

Arnaoutis had a strong round two as he landed some solid left’s. Algieri picked up the pace and worked well throughout the fight behind a long jab. he used his size advantage to cut Arnaoutis around the right eye in round seven. Algieri closed the show and boxed well down the stretch

Algieri of Huntington, NY won by scores of 99-91, 98-92 and 98-92 and is now 17-0. Arnaoutis of Queens, NY via Greece is now 24-9-2.

“Chris Algieri’s boxing expertise came through on every level as he proved once again that he is on the road to a world title shot,” said Star Boxing’s Joe DeGuardia at ringside. “It was a great 10-round action fight before an enthusiastic crowd that witnessed a great battle of skill and will.”

“My hat’s off to Arnaoutis, who was in great shape and certainly came to fight,” Algieri said. “I’m awed by the great competition and will keep moving ahead toward my world title goal.”

“Chris Algieri is up and coming no matter who’s in front of him and he keeps progressing and developing,” said DeGuardia. “Tonight, he certainly passed his biggest test so far.”

Alan Gotay scored a six round unanimous decision over Michael Doyle in a Lightweight bout.

Scores were 60-55, 58-56 and 58-56 for for Gotay who is now 6-0. Doyle is 1-3

Jonathan Cuba scored a fifth eound stoppage over Anthony Kaperis in scheduled six round Jr. Welterweight bout.

Cuba battered Karperis on the ropes until the ref stopped it at 1:50 of round five.

Cuba is now 7-5-1 with five knockouts. Karperis 4-2.

Vincent D’Angelo made a successful pro debut by scoring a four round unanimous decision over Michael Mitchell in a Super Middleweight bout

Scores were 40-36, 39-37 and 39-37 for D’Angelo who is now 1-0. Mitchell is 1-2-1.

Wendy Toussiant made a successful pro debut by scoring a four round unanimous decision over On’Rey Towns in a Middleweight bout.

Scores were 40-36 on all cards for Toussiant who is now 1-0. Towns is now 0-2

The announcement Thursday that Lucas-Matthysse and Danny Garcia will fight on the Floyd-Mayweather Jr.-Canelo Alvarez undercard on Sept. 14 is a further sign that the fractured business is moving beyond the usual chaos with a real plan.

Imagine that.

For just about as long as anybody can recall, good fights came together by happenstance, coincidence or dumb luck. But Matthysse-Garcia makes the September card at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand look like a blueprint on what the Golden Boy-Showtime alliance hopes to do in 2014. Mayweather’s contract with Showtime is worth a possible $250 million if he fights five more times. The beginning, Mayweather’s one-sided decision in May over Robert Guerrero, was just the tune-up. With Canelo, Mayweather enters the meat-and-potatoes of the deal.

He’s favored to beat Canelo. The guess here is that Canelo will lose, yet earn a shot at a rematch in a close fight on the scorecards. It’s safe to guess that Showtime is hoping for the same thing. Pay-per-view revenue, a projected record-setter, adds up to a lot of reasons for an encore. It’s a gamble, of course. One big punch can demolish any blueprint, but few expect Canelo to deliver one against the clever, ever elusive Mayweather.

The one-punch danger looms larger for Top Rank, Golden Boy’s bitter rival, in Manny Pacquiao’s comeback against Brandon Rios on Nov. 23 in Macao. Before Pacquiao was knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez in December, Rios looked as if he might go the way of Ricky Hatton, who in 2009 was stopped by the Filipino Congressman by one of the biggest punches in the last decade.

But that was before a Marquez right landed like a wrecking ball. Now, Pacquiao, also beaten in a controversial decision in 2012 by Tim Bradley, appears vulnerable. A Pacquiao victory looks critical to Top Rank’s hope of success in China.

If Rios finishes what Bradley and Marquez started with an upset of Pacquiao, Top Rank isn’t left with many options. In Matthysse-Garcia, Golden Boy has at least one, if not a couple.

The winner figures to move to the front of the line for a shot at Mayweather, assuming he beats Canelo. Even if Canelo scores an upset, there’s a Mexican and Mexican-American audience that will follow the redhead in even greater numbers. If Pacquiao gets beat, he probably retires and – for a while – takes the Asian market with him.

From now until Sept. 14, it’s safe to say that Mayweather and Canelo won’t talk about Matthysse-Garcia in a junior-welterweight bout with Fight of the Year potential. But Matthysse-Garcia wouldn’t be on the card if that wasn’t a possibility. Canelo was supposed to have fought Austin Trout on the Mayweather-Guerrero card for the same reason.

He moved off the card and fought in San Antonio, beating Trout before a crowd of nearly 40,000. Above all, it was a statement of Canelo’s ability to be a star in his own right. He gained leverage in negotiations. In terms of Sept. 14, however, it doesn’t matter. He’s still fighting Mayweather and he would have, regardless of whether he had beaten Trout in Las Vegas, San Antonio or Guadalajara.

Meanwhile, Matthysse’ unmistakable power gives him an edge over Garcia, who has some defensive liabilities. He can get hit. Just one from Matthysse possesses fight-stopping voltage. That was seen in stunning fashion in Matthysse’s third-round stoppage of Lamont Peterson on May 18 in Atlantic City.

That’s when Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer called Matthysse the “new Manny Pacquiao.”

The old one never figured to be in the Golden Boy plan anyway.

AZ Notes
Iron Boy Promotions will stage its eighth card Saturday night at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. Lightweight Juan Garcia (18-3, 7 KO) is scheduled for the main event on a 14-fight card. First bell is scheduled for 6 p.m. (PST).

Richard Scahefer just announced that Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse will fight for the Super Lightweight championship of the world on September 14th as part of the mega Floyd Mayweather – Canelo Alvarez card.

“The one just got another One said”, said Schaefer

“These are two modern day gladitors. For all those who thought Danny was scared of Lucas. Well you know you all have egg on his face”

“This is a main event in its own”, said Maywweather Promotions CEO Promotions Leonard Ellerbe.

There will be a three city press tour in Puerto Rico, New York and Los Angeles

“This is the fight I wanted and the fight that I asked for. That is why I’m so happy this fight has been made and will be a part of this huge event,” said Danny Garcia. “I’m more confident than ever in my abilities and I’m going to show it on September 14. Matthysse is a good fighter and has a big punch, but I’m a talented fighter with what it takes to be a champion and stay that way. This is an opportunity for the world to see what I can really do in the ring.”

“I’m glad I finally get a chance to fight Danny Garcia,” said Lucas Matthysse. “This is the fight that the entire boxing world (especially my country Argentina) and I wanted. I want to thank my promoters Golden Boy Promotions and Mario Arano for making this fight possible. On September 14, I will show the world that I am the best 140 pound fighter on the planet.”

“Floyd was adamant about giving fans what they wanted to see when he chose Canelo Alvarez as his opponent for his September 14 fight,” said Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions. “We’re thrilled that Garcia vs. Matthysse has been added to the card, and that fans will be getting even more boxing at its best.”

“The compelling match-up between Garcia and Matthysse could absolutely be its own main event,” said Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions. “We’ve added another fight that fans have been clamoring for to an already stellar night of boxing. With the addition of this mega fight we are certain that “THE ONE” will continue to break boxing records.”

“Boxing is at its finest when the best step up to fight the best, and this is what we have with Mayweather and Canelo and now Garcia and Matthysse,” said President of Golden Boy PromotionsOscar De La Hoya. “September 14 will be one of the most memorable nights of boxing we have been treated to in a long time.”

“Garcia vs. Matthysse is a fight fan’s dream matchup,” said Stephen Espinoza, Executive Vice President and General Manager, SHOWTIME Sports®. “It is a main event-quality fight by itself. To add it to what is already the biggest pay-per-view main event in years, makes the September 14 event the best PPV card in recent memory.”

Garcia (26-0, 20 KO’s) is a popular and crowd-pleasing fighter in the prime of his career. In his last start, the 25-year-old boxer-puncher registered one knockdown en route to successfully defending his 140-pound titles with a clear, hard-fought unanimous decision win over former Four-Time World Champion Judah on April 27 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The victory over Judah continued Garcia’s streak of sensational performances against high-profile opposition that began a year earlier when he defeated the legendary Morales the first time via a unanimous decision to capture the WBC world title. The following July, Garcia shocked Khan and the boxing world with a stunning fourth-round technical knockout of the British superstar to add the WBA Super and Ring Magazine World Championships to his collection. On Oct. 20, 2012, Garcia knocked Morales out with a hellacious left hook in the fourth round of their rematch. A 2008 U.S. Olympic Team alternate, Garcia is a physically strong, durable and determined young fighter who is poised and patient in the ring who has fought current or past world champions in his last six fights: Judah, Khan, Morales twice, Kendall Holt and Nate Campbell.

The demand for Garcia vs. Matthysse began immediately after Matthysse brutally knocked out Peterson, dropping him three times, this past May 18 in Atlantic City, N.J.

Matthysse (34-2, 32 KO’s), who is rated No. 1 at 140 lbs. by The RING Magazine, has scored a staggering 94 percent of his wins by knockout, one of the highest KO percentages for a world champion in history. The 30-year-old hails from Trelew, Argentina and has won six fights in a row by knockout. In his last nine fights, he has fought five world champions defeating Peterson (TKO 3), Humberto Soto (TKO 5) and DeMarcus Corley (TKO 8) and losing extremely close, questionable 10-round split decisions against Devon Alexander and Judah in his opponents’ home towns. Many observers think he deserved to win both of those fights. Matthysse, who constantly pressures his opponents and wears them down, was also a solid amateur boxer in his native Argentina.

“THE ONE: MAYWEATHER VS. CANELO,” a 12-round fight for Canelo’s WBC, WBA and Ring Magazine Super Welterweight World Championships and Mayweather’s WBA Super Welterweight Super World Championship taking place Saturday, Sept. 14 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, is promoted by Mayweather Promotions, Golden Boy Promotions and Canelo Promotions and sponsored by Corona, O’Reilly Auto Parts and Valvoline. The Garcia vs. Matthysse fight is being promoted in association with Swift Promotions and Arano Box Promotions. The mega-event will be produced and distributed live by SHOWTIME PPV® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The event can be heard in Spanish using secondary audio programming (SAP).

Less than 24 hours after going on sale in June, the event was sold out, but six MGM Resorts properties will host live closed circuit telecasts of “THE ONE.” Properties showcasing the event include ARIA, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Monte Carlo and New York-New York. General admission tickets for the closed circuit telecasts are priced at $100, not including handling fees, and are available for purchase at each individual property’s box office outlets and also are available for purchase by phone with a major credit card at 866-799-7711. Closed circuit ticket sales are limited to eight (8) per person. Tickets also are available through Ticketmaster by calling (800) 745-3000 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

For more information, visit www.floydmayweather.com, www.mayweatherpromotions.com, www.goldenboypromotions.com,www.sports.sho.com and www.mgmgrand.com, follow on Twitter at @FloydMayweather, @CaneloOficial, @MayweatherPromo, @DannySwift, @MayweatherPromo, @GoldenBoyBoxing, @mgmgrand and @SHOSports, follow the conversation using #TheOne and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FloydMayweather, www.facebook.com/MayweatherPromotions, www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing and www.facebook.com/SHOsports.

“The Good Son,” an online preview of which I watched Saturday evening, froze two times at its 35-minute mark. The first time I rose from my sofa and casually refreshed the page, thinking little of the inconvenience. But the second time I felt something like anxiety, an actual discontent at the possibility I might not finish the movie, and when relief followed the video stream’s return, it became apparent I was watching something quite a bit better than I was prepared for.

“The Good Son,” a documentary about Ray Mancini and his father and Deuk-Koo Kim and his son, a movie based on Mark Kriegel’s acclaimed 2012 book of the same title, is excellent – better textured than most contemporary documentaries, and considerably more affecting than what “documentaries” HBO and Showtime often use to promote our sport. That is because of Mancini, a man whose physical stature is slighter, and whose humanity is larger, than most likely remember them. One forgets that Mancini, after making the cognomen “Boom Boom” nearly ubiquitous as “Sugar,” was retired before his 25th birthday, after his second loss to Livingstone Bramble, in 1985 – with a nonstarter decision loss to the late Hector Camacho four years later and a hopeless knockout loss to Greg Haugen three years after that.

There is another loss on Mancini’s ledger, of course, and “The Good Son” employs a bit of nimble footwork to avoid it. That loss was Mancini’s first, when he was stopped in the 14th round of his 1981 challenge for the late Alexis Arguello’s WBC lightweight title – when, seven months before becoming WBA lightweight champion, Mancini was shown to be only a very good and inordinately willful fighter and not a talent great as Arguello’s.

A theme of the movie’s second third, one that feels assembled by a publicity team more than its otherwise serious collaborators, goes something like: “Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini had it all and was poised to have it all – and have it all! – if he could just get past one hardscrabble case from South Korea, an anonymous fighter from humble beginnings named Deuk-Koo Kim. But their fight would change everything.” Whatever veracity this claim has gets an assist from Bob Arum, who promoted Mancini and performs with magical authority before the camera, equal parts age and intelligence and presence, informing us that in 1982 this lightweight prodigy from Youngstown, Ohio, was on the precipice of overwhelming every limit of national consciousness previously imposed on prizefighters. This claim is best appreciated in the absence of Mancini’s having been stopped by Arguello in 1981, and in the absence of Arum’s having made even more outlandish claims 25 years later about a different prodigy from Youngstown.

There, if one wishes for criticisms of this documentary, that is about the extent of them. The movie is wonderful, otherwise. There is an appropriately rusty hue to most of the film, especially those parts that deal in Mancini’s hometown, an orange-peel underlayer everywhere; even the faded newspaper clippings feel more reddish amber than yellowish gray.

A reason to watch this movie even if you’ve read the book: An unlikely reunion between Kim’s son, Ji Wan, born months after his father died from wounds suffered in a Las Vegas prizefighting ring, and Mancini, the man whose honest pursuit of a brutal craft caused the death of Ji Wan’s father. There is perhaps more use of the word “closure” than purists will enjoy, but the scenes that fill the final third of “The Good Son” are touching and genuine.

Genuineness is a quality quite routinely sacrificed at the altar of reality; today, everyone is an actor, a person who absorbs lines written by others until he is able to deliver them like his identity depends on it, and all the more passionately with a recording device in the vicinity. Mancini has long pursued and at times enjoyed an acting career, but he appears to have left his craftsmanship elsewhere as he invites the son and fiancée of Deuk-Koo Kim to meet his family and eat at his dinner table.

Ji Wan is there in part to learn about his father through the man who caused his death and in part to forgive Mancini for all that followed – Ji Wan’s paternal grandmother, Deuk-Koo’s mother, committed suicide shortly after her son was removed from his life-support system in a Nevada hospital – but Ji Wan botches the forgiveness line in a way that proves he did not have it read to him for rehearsal in English on the way to the Mancini home. As Mancini sits at the head of his table and tries to say something poignant enough to bring solace, and is unable to, because he was a professional fighter raised by a professional fighter not someone whose first love was timely rhetorical devices, it reminds one of life’s myriad of unfairnesses, beginning with the way Mancini’s image acquired a demonic pall for anyone not already familiar with the jeopardies he and Kim freely chose to confront as prizefighters – the way television worked 30 years ago, and the way boxing was accessible enough for an eight-year old to happen on such a world title fight accidentally, as I recall doing.

All that changed ineradicably enough in short time, and some of it was attributable to the matter – truthful but inaccurate – of Americans watching a man gradually beaten to death on national television one Saturday afternoon in November. Deuk-Koo Kim deserved a better fate than what befell him, certainly, but so did Ray Mancini, and this movie is an excellent reminder of it.

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

Edwin Rodriguez captured the Monte Carlo Million Dollar Challenge with an explosive 1st round stoppage over tough Denis Grachev at the Salle des etoiles, Monte Carlo, Monaco.

In the first seconds of the fight, Rodriguez went for blood as he launched hayemaker shots that landed on Grachev until a right sent Grachev down in the first minute. Rodriguez continued the assauly as he landed two rights that were followed by a vicious left that sent Grachev down a second time. Rodriguez was all over Grachev as he landed countless shots and battered Grachev until referee Stanley Christodoulou stopped the bout at 2:50 of round one

Rodriguez, 171 1/2 lbs of Worcester, MA wins $600,000 and ups his record to 24-0 with 16 knockouts. Grachev, 171 lbs of San Diego via Russia pockets $400,000 for his troubles and is now 13-2-1

Khabib Allakhverdiev made the first defense of the WBA Super Lightweight championship with an 11th round stoppage over former champion Souleymayne M’Baye

In round two, after a furious exchange, Allakhverdiev landed a right hook to the head that sent M’Baye to the canvas. Allakhverdiev continued to get the better of M”Baye with the challenge being able to get in some decent counters with the right hand.

In the 11th, Allakhverdiev backed M’Baye with a series of punches and a hard flurry against the ropes forced referee Luis Pabon to stop the bout.

Allakhverdiev, 139 3/4 lbs of Russia is now 19-0 with 9 knockouts. M’Baye, 138 3/4 lbs of France is now 40-5-1.

In an action filled Cruiserweight bout, Ilunga Makabu scored a twelve round majority decision over previously undefeated Dmytro Kucher.

It was Kucher who came out landing the better shots early. The southpaw Makabu started getting into a groove in the middle rounds and he would land some sizzling three and four punch combinations for which Kucher had no answer four. Makabu had a big round eight where he bloodied the nose of Kucher from one of those flurries that was punctuated by an uppercut. Kucher would get in some solid shots and the battled toe to toe up until the final bell.

Makabu, 191 1/2 lbs of South Africa won by scores of 115-114, 115-113 and 114-114 and is now 14-1. Kucher, 198 lbs of Kiev, Ukraine is now 21-1.

Max Bursak retained the European Middleweight title withe a one sided twelve round unanimous decision over Price Arron.

Bursak dominated the bout and dropped Arron in round nine from a hard left hook to the body. Arron was deducted a point for holding in round ten. Bursak came forward and landed many power shots at close range. Arron tried, especially in round twelve but was way behind on the cards and Bursak won by scores of 116-109, 119-106 and 117-108.

Bursak, 159 lbs of Kiev, Uktaine is now 27-1-1. Arron, 159 1/4 lbs of the United Kingdom is now 23-5-1.

Jose Benavidez, Jr., unbeaten as a junior-welterweight, is expected to test a troublesome right hand next week in sparring at a Phoenix-area gym where he has resumed training in an attempt to restore the promise he displayed as a 17-year-old prospect four years ago.

“Everything is going well, real well,’’ Jose Benavidez, Sr., , his father and trainer, said. “The hand is solid.’’

Benavidez (17-0, 13 KOs) left boxing for about 10 months after he won a unanimous decision, yet was badly rocked in an eighth and final round by Pavel Miranda at Carson, Calif., on an October card that featured Brandon Rios’ dramatic stoppage of Mike Alvarado, who in March won a rematch.

A fractured pinkie on his right hand was found after the difficult victory, according to Benavidez Sr. A pin was placed in the finger and the hand was in a cast for two months, he said. Benavidez’ reliance on a precise and powerful jab, his greatest asset, accounted for his 79-73 decision on all three scorecards in the victory over Miranda

“The hand had to heal and I just wanted my son to live a normal life for a while before he decided to come back,’’ the senior Benavidez said. “My son wanted to fight right away. Actually, it was my decision not to fight until he was ready, 100 percent healthy.

“I wanted to see where his head was at, if he still had that hunger. He does. He came to me about two weeks ago and said I’m ready to get back at it. He’s been impressive. Really, I think we’re ahead of where I thought we might be.’’

In at least his last three fights, Benavidez Jr., now 21, fought and won with injuries to his right hand and wrist. He underwent surgery in January 2012. An extra bone in the wrist was causing him pain, according to physicians. According to reports, a laser procedure removed the source of that problem. A damaged tendon also was repaired.

Benavidez, Sr., said Thursday that he has yet to speak to Top Rank about when he might resume his career. First, he said he wants to see how the right hand responds in sparring. Benavidez Sr. said he also is working as his son’s manager. Steven Feder had been the manager for the Phoenix prospect, who is the youngest to ever win a National Golden Gloves title. In early 2009, he was 16 years old when he won at 141 pounds. After he turned 17 that May, Top Rank signed him

There were signs in October that the 5-foot-11 Benavidez had trouble making 140 pounds. His father said he hoped to bring him back at 145 pounds. Then, he said, he could determine whether to continue at junior welter (140) or move up to welter (147).

SAN ANTONIO – Monday round 6:00 PM a large crowd awkwardly gathered round a stage awkwardly situated in the plaza that precedes Misión San Antonio de Valero, known today as the Alamo, and bent its collective neck in a variety of unnatural directions to catch glimpses of Mexican Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and American Floyd “Money” Mayweather, as they made what had become, with the day’s earlier cancellation of a Phoenix stop, the penultimate destination of a 10-city tour designed to announce “The One” and enrich those gathered onstage – except only One, Alvarez, was actually onstage, while One was, by his much later account, contending with a scheduling cross-up and a delayed flight and a family emergency in Houston.

The temperature was unseasonably cool, and as the media were seated beneath a famously large oak tree left of the stage, the only point of complaint at the open was the extraordinarily tall and robust speaker fewer than six feet from the press seats and given to pitiless eruptions whenever its deejay stopped spinning and welcomed his emcee to the microphone.

“My name is Tattoo Golden Boy Promotions,” the emcee announced, without inflection – too real for a comma – named, anyway, after an act Mayweather has often enjoyed.

Haranguing and Twitter-handling and hyping ensued, beseeching a crowd significantly smaller than announced, and significantly smaller still by the time it crescendoed at 7:53 PM with Mayweather’s arrival, to practice cheering the fighters’ processions along a carpeted ruby walkway. It was a curiously reflexive spectacle: townspeople gathered to be entertained by persons who will charge them to watch boxing on pay-per-view being put through rehearsals for how to act entertained, Monday. Of course, out of pomp’s context, the entire idea of a press conference with fewer than half its media-reserved seats filled, a press conference with a deejay and an emcee, for that matter, was an absurd spectacle nobody doing journalism 25 years ago would have recognized.

Mayweather’s tardy arrival afforded such observations; the hour that passed between Canelo’s terse greeting and Mayweather’s attempt at improvisation stripped the spectacle of its pomp, and therefore context, leaving a mostly bare stage, bored administrative types, a sheepish emcee, a humiliated CEO, a tired but seemingly amused television executive, and two prizefighters of Mexican origin, Alvarez then Oscar De La Hoya, who departed the event right about the time Mayweather’s flight departed Houston. It was De La Hoya, nobly enough, who had the least patience for his former rival’s antics. With no music or deejay onstage but a plethora of live mics, De La Hoya said to one of his employees at 6:39 PM: “He hasn’t even taken off yet?”

With that, a goodish number of those gathered made plans for takeoff. It was De La Hoya’s clearest moment. There is no chance he enjoys being onstage with Mayweather, not after the boorish way Mayweather comported himself on their 2007 press tour, the event that changed “Money’s” moniker and career entirely, and being stuck doing promotional work for Mayweather often leads De La Hoya to offer uncomfortable non sequiturs like: “I have to admit, I do miss the ring. That doesn’t mean I’m coming back. It means Canelo Alvarez is ‘The One’.”

The disjointedness, though, was not really even underway when De La Hoya went out the front entrance, signing autographs and looking both annoyed and apologetic. The disjointedness would come 75 minutes later when Mayweather led a diminished crowd through a few soggy bars of “Hard work! . . . Dedication!” then looked over his left shoulder at the Alamo and asked promoter Richard Schaefer, a Swiss national, to say the place they were gathered, to ensure it was pronounced correctly, before Mayweather rambled through a few lines about his wagering on the Spurs, before he rambled through the same lines again. It is not until one sees Mayweather in person, a 150-pound man with quick eyes and nervous mannerisms, so inept at ad-libbing that he fills time on the microphone telling assistants what great jobs they’re doing, that a person properly appreciates what a transformative power television wields.

Remaining media were invited backstage after a few more “Hard Work!” sing-alongs, and when television was done with its 16 minutes, print journalism got its six, and Mayweather got one serious question about a thing he said on one of Showtime’s infomercials for his May fight with Robert Guerrero – an uncannily insightful moment, when Mayweather talked about his time in jail, saying that while the incarcerated was supposed to be getting rehabilitated, all the incarcerated actually did was get angrier – a question treating the epidemic of young black men today being incarcerated for profit by America’s privatized prison system, and Mayweather’s potentially using his platform to address it. After smiling intermittently through the question, like a chess player watching a witless opponent attempt an unsophisticated trap, the man who sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson once allowed to compare himself to Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X explained he didn’t like to see anything as a “black thing” but rather saw his time in jail as evidence of things happening to a person in life, and that it was just a thing he had to get through.

It was a well-rehearsed, publicist-prepared answer for a gotcha question that was not asked – “Aren’t you setting a poor example?” – and a reminder to any parent who might mistakenly forego Charles Barkley’s 20-year-old advice and teach his children modern athletes are heroes: Barkley was both insightful and correct when he declared “I am not a role model,” and Barkley was much closer to being a role model than today’s best prizefighter.

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

SAN DIEGO, CA (JULY 6, 2013)—Tony Thompson made it two for two as he took out former Olympic silver medal winner David Price for the second time in just over three months with a fifth round stoppage at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England

The fight was broadcast LIVE in the United States on Wealth TV and www.wealthtv.com

After chess match of a first round, the second was nothing but action as Thompson tried to rough up Price and landed a hard left that startled Price. Later in the round, Price landed a hard right that drove Thompson to the ropes and seconds later deposited Thompson on the canvas from a hard right hand. Round three was more of the same as Price started the round by rocking Thompson with a hard right to the top of the head. Thompson came back to land some lefts and uppercuts and Price walked back to his corner looking winded. Thompson had a strong round four as he rocked Price with a sustained assault with body punches and left crosses. Thompson battered a now bloody price with a ferocious assault until the referee administered a standing eight count in the corner. When the count was completed, Price could not continue and Thompson scored his second consecutive stoppage over the former British Olympic hero.

Thompson, who twice challenged Wladimir Klitschko for the Heavyweight championship of the world now, is clearly back at the head of the line and his record is now 38-3 with 26 knockouts. The 6’8″ Price falls to 15-2.

“Tony Thompson proved that Heavyweight boxing is alive and very well in the United States”, Said Charles Herring, President of Wealth TV

“We were glad that we were able to bring the fans both of these fights and this especially was one of the best Heavyweight fights in a long time. Tony has a lot of fight left in him and we look forward to sitting down with him and hopefully continuing a relationship with him. For someone to score two knockouts in three months over the guy who was just named the ESPN prospect of the year is a huge accomplishment”

“We said when we first got into boxing that we were committed to bring the most exciting fights that were either title fights or fights that had big implications and this fight had both and we look forward to providing more outstanding boxing content with some big announcements shortly.”

In a back and forth slugfest, Kevin Satchell barely escaped retaining his British and Commonwealth Flyweight titles with a razor thin unanimous decision over Iain Butcher in a battle of undefeated fighters.

In round two, Butcher almost ended things as he landed a huge right and left hook that rocked Satchell. He followed up with qa flurry that sent Satchell to the canvas. Satchell was lucky to get out of the round. He started boxing and steadied himself but Butcher would still land some solid shots. The two traded shots for the rest of the fight with the highlight being toe to toe warfare that finished out round ten. Butcher landed the harder shots but Satchell boxed well by throwing combinations from the outside.

In the end, the judges preferred Satchell’s work rate as he scored the 115-113, 115-113 and 115-114 decision.

Satchell is now 11-0. Butcher runs into tough luck is now 8-1.

Neil Perkins scored a six round unanimous decision over Steve Spence in a Middleweight bout.

The referee scored the bout 60-54 for Perkins who is 4-0. Spence is 4-29-4.

Nationally on Verizon FiOS TV channel 169 and 669 in HD, AT&T U-Verse TV channels 470 and 1470 in HD, along with over 100 cable systems across the country as well as on line viewing on numerous connected devices and via www.wealthtv.com.

About WealthTV

WealthTV is the premier lifestyle and entertainment network —the destination for exclusive and original programming, simultaneously transmitted in high definition and standard definition. WealthTV delivers to informative shows to its viewers, providing invaluable insights on what every American dreams of – from travel secrets to fast cars, from outrageous homes to live events, and much more. The network fills a television vacuum by delivering intellectually stimulating, thought-provoking entertainment and always-unbiased news from an insider’s perspective. For more information, please visit www.wealthtv.com.

PHOENIX – Kudos to Golden Boy Promotions for canceling the Canelo Alvarez-Floyd Mayweather Jr. stop on a multi-city tour last Tuesday because of the wildfire that killed 19 Arizona fire-fighters in Yarnell, just 85 miles northwest of a downtown theater where Canelo and Mayweather were scheduled to appear.

It was the right move. It would have been inappropriate just one day after 19 bodies were transported – van after white van in a mournful procession — to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office, also in downtown Phoenix.

The show could have gone on, of course. A big lunch-time crowd – at least a few thousand – was the expectation in a city and state with a rich boxing history, a traditional market, battered and abandoned during the last few years by the immigration controversy attached to SB 1070. But boxing tours have a circus-like tone. It is theater that includes the ritual eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose poses between unblinking boxers. Playful trash-talk, chants, cheers and waving flags dot the well-rehearsed plot like familiar confetti. There’s no room for grief and, on Tuesday, that’s the only thing Phoenix and Arizona could feel.

Golden Boy understood that and quickly acted in a way that said more than words ever could with a donation to the 100 Club’s Survivor Fund. Still, even some of the words struck the right tone. They came from Mayweather, known best for trash talk. This time, Mayweather got it right.

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the people who lost their lives in those fires,” said Mayweather, who about a decade ago trained at Central Boxing a few blocks from the state capitol near downtown Phoenix. “This was a terrible tragedy and everyone needs to support them. Never take anything for granted.”

On a personal note, I recall cards that included moments — unforgettable as they are now poignant — that link Arizona boxing to its firefighters. In the final photo of the 19 fallen walking up a hill toward their final fight, I think of kids in Prescott, home for the 19.

Jake Magallanez, a longtime school administrator in Prescott and current president of Arizona’s amateur association, has three sons, Gabe, Adrien and Julien, who were successful boxers in the early 1990s. They fought fires during the day and as amateurs at night. On a Prescott card in early summer, they arrived at a tiny arena still dressed in fire-fighting gear and their faces covered by ash, soot and cinder.

They would change into trunks, replace the helmet with head-gear, fire-retardant gloves with Everlast and walk toward another fight. For me, their black-streaked faces have always served as a collective portrayal of Arizona boxing. It’s one face, often seen on the bigger stage in Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal and retired featherweight champion Louie Espinoza. The look was tough and defiant, somewhat stoic and always ready to fight anyone, anywhere. And anything.

It’s the stubborn part of that look, perhaps, that says the dormant market can be a modern symbol of that mythic bird for which Phoenix was named. It can come back. That potential is a reason Phoenix was included on the Canelo-Mayweather tour. Phoenix and Arizona continue to be a viable market, said Stephen Espinoza, vice president and general manager of sports for Showtime, which will stage the pay-per-view bout on Sept. 14 at Las Vegas MGM Grand.

It was through Espinoza’s urging that Phoenix be included. Espinoza also said Tuesday night during the tour’s finale in Los Angeles that there’s a chance an event will be re-scheduled for Phoenix sometime between now and Sept. 14. Here’s why: Much of the Canelo-Mayweather promotion has been rooted in what happened in 2007 when Mayweather’s decision over Golden Boy President Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather-De La Hoya set the pay-per-view record, between 2.4 and 2.5 million sales for a Home Box Office bout. The Phoenix market played a major role. In pay-per-view sales for Mayweather-De La Hoya, Phoenix ranks sixth.

Here’s a list of the top 15 markets, acquired from sources who worked in promoting and televising the bout:

1. – New York

2. – Los Angeles

3. – San Francisco

4. – Philadelphia

5. – Chicago

6. – Phoenix

7. – Boston

8. – Houston

9. – San Diego

10. – Las Vegas

11. – Washington, D.C.

12. – Miami

13. – San Antonio

14. – Atlanta

15. — Dallas

It’s a pound-for-pound list of America’s fight towns. Phoenix wasn’t on the tour. Yet in perhaps an ironic twist, the city’s place on the list gained attention and a renewed appreciation out of a cancellation. Golden Boy did it out of respect for those who died and for a tradition still alive in a state and city known for fighters of every kind.

Kazakhstani middleweight titlist Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin wears his initials and nickname on the waistband of his trunks, often in gold blocks, and inadvertently titillates at least a few ironically minded folks who know whence the term “GGG” originates: Born in the gay community and minted by syndicated columnist Dan Savage, it means “good, giving, and game” – three qualities to which any man might hope a prospective partner aspire.

With his beginner’s command of English, Golovkin almost certainly does not know this, and one hesitates to reveal it for fear of the nickname’s future censorship. It embroiders the youngishly handsome face, statuesque physique and impersonal sadism Golovkin brings in a prizefighting ring too ably to be lost – sprinkling glitter on the complicated texture of prizefighting’s most frightfully entertaining new attraction, an attraction that savagely undid Matthew Macklin in fewer than three rounds Saturday at Foxwoods Resort.

Because artful writing needs no lists, there’s little reason to take what letters form both Golovkin’s initials and a quality valued by sexual subcultures of all orientations, today, and make a bulleted termpaper of them, but here’s this: Golovkin is good in the sense that he is good for prizefighting; as a man with no appreciable promotional allegiance, he is a de facto HBO project and fights whomever the network approves, without much debate, because it gives him what exposure the opening six years of his career wanted and lends the network more credibility than its other staples do, allowing HBO to boast half prizefighting’s most interesting practitioners on cable television right now – with Argentine Lucas Matthysse, the other half, awaiting a Danny Garcia match promised him on Showtime.

Golovkin is giving: He hits with both hands in a way few prizefighters today hit with either hand. Saturday he corralled with his counter jab Macklin, a 33-fight Irishman, or at least a veteran of Irish stock and thus unknown to squeamishness, sending him rightwards, then blasted Macklin with a right cross that sent him leftwards then corralled Macklin again with a left hook that sent him reeling towards the right cross once more, all before Macklin’s unhelpful trainer told him to move away from Golovkin’s right hand, returning Macklin to the very left hand that within 4 1/2 minutes dropped “Mack the Knife” – body oozin’ life – choking, scriggling and grimacing like a man stabbed.

GGG is game as hell, too, because he doesn’t mind milling. In the final moments of his short time in a prizefighting ring with Golovkin, the discomfited moments when, blood dribbling in his left eye and hopelessness enveloping him, Macklin decided it was swing-and-let-swing time, pounding Golovkin with what little other than fear remained in his arsenal, Golovkin became more relaxed in a manner that cannot be faked.

Golovkin’s unkinked face went slacker, a breathing antonym for Paulie Malignaggi’s flicking tongue or Oscar De La Hoya’s nuts-in-my-cheek jawline, and he pursued Macklin with no malice whatever, cursorily tapping Macklin’s guard with a telegraphed right hand – “Good boy, Matthew, leave that right elbow high for Gennady” – before yanking back on his own right shoulder, snapping closed the inside of his left hip, and driving the middle knuckle of his left hand through the geometrical center of Macklin’s exposed liver. It was fleying how Macklin reacted, wincing and plunging leglessly downwards as if what strength Golovkin’s hook left his body was for surds of pain alone.

Golovkin’s reaction indicated the ending was both unexpected and unsurprising; GGG comported himself like a man who went out to fight properly, set his feet in place, defend responsibly, place his punches with leverage and accuracy, and see if the knockout comes – for once a fighter who appeared not to look for the knockout got it effortlessly. That is legerdemain, or its facial equivalent, though, as what makes Golovkin every bit appealing as Matthysse is that he verily does look for the knockout with nearly every punch. It was merely a Golovkin jab 90 seconds after the opening bell that thrust the fight directly out Macklin’s soul.

If there is a possible weakness in Golovkin’s approach to ruining other men it is the energy required a man who throws every punch with ruinous objective; that kind of design frustrated for eight or nine rounds can weary a fighter, and as fatigue makes cowards of all men, someone who was able to deflect fractionally Golovkin’s shots and make Golovkin burn calories for 24 to 27 minutes and encounter the stress of tiring, itself boxing’s most counterintuitively stressful sensation, might come on a fairly average fighter with a stationary head before him, not unlike the man James “Buster” Douglas sent on a mouthpiece-recovery expedition in Tokyo 23 years ago. Who is the man to do that? No middleweight comes to mind.

A prime Sergio Martinez at 154 pounds might have turned the trick, but today’s incarnation has little chance and every right to try. Disregard anything Martinez’s promoter said about that Saturday; he books “Maravilla’s” fights, he doesn’t make them. The wisest course for Martinez is to suggest he’ll be happy to fight in 2014 the winner of a Golovkin-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight; the middleweight champion of the world is in no condition to rematch Chavez right now, much less top whatever that was Saturday – but it’s impossible the winner of GGG-Junior won’t be slightly softer for his participation. Flip in a bad training camp, with a hand injury and a bout with influenza and maybe food poisoning, and, well, one never knows.

Which is to write Sergio Martinez absolutely has earned a chance to ruminate on the matter of GGG for the rest of 2013 and a few months of 2014 before anyone declares Golovkin his better, as that declaration will almost invariably come within 36 minutes of their contesting Martinez’s title, and so, why hurry it?

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

The question coming into tonight’s middleweight championship fight between Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin and Matthew Macklin was a simple one: Can Golovkin really be THAT good? Before the first bell, Golovkin could alread lay claim to having the highest KO percentage among active world champions. He also had 7 title defenses, all of them by KO, to lend credibility to his glossy record. But Golovkin has looked so good and been so outstanding in all of his previous fights, that his fight tonight against Macklin took on a different importance. It was not simply about winning, but about winning with such overwhelming dominance that hype could finally be replaced with a true affirmation of talent. And Matthew Macklin provided the perfect measuring stick for just how much of Golovkin’s talent was truly hype, and how much reality. Although not many could be expected to pick Macklin to win, his fights again Felix Sturm and Sergio Martinez were enough to make even the most ardent Golovkin supporter feel that perhaps a bit of the “Triple G” mystique could be lost at the end of the night. Thankfully for those of us who love boxing, Golovkin’s performance against Macklin laid to rest any speculation that he’s merely another good fighter. Golovkin is truly unstoppable. He tore through Matthew Macklin with a serene ferocity that was truly remarkable to watch. Not for a moment did he ever look anything but calm; yet all the while he threw punches that were calculatedly brutal. It’s not often that someone watching a prize fight can visibly see fear in either fighter, but Macklin looked legitimately afraid after the first minute of the fight. Golovkin patiently stalked him and unleashed perfectly placed and perfectly leveraged shots to the body and head whenever he was in range. After less than one round, it was apparent the fight was over. Macklin was never truly in the fight and about a minute into the third, Golovkin put two hard shots upstairs then sunk a pinpoint left hook into Macklin’s liver. The shot doubled Macklin over and it would be a full two minutes before he got up off of the canvas. It was a shockingly definitive knockout of a very good fighter and exactly what Golovkin was looking for. He now stands at 27-0 (24 KOs) and should likely be considered the best middleweight in the world. Only a showdown with Sergio Martinez now stands between Golovkin and boxing stardom. For Macklin (now 29-5 20KOs), his career is still very much alive and well. He can still give any elite fighter (not named Gennady Golovkin) a real test and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him and Felix Sturm in a rematch in the near future. Macklin is truly a good fighter. But after tonight, Golovkin is truly great.

“My perfect position for that body shot,” Golovkin commented. “I want this fight (vs. Sergio Martinez). I felt great in the ring, he never hurt me. It was an easy fight for me. I want to fight against soon. Any top fighter, any champion, any belt holder….anywhere.”

“He’s the best I ever fought,” a game Macklin said. “He never really let me get started. It was a great shot he landed, the left hook to the body is personally one of my favorites. I tip my hat to him; he’s a great champion. He has clubbing, solid power and you can feel the weight of every punch he throws.”

In the HBO co-feature, up and coming super middleweight Thomas Oosthuizen got much more than he expected out of the unbeaten but unheralded Brandon Gonzalez. The fight started with Oosthuizen working his southpaw jab from the outside, but Gonzalez used his quicker feet to slip into position and connect with straight right hands. Gonzalez utilized this strategy to good effect through the first 5 rounds, but Oosthuizen began to find a home for his straight left in round 6. Gonzalez picked back up in round 7, landing some hard shots and gaining back a bit of momentum; but rounds 8-10 were all Oosthuizen. Gonzalez (who was in his first 10 round fight) was visibly tired throughout the last 3 rounds and was no longer able to slip into position to punch. He also had lost enough movement to catch some hard punches from Oosthuizen and had to empty his tank over the last round to stay in the fight. At the end, none of the judges agreed and handed in scores of 98-92 for Gonzalez, 96-94 for Oosthuizen and 95-95 a draw. The resulting split draw allowed both fighters to remain unbeaten: Gonzalez at 17-0-2 10KOs and Oosthuizen at 23-0-2 13KOs.

“I felt sluggish the first two rounds and then I found my rhythm. I thought I won the fight. I’d give him an immediate rematch if he wanted. I want to come back to fight in America soon and I want to fight Mikkel Kessler.”

“I feel good,” Gonzales remarked. “I absolutely won the fight. I landed the harder punches and out-boxed him. I did everything I had to do, unfortunately, the judges didn’t think so. We’ll go back to the drawing board and figure out where to go from there.”

The HBO opener between junior middleweights Willie Nelson and Luciano Cuello was a fight that should probably be shown to anyone new to boxing as an example of how a fight is scored. Nelson was able to win enough rounds to easily take the fight; but was beat up in almost every one of the rounds he lost. Rounds 3, 7 and 10 were rounds in which Cuello landed hard shots that had Nelson staggered on a number of occasions. Nelson won almost all of the others with a higher work rate and put enough rounds in the bank to be assured a victory despite a disastrous 10th round in which he was badly hurt by a Cuello uppercut. Nelson hung on to survive to the bell and took a unanimous decision by scores of 97-93 (twice) and 96-94. He improves to 21-1-1 12KOS while Cuello slips to 32-3 15KOs.

“I feel great,” Nelson said after making his HBO debut. “He’s tougher than I thought but I still think I won convincingly. The cuts (both eyes) bothered me but I fought through it. I want to fight all the top 154-pound fighters and this was another step in that direction.”

Follow all the action Live from Foxwoods Resort in Uncasville, Connecticut as WBA Middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin defends the crown against tough Matthew Macklin. The action begins at 9:45 est / 6:45 pac with a two fight undercard featuring Super Middleweights Thomas Oosthiuzen and Brandon Gonzalez plus Super Welterweights Willie Nelson and Luciano Cuello

12 Rounds–WBA Middleweight championship–gennady Golovkin (26-0, 23 KO’s) vs Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KO’s)

Round 1 Jab from Macklin..Big right from Golovkin..Hard jab…left dives Macklin into ropes..10-9 Golovkin

Round 2 Hard right and left to the body..Right to the body,,Right from Macklin..Macklin cut above left eye…20-18 Golovkin

Round 3 Body shot and uppercut…Left hook from Macklin..HARD BODY SHOT AND DOWN GOES MACKLIN AND THE FIGHT IS OVER

10 Rounds–Super Middleweights–Thomas Oosthuizen (21-0-1, 13 KO’s) vs Brandon Gonzales (17-0, 10 KO’s)

Round 1 Gonzales lands a hard right and left..10-9 Gonzales

Round 2 Gonzales lands 2 to the body and working inside..Right..head shots..20-18 Gonzales

Round 3 Gonzales being more active..30-27 Gonzales

Round 4 Body/ head from Oosthuizen..2 hard rights from Gonzales..40-37 Gonzales

Round 5 4 punch combo from Gonzales..50-46 Gonzales

Round 6 Scraping left hook from Gonzales…Trading jabs..Oosthuizen lands a uppercut…couple boy shots..59-56 Gonzales

Round 7 Good right from Gonzales..Good right…69-65 Gonzales

Round 8 Couple light punches from Oosthuizen..Hard lead right from Gonzales. 78-75 Gonzales

Round 9 Good right from Gonzales…Oothuizen lands a left.. Gonzales lands a right…88-84 Gonzales

Round 10 Gonzales lands a right..Hard left from Oosthuzien wobbles Gonzales..97-94 Gonzales

98-92 Gonzales; 96-94 Oosthuizen; 95-95—DRAW

10 Rounds–Super Welterweights–Willie Nelson (20-1-1, 12 KO’s) vs Luciano Cuello (36-2, 16 KO’s)

Round 1 Nelson lands a body shot..Left hook wobbles Cuello..Straight right..Good left hook..10-9 Nelson

Round 2 20-19

Round 3 Cuello lands 2 body shots on the ropes..Good left hook..Wide right..Hard right and uppercut and left hook..29-29

Round 4 Nelson lands a jab..lead right..39-38 Nelson

Round 5 Nelson lands a right to the body..49-47 Nelson

Round 6 Nelson lands a good left hook…59-56 Nelson

Round 7 Hard right rocks Nelson..Hard flurry in the corner..Nelson lands a good left..68-66 Nelson

Round 8 Cuello lands a right..Good left hook..77-76 Nelson

Round 9 Nelson lands a jab..87-85 Nelson

Round 10 Cuello lands a hard shot..Uppercut hurts Nelson…Nelson holding on…Nelson bleeding over the left eye..96-95 Nelson

97-93, 97-93, 96-94 –WILLIE NELSON

GGG is an acronym still searching for some definition. Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin has an unbeaten record, boxing’s best knockout ratio, Olympic silver, a good back story and a friendly, somewhat enigmatic smile that seems to say: What, me worry?

What he doesn’t have, however, is a defining fight that stands as a milestone on a career path that many believe is unlimited. An HBO-televised bout Saturday against Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KOs) is being sold as one that might provide a look at the substance to the advertised potential in Golovkin (26-0, 23 KOs), whose familiar initials adorn his trunks as if they are there to identify a fighter going global.

Golovkin’s passport and resume are stamped world-class. His 2004 Olympic medal for Kazakhstan, his home and family in Germany, his move into the American market, his piece of the middleweight belt and HBO’s interest in him say it many languages all with the same interpretation.

There’s nowhere Golovkin won’t go. And there’s no one he won’t fight.

Yet, the second part of that equation looked problematic about a year ago. Rival promoters and managers looked at him and saw a party crasher. They said they didn’t know who he was. They complained he was unknown to most of the customers. But, truth is, they had seen enough to know that Golovkin’s sudden arrival could alter their plans to cash in. Sergio Martinez promoter Lou DiBella, Macklin’s promoter, reacted to any mention of Golovkin’s name as if it were day-old goulash not long after Martinez’ victory over Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., in September.

It was DiBella’s way of saying: Let him pay his dues. Martinez paid them in full and perhaps at a price that has brought him to the end of his brilliant career. He suffered injuries in his victory over Chavez and was injured again in a narrow escape in the rain against Martin Murray in Argentina.

But boxing isn’t baseball. There’s no unwritten rule that a promising talent has to spend time in the minors. The guess here is that Golovkin, a little bit like Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig, has been ready for the big time for a while.

For Golovkin, the good news is that he seems to have taken an important step in perception. If not an equal to Martinez, his name is being dropped as a worthy challenger. There’s been little argument. Macklin could change that with one big punch.

In part, that danger might put pressure on Golovkin. A misstep against Macklin would be a severe setback just at the point when Golovkin’s career is poised to move onto the big stage. The guess in this corner is that Golovkin will prevail with patience and a brand of power that Macklin has yet to experience.

If styles make fights, this one fits Golovkin like a well-worn victory. Macklin brawls, almost by instinct. At some point, that habit will put him within range of power that accounts for Golovkin’s ability to a stop 88.4 percent of his opponents. It would be interesting to see how Golovkin reacts if rocked by Macklin. But don’t be surprised if that doesn’t happen. Golovkin’s knockout percentage masks boxing ability acquired during his long amateur career. He beat Andy Lee and Lucian Bute at the 2003 World Championships. He beat Andre Dirrell at the Athens Olympics. He learned the craft in a lot of places and a lot ways, all impossible to ignore. Will it lead to a showdown with a vulnerable Martinez or a Chavez Jr. trying to resurrect a battered image?

Maybe, although super-middleweight Andre Ward could enter the picture depending on what happens with promoter Dan Goossen. Ward and Goossen went through arbitration, reportedly because Ward wants out of his contract. If Ward breaks from Goossen and signs with Top Rank’s Bob Arum, Ward is one step closer to getting a fight against Chavez Jr. A victory over Chavez would enhance his marketability with Mexican fans, the key demographic in the boxing market.

There are still a lot of moves to be made. But on boxing’s chessboard, Golovkin is finally a major piece. Against Macklin, Golovkin is in a fight to remain one. That makes it a significant bout, if not a dangerous one.

AZ Notes
Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Canelo Alvarez are in Phoenix Tuesday on a 11-city tour for their Sept. 14 fight at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand in a stop that looms as a test of an Arizona market abandoned by major promoters after the 2010 immigration controversy involving SB 1070.

Golden Boy, which is staging the national tour, left the state after a long, successful series of bouts at Desert Diamond Casino south of Tucson. Despite vanishing cards, however, the state’s pay-per-view sales stayed strong, according to sources aligned to promoters and television. The turnout for Tuesday’s tour stop is another test of whether it’s time to re-enter the market.

Tuesday’s tour stop is scheduled for the Herberger Theater at 222 East Monroe Street in downtown Phoenix. Mayweather and Alvarez are scheduled to meet the fans at 11 a.m.

Saturday in Brooklyn two of prizefighting’s reliably unlikable personalities spent 36 minutes punching one another, much to the delight of those who watched them do it. Cincinnati’s Adrien “The Problem” Broner decisioned Brooklyn’s Paulie “Magic Man” Malignaggi by split scores of 117-111, 115-113 and 113-115 in a match for some welterweight title or other. All the cards were about right, depending on a judge’s preference for accurate counterpunching or jittery busyness, and if the fight was not a historic donnybrook, it was nevertheless a sight much greater than what its belligerents’ prefight antics anticipated.

The match was also the type likely to be closer on television than at ringside, where punch quality can be heard, making Broner’s significantly harder punches substantially more influential on judges – a species into whose minds Chuck Giampa once tantalizingly led us. As Malignaggi is a television fighter in numerous senses of the word now, it was also a fight close enough to make him bellow about a conspiracy, á la his antics in Texas four years ago, and convince the tiny minority of aficionados who are his partisans the entirety of prizefighting’s socioeconomic system would be stacked against a fighter from the tiny hamlet of New York City. The decision was correct, just the same; Broner fought better than Malignaggi, according to any creditable definition of the verb “to fight.”

It’s not until you settle into viewing a match contested by two persons for whom you feel no affection whatever that you understand what an appeal such spectacles hold. The only wish many aficionados had for Saturday’s main event was that it continue indefinitely; so long as Malignaggi had enough energy to sting Broner, or stall his attack long enough to embarrass him with his quicker wit and tongue, or at least prevent himself from being beheaded by a left-hook counter, the spectacle could have proceeded for another hour or two without the television audience asking for its end. The fight was entertaining in the way a fight can be when its observers care not a whit who wins or loses so long as both men get hit in the face often as possible.

Malignaggi has never been likable to a fraction so many people as have been told he’s likable to everyone but them; Paulie is a neighborhood hero with the great fortune of being from a neighborhood in NYC. Were someone with a squeaky voice, sideways cap atop ghoulishly dyed hair and career knockout ratio below 20 percent from anywhere else in the country, nay the world, he’d have been forgotten after Miguel Cotto victimized him in 2006. So few good boxers come from such a great media market, however, we’ll never be rid of Malignaggi till he is rid of gloves, which is a shame because he’s already a more enjoyable commentator than ever he was a fighter.

Cotto is a good place to look at what boxing has in Broner. Some seven years ago, when Malignaggi was 25 years-old and undefeated, Cotto dropped him in round 2, shattered his orbital bone and beat him savagely enough not one of the three official judges in Madison Square Garden was able to give a majority of rounds to the hometown fighter. And if memory serves, the infrastructure of Malignaggi’s face was too fully sabotaged for him to uncap a signature postfight speech like Saturday’s.

Broner, in other words, did not do nearly well against Malignaggi as Cotto did, and while there are plenty of reasons for this – and Broner’s leaping two weight classes mustn’t be forgotten, and should be praised – it still says something about the state of today’s game. There is more hyperbole about Broner now than there was about Cotto then, despite their having the same number of prizefights at the time of their confrontations with Malignaggi, who is decidedly not the cocksure fighter he was when he threw hands with Cotto. Broner, boxing tells itself, is the future of the sport, and with a heavyweight division that does not belong on American television, what choice does anyone have but to believe it?

Broner is very good, and this era is shaping up to be pretty poor. The divisiveness between the sport’s only relevant promoters, now each with the vacuum seal of its own network to ensure undesired realities do not interfere with licensing fees, has wrought little good. This era will pass and be recalled for its passing of the pay-per-view standard from one well-managed American cherrypicker to the next, and be forgotten quicker than even skeptics right now believe.

Malignaggi did remind future Broner opponents of something noted before: So long as you are punching Broner, he is not punching you. In the opening minute of round 4, Malignaggi proved this decisively by throwing some 15 unanswered punches at The Problem. Barely half of them landed, and only two, a right cross that followed a left hook, were meaningful, but what made Malignaggi’s punch reel interesting is how defensive it made Broner. After Malignaggi landed three or four tapping jabs on Broner’s lead shoulder, elbows and gloves, Broner prepared to throw a well-leveraged potshot counter, but then Malignaggi leaped back on his chest and threw his best combination of the night, and all Broner did was lean farther back before jackknifing forward to a position from which it was impossible to punch.

Broner’s calculus, that Malignaggi could not sustain the panicky rate of his fidgety assault for 36 minutes, was a fair one, and Malignaggi, in a workable eulogy for his career, faded constantly enough in the first 150 seconds of each round to let close ones, such as the ninth and 11th, get stolen from him in their final sixths.

Afterwards, Broner and Malignaggi showed their few supporters why the rest of us so enjoy seeing both of them get struck in the face.

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

BROOKLYN—Adrien Broner became a three-division world champion as he won the WBA Welterweight title with a 12 round split decision over Paulie Malignaggi at the Barclays Center

Malignaggi came out landing the jab with a accuracy and volume. The was a solid strategy over the first two rounds. At the end of round two. Broner had a big round three as rocked Malignaggi with a hard left hook and then followed up with a hard combination at the end of the round. Malignaggi kept to a solid game plan as he played to his strengths by throwing five and six punches, focusing on the body in attempt to slow the power punching Broner..

Over the second half of the fight Broner landed some hard shots that bounced off the face of Malignaggi but the two-time champion kept on coming. Broner landed the more descriptive punches of note and there were alot of them but Malignaggi continued to throw a great volume of punches.

Broner took two cards 117-111, 115-113 and Malignaggi took a third card 115-113.

Broner is now 27-0. Malignaggi is now 32-5.

“Paulie fought exactly how I thought he was going to,” said Broner. “He was shadow boxing. My next opponent, I’m going to let you all pick. I’m good. I beat Paulie. I left with his belt.”

“I think I worked him. This was a close fight,” Malignaggi said after the fight. “The fight could have went either way. I don’t think he did enough to take the belt from the champion.”

Seth Mitchell drew even with Jonathon Banks by winning a boring 12 round decision that had little action and a lot of booing from the crowd

After the first five-plus minuted provided nothing but a lot of booing from the crowd, Mitchell landed a little uppercut that sent Banks to the canvas. In round three, Banks turned the tables as he rocked Mitchell on several occasions that had Mitchell hurt and holding on.

Not much happened for the final nine rounds. Mitchell would put out the jab. Banks would offer little in return with a lot of clutching and grabbing in between.

Mitchell of Brandywyne, MD won by scores of 117-109; 115-112 and 114-112 and is now 26-1-1. Banks of Detroit is now 29-2-1.

Sakio Bika won the vacant WBC Super Middleweight championship with a 12 round thrilling majority decision over Marco Antonio Periban

The first few rounds were highlighted by Bika working behind the double jab and firing a right hand behind. Bika was a little more active over the first half of the fight. With each passing round the action picked up incriminately.

Perican came out im round seven with more vigor. In round eight, Bika unintentionally headbutted Periban twice. After the fight was resumed, a wild exchange incurred with Periban getting the better of the exchanges. Periban started being a little more consistent in round’s right through ten. The two battled tooth and nail down the stretch with the 12th being nothing short of a war. Both guys were rocked several times much to the delight of the Barclays Center crowd.

Bika of Sydney, Australia won by scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 114-114 and is now 32-5-2. Periban of Mexico City is 20-1.

After the fight, Bika said, “I expected the fight to go the distance. He was tough, very tough. It was a great fight and I gave my heart and soul. I worked hard and I dedicated myself to this fight. I want to fight the best. I’ll fight Andre Ward. I’ll fight anyone.”

Warren dropped Fuentas twice in round one and once in round two and the fight was stopped AT 1:04 of round two.

Warren of Cincinnati, OH is 13-0 with 3 knockouts. Fuentes of Bayamon, PR is 5-2.

Julian Williams scored the biggest win of his career as he scored an eight round unanimous decision over former world champion Joachim Alcine in a Jr. Middleweight bout.

In round one, Williams landed a huge barrage that was culminated by a left hook that sent Alcine to the canvas. Williams continued the assault as another big flurry sent the former champion down at the end of the frame. Williams drilled Alcine with a perfet left hook to start the the fifth that sent him down for a third time.

In round seven, Alcine showed signs of life by working the body and then a nice three punch combination to the head. Alcine continued to get the better of the action in round’s seven and eight but Williams took the early rounds plus the three knockdowns were enough to get the nod by scores of 77-72 on all cards.

Williams of Philadelphia is now 13-0-1. Alcine of Haiti is now 33-5-1.

2012 U.S. Olympian Marcus Browne needed just over one round in taking Ricardo Campillo in a Light Heavyweight bout scheduled for six rounds.

Browne dropped Campillo in round one from hard left hand and then battered him in round two before dumping him on the canvas. The fight was stopped by Campillo’s corner just one minute imto round two.

Browne of Staten Island, NY is now 5-0 with all wins coming early. Campillo of Obregon, MX is now 7-7-1.

Good looking undefeated Jr. Featherweight Juan Dominguez pummeled Bradley Patraw in just ninety-six seconds of their scheduled eight round bout.

Dominguez was all over and dropped Patraw and the fight was stopped.

Dominguez of Brooklyn is now `15-0 with 11 knockouts. Patraw of St. Paul, MN is now 9-6.

Frank Galarza remained undefeated by scoring a fourth round stoppage over Ramon Barber in a scheduled six round Jr. Middleweight bout.

Barber landed a couple of hard shots early that shook Glarza. After a low blow suffered by Barber in round three, they exchanged toe to toe warfare. Galarza stated landing hard shots on the ropes. Galarza landed a big right hand at the bell.

In round four, Galarza featured a relentless body attack that began to wear down Barber and finally dropped him and referee Earl Brown stopped the bout at 1:54 of round four

Galarza of Brooklyn is now 10-0-2 with six knockouts. Barber of Wichita, KS is 4-5.

Robert Easter Jr. scored a third round stoppage over Antoine Knight in a scheduled six round Lightweight fight.

Easter dropped Knight in round two from a hard right hand. He continued to batter Knight until the bout was stopped at 1:46 of round three.

Easter of Toledo, OH is now 5-0 with 5 knockouts. Knight of Merriville, IN is now 2-4.

2012 U.S. Olympian Jamel Herring scored a four round unanimous decision over Calvin Smith in a Lightweight bout.

Scores were 40-36, 40-36 and 40-35 for Herring of Coram, NY and is now 4-0. Smith of Prichard, AL is now 2-4.

Barclays Center was buzzing with celebrities including pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather, Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko and his girlfriend, actress Hayden Panettiere, Super Lightweight Champion Danny Garcia, Middleweight Champion Peter Quillin and former World Champion Zab Judah.
Former three-time U.S. Olympian Rau’Shee Warren scored a second round beatdown over Jovany Fuentes in a scheduled four round Bantamweight bout.