Trout Angling To Hook A Whopper In Cotto

Published

12 years ago

November 21, 2012

To the less-than-fully-informed boxing fan, “Austin Trout” sounds like something a fisherman has reeled in from a lake in close proximity to Texas’ capital city.

Oh, sure, Austin “No Doubt” Trout has been the holder of the WBA’s “regular” super welterweight championship for nearly two years, and he has a distinctive and easily remembered name, in the manner of, say, former Major League Baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry. But, his bejeweled belt notwithstanding, the 27-year-old southpaw from Las Cruces, N.M., still hasn’t made the breakthrough from intriguing curiosity item to full-fledged star, a situation that could be remedied on Dec. 1, when Trout angles to land one of boxing’s legitimate whoppers, Puerto Rican icon Miguel Cotto.

The Showtime-televised main event in Madison Square Garden marks the eighth appearance in Madison Square Garden (and the 10^th in New York, including one bout each in the Hammerstein Ballroom and Yankee Stadium) for the hugely popular Cotto (37-3, 30 KOs), who will be bidding for his fifth world title. As was noted in the premiere episode of Showtime’s “All Access” presentations that have been airing in advance of the event, Cotto, 32, has actually sold more tickets in boxing’s Mecca than did the great Muhammad Ali in a like number of turns in the Garden.

But venturing into a veritable lion’s den is nothing new for road warrior Trout, who actually believes that fighting before unfriendly audiences gives him something of a mental edge. He has beaten a Panamanian in Panama, a Canadian in Canada, a Mexican in Mexico. He looks forward to stilling the cheers of a pro-Cotto crowd in much the same manner that he did on those other successful excursions onto the other guy’s turf.

“This is not my first time being in a hostile environment,” Trout said of what awaits him at the opening bell, and until such time that he is able to seize control of the bout and thus turn down the crowd volume. “I know how to use it to my advantage. Just another walk in the park.

“My goal is to make the Garden go silent, except for maybe 20 New Mexicans who are coming to cheer for me. The funny thing is, I have a lot of family in New York. Actually, most of my family comes from New York. I have two sets of grandparents who live there (in Brooklyn and in Harlem). So it will be kind of a homecoming for me, although not nearly as big as the one for Cotto. Obviously, there are a bunch of Puerto Ricans living in New York. Those are Cotto’s people.”

Anyone who tuned in to the Oct. 20 rematch between WBA/WBC super lightweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia and Mexican legend Erik Morales, the first boxing show in Brooklyn’s spanking-new Barclays Center, already knows that Trout at the very least talks a good fight. He was part of the Showtime commentary team for Garcia’s fourth-round knockout victory, along with Mauro Ranallo, Al Bernstein and Joe Cortez. He earned generally high marks for his glibness and the quality of his analysis, suggesting a bright future in the broadcasting business.

Trout is quick to point out that boxing for the most part is a young man’s game, with aging and familiar names eventually obliged to yield to fresh and lesser-known ones, as was the case in Garcia’s pummeling of Morales into likely retirement.

“I told Danny Garcia after his fight that I’m trying to keep that same trend going that he is a part of,” Trout said. “Out with the old and in with the new. I don’t believe Cotto is a shot fighter like Erik Morales. Cotto is still hungry. But, man, I’m starving.

“Miguel Cotto is a warrior who’s never backed away from any challenge, and I’ve always had the utmost respect for him as one of the best representatives of our sport. I am very grateful for the opportunity to fight him. But that said … he messed up. I honestly don’t see how I can lose.

“I just feel that I will be the faster, stronger, taller and better technical fighter on that night. I know he is a very good puncher and a smart fighter with a lot of experience, but he’s also 5’7” with a short reach. I didn’t know he was short as he is until we stood next to each other at the press conference to announce the fight. (Trout is 5’9½”.) I just have to believe the size difference is going to be a factor.”

Trout and his longtime trainer, Louie Burke, have the confidence that might be expected of a collaborative unit that has yet to taste defeat together. They also should have reason to be leery. Although Cotto has more than a few miles on his pugilistic odometer, and admits to imagining the end of an almost certain Hall of Fame career, in his last fight he gave boxing’s finest pound-for-pound practitioner, Floyd Mayweather Jr., one of his tougher tests in dropping a 12-round, unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 5, bloodying “Money’s” lip in the process. A number of boxing experts continue to rate Cotto as one of the top 10 fighters regardless of weight class.

He is, in other words, just the sort of trophy catch Trout needs if he, too, is to attain whopper status.

“I’ve been under the radar,” Trout acknowledged. “This is what Louie and I have been working for, this magnitude of fight. When they asked me if I wanted to fight Cotto, I didn’t believe it. And since we’re fantasizing, I wish I there was some way could fight Sugar Ray Leonard, too. It’s always been a dream of mine to beat up the legends. That’s how you become a legend.”

Trout admits to being just a bit irked when the news leaked that Cotto, provided he got won on Dec. 1, was looking to make his first defense of his newly won title against another young stud, WBC super welter champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez during Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2013.

If Canelo is hot to fight on that date, Trout reasons, why not against him? After all, he already is 1-0 against the Alvarez family, having captured the vacant WBA 154-pound crown on a unanimous decision over Rigoberto Alvarez in the Alvarezes’ hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico, on Feb. 5, 2011.

“If Cotto and is team are going to overlook me, that’s their problem. They’re going to be unpleasantly surprised,” Trout said. “When next May rolls around, I’m very confident it’s going to be my name that’s in the running to face Canelo, if he chooses to take the fight.

“I remember being in Mexico fighting Rigoberto Alvarez for the WBA title. That’s Canelo’s big brother. In fact, Canelo was in the other corner, biting his nails the whole time.”

Beating Rigoberto Alvarez is not the same as beating Canelo Alvarez, however, just as beating the fighters Trout did in his first three championship defenses – David Lopez, Frank LoPorto and Delvin Rodriguez – isn’t the same as notching a win over someone with as big a rep as Cotto.

“Cotto’s got the name, he’s got the recognition,” Trout said. “I have the title. I got the title so I could get the name and the recognition. I’ve been champion going on two years now, but it seemed like I wasn’t getting those names that I was looking for. But this fight, this is why I wanted to be champion. Used to be, you needed the name to get the title. Now, you got to get the title to get the name.”

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Bernard Fernandez

Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

11 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-322-Super-Welter-Week-in-SoCal

Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

TSS-Salutes-Thomas-Hauser-and-his-Bernie-Award-Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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