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RASKIN’S RANTS: The Musings Of A Man Who Has Never Tweeted With Oprah
Last week was a busy one for your favorite TSS writers over on ESPN.com, between Editor Mike’s feature on bare-knuckle boxing and my column attempting to psychoanalyze Kelly Pavlik in the wake of his controversial withdrawal from a ShoBox fight and the revealing radio interview that followed. I got numerous emails reacting to my piece, and here’s one that was fairly representative of what emailers had to say:
Hi Eric,
Great article about Pavlik on ESPN. Almost every article I read about him pulling out was totally vicious and one-sided against him, and then there were one or two exceptions that went the other way and were overly sympathetic to him. Yours was the only one that took an even-handed look at it from both sides. I guess—please pardon the cuss word—most of the writers out there are “asinine.”
Anyway, I think your theory, that control issues are at the root of his decision, makes more sense than anything else I’ve heard.
One question about it: Do you think Kelly is right, that Top Rank was just looking to cash him out against Bute? Because it does feel to me like nobody was giving him a chance to win that fight.
Thanks for your time,
Scott
Scott,
Thanks for the kind words. An even-handed analysis was precisely what I was shooting for. Not surprisingly, as a result of me having the audacity to consider both sides, I got accused of being both a Pavlik hater and a Pavlik apologist in the comments section below the article.
Do I think Pavlik is correct about Top Rank, that they were cashing him out against Bute? If the basis for his argument is purely that the fight was going to be in Canada, where Pavlik would need to “put him on a stretcher to win,” then it’s a weak case; Bute draws huge in the Canada and that’s where the fight belongs. At this stage of his career, there’s no way Pavlik can still lure 5,000-plus Youngstown fans to Atlantic City. That said, logic tells you there was a certain amount of “cash out” going on. Maybe it was just the ring rust, but Pavlik didn’t look anything like an elite fighter in his lone post-rehab bout. “The Ghost” has looked for a couple of years like a guy caught between weight divisions, whereas Bute is peaking at 168 pounds. Pavlik’s the one who used the term “cash out” and he never refuted it, never claimed he could beat Bute. That’s a red flag. So, yes, I think Pavlik is correct to an extent, that Top Rank wants to get a payday out of him (and for him) while they still can. That’s not to say Top Rank wouldn’t be thrilled to see him upset Bute. But I agree with Pavlik that his promoters probably weren’t optimistic about the likelihood of that happening.
A final word on Pavlik: People tend to have short memories. I don’t believe his withdrawal from this fight with Darryl Cunningham is a career killer. He’s still young (29) and he can come back, assuming he has a little something left as a fighter. How many NFL teams showed Terrell Owens the money after he’d proven conclusively that he could destroy a locker room faster than a 350-pound offensive lineman with irritable bowel syndrome? Pavlik has a name, and if he wants another opportunity, he’ll get another opportunity. And if he fights well, the fans will forget all about his withdrawal from a fight they didn’t care about in the first place.
You know it was a slow week for boxing when a former champ NOT fighting was the central story, but there’s still plenty to Rant about, so let’s get to it:
• Never mind Editor Mike’s ESPN.com article. How about him getting The Oprah to talk to him on Twitter?! (Here's that situation…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/oprah-own-ceo-job-10-time_n_915436.html)That was quite a coup. I can’t compete with that. About the best I can hope for is acknowledgement from @MarryLerchant.
• ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights delivered once again, with an excellent main event between Vernon Paris and Tim Coleman. And it was made even better by the extreme undersell from color analyst Sergio Mora, who went out of his way to promise a chess match. (In general, I like Mora as a broadcaster, but my one critique is that he sounds too laid back at times. I’m not saying he needs the artificial energy of Gus Johnson, but he could use a little volume boost and little more inflection in his voice. This is boxing, not “Delicious Dish.”)
• Some on Twitter criticized Coleman for wearing a Yankees hat during a prefight interview and then an Orioles shirt in the ring. I choose to criticize him just for wearing a Yankees hat, period.
• The only letdown of Paris vs. Coleman: No Roger Mayweather and no Floyd Mayweather Sr.! This is so unexpected, people named Mayweather not showing up for their appointments.
• I recommended this on Twitter, but I’ll recommend it here as well: Tim Starks’ two-parter on queensberry-rules.com on sanctioning groups and the question of whether the best way to get rid of them is to ignore them altogether. This comes at a time when The Ring Editor-in-Chief Nigel Collins has just begun speaking publicly about not using the alphabet groups’ names in print anymore and when maybe, just maybe, HBO and Showtime might be in a position to get on board with Ring championships the way ESPN did a decade ago. This mission will never be 100 percent unanimous among journalists. There will always be dissenters who lazily accept the way things are because that’s the only reality they’ve known, or who don’t want to get on board with the alternative because they didn’t come up with it themselves. But it feels like momentum is building. It’s been a slow process and it will continue to be a slow process, but I think if we all work together, the self-serving alphabets can eventually be killed off and boxing fans can return to a world in which we don’t say, “Hey, Champ!” and everybody within earshot turns around and answers.
• Congratulations to HBO for landing the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez III pay-per-view. And congratulations to Bob Arum and Top Rank for a masterfully orchestrated competition that will get this fight the maximum possible exposure. Also, great call by Arum letting Showtime remain the frontrunner for the Antonio Margarito-Miguel Cotto II PPV show, keeping the competition alive and spreading the profits around.
• It was a busy week in terms of PPV undercard news. Now that Erik Morales-Anthony Crolla has been upgraded all the way to Morales-Lucas Matthysse, the September 17 show is very strong from top to bottom. (By the way, I did some research on Crolla for a piece I wrote before the opponent changed twice, and he’s not bad at all. But he’s no Matthysse.) And the October 15 undercard (Jorge Linares-Antonio DeMarco, Kendall Holt-Danny Garcia) is decent too, considering all parties involved wanted to spend as little money as possible on it.
• Maybe I don’t follow amateur boxing closely enough and there’s something I’m simply not getting here, but where’s the logic in staging the Olympic trials 12 months before the Olympics? Who’s to say America’s best representatives now will still be our best a year from now? And who’s to say they’ll even be capable of making the same weight next summer?
• As a Philadelphian, it’s my duty to tell you to keep an eye on Jesse Hart, who won the middleweight tourney at the Olympic trials. Hart is the son of Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, a key figure in the 1970s golden age of Philly middleweights who fought all the best 160-pounders of his time and knocked out 28 of the 30 men he defeated.
• As a Philadelphian, it’s also my duty to tell you that future Hall of Famer Nigel Collins joined us last week for what turned out to be one of the best episodes of Ring Theory (http://ringtheory.podbean.com) yet. Nigel provided the inside scoop on how Ross Greenburg muzzled his broadcasters during his highly criticized reign at HBO, then Nigel took part in spirited roundtable discussions about Mike Alvarado stripping himself of a belt, what might have been with Muhammad Ali, John Kerry’s doppelganger who disqualified Edison Miranda, and the global popularity of women’s boxing. And for those fight fans who were specifically waiting to subscribe to Ring Theory until Bill Dettloff whipped out his Ralph Kramden impression, the waiting is over.
Eric Raskin can be contacted at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com. You can follow him on Twitter @EricRaskin and listen to new episodes of his podcast, Ring Theory, at http://ringtheory.podbean.com.
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Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh
Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh
Oleksandr Usyk left no doubt that he is the best heavyweight of his generation and one of the greatest boxers of all time with a unanimous decision over Tyson Fury tonight at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But although the Ukrainian won eight rounds on all three scorecards, this was no runaway. To pirate a line from one of the DAZN talking heads, Fury had his moments in every round but Usyk had more moments.
The early rounds were fought at a faster pace than the first meeting back in May. At the mid-point, the fight was even. The next three rounds – the next five to some observers – were all Usyk who threw more punches and landed the cleaner shots.
Fury won the final round in the eyes of this reporter scoring at home, but by then he needed a knockout to pull the match out of the fire.
The last round was an outstanding climax to an entertaining chess match during which both fighters took turns being the pursuer and the pursued.
An Olympic gold medalist and a unified world champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, the amazing Usyk improved his ledger to 23-0 (14). His next fight, more than likely, will come against the winner of the Feb. 22 match in Ridayh between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker which will share the bill with the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
Fury (34-2-1) may fight Anthony Joshua next. Regardless, no one wants a piece of Moses Itauma right now although the kid is only 19 years old.
Moses Itauma
Raised in London by a Nigerian father and a Slovakian mother, Itauma turned heads once again with another “wow” performance. None of his last seven opponents lasted beyond the second round.
His opponent tonight, 34-year-old Australian Demsey McKean, lasted less than two minutes. Itauma, a southpaw with blazing fast hands, had the Aussie on the deck twice during the 117-second skirmish. The first knockdown was the result of a cuffing punch that landed high on the head; the second knockdown was produced by an overhand left. McKean went down hard as his chief cornerman bounded on to the ring apron to halt the massacre.
Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs after going 20-0 as an amateur) is the real deal. It was the second straight loss for McKean (22-2) who lasted into the 10th round against Filip Hrgovic in his last start.
Bohachuk-Davis
In a fight billed as the co-main although it preceded Itauma-McKean, Serhii Bohachuk, an LA-based Ukrainian, stopped Ishmael Davis whose corner pulled him out after six frames.
Both fighters were coming off a loss in fights that were close on the scorecards, Bohachuk falling to Vergil Ortiz Jr in a Las Vegas barnburner and Davis losing to Josh Kelly.
Davis, who took the fight on short notice, subbing for Ismail Madrimov, declined to 13-2. He landed a few good shots but was on the canvas in the second round, compliments of a short left hook, and the relentless Bohachuk (25-2, 24 KOs) eventually wore him down.
Fisher-Allen
In a messy, 10-round bar brawl masquerading as a boxing match, Johnny Fisher, the Romford Bull, won a split decision over British countryman David Allen. Two judges favored Fisher by 95-94 tallies with the dissenter favoring Allen 96-93. When the scores were announced, there was a chorus of boos and those watching at home were outraged.
Allen was a step up in class for Fisher. The Doncaster man had a decent record (23-5-2 heading in) and had been routinely matched tough (his former opponents included Dillian Whyte, Luis “King Kong” Ortiz and three former Olympians). But Allen was fairly considered no more than a journeyman and Fisher (12-0 with 11 KOs, eight in the opening round) was a huge favorite.
In round five, Allen had Fisher on the canvas twice although only one was ruled a true knockdown. From that point, he landed the harder shots and, at the final bell, he fell to canvas shedding tears of joy, convinced that he had won.
He did not win, but he exposed Johnny Fisher as a fighter too slow to compete with elite heavyweights, a British version of the ponderous Russian-Canadian campaigner Arslanbek Makhmudov.
Other Bouts of Note
In a spirited 10-round featherweight match, Scotland’s Lee McGregor, a former European bantamweight champion and stablemate of former unified 140-pound title-holder Josh Taylor, advanced to 15-1-1 (11) with a unanimous decision over Isaac Lowe (25-3-3). The judges had it 96-92 and 97-91 twice.
A cousin and regular houseguest of Tyson Fury, Lowe fought most of the fight with cuts around both eyes and was twice deducted a point for losing his gumshield.
In a fight between super featherweights that could have gone either way, Liverpool southpaw Peter McGrail improved to 11-1 (6) with a 10-round unanimous decision over late sub Rhys Edwards. The judges had it 96-95 and 96-94 twice.
McGrail, a Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist, fought from the third round on with a cut above his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads. It was the first loss for Edwards (16-1), a 24-year-old Welshman who has another fight booked in three weeks.
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Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?
Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?
In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.
The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.
Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.
The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.
That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.
The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)
Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)
Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.
Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).
Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.
The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.
Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.
Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.
We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”
The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.
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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year
Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year
The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.
Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.
Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.
Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.
There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.
It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.
Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.
At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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