The Vegas Fight Week Experience From A To Z (Part I)

Published

13 years ago

September 19, 2011

MayweatherOrtizFinalPC_Blevins4 I hate the alphabet groups in boxing. But I have nothing against the alphabet itself. So, on the heels of my five days and five nights spent experiencing fight week in Las Vegas, this week’s column will lean on the alphabet as a narrative-structuring device. I’ll offer my insights on the Floyd Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz hoopla from A to Z, sharing my opinions on the various happenings that the fight world is now buzzing about and going behind the scenes with some of the things I saw, heard, and did that I couldn’t have seen, heard, or done from the comfort of my living room:

A is for Action

I’m using “action” to mean two different things here. Primarily, I’m talking about a pay-per-view card that was as action-packed from top to bottom as any I can remember in recent years. Jessie Vargas vs. Josesito Lopez was the close, hard-fought affair I expected it to be. Erik Morales vs. Pablo Cesar Cano was 10 times the bloody, dramatic battle that anyone expected it to be. Saul Alvarez vs. Alfonso Gomez teased us with the possibility of a massive upset before delivering a sudden (perhaps too sudden) finish. And Mayweather vs. Ortiz, whatever you thought of the conclusion, produced the most memorable action of any Mayweather fight since his first clash with Jose Luis Castillo nine years ago.

But “action” also applies to gambling action, and I got an added kick out of silently rooting for the one outcome nobody else in the arena wanted to see: a draw. At 35-1 odds at the MGM Grand sports book, and with any kind of a fluky technical draw getting me paid, I couldn’t help but plunk down $20 for the opportunity to win $700. Oh, how enjoyable it would have been to pull a Mayweather and tweet a picture of my winning ticket, as well as a picture of me holding a phat stack of seven C-notes. (And perhaps using them as a flip phone on which to call my buddy 50 Cent.) But alas, it wasn’t to be. I need to stick to what I do best: acting like I know what’s going to happen in fights without actually putting any money behind my predictions.

B is for Boos

The boos rained down at the Grand Garden Arena both early and late in Saturday’s card. They echoed when Vargas was given a split decision over Lopez in the opening bout of the pay-per-view. (For the record, I had Lopez winning by a point, but this was no robbery; the fight could have gone either way.) And they reverberated again when Mayweather-Ortiz ended abruptly on a less-than-sporting (but 100-percent legal) two-punch combination that Joe Cortez learned about via the magic of instant replay. On the whole, though, we heard a lot more cheering than booing over the course of this action-packed (callback to the letter A!) night of boxing.

C is for Cano

This wasn’t quite Azumah Nelson announcing his arrival with a competitive loss to a prime Salvador Sanchez, but Cano earned my approval with one hell of a mature, gutsy performance for an untested 21-year-old kid facing a Hall-of-Fame-bound legend. And he bled like the girl scout who tried to sell Larry David cookies this year on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Who would have guessed that Lucas Matthysse dropping out of this show would turn out to be a good thing?

D is for Dynamic

As in, the dynamic prepared-statement reading of Leonard Ellerbe. In the midst of the interminable drone-fest that is the final prefight press conference (we need more guys in suits thanking other guys in suits while the fighters sit there playing with their iPhones!), the CEO of Mayweather Promotions/head sycophant attempted to address the media. I say “attempted” because Ellerbe is to public speaking as Victor Ortiz is to beard growing. I especially enjoyed the moment where Ellerbe built and built toward finally bringing Mayweather to the microphone … only it was Ortiz’s turn to speak next, so Ellerbe had to sheepishly hand it off to Oscar De La Hoya instead so that Oscar could introduce his fighter. Good times.

E is for El Terrible

I’ve covered the young man, Cano. How about the old man, Morales? Sure, he looked a little closer to shot than he did last time out, against Marcos Maidana. But he added another thriller to a career absolutely loaded with them. Seriously, Arturo Gatti is revered as the most exciting fighter of his generation, but Morales’ resume of major and minor classics is creeping up on Gatti’s. The guy is simply never in a bad fight, never escapes one without his face looking like it’s gone through a food processor, and even if watching him fight now means watching his love handles jiggle round after round, that’s a small price to pay. It truly was an honor to be there live to see the legendary El Terrible do his thing.

F is for Free Food

As a guy who does a lot of one-day trips to Atlantic City for fights and rarely does these five-day trips to Vegas, most of my media feeding experience involves the college-cafeteria-quality media room buffet at Boardwalk Hall. I wasn’t fully prepared for the majesty of media food in Vegas—with the highlight coming at a Thursday night media dinner at a restaurant called Fiamma, a smorgasbord of fine foods the likes of which I don’t quite experience at home when finishing my kids’ partially eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Golden Boy isn’t sending me any freelance checks anymore, so I may as well at least let them foot the bill for some grub. Speaking of which …

G is for Golden Boy Promotions

As pretty much everyone knows by now, GBP recently gutted the staff of The Ring magazine, firing people who did the job with passion and integrity and expertise in magazine production in favor of … well, other people. I’m not happy about this. I got mildly nauseous at the prefight press conference, watching Richard Schaefer and De La Hoya greet each other on the dais with a big ol’ back-slappy hug. And the nausea just kept bubbling to the surface all week long. Look, there are plenty of employees of Golden Boy against whom I harbor no ill will. But the people who played a hand in the firing of people I respect and care about—while potentially destroying the magazine I’ve spent my entire career proudly representing—made the bile rise inside me throughout the week. I took the most professional path I could: not saying a word to any of them, since I didn’t have anything nice to say.

H is for HBO.com

Editor Steve Marzolf and company are the ones who brought me out to Vegas for the week so I could author the HBO.com blog, and it was a pleasure working with them. In case you missed any of it, you can check out my work for them here http://www.insidehboboxing.com/, and I particularly recommend my fun back-and-forth discussion with fellow scribe Kieran Mulvaney (http://tinyurl.com/3ej6q4j) and my three seconds of fame in this video (http://tinyurl.com/3ep6c8n). Okay, end of commercial interruption, back to our regularly scheduled column …

I is for Indoors

Would you believe I only left the MGM Grand once in the entire five days I was there? I walked 10 minutes to Planet Hollywood on Friday to meet a friend and former business associate for lunch, and otherwise, I breathed recycled casino air for roughly 154 consecutive hours. I guess when I call this column the “Vegas experience,” I should really call it the “MGM Grand experience.” I didn’t actually experience Vegas at all. But I’ve experienced Vegas plenty of times before, so this trip was about ease, convenience, and getting work done. And that meant never seeing the sun. My sources tell me the weather was rather nice.

J is for Jones

In the best undercard fight you didn’t see from the comfort of your home, frequent ESPN2 and ShoBox competitor Carson Jones scored a mild upset of the generally overrated Said Ouali, closing his right eye and forcing his corner to stop the fight after the seventh round. At various points in the fight. I had flashbacks to the first time I saw Ouali fight in person, when he was boxing well before falling apart in the fifth round against the then-unknown Kermit Cintron. When Ouali’s corner threw in the towel on Saturday night, Jones turned toward the crowd, thrust both arms in the air, and yelled, “Yes!” (And because the arena was 96 percent empty throughout the undercard, I was able to hear his voice clearly from seven rows back in the press section.) It was a great moment of triumph for a journeyman fighter still looking to make something of himself, and hopefully he’ll get a TV date out of this entertaining win.

K is for Kyrone Butler

In a far less compelling undercard fight between two guys making their pro debuts, Butler scored a four-round shutout over … wait for it … Cassius Clay. I flew to Vegas to see Cassius Clay handed his first professional loss. I feel like I’m a part of history now.

L is for Larry Merchant

We couldn’t hear it in the arena, but you’d better believe I watched it on YouTube later that night, when HBO’s feisty old color man screamed at Mayweather, “I wish I was 50 years younger and I’d kick your ass!” Some have suggested Merchant went over the line. In my view, sure, it was unprofessional, but it was completely warranted. When Mayweather said Merchant needed to be fired, that’s the kind of threatening statement that causes a man with a backbone to stand up for himself. So Larry did. And it gave us this (http://bit.ly/n5fueo). Everybody wins.

M is for Money Mayweather

Ortiz is a lover. Mayweather is a fighter. He operated within the rules when he decked an opponent who failed to protect himself while the fight was going on, and even if many other fighters wouldn’t have taken advantage of that opening the way Mayweather did, there is no real fault to be found in his actions. And for four rounds leading up to the controversial finish, Floyd was his usual brilliant self. Maybe his resume isn’t as great as he thinks it is. Maybe he’s overrating his place in history. But the man is one heck of a special talent. And the fact that he found a way to both win and perpetuate his bad-guy image means demand for a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight won’t cool off one bit. Now it’s up to Mayweather to capitalize on that sometime before both fighters are in their 40s.

(Check back tomorrow for Part II, as we go from N to Z. Admit it, you’re dying to see what liberties I take with the rules in order to use the letter X.)

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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Eric Raskin

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

Published

2 days ago

March 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

March 7 was an unusually heavy Friday for professional boxing. The show that warranted the most ink was the all-female card in London, a tour-de-force for the super-talented Lauren Price, but there were important fights on other continents.

Brighton

Michael Conlan, who sat out all of 2024 on the heels of being stopped in three of his previous five, returned to the ring in the British seaside resort city of Brighton in a shake-off-the-rust, 8-rounder against Asad Asif Khan, a 31-year-old Indian from Calcutta making his first appearance in a British ring.

Conlan, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist who famously signed with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks, is now 33 years old. Against Khan, he was far from impressive, but did enough to win by a 78-74 score and lock in a match with Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion.

Conlan, who improved to 19-3 (9), absorbed a lot of punishment in those three matches that he lost. With his deep amateur background, Michael has a lot of mileage on him and he would have been smart to call it quits after his embarrassingly one-sided defeat to Luis Alberto Lopez. His frayed reflexes speak to something more than ring rust. Heading in, Khan brought a 19-5-1 record but had scored only five wins inside the distance.

Conlan vs Khan was the co-feature. In the main event, Brighton welterweight Harlem Eubank, the cousin of Chris Eubank Jr, improved to 21-0 (9 KOs) with a dominant performance over Conlan’s Belfast homie Tyrone McKenna. Eubank was credited with three knockdowns, all the result of body punches, before referee John Latham had seen enough and pulled the plug at the 2:09 mark of round 10. It was the fourth loss in his last six outings for the 35-year-old McKenna (24-6-1).

Harlem Eubank wants to fight Conor Benn next and says he is willing to wait until after his cousin “wipes Benn out.” Chris Eubank Jr vs Benn is slated for April 26 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The North London facility, which has a retractable roof, is the third-largest soccer stadium in England.

Toronto

Local fan favorite Lucas Bahdi and his stablemate Sara Bailey were the headliners on last night’s card at the Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The event marked the first incursion of Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions into Canada.

Bahdi, who is from Niagara Falls but trains in Toronto, burst out of obscurity in July of last year in Tampa, Florida, with a spectacular one-punch knockout of heavily-hyped Ashton “H2O” Sylva. His next fight, on the undercard of Jake Paul’s match with Mike Tyson, was less “noisy” and the same could be said of his homecoming fight with Ryan James Racaza, an undefeated (15-0) but obscure southpaw from the Philippines who was making his North American debut.

Bahdi vs Racaza was a technical fight that didn’t warm up until Bahdi produced a knockdown in round seven with a sweeping left hook, a glancing blow that appeared to land behind Racaza’s ear. The Filipino was up in a jiff, looking at the referee as if to say, “this dude just hit me with a rabbit punch.”

The judges had it 99-90, 97-92, and 96-93 for the victorious Bahdi (19-0) who was the subject of a recent profile on these pages.

Sara Bailey, a decorated amateur who competed around the world under her maiden name Sara Haghighat Joo and now holds the WBA light flyweight title, successfully defended that trinket with a lopsided decision over Cristina Navarro (6-3), a 35-year-old Spaniard who “earned” this assignment by winning a 6-round decision over an opponent with a 1-4-3 record. The judges scored the monotonous fight 99-91 across the board for Bailey who improved to 6-0 and then returned to the ring to assist her husband in Lucas Bahdi’s corner.

Also

Twenty-two-year-old super bantamweight Angel Barrientes, a Las Vegas-based Hawaii native, delivered the best performance of the night with a one-sided beatdown of Alexander Castellano whose corner mercifully stopped the contest after the seventh round as the ring doctor stood in a neutral corner chatting with the referee.

The gritty Castellano, who hails from Tonawanda, New York, brought an 11-1-2 record and hadn’t previously been stopped. A glutton for punishment, he appeared to suffer a broken orbital bone. Barrientes improved to 13-1 (8 KOs).

The show was marred by an excessive amount of fluffy gobbledygook by the TV talking heads which slowed down the action and made the promotion almost unwatchable.

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fighting in his hometown, super flyweight David Jimenez scored a lopsided 12-round decision over Nicaragua’s Keyvin Lara. The judges had it 120-108, 119-109, and 116-112.

Jimenez, now 17-1, came to the fore in July of 2022 when he upset Ricardo Sandoval in Los Angeles, winning a well-earned majority decision over a 20/1 favorite riding a 16-fight winning streak. That boosted him into a title fight with the formidable Artem Dalakian who saddled him with his lone defeat.

Jimenez’s victory over Lara was his fifth since that setback. It sets up the Costa Rican for another title fight, this time against Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who acquired the WBA 115-pound title in July with an upset of Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Lara, who unsuccessfully challenged Ioka for a belt in 2016, falls to 32-7-1.

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Price Conquers Jonas on an All-Female Card at Royal Albert Hall

Published

2 days ago

March 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Price-Conquers-Jonas-on-an-All-Female-Card-at-Royal-Albert-Hall

Ben Shalom’s BOXXER Promotions was at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall tonight with an all-female card topped by a welterweight unification fight between WBC/IBF belt-holder Natasha Jonas and WBA champion Lauren Price.

Liverpool’s Jonas, who turns 41 in June, has had a sterling career, but Father Time has caught up with her. The 30-year-old Price, an Olympic gold medalist, had faster hands, faster feet, and hit harder. The classy Jonas (16-3-1) acknowledged as much in her post-fight interview: “She beat me to the punch every time.”

The scores were 100-90, 98-92, and 98-93.

In advancing her record to 9-0 (2), Price built a strong case that she is the best fighter to come down the pike from Wales since Joe Calzaghe. As for her next bout, she hopes to fight the winner of the March 29 rematch in Las Vegas between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan. That match, with all of the meaningful welterweight hardware at stake, would be a hot ticket item if potted in Cardiff.

Semi-wind-up

Caroline Dubois staved off a late rally to successfully defend her WBC lightweight title with a majority decision over South Korea’s spunky Bo Mi Re Shin. The judges had it 98-92, 98-93, and 95-95. Although the 95-95 tally by the Korean judge was quite a stretch, Shin performed far better than the odds – Dubois was a consensus 35/1 favorite — portended.

Dubois, a 24-year-old Londoner trained by Shane McGuigan, is the sister of IBF heavyweight title-holder Daniel Dubois. Reportedly 36-3 as an amateur, she advanced her pro record to 11-0-1 (5). Heading in, Shin (18-3-3) had won nine of her previous 10 with the lone setback coming via split decision in a robust fight with Belgium’s Delfine Persoon in Belgium.

Other Bouts of Note

Kariss Artingstall returned to the ring after a 14-month absence and scored a unanimous decision over former amateur rival Raven Chapman. The scores were 98-91, 97-92, 96-93.

The prize for Artingstall, who happens to be Lauren Price’s partner, was the inaugural British female featherweight title and a potential rematch with Skye Nicolson who would relish the chance to avenge her last defeat, a loss by split decision to Attingstall in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Nicolson, who was part of tonight’s broadcast team, defends her title later this month in Sydney against Florida’s Tiara Brown.

It was the first 10-rounder for Artingstall (7-0). Chapman (9-2) had an uphill battle after Artingstall decked her in the second round with a straight left hand.

In a mild upset, Jasmina Zopotoczna, a UK-based Pole, won a split decision over Chloe Watson, adding Watson’s European flyweight title to her own regional trinket. One of the judges favored Watson 97-93, but each of his colleagues had it 96-95 for the Pole. Although there was no great furor, the verdict was unpopular.

Zapotoczna, who fought off her back foot, improved to 9-1. It was the first pro loss for Watson who is trained by Ricky Hatton.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 316: Art of the Deal in Boxing and More

Published

4 days ago

March 6, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-316-Art-of-the-Deal-in-Boxing-and-More

So, they want to save boxing?

A group of guys with recent ties to the sport of boxing and bags of money suddenly believe they can save a sport that is older than any other sport since the dawn of mankind.

Boxing is the oldest sport.

When cavemen roamed the planet, you can believe one tribe bet another tribe their guy could whip the other guy. Thus began the sport of boxing. There was no baseball, soccer or horse racing.

Even the invention of the wheel was still a few generations away when men were duking it out with other men for sport.

Throughout history mentions of one man fighting another man without arms are written in the Tales of Ulysses and other literary references.

Boxing will never die. Period.

Here is the reason why.

Boxing requires only two men in their underwear with no weapons and no requirement of classes in jujitsu, kickboxing, wrestling or advance training facilities. You can prepare in your backyard with one heavy bag and a pair of boxing gloves. It’s simple.

MMA, on the other hand, requires money.

Boxing is for the poor. Any kid can walk into a gym and begin training. When they become adults, then they start paying to use the gym.

Don’t let people fool you and tell you “boxing is dying.”

People have been saying those same words since John L. Sullivan in the late 1800s. You can look it up.

The phrase “boxing is dying,” is said by people who want you to pay them money to save it. Kind of sounds like the guy currently sitting in the White House who is going to save America by firing Americans from their jobs and allowing Russia to take over Ukraine.

Don’t believe these people.

Boxing does not need saving.

Why would Dana White, who has stated for decades that MMA is bigger than boxing, though no MMA fighter can equal the purses of a Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Tyson Fury, why is he involved in boxing?

There is big money to be made in boxing, especially with internet gambling sites being allowed all over the world. And boxing is popular worldwide. MMA is not.

More people know who Canelo is than UFC’s Alex Pereira.

I respect the UFC fighters. They put in hard work and battle injuries throughout their careers. But MMA is simply not as big as boxing. The purses of MMA fighters at the top level don’t come close to boxing’s top money earners.

Why did Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz and others quickly switch to boxing when called?

The money in boxing is much bigger.

Follow the money.

NYC

A rumble is planned for Times Square in New York City.

Vatos from Southern California are fighting dudes from Nevada and Brooklyn. Sounds like a script from the Gangs of New York.

Where is Leonardo DiCaprio when you need him?

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) will meet Rollie Romero (16-2, 13 KOs) in a welterweight match set for May 2, on Times Square in mid-Manhattan. This is one of three marquee bouts planned to be streamed on DAZN.

Others matched will be Arnold Barboza (32-0, 11 KOs) versus super lightweight titlist Teofimo Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs), and Devin Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) against Jose Carlos Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs) in a welterweight contest.

This is the proposed match by The Ring magazine backed by Turki Alalshikh who, along with Golden Boy Promotions and Matchroom Boxing, is sponsoring this fight card.

It was also announced that Alalshikh, TKO Group Holdings, and Sela are forming a promotion company.

TKO owns UFC and WWE.

SoCal Fights

Southern California will be busy with boxing cards this weekend.

This Thursday, March 6, is Golden Boy Promotions with a boxing card featuring Manny Flores (19-1, 15 KOs) versus Jorge Leyva (18-3, 13 KOs) in a super bantamweight match at Fantasy Springs Casino. DAZN will stream the boxing card from Indio, California.

On Saturday, March 8, the Fox Theater in Pomona, California hosts a boxing card featuring super middleweights Ruben Cazales (10-0) vs Adam Diu Abdulhamid (18-16). Also, super featherweights Michael Bracamontes (10-2-1) meets Eugene Lagos (16-9-3) at the historic venue promoted by House of Pain Boxing.

On Saturday March 8, Elite Boxing hosts a boxing card at Salesian High in East Los Angeles featuring East L.A. native Merari Vivar (8-0) against Sarah Click (2-8-1) and several other fights.

On Saturday, March 8, an event hosted by House of Champions features top contenders Joet Gonzalez (26-4) vs Arnold Khegai (22-1-1) in a featherweight main event at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, Calif.

A Big All-Female Card in London

On Friday, March 7, the historic Royal Albert Hall in the Kensington borough of London will host an all-female card with two world title fights including a unification fight in the welterweight division.

Natasha Jonas (16-2-1) and Lauren Price (8-0) meet 10 rounds for the IBF, WBC, and WBA belts.

Jonas, 40, the current WBC and IBF titlist, recently defeated Ivana Habazin and before that edged past Mikaela Mayer in a win that could have gone the other way very easily. She will be facing Price, an Olympic gold medalist and current WBA and IBO titlist.

Price, 30, hails from Wales and has an aggressive pressure style that saw her win a battle between punchers with a third-round knockout of Colombia’s Bexcy Mateus this past December in Liverpool. Before that she defeated the always tough Jessica McCaskill.

In the co-main event, lightweights Caroline Dubois (10-0-1) and Bo Mi Re Shin (18-2-3) meet for the WBC world title.

Me Re Shin, 30, fights out of South Korea and has knockout power. She was one of only two fighters to stop Venezuela’s Ana Maria Lozano who has 38 pro fights. That says something. She lost a split decision to Delfine Persoon in Belgium. That really says something.

Dubois had two competitive fights, first, against Jessica Camara that ended in a technical draw due to a clash of heads. Before that she defeated Maira Moneo. Dubois has very good talent and is still young at 24. Is she ready for Mi Re Shin?

Times Square photo credit: JP Yim

Fights to watch:

Thurs., March 6: DAZN, Manny Flores (19-1) vs. Jorge Leyva (18-3)

Fri., March 7: free on DAZN, Lucas Bahdi (18-0) vs. Ryan James Racaza (15-0)

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