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RASKIN’S RANTS: Me On Me, Plus Me On Arce, Oscar, Super Six & Other Non-Me Stuff
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On last week’s subscribers-only Ring Theory podcast, I did something very self-absorbed, initiating a discussion about my Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvelous Marvin Hagler oral history article that ran on Grantland last Thursday. But I refuse to let that moment represent the apex of my self-absorption. I’m going to spin even deeper into a pathetic, humblebraggin’ vortex of vanity by making my miniature mailbag section all about the Leonard-Hagler piece as well.
Specifically, I’m going to run a handful of the Facebook comments about the article. I don’t actually use Facebook (several years ago I declared that my wife was wasting her life away Facebooking, and now I’m just being stubborn), so my “Rants” column is as good a place as any to respond to the comments. And to temper my self-love just a tad, I’ll start with a negative comment (which I’ll note, because I really am that vain, was the only negative comment):
Steve Marantz writes: “fabulous writing by eric raskin! he sure knows how to lift quotes from a book. what a writer!”
Two other people I spoke with asked how many of the quotes were from interviews and how many came from George Kimball’s book, Four Kings, so apparently this confused a few people and is worth clearing up: The only quotes in the oral history that were “lifted from a book” were the three quotes attributed to Kimball. (A few weeks before Kimball died, he told me in an email that he wasn’t well enough to speak but gave me permission to quote from the book as I saw fit.) Everything else in the oral history came from original interviews I conducted in June and July of this year.
Francois Tourville writes: “This was perhaps the best article I’ve ever read on sports. On par with Federer – the religious experience.”
Obviously, I’m no David Foster Wallace. And no matter how self-absorbed I might be, I must acknowledge that Francois is going way overboard. It just happens that I’ve chosen to acknowledge it in a public forum where I can repeat his comment for anyone who hasn’t seen it.
Frank Minsk writes: “always believed that Marvin Hagler was the greatest fighter ever, pound for pound. He spent his whole career getting avoided and screwed over by the boxing establishment. Reading this article got me fired up again about it, great piece of writing. To this day I believe that they gave Leonard the fight for running not boxing. I gave up on the so called ‘sport’ of boxing after this fight and have not watched a single fight since. I don’t think I missed anything.”
Rather than respond to this myself, I’ll let fellow Facebook commenter Kent Towers do it, because I absolutely love what he wrote: “Oh, Frank. Buddy, you missed Arturo Gatti’s amazing career. You missed Jose Luis Castillo vs. Diego Corrales. My life would be incomplete without the Morales & Barrera wars. Sweet Pea, De La Hoya, Tito Trinidad. Julio Cesar Chavez against Meldrick Taylor. Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao have already fought two instant classics. I live for the NFL, and I know boxing isn’t the sport it once was, but the highest highs of an all-time great bout can not be matched by any other sport. I can’t rewatch a football game or a baseball game from beginning to end. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Castillo-Corales at least 12 times. Tyson-Douglas, oh my lord. Dude, Gatti-Ward I, II & III. I think the 10th round of Gatti-Ward I made my eyes tear up.”
And lastly, Colin Horst writes: “Expertly done, and a joy to read. My preference is for aggressors, so I favor Hagler. From that perspective, I must disagree with [Barry] Tompkins: ‘I think, unfortunately, his legacy will be the fight with Sugar Ray Leonard.’ His legacy is The War with Hearns.”
It should go without saying that in an oral history, the writer’s personal opinions are not supposed to reveal themselves. So when an interview subject says something I disagree with, if it’s interesting and adds to the narrative, I’ll run it. And that was the case with this quote from Tompkins. I think Tompkins and Horst are both half-correct. Hagler’s legacy is many things to hardcore fight fans, but to the general public, it’s two fights: KO 3 Hearns and L 12 Leonard. Those are the fights people think of when they hear the name Marvin Hagler—and if anything, I lean toward Horst and say they think of the Hearns fight first. I think both Leonard and Hagler are fairly accurately rated in the annals of history: Hagler as one of the top three or four middleweights ever and one of the top three fighters of the ’80s, Leonard as a borderline entry into the top 10 of all-time, pound-for-pound. I don’t feel either man is particularly overrated or underrated some 25 years later. Both were great, and I’m thrilled to have been given the opportunity by the editors at Grantland to kickstart a new conversation about them.
And with that, I’ll stop publicly pleasuring myself and get to the weekly Rants:
Some have labeled Andre Ward suffering a cut in sparring and his fight with Carl Froch getting postponed to be par for the course with the Super Six tournament. I say we need about two more postponements of the finals and then a last-second opponent switch before it’s par for the course.
Seriously, though, I’m amped for this fight, whenever it happens. Showtime and Ken Hershman have done something very positive for boxing, and if we have to wait a couple more months to crown a champion, so be it.
Well, Bob Arum and Richard Schaefer getting along was fun while it lasted, huh? Somebody needs to loop Oscar De La Hoya in on what’s been going on, since he tweeted on Friday, “Its great to be on good terms with bob arum because the possibilities are endless starting with Canelo vs Chavez at 156.” In related news, Oscar is wishing Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez all the best in their lives together.
I’m not quite sure what to make of Jorge Arce’s inspired 2011 comeback and impressive revenge win over Simphiwe Nongqayi on Saturday night. But I do know this: I never bet on the guy whose trunks look like a Rubik’s Cube.
It’s not as if we needed any further proof that Rocky Juarez is one of the unluckiest fighters of his generation, but we got it anyway when he rocked Vicente Escobedo’s world with a left hook with exactly one second left in the sixth round on Friday night. If that punch had landed two seconds earlier, I suspect the outcome would have been very different.
In a weekend full of low-profile, high-contact action, the best fight of all was Adam Carrera’s six-round win over Adolfo Landeros in the Telefutura opener. I was watching it on DVR the next morning, and it was the kind of fight that I almost wanted to fast-forward when I saw their records (19-4 vs. 21-21-2) because it was a six-rounder between two guys who are going nowhere. I’m glad I didn’t press fast-forward. Boxing is a sport that rewards fans when they least expect it.
I thought BoxingChannel.tv’s Al Bernstein absolutely nailed it on how the American mainstream media gets their boxing coverage all wrong: http://boxingchannel.tv/mainstream-us-sports-media-blows-it-again-after-mayweather-ortiz-fight. And I’ll take it a step farther and say that the Mayweather-Ortiz fight was in no way a letdown. For action, drama, and moments we’ll remember and talk about for months or even years to come, it far exceeded expectations. Anyone who wrote that this event was a “black eye for boxing” should (a) ask themselves why they’re writing for a living if they insist on communicating in tired clichés rather than original phrases, and (b) stop writing about boxing altogether because they clearly understand nothing about the sport. Mayweather-Ortiz was a bad night for boxing the same way Paris Hilton’s sex tape was bad for her career.
One last after-the-fact note on Mayweather-Ortiz that I hadn’t found another place to mention yet: Danny Garcia told me and other reporters a couple of days before the fight that the final two referees under consideration for the assignment were Joe Cortez and Robert Byrd. I’m picturing Keith Kizer, sitting alone in his office, asking himself, “Hmm, do I go with one my least competent officials, or one of my most competent? I just can’t decide. You know what, give me the guy who’s ruined every fight he’s worked in the last five years!” Deciding between Byrd and Cortez should be like that timeless question asked in Billy Madison: “Who would you rather [sleep with]: Meg Ryan or Jack Nicholson?”
So, fight fans, which of these do you ignore more quickly these days: updates on the chart-climbing status of the Manny Pacquiao-Dan Hill “Sometimes When We Touch” duet, or trash talk from David Haye directed at Vitali Klitschko?
In case you missed the BS Report podcast with guest Brian Kenny last Tuesday, Bill Simmons said at the end to BK, “I know down the road you’re going to do some boxing, you can’t talk about it yet.” You may recall in this space a couple of weeks ago, I predicted that Kenny would get the blow-by-blow gig on the new HBO boxing program due to launch in 2012, and I’m standing by that prediction.
Speaking of podcasts, there was a double dose of Ring Theory last week: the free Grantland Network episode focusing on Mayweather-Ortiz analysis (http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=7002623) and the subscribers-only edition (http://ringtheory.podbean.com) in which my broadcast partner Bill Dettloff brilliantly compared someone’s head to a “bumpy egg.” If you want to know who the bumpy egghead in question is, well, it costs you barely a dollar a show to find out …
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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Niyomtrong Proves a Bridge Too Far for Alex Winwood in Australia
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Today in Perth, Australia, Alex Winwood stepped up in class in his fifth pro fight with the aim of becoming the fastest world title-holder in Australian boxing history. But Winwood (4-0, 2 KOs heading in) wasn’t ready for WBA strawweight champion Thammanoon Niyomtrong, aka Knockout CP Freshmart, who by some accounts is the longest reigning champion in the sport.
Niyomtrong (25-0, 9 KOs) prevailed by a slim margin to retain his title. “At least the right guy won,” said prominent Australian boxing writer Anthony Cocks who thought the scores (114-112, 114-112, 113-113) gave the hometown fighter all the best of it.
Winwood, who represented Australia in the Tokyo Olympics, trained for the match in Thailand (as do many foreign boxers in his weight class). He is trained by Angelo Hyder who also worked with Danny Green and the Moloney twins. Had he prevailed, he would have broken the record of Australian boxing icon Jeff Fenech who won a world title in his seventh pro fight. A member of the Noongar tribe, Winwood, 27, also hoped to etch on his name on the list of notable Australian aboriginal boxers alongside Dave Sands, Lionel Rose and the Mundines, Tony and Anthony, father and son.
What Winwood, 27, hoped to capitalize on was Niyomtrong’s theoretical ring rust. The Thai was making his first start since July 20 of 2022 when he won a comfortable decision over Wanheng Menayothin in one of the most ballyhooed domestic showdowns in Thai boxing history. But the Noongar needed more edges than that to overcome the Thai who won his first major title in his ninth pro fight with a hard-fought decision over Nicaragua’s Carlos Buitrago who was 27-0-1 heading in.
A former Muai Thai champion, Niyomtrong/Freshmart turns 34 later this month, an advanced age for a boxer in the sport’s smallest weight class. Although he remains undefeated, he may have passed his prime. How good was he in his heyday? Prominent boxing historian Matt McGrain has written that he was the most accomplished strawweight in the world in the decade 2010-2019: “It is not close, it is not debatable, there is no argument.”
Against the intrepid Winwood, Niyomtrong started slowly. In round seven, he cranked up the juice, putting the local fighter down hard with a left hook. He added another knockdown in round nine. The game Winwood stayed the course, but was well-beaten at the finish, no matter that the scorecards suggested otherwise, creating the impression of a very close fight.
P.S. – Because boxrec refused to name this a title fight, it fell under the radar screen until the result was made known. In case you hadn’t noticed, boxrec is at loggerheads with the World Boxing Association and has decided to “de-certify” the oldest of the world sanctioning bodies. While this reporter would be happy to see the WBA disappear – it is clearly the most corrupt of the four major organizations – the view from here is that boxrec is being petty. Moreover, if this practice continues, it will be much harder for boxing historians of future generations to sort through the rubble.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 295: Callum Walsh, Pechanga Casino Fights and More
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Super welterweight contender Callum Walsh worked out for reporters and videographers at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Thursday,
The native of Ireland Walsh (11-0, 9 KOs) has a fight date against Poland’s Przemyslaw Runowski (22-2-1, 6 KOs) on Friday, Sept. 20 at the city of Dublin. It’s a homecoming for the undefeated southpaw from Cork. UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card.
Mark down the date.
Walsh is the latest prodigy of promoter Tom Loeffler who has a history of developing European boxers in America and propelling them forward on the global boxing scene. Think Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin and you know what I mean.
Golovkin was a middleweight monster for years.
From Kevin Kelley to Oba Carr to Vitaly Klitschko to Serhii Bohachuk and many more in-between, the trail of elite boxers promoted by Loeffler continues to grow. Will Walsh be the newest success?
Add to the mix Dana White, the maestro of UFC, who is also involved with Walsh and you get a clearer picture of what the Irish lad brings to the table.
Walsh has speed, power and a glint of meanness that champions need to navigate the prizefighting world. He also has one of the best trainers in the world in Freddie Roach who needs no further introduction.
Perhaps the final measure of Walsh will be when he’s been tested with the most important challenge of all:
Can he take a punch from a big hitter?
That’s the final challenge
It always comes down to the chin. It’s what separates the Golovkins from the rest of the pack. At the top of the food chain they all can hit, have incredible speed and skill, but the fighters with the rock hard chins are those that prevail.
So far, the chin test is the only examination remaining for Walsh.
“King’ Callum Walsh is ready for his Irish homecoming and promises some fireworks for the Irish fans. This will be an entertaining show for the fans and we are excited to bring world class boxing back to the 3Arena in Dublin,” said Loeffler.
Pechanga Fights
MarvNation Promotions presents a battle between welterweight contenders Jose “Chon” Zepeda (37-5, 28 KOs) and Ivan Redkach (24-7-1, 19 KOs) on Friday, Sept. 6, at Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula. DAZN will stream the fight card.
Both have fought many of the best welterweights in the world and now face each other. It should be an interesting clash between the veterans.
Also on the card, featherweights Nathan Rodriguez (15-0) and Bryan Mercado (11-5-1) meet in an eight-round fight.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. First bout at 7 p.m.
Monster Inoue
Once again Japan’s Naoya Inoue dispatched another super bantamweight contender with ease as TJ Doheny was unable to continue in the seventh round after battered by a combination on Tuesday in Tokyo.
Inoue continues to brush away whoever is placed in front of him like a glint of dust.
Is the “Monster” the best fighter pound-for-pound on the planet or is it Terence Crawford? Both are dynamic punchers with skill, speed, power and great chins.
Munguia in Big Bear
Super middleweight contender Jaime Munguia is two weeks away from his match with Erik Bazinyan at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. ESPN will show the Top Rank card.
“Erik Bazinyan is a good fighter. He’s undefeated. He switches stances. We need to be careful with that. He’s taller and has a longer reach than me. He has a good jab. He can punch well on the inside. He’s a fighter who comes with all the desire to excel,” said Munguia.
Bazinyan has victories over Ronald Ellis and Alantez Fox.
In case you didn’t know, Munguia moved over to Top Rank but still has ties with Golden Boy Promotions and Zanfer Promotions. Bazinyan is promoted by Eye of the Tiger.
This is the Tijuana fighter’s first match with Top Rank since losing to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last May in Las Vegas. He is back with trainer Erik Morales.
Callum Walsh photo credit: Lina Baker
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
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60 Years Ago This Month, the Curtain Fell on the Golden Era of TV Boxing
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The Sept. 11, 1964 fight between Dick Tiger and Don Fullmer marked the end of an era. The bout aired on ABC which had taken the reins from NBC four years earlier. This would be the final episode of the series informally known as the “Friday Night Fights” or the “Fight of the Week,” closing the door on a 20-year run. In the future, boxing on free home TV (non-cable) would be sporadic, airing mostly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The days when boxing was a weekly staple on at least one major TV network were gone forever.
During the NBC years, the show ran on Friday in the 10:00-11-00 pm slot for viewers in the Eastern Time Zone and the “studio” was almost always Madison Square Garden. The sponsor from the very beginning was the Gillette razor company (during the ABC run, El Producto Cigars came on as a co-sponsor).
Gillette sponsored many sporting events – the Kentucky Derby, the World Series, the U.S. Open golf tournament and the Blue-Gray college football all-star game, to name just a few – all of which were bundled under the handle of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. Every sports fan in America could identify the catchphrase that the company used to promote their disposable “Blue Blades” – “Look Sharp, Feel Sharp, Be Sharp!” — and the melody of the Gillette jingle would become the most-played tune by marching bands at high school and college football halftime shows (the precursor, one might say, of the Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie”).
The Sept. 11 curtain-closer wasn’t staged at Madison Square Garden but in Cleveland with the local area blacked out.
Dick Tiger, born and raised in Nigeria, was making his second start since losing his world middleweight title on a 15-round points decision to Joey Giardello. Don Fullmer would be attempting to restore the family honor. Dick Tiger was 2-0-1 vs. Gene Fullmer, Don’s more celebrated brother. Their third encounter, which proved to be Gene Fullmer’s final fight, was historic. It was staged in Ibadan, Nigeria, the first world title fight ever potted on the continent of Africa.
In New York, the epitaph of free TV boxing was written three weeks earlier when veteran Henry Hank fought up-and-comer Johnny Persol to a draw in a 10-round light heavyweight contest at the Garden. This was the final Gillette fight from the place where it all started.
Some historians trace the advent of TV boxing in the United States to Sept. 29, 1944, when a 20-year-old boxer from Connecticut, Willie Pep, followed his manager’s game plan to perfection, sticking and moving for 15 rounds to become the youngest featherweight champion in history, winning the New York version of the title from West Coast veteran Albert “Chalky” Wright.
There weren’t many TVs in use in those days. As had been true when the telephone was brand new, most were found in hospitals, commercial establishments, and in the homes of the very wealthy. But within a few years, with mass production and tumbling prices, the gizmo became a living room staple and the TV repairman, who made house calls like the family doctor, had a shop on every Main Street.
Boxing was ideally suited to the infant medium of television because the action was confined to a small area that required no refurbishment other than brighter illumination, keeping production costs low. The one-minute interval between rounds served as a natural commercial break. The main drawback was that a fight could end early, meaning fewer commercials for the sponsor who paid a flat rate.
At its zenith, boxing in some locales aired five nights a week. And it came to be generally seen that this oversaturation killed the golden goose. One by one, the small fight clubs dried up as fight fans stayed home to watch the fights on TV. In the big arenas, attendance fell off drastically. Note the difference between Pep vs. Wright, the 1944 originator, and Hank vs. Persol, also at Madison Square Garden:
Willie Pep vs. Chalky Wright Sept. 29, 1944 attendance 19,521
Henry Hank vs. Johnny Persol Aug. 21, 1964 attendance 5,219
(True, Pep vs. Wright was a far more alluring fight, but this fact alone doesn’t explain the wide gap. Published attendance counts aren’t always trustworthy. In the eyes of the UPI reporter who covered the Hank-Persol match, the crowd looked smaller. He estimated the attendance at 3,000.)
Hank vs. Persol was an entertaining bout between evenly-matched combatants. The Tiger-Fullmer bout, which played out before a sea of empty seats, was a snoozer. Don Fullmer, a late sub for Rocky Rivero who got homesick and returned to Argentina, was there just for the paycheck. A Pittsburgh reporter wrote that the match was as dull as a race between two turtles. Scoring off the “5-point-must” system, the judges awarded the match to Dick Tiger by margins of 6, 6, and 7 points.
And that was that. Some of the most sensational fights in the annals of boxing aired free on a major TV network, but the last big bang of the golden era was hardly a bang, merely a whimper.
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A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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The photo accompanying this article is from the 1962 fight at Madison Square Garden between Dick Tiger (on the right) and Henry Hank. To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
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