Force of Will..TOLEDO

Published

13 years ago

November 8, 2011

Springs Toledo

RIP Champion. [Artist Richard T. Slone, courtesy sloneart.com]

The strong men . . . coming on
The strong’ men gittin’ stronger.
Strong men. . . .
Stronger. . . .

~Sterling Brown (1900-1992)

I saw Smokin’ Joe Frazier in the ring Saturday night. He was in the throes of battle, loving every moment as his whistling hooks broke another man. He went down; he got up, and absorbed a terrible beating that declared the force of his will…

James Kirkland sees no difference between boxing matches and turf wars. When that bell rings, he isn’t thinking about points, whether they be the finer points of technique or the ones those stiff suits on stools keep track of. He isn’t even thinking like a man; at times his matches resemble primal clashes over hunting grounds and mating rights, not sports contests. He’s thinking about punching holes through his rival so that he can pull his heart out and show it to him with a bloody grin that says “I told you so.”

Kirkland fights like someone who has suffered. The fact that much of his suffering was the direct result of his own bad decisions is beside the point.

The purest of modern brawlers was born in 1944, the youngest of twelve children raised on a sharecropper’s farm in Beaufort, South Carolina during the bad old days of Jim Crow. Most of his kinfolk never left the region. They worked from sun-up to sun-down and at year’s end had nothing more to show for it than the slaves they were descended from.

When he was 12, “Billy Boy,” as he was called, would go out to the mule shack and punch a burlap sack filled with sand and rags. It might as well been filled with stardust because a chubby arm, his left one, began to crook and smash into the side of that sack with startling force.

When he was 15, someone went and talked about his mother. Both chubby arms lashed out and got him suspended from school. He never went back. He got a job driving a tractor and hauling water, but had a run-in with the boss man and had to flee the region like so many other black men too strong to hold their hats in hand and too wise to stick around. He went north in 1959, just another nameless face among the millions in what historians call The Great Migration. He was a part-time car thief in New York City, sleeping on a chair for two years in a crowded apartment.

Then Philadelphia beckoned.

Philadelphia –where fighters still rise out of the cracked concrete like black Spartans with rap sheets. He took a job in a slaughterhouse and punched hanging carcasses during breaks, and at 17 he walked into a gym on the north side of the city with his dreams. That was fifty years ago.

The man who would become Smokin’ Joe Frazier never really left.

Men who have suffered sometimes get sentimental about it. They seek it out. Some pronounce the cynical maxim “life is hell” too many times and start embracing it: “Hell is life.” Kirkland, like many pure brawlers, never feels as alive as when he is exchanging blows. He uses boxing to turn his frown upside down.

On Saturday night Kirkland was in the ring against Alfredo Angulo, a brawler as pure as himself. He went right to him at the opening bell and slammed both hands around his flanks and up the middle. Thirty seconds later, he bulled him into a corner and threw a straight left, then slipped to his right to avoid the counter. Angulo timed his slip and threw his own right, and Kirkland went down. His dysfunction was looking up. Even there on the canvas Kirkland was still looking at Angulo, though not with anger. It seemed more like the silent glance exchanged between two friends suffering –-or partying-– together that says “I’m glad you’re here.”

Angulo’s expression told us nothing. He’s a stoic whose mug wouldn’t change by a twitch whether he was in a state of ecstasy or having his toenails torn off with pliers. His actions, however, told us that he’s a gambler. The moment Kirkland got up and the referee waved the two fighters to resume battle, Angulo emptied his vault in a winner-take-all effort. He threw over 70 punches before the end of the round and landed over half of them.

How did Kirkland absorb that punishment?

-–Whatever put that stardust into a fat boy’s burlap sack in South Carolina happened to sprinkle some on an ex-convict from Texas Saturday night. And that’s as good an explanation as you’ll find anywhere.

Angulo’s exertions were for nothing. He punched himself out just as Kirkland began coming on again. It was a left hook that sent Angulo spiraling down Queer Street. When he collapsed at the end of that unforgettable first round, Angulo’s seconds frantically gestured for him to stay down for eight seconds, but he would have none of that. He got up immediately and hoped no one noticed that he ever went down in the first place. For the next five rounds Angulo was vulnerable and only semi-conscious. He fought on. His expression, soon distorted by punishment, still hadn’t changed.

Kirkland seemed to be enjoying it all.

In 1969, The New York Times carried an article about Joe Frazier entitled “The Killer” and the Los Angeles Times ran a three-part series called “Man or Machine?” Tapping typewriters described the fighter’s strange enthusiasm in the ring as “savage glee” and “blood joy.” They saw Frazier grinning a bloody grin and eagerly nodding his head after landing a left hook hard enough to crack the ribs of dead cows in a Philly slaughterhouse. When moved off balance or knocked backwards, he’d clap his hands and then trot right back into close quarters like it was home sweet home.

At 1:59 of round six, Kirkland was feeling very much alive. His punches were landing with startling force one after another. The strong man was getting stronger, even as the story shifted to Alfredo Angulo. After being battered for five rounds Angulo’s offense had become feeble and his defense stultified. Now his body was shuddering under the weight of violence and sagging for the first time in his professional career. All that was left was his will. The crowd at the Centro de Cancun gasped when they saw that Angulo would accept his terrible fate standing up.

The referee jumped in, stopped the fight, and probably saved his life.

October 1^st 1975. At the end of the twelfth round in the third epic struggle between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Frazier’s face had become a bulging mess. He told trainer Eddie Futch that he couldn’t see out of the crouch position and Futch instructed him to “pull back a step and stand up” so that he could see better. But Ali picked up on the change and adjusted accordingly. He knocked Frazier’s mouthpiece out of his mouth, over the ropes, and six rows back. Frazier was vulnerable and almost blind.

“I fought on,” Frazier said afterward, “There was nothing else to do.”

“And these are the kind of fighters who get hurt seriously,” Eddie Futch recalled, “–those who won’t go down, who will stay there and absorb the punishment when their body is just not capable of handling it anymore. And their mind tells them to stay up and their body just can’t handle it.”

In the corner before the beginning of the fifteenth round, the trainer looked at his fighter and said “Joe, I’m going to stop it.” Frazier pleaded, “No, no, no!” Futch put his hand on the strong man’s shoulder and said “sit down son.

…no one will ever forget what you did here today.”

We never did. We never will.

Joe Frazier died last night in Philadelphia. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in late September and spent his last days at home surrounded by family. No merciful referee or wise trainer interfered while he battled on his own terms, and something tells me that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Joe Frazier’s spirit will never die. We saw it in the ring Saturday night. We’ll see it again.

——————————————-

The graphic appears with permission.

Background information about Frazier in Jack Griffin’s “Frazier Still Dreaming As Ali Started His Climb,” Pittsburgh Press 3/3/71 and “Catching Up With ‘Smokin Joe Frazier’,” by Sabina Clark in Irish Edition, 6/12/09. Descriptions of Frazier’s “joy” in battle found in New York Times 7/20/67 and 6/26/69. Eddie Futch’s recollections found in Ronald K. Fried’s Corner Men (pp. 312-313) and Dave Anderson’s In The Corner (pp.246-247).

Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com“>scalinatella@hotmail.com.

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Springs Toledo

Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

2 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Steven-Navarro-is-the-TSS-2024-Prospect-of-the-Year

“I get ‘Bam’ vibes when I watch this kid,” said ESPN ringside commentator Tim Bradley during the opening round of Steven Navarro’s most recent match. Bradley was referencing WBC super flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, a precociously brilliant technician whose name now appears on most pound-for-pound lists.

There are some common threads between Steven Navarro, the latest fighter to adopt the nickname “Kid Dynamite,” and Bam Rodriguez. Both are southpaws currently competing in the junior bantamweight division. But, of course, Bradley was alluding to something more when he made the comparison. And Navarro’s showing bore witness that Bradley was on to something.

It was the fifth pro fight for Navarro who was matched against a Puerto Rican with a 7-1 ledger. He ended the contest in the second frame, scoring three knockdowns, each the result of a different combination of punches, forcing the referee to stop it. It was the fourth win inside the distance for the 20-year-old phenom.

Isaias Estevan “Steven” Navarro turned pro after coming up short in last December’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana. The #1 seed in the 57 kg (featherweight) division, he was upset in the finals, losing a controversial split decision. Heading in, Navarro had won 13 national tournaments beginning at age 12.

A graduate of LA’s historic Fairfax High School, Steven made his pro debut this past April on a Matchroom Promotions card at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and then inked a long-term deal with Top Rank. He comes from a boxing family. His father Refugio had 10 pro fights and three of Refugio’s cousins were boxers, most notably Jose Navarro who represented the USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a four-time world title challenger as a super flyweight. Jose was managed by Oscar De La Hoya for much of his pro career.

Nowadays, the line between a prospect and a rising contender has been blurred. Three years ago, in an effort to make matters less muddled, we operationally defined a prospect thusly: “A boxer with no more than a dozen fights, none yet of the 10-round variety.” To our way of thinking, a prospect by nature is still in the preliminary-bout phase of his career.

We may loosen these parameters in the future. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of talented female boxers who, like their Japanese male counterparts in the smallest weight classes, are often pushed into title fights when, from a historical perspective, they are just getting started.

But for the time being, we will adhere to our operational definition. And within the window that we have created, Steven Navarro stood out. In his first year as a pro, “Kid Dynamite” left us yearning to see more of him.

Honorable mention: Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior (5-0, 5 KOs)

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The Challenge of Playing Muhammad Ali

Published

10 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Thomas Hauser

There have been countless dramatizations of Muhammad Ali’s life and more will follow in the years ahead. The most heavily marketed of these so far have been the 1977 movie titled The Greatest starring Ali himself and the 2001 biopic Ali starring Will Smith.

The Greatest was fictionalized. Its saving grace apart from Ali’s presence on screen was the song “The Greatest Love of All” which was written for the film and later popularized by Whitney Houston. Beyond that, the movie was mediocre. “Of all our sports heroes,” Frank Deford wrote, “Ali needs least to be sanitized. But The Greatest is just a big vapid valentine. It took a dive.”

The 2001 film was equally bland but without the saving grace of Ali on camera. “I hated that film,” Spike Lee said. “It wasn’t Ali.” Jerry Izenberg was in accord, complaining, “Will Smith playing Ali was an impersonation, not a performance.”

The latest entry in the Ali registry is a play running this week off-Broadway at the AMT Theater (354 West 45th Street) in Manhattan.

The One: The Life of Muhammad Ali was written by David Serero, who has produced and directed the show in addition to playing the role of Angelo Dundee in the three-man drama. Serero, age 43, was born in Paris, is of Moroccan-French-Jewish heritage, and has excelled professionally as an opera singer (baritone) and actor (stage and screen).

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The play is flawed. There are glaring factual inaccuracies in the script that add nothing to the dramatic arc and detract from its credibility.

On the plus side; Zack Bazile (pictured) is exceptionally good as Ali. And Serero (wearing his director’s hat) brings the most out of him.

Growing up, Bazile (now 28) excelled in multiple sports. In 2018, while attending Ohio State, he won the NCAA Long Jump Championship and was named Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year. He also dabbled in boxing, competed in two amateur fights in 2022, and won both by knockout. He began acting three years ago.

Serero received roughly one thousand resumes when he published notices for a casting call in search of an actor to play Ali. One-hundred-twenty respondents were invited to audition.

“I had people who looked like Ali and were accomplished actors,” Serero recalls. “But when they were in the room, I didn’t feel Ali in front of me. You have to remember; we’re dealing with someone who really existed and there’s video of him, so it’s not like asking someone to play George Washington.”

And Ali was Ali. That’s a hard act to follow.

Bazile is a near-perfect fit. At 6-feet-2-inches tall, 195 pounds, he conveys Ali’s physicality. His body is sculpted in the manner of the young Ali. He moves like an athlete because he is an athlete. His face resembles Ali’s and his expressions are very much on the mark in the way he transmits emotion to the audience. He uses his voice the way Ali did. He moves his eyes the way Ali did. He has THE LOOK.

Zack was born the year that Ali lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, so he has no first-hand memory of the young Ali who set the world ablaze. “But as an actor,” he says, “I’m representing Ali. That’s a responsibility I take very seriously. Everyone has an essence about them. I had to find the right balance – not too over the top – and capture that.”

Sitting in the audience watching Bazile, I felt at times as though it was Ali onstage in front of me. Zack has the pre-exile Ali down perfectly. The magic dissipates a bit as the stage Ali grows older. Bazile still has to add the weight of aging to his craft. But I couldn’t help but think, “Muhammad would have loved watching Zack play him.”

****

Twenty-four hours after the premiere of The One, David Serero left the stage for a night to shine brightly in a real boxing ring., The occasion was the tenth fight card that Larry Goldberg has promoted at Sony Hall in New York, a run that began with Goldberg’s first pro show ever on October 13, 2022.

Most of the fights on the six-bout card played out as expected. But two were tougher for the favorites than anticipated. Jacob Riley Solis was held to a draw by Daniel Jefferson. And Andy Dominguez was knocked down hard by Angel Meza in round three before rallying to claim a one-point split-decision triumph.

Serero sang the national anthem between the second and third fights and stilled the crowd with a virtuoso performance. Fans at sports events are usually restless during the singing of the anthem. This time, the crowd was captivated. Serero turned a flat ritual into an inspirational moment. People were turning to each other and saying “Wow!”

****

The unexpected happened in Tijuana last Saturday night when 25-to-1 underdog Bruno Surace climbed off the canvas after a second-round knockdown to score a shocking, one-punch, sixth-round stoppage of Jaime Munguia. There has been a lot of commentary since then about what happened that night. The best explanation I’ve heard came from a fan named John who wrote, “The fight was not over in the second round although Munguia thought it was because, if he caught him once, he would naturally catch him again. Plus he looked at this little four KO guy [Surace had scored 4 knockouts in 27 fights] the way all the fans did, like he had no punch. That is what a fan can afford to do. But a fighter should know better. The ref reminds you, ‘Protect yourself at all times.’ Somebody forgot that.”

photo (c) David Serero

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 16, 2024

Arne K. Lang

L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

If asked to name a prominent boxing trainer who operates out of a gym in Los Angeles, the name Freddie Roach would jump immediately to mind. Best known for his work with Manny Pacquaio, Roach has been named the Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America a record seven times.

A mere seven miles from Roach’s iconic Wild Card Gym is the gym that Rudy Hernandez now calls home. Situated in the Little Tokyo neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles, the L.A. Boxing Gym – a relatively new addition to the SoCal boxing landscape — is as nondescript as its name. From the outside, one would not guess that two reigning world champions, Junto Nakatani and Anthony Olascuaga, were forged there.

As Freddie Roach will be forever linked with Manny Pacquiao, so will Rudy Hernandez be linked with Nakatani. The Japanese boxer was only 15 years old when his parents packed him off to the United States to be tutored by Hernandez. With Hernandez in his corner, the lanky southpaw won titles at 112 and 115 and currently holds the WBO bantamweight (118) belt. In his last start, he knocked out his Thai opponent, a 77-fight veteran who had never been stopped, advancing his record to 29-0 (22 KOs).

Nakatani’s name now appears on several pound-for-pound lists. A match with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue is brewing. When that match comes to fruition, it will be the grandest domestic showdown in Japanese boxing history.

“Junto Nakatani is the greatest fighter I’ve ever trained. It’s easy to work with him because even when he came to me at age 15, his focus was only on boxing. It was to be a champion one day and nothing interfered with that dream,” Hernandez told sports journalist Manouk Akopyan writing for Boxing Scene.

Akin to Nakatani, Rudy Hernandez built Anthony Olascuaga from scratch. The LA native was rucked out of obscurity in April of 2023 when Jonathan Gonzalez contracted pneumonia and was forced to withdraw from his date in Tokyo with lineal light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji. Olascuaga, with only five pro fights under his belt, filled the breach on 10 days’ notice and although he lost (TKO by 9), he earned kudos for his gritty performance against the man recognized as the best fighter in his weight class.

Two fights later, back in Tokyo, Olascuaga copped the WBO world flyweight title with a third-round stoppage of Riku Kano. His first defense came in October, again in Japan, and Olascuaga retained his belt with a first-round stoppage of the aforementioned Gonzalez. (This bout was originally ruled a no-contest as it ended after Gonzalez suffered a cut from an accidental clash of heads. But the referee ruled that Gonzalez was fit to continue before the Puerto Rican said “no mas,” alleging his vision was impaired, and the WBO upheld a protest from the Olascuaga camp and changed the result to a TKO. Regardless, Rudy Hernandez’s fighter would have kept his title.)

Hernandez, 62, is the brother of the late Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez. A two-time world title-holder at 130 pounds who fought the likes of Azumah Nelson, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr., Chicanito passed away in 2011, a cancer victim at age 45.

Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez was one of the most popular fighters in the Hispanic communities of Southern California. Rudy Hernandez, a late bloomer of sorts – at least in terms of public recognition — has kept his brother’s flame alive with own achievements. He is a worthy honoree for the 2024 Trainer of the Year.

Note: This is the first in our series of annual awards. The others will arrive sporadically over the next two weeks.

Photo credit: Steve Kim

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