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UPDATED–24/7 RECAP: Floyd Slams PETA, Merchant, Is Chill With Dad
I really, truly do not think it is out of the question that after he hangs up the gloves, Floyd Mayweather heads over to Vince McMahon’s WWE, because the man has the heel persona down super-pat. In the opening to the latest HBO 24/7 mini-series, Mayweather faced the camera and said, “I’m gonna tell the fans this. If Floyd “Money” Mayweather is not on 24/7, don’t even bother watching. Because when I’m on 24/7, it’s ‘you must watch TV.’
He then turns his gaze to the left, and asks his pal, the rap artist 50 Cent, to chime in support. Fiddy duly does, noting that the ratings drop when Mayweather isn’t involved. Yes, one can picture this duo taking the act on the road for WWE, riling up the unwashed masses in arenas coast to coast…though Floyd might not care for 300 days on the road and independent contractor status as one of McMahon’s crew.
Anyway, we will still have the 35 year-old Mayweather around in our sphere for a few more years, I’m guessing, because I haven’t seen any physical slippage in the man. “We run the show, baby. We is the show! Let us take over,” Mayweather commanded an unseen questioner.
Miguel Cotto is basically fine with that, in the promotional side of the May 5 bout, which pairs the Puerto Rican legend, the game’s reigning humble warrior, with his philosophical opposite, the pound for pound ace Mayweather. We see Cotto in the ring with trainer Pedro Diaz, working the bag and the 31-year-old scrapper says, “I don’t need to talk about Floyd. He’s the kind of guy who always needs and wants all the attention.” He is busy not shining the spotlight on himself, he says, but thinking through the bout in his head, thinking of ways to win. This fight, he says, is the best opportunity to show the world what he is made of. Fair to say, I think, that at the end of the night, most of us will be thinking the same of Cotto that we do know. That he is a proud warrior, doesn’t possess a hint of dog in him, but that he is not of the same caliber as Mayweather.
The show flashes back to Cotto’s to-this-point career definer, his Dec. 3, 2011 vanquishment of Antonio Margarito, the game’s reigning back-hat, who was busted in 2009 for trying to use illegal aids to better his punching power in a fight against Shane Mosley. A no-brainer, from a production standpoint, since Cotto’s low-key nature doesn’t scream “The camera likes this guy!” An image of his looks-like-he-had-a-baseball-bat-used-on-him face at the end of the first fight with Margarito always has impact on a viewer. Cotto discusses the scrap, and says he truly savored the moment, and that the win helped restore his confidence in himself. This is a re-born Cotto, we’re told.
At the Mayweather Boxing Club in Vegas, we see Floyd training. We hear about his impending jail stint, which will begin June 1. He says he’s happy the judge moved the sentence from January to the summer, to let him have his May bout, and says he’s not worried about the term. “I don’t even think about it,” he maintains. You will have to decide if that is bravado, or delusion vocalized, or that Floyd indeed isn’t mentally affected by the looming incarceration.
(My amateur shrink take: Floyd and his dad have a contentious relationship. I wonder if maybe this stint could actually help get them closer, because now Floyd will have something in common with his dad, who was released in 1997 after a 5 and a half year term for drug trafficking. I do not specifically recall Floyd ever lording it over his dad that he’s a convicted felon, but if he’s ever tried to hurt his dad for not being there for him, by citing the stint, well, that option won’t be available. This term could actually help bond the men. But my gut tells me Floyd can’t be looking forward to the jail time, the humiliation of having your freedom, to ride in flashy cars, and flash wads, and such, taken away. It has to weigh on him, I have to think and has to be a distraction, something that takes away from his stellar focus.
In a 1998 NY Times piece, Senior said, ''I remember him visiting me in jail many times, and I could tell by the expression on his face what he was thinking: 'Daddy, you're caged up like an animal.' ''
Mayweather Jr. said: ''I wanted to cry, seeing him like that, but I was supposed to be a man. So I didn't.''
If it made him want to cry when he was a teen and young man, well, my guess is that it will push buttons today. Maybe not all bad buttons, but buttons will be pushed. End amateur shrink take.)
Fiddy weighs in on the jail term. The pal, who was busted for drugs twice, three weeks apart, in 1994, and served seven months in boot camp, says one day is a day too many to spend locked up. He thinks Floyd won’t be thinking about the discomfort you feel being locked up, and that the term might help Floyd smarten up and live a more examined life. Leonard Ellerbe weighs in, and says Floyd took a plea so his family wouldn’t go through more, and that he knows the facts of the case don’t deserve a stint, basically.
Floyd says he’s in there “to eff you,” that he is “built for this. I like the smell of the gloves.”
In Orlando, Florida, Cotto is up before sunrise, and the whole team, including best pal Bryan Perez, who looks like he has lost over 150 pounds in the last year or so, is up at 4:30 AM. Cotto calls Diaz a “mastermind,” and gives him credit for the Dec. 3 showing, which was their first fight together. Diaz says Cotto is lightened by the Margarito win. “We know we’ll win,” the trainer says.
Floyd then talks up training. He says at camp the ring is called “The Doghouse.” It gets crowded around the ring when he’s sparring, just like at a fight between pitbulls. “I don’t want to get in trouble by..what’s the people called, PETA? I don’t want to get in trouble with the PETA people., the animal rights people, but s—t, I don’t give an eff, cause I wear mink coats. I’m gonna wear chinchilla, and I’m gonna rock mink coats,” he says, noting that many who lobby against wearing animal fur and skin also eat meat. (Not sure the stats on that, but I have to think the number of PETA folks who eat meat are REALLY small. PETA, can you weigh in here?)
(TUESDAY NOTE: I reached out to PETA on Monday afternoon, and got a response from them. Read here.)
We see a recap of Mayweather’s last bout, against Victor Ortiz in September. The leaping headbutt, the kiss and the two piece are shown. Trainer Roger Mayweather says he got what he had coming to him.
Floyd’s showdown with Larry Merchant is shown. “I wish I was fifty years younger and I’d kick your ass!” Merchant said after Floyd opined that he should be fired. Ten Larry Merchants, all age 21, could fight him, Mayweather says on 24/7, and lose.
If Merchant does work the Cotto bout, Mayweather says he won’t talk to him and will instead head to the dressing room and get his pay and hang with Fiddy.
We see Cotto, wife Melissa and the kids hanging out, enjoying family time, contrasting with Mayweather’s theatrical behavior. Melissa says she was proud of hubby for beating Margarito.
Back at the Mayweather gym, Floyd Sr. shows up, for the first time since he and Floyd got into a heated verbal scrap before the Ortiz bout. Then, Senior threatened to whup his son, and his son said dad was never any good in the ring. This time, hugs are exchanged between Senior and the Team, and he and Floyd embrace in a chilly, perfunctory manner. Senior says Floyd never apologized to him for the blowup. “At the end of the day he’s still my son anyway. Still my blood. I do think about him every day, but I live, and let live. All I do is attend my own business and leave everybody’s business alone. And I think that is the best thing for me to do.”
To sum up, Floyd says May 5 is business as usual. He’ll give the fans what they want. Cotto can fall on his face, his butt or wave a flag of surrender on May 5, he says. Cotto says Floyd never faced a fighter like him. Floyd disagrees: “I’m a winner! I’m a winner! Come May 5th I will win! I was born to win, and I will die a winner, you better believe that!”
Readers, your thoughts on the ep?
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
There’s not much happening on the boxing front this month. That’s consistent with the historical pattern.
Fight promoters of yesteryear tended to pull back after the Christmas and New Year holidays on the assumption that fight fans had less discretionary income at their disposal. Weather was a contributing factor. In olden days, more boxing cards were staged outdoors and the most attractive match-ups tended to be summertime events.
There were exceptions, of course. On Jan. 17, 1941, an SRO crowd of 23,180 filled Madison Square Garden to the rafters to witness the welterweight title fight between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. (This was the third Madison Square Garden, situated at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, roughly 17 blocks north of the current Garden which sits atop Pennsylvania Station. The first two arenas to take this name were situated farther south adjacent to Madison Square Park).
This was a rematch. They had fought here in October of the previous year. In a shocker, Zivic won a 15-round decision. The fight was close on the scorecards. Referee Arthur Donovan and one of the judges had it even after 14 rounds, but Zivic had won his rounds more decisively and he punctuated his well-earned triumph by knocking Armstrong face-first to the canvas as the final bell sounded.
This was a huge upset.
Armstrong had a rocky beginning to his pro career, but he came on like gangbusters after trainer/manager Eddie Mead acquired his contract with backing from Broadway and Hollywood star Al Jolson. Heading into his first match with Zivic – the nineteenth defense of the title he won from Barney Ross – Hammerin’ Henry had suffered only one defeat in his previous 60 fights, that coming in his second meeting with Lou Ambers, a controversial decision.
Shirley Povich, the nationally-known sports columnist for the Washington Post, conducted an informal survey of boxing insiders and found only person who gave Zivic a chance. The dissident was Chris Dundee (then far more well-known than his younger brother Angelo). “Zivic knows all the tricks,” said Dundee. “He’ll butt Armstrong with his head, gouge him with his thumbs and hit him just as low as Armstrong [who had five points deducted for low blows in his bout with Ambers].”
Indeed, Pittsburgh’s Ferdinand “Fritzie” Zivic, the youngest and best of five fighting sons of a Croatian immigrant steelworker (Fritzie’s two oldest brothers represented the U.S. at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics) would attract a cult following because of his facility for bending the rules. It would be said that no one was more adept at using his thumbs to blind an opponent or using the laces of his gloves as an anti-coagulant, undoing the work of a fighter’s cut man.
Although it was generally understood that at age 28 his best days were behind him, Henry Armstrong was chalked the favorite in the rematch (albeit a very short favorite) a tribute to his body of work. Although he had mastered Armstrong in their first encounter, most boxing insiders considered Fritzie little more than a high-class journeyman and he hadn’t looked sharp in his most recent fight, a 10-round non-title affair with lightweight champion Lew Jenkins who had the best of it in the eyes of most observers although the match was declared a draw.
The Jan. 17 rematch was a one-sided affair. Veteran New York Times scribe James P. Dawson gave Armstrong only two rounds before referee Donovan pulled the plug at the 52-second mark of the twelfth round. Armstrong, boxing’s great perpetual motion machine, a world title-holder in three weight classes, repaired to his dressing room bleeding from his nose and his mouth and with both eyes swollen nearly shut. But his effort could not have been more courageous.
At the conclusion of the 10th frame, Donovan went to Armstrong’s corner and said something to the effect, “you will have to show me something, Henry, or I will have to stop it.” What followed was Armstrong’s best round.
“[Armstrong] pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in twenty-five years of attendance at these ring battles,” wrote Dawson. But Armstrong, who had been stopped only once previously, that coming in his pro debut, had punched himself out and had nothing left.
Armstrong retired after this fight, siting his worsening eyesight, but he returned in the summer of the following year, soldiering on for 46 more fights, winning 37 to finish 149-21-10. During this run, he was reacquainted with Fritzie Zivic. Their third encounter was fought in San Francisco before a near-capacity crowd of 8,000 at the Civic Auditorium and Armstrong got his revenge, setting the pace and working the body effectively to win a 10-round decision. By then the welterweight title had passed into the hands of Freddie Cochran.
Hammerin’ Henry (aka Homicide Hank) Armstrong was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. Fritzie Zivic followed him into the Hall three years later.
Active from 1931 to 1949, Zivic lost 65 of his 231 fights – the most of anyone in the Hall of Fame, a dubious distinction – but there was yet little controversy when he was named to the Canastota shrine because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had fought a tougher schedule. Aside from Armstrong and Jenkins, he had four fights with Jake LaMotta, four with Kid Azteca, three with Charley Burley, two with Sugar Ray Robinson, two with Beau Jack, and singles with the likes of Billy Conn, Lou Ambers, and Bob Montgomery. Of the aforementioned, only Azteca, in their final meeting in Mexico City, and Sugar Ray, in their second encounter, were able to win inside the distance.
By the way, it has been written that no event of any kind at any of the four Madison Square Gardens ever drew a larger crowd than the crowd that turned out on Jan. 17, 1941, to see the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. Needless to say, prizefighting was big in those days.
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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Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
In his fifth title defense, lineal cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) successfully defended his belt with a brutal fourth-round stoppage of former sparring partner David Nyika. The bout was contested in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia where Opetaia won the IBF title in 2022 with a hard-earned decision over Maris Briedis with Nyika on the undercard. Both fighters reside in the general area although Nyika, a former Olympic bronze medalist, hails from New Zealand.
The six-foot-six Nyika, who was undefeated in 10 pro fights with nine KOs, wasn’t afraid to mix it up with Opetaia although had never fought beyond five rounds and took the fight on three weeks’ notice when obscure German campaigner Huseyin Cinkara suffered an ankle injury in training and had to pull out. He wobbled Opetaia in the second round in a fight that was an entertaining slugfest for as long as it lasted.
In round four, the champion but Nyika on the canvas with his patented right uppercut and then finished matters moments later with a combination climaxed with an explosive left hand. Nyika was unconscious before he hit the mat.
Opetaia’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants Opetaia to unify the title and then pursue a match with Oleksandr Usyk. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, holds the WBA and WBO versions of the title and is expected to be Opetaia’s next opponent. The WBC diadem is in the hands of grizzled Badou Jack.
Other Fights of Note
Brisbane heavyweight Justis Huni (12-0, 7 KOs) wacked out overmatched South African import Shaun Potgieter (10-2), ending the contest at the 33-second mark of the second round. The 25-year-old, six-foot-four Huni turned pro in 2020 after losing a 3-round decision to two-time Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov. There’s talk of matching him with England’s 20-year-old sensation Moses Itauma which would be a delicious pairing.
Eddie Hearn’s newest signee Teremoana Junior won his match even quicker, needing less than a minute to dismiss Osasu Otobo, a German heavyweight of Nigerian descent.
The six-foot-six Teremoana, who akin to Huni hails from Brisbane and turned pro after losing to the formidable Jalolov, has won all six of his pro fights by knockout while answering the bell for only eight rounds. He has an interesting lineage; his father is from the Cook Islands.
Rising 20-year-old Max “Money” McIntyre, a six-foot-three super middleweight, scored three knockdowns en route to a sixth-round stoppage of Abdulselam Saman, advancing his record to 7-0 (6 KOs). As one can surmise, McIntyre is a big fan of Floyd Mayweather.
The Opetaia-Nyika fight card aired on DAZN pay-per-view (39.99) in the Antipodes and just plain DAZN elsewhere.
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R.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
Paul Bamba, a cruiserweight, passed away at age 35 on Dec. 27 six days after defeating Rogelio Medina before a few hundred fans on a boxing card at a performing arts center in Carteret, New Jersey. No cause of death has been forthcoming, leading to rampant speculation. Was it suicide, or perhaps a brain injury, and if the latter was it triggered by a pre-existing condition?
Fuel for the latter comes in the form of a letter that surfaced after his death. Dated July 25, 2023, it was written by Dr. Alina Sharinn, a board-certified neurologist licensed in New York and Florida.
“Mr. Bamba has suffered a concussion and an episode of traumatic diplopia within the past year and now presents with increasing headaches. His MRI of the brain revealed white matter changes in both frontal lobes,” wrote Bamba’s doctor.
Her recommendation was that he stop boxing temporarily while also avoiding any other activity at which he was at risk of head trauma.
Dr. Sherinn’s letter was written three months after Bamba was defeated by Chris Avila in a 4-round contest in New Orleans. He lost all four rounds on all three scorecards, reducing his record to 5-3.
Bamba took a break from boxing after fighting Avila. Eight months would elapse before he returned to the ring. His next four fights were in Santa Marta, Colombia, against opponents who were collectively 4-23 at the time that he fought them. The most experienced of the quartet, Victor Coronado, was 38 years old.
He won all four inside the distance and ten more knockouts would follow, the last against Medina in a bout sanctioned by the World Boxing Association for the WBA Gold title. As widely reported, the stoppage, his 14th, broke Mike Tyson’s record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year. That would have been a nice feather in his cap if only it were true.
Born in Puerto Rico, Paul Bamba was a former U.S. Marine who spent time in Iraq as an infantry machine gunner. In interviews on social media platforms, he is well-spoken and introspective without a trace of the boastfulness that many prizefighters exhibit when talking to an outsider. Interviewed in a corridor of the arena after stopping Medina, he was almost apologetic, acknowledging that he still had a lot to learn.
His life story is inspirational.
His early years were spent in foster homes. He was homeless for a time after returning to civilian life. Speaking with Boxing Scene’s Lucas Ketelle, Bamba said, “I didn’t have any direction after leaving the Marine corps. I hit rock bottom, couldn’t afford a place to stay…I was renting a mattress that was shoved behind someone’s sofa.”
He turned his life around when he ventured into the Morris Park Boxing Gym in the Bronx where he learned the rudiments of boxing under the tutelage of former WBA welterweight champion Aaron “Superman” Davis. “I love boxing,” he would say. “The confidence it gives you permeates into other aspects of your life.”
Bamba’s newfound confidence allowed him to carve out a successful career as a personal trainer. His most famous client was the Grammy Award winning R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo who signed Bamba to his new sports management company late in the boxer’s Knockout skein. Bamba was with Ne-Yo in Atlanta when he passed away. Ne-Yo broke the news on his Instagram platform.
Paul Bamba had been pursuing a fight with Jake Paul. Winning the WBA Gold belt opened up other potentially lucrative options. In theory, the holder of the belt is one step removed from a world title fight. Next comes an eliminator and, if he wins that one, a true title fight attached to a hefty purse will follow…in theory.
Rogelio “Porky” Medina, who brought a 42-10 record, had competed against some top-shelf guys, e.g., Zurdo Ramirez, Badou Jack, James DeGale, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant; going the distance with DeGale and Plant. However, only two of his 42 wins had come in fights outside Mexico, at age 36 he was over the hill, and his best work had come as a super middleweight.
Thirteen months ago, Medina carried 168 ½ pounds for a match in New Zealand in which he was knocked out in the first round. He came in more than 30 pounds heavier, specifically 202 ¼, for his match with Paul Bamba. In between, he knocked out a 54-year-old man in Guadalajara to infuse his ledger with a little brighter sheen.
Why did the WBA see fit to sanction the Bamba-Medina match as a title fight? That’s a rhetorical question. And for the record, the record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year wasn’t previously held by Mike Tyson. LaMar Clark, a heavyweight from Cedar City, Utah, scored 29 consecutive knockouts in 1958 after opening the year by winning a 6-round decision. (If you are inclined to believe that all or most of those knockouts were legitimate, then perhaps I can interest you in buying the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Clark was being primped for a fight with a good purse which came when he was dispatched to Louisville to fight a fellow who was fairly new to the professional boxing scene, a former U.S. Olympian then known as Cassius Clay who knocked him out in the second round in what proved to be Clark’s final fight.
Paul Bamba was a much better fighter than LaMar Clark, of that I am quite certain. However, if Paul Bamba had gone on to meet one of the world’s elite cruiserweights, a similar outcome would have undoubtedly ensued.
One can summon up the Bamba-Medina fight on the internet although the video isn’t great – it was obviously filmed on a smart phone – and pieces of it are missing. Bamba was winning with his higher workrate when Medina took his unexpected leave, but one doesn’t have to be a boxing savant to see that Paul’s hand and foot speed were slow and that there were big holes in his defense.
This isn’t meant to be a knock on the decedent. Being able to box even four rounds at a fast clip and still be fresh is one of the most underrated achievements in all of human endurance sports. Bamba’s life story is indeed inspirational. When he talked about the importance of “giving back,” he was sincere. In an early interview, he mentioned having helped out at a Harlem food pantry.
Paul Bamba had to die to become well-known within the fight fraternity, let alone in the larger society. One hopes that his death will inspire the sport’s regulators to be more vigilant in assaying a boxer’s medical history and, if somehow his untimely death leads to the dissolution of the fetid World Boxing Association, his legacy would be even greater.
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