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Kaliesha West Is Moving Up In Weight After Success At Bantamweight

After holding the WBO bantamweight world title for 19 months and pulling off three successful world title defenses, Kaliesha “Wild, Wild” West will be moseying on toward a higher weight division.
“This is my last fight as a bantamweight,” said West, 24. “I felt the way Brandon Rios looked.”
West scrambled to find an opponent to defend her 118-pound weight division title belt and found one with Argentina’s rugged southpaw Claudia Lopez (18-6, 4 KOs). The two met in Rosarito Beach in Baja California, Mexico. Erik Morales promoted the fight and was ringside.
The Moreno Valley prizefighter expected a tough match but didn’t expect the title fight to be televised internationally including in the United States.
“I felt fine but the realization that I was being televised for the first time, the emotions just ran over,” said West (15-1-3, 4 KOs), adding that she had to fight the adrenaline rush before stepping in the ring.
Facing her was veteran brawler Lopez, whose southpaw stance coupled with her awkward style often resulted in head clashes. West merely fought the fight that was given her and banged away at the brawler.
“That girl was tough as heck and she was just awkward,” said West. “She could take a punch and keep coming.”
Though the Southern Californian had the speed advantage the Argentine was clever in using her right foot to keep West from moving toward the left and force her to Lopez’s southpaw alley. It worked a few times but West was able to counter every punch with two or three of her own.
Two of the judges saw it 98-92 and one had it even 95-95.
West said by telephone that making the weight was too tough to make and that she felt much more comfortable fighting at the 122-pound junior featherweight level.
“I need to move to 122, I feel so much better at that weight,” said West.
Here she comes.
Other fight chatter
WIBA junior lightweight titleholder Diana Prazak (10-1, 7 KOs) makes her first world title defense against Fatuma Zarika (23-5-1, 14 KOs) of Kenya. Prazak, who is training in Los Angeles, will be defending on Friday in Victoria, Australia.
Pico Rivera’s undefeated junior welterweight Jaime Ocegueda (4-0, 2 KOs) will deadline the fight card on Friday April 20, at the Quiet Cannon in Montebello. Also on the All Star Boxing promotion will be welterweight Alexander Prodrezov. For more information call (323) 816-6200.
A dup of middleweights led by former world champion Jermain Taylor headline a fight card in Biloxi, Mississippi on Friday. Taylor (29-4-1, 18 KOs) faces Caleb Truax (18-0-1, 10 KOs). In another match Cuba’s Erislandy Lara (15-1-1, 10 KOs) fights Ronald Hearns (26-2, 20 KOs). Both will be televised on Showtime.
Argentina’s Omar Narvaez (35-1-2, 19 KOs), who has the WBO junior bantamweight title, fights Jose Cabrera (20-2-2, 8 KOs) of Mexico on Saturday. Narvaez lost to Nonito Donaire in a bantamweight match last October, but held onto his junior bantamweight title.
WBA super middleweight titleholder Karoly Balzsay (24-2, 17 KOs) of Hungary fights Dimitri Sartison (29-1, 18 KOs) of Kazakhstan on Saturday. Both fight out of Germany where the world title bout will take place. It’s Balzsay’s first title defense.
Anthony Crolla (23-2, 9 KOs) fights Derry Mathews (29-6-1, 15 KOs) for the BBC lightweight title on Saturday. Their match takes place in Lancashire, United Kingdom. Also, Matty Askin (13-0, 9 KOs) clashes with Jon Dickinson (10-2, 3 KOs) in a cruiserweight battle.
Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez (54-6-1, 39 KOs) defeated Ukrainian Serhiy Fedchenko (30-2, 13 KOs) by unanimous decision on Saturday. The junior welterweight match was held in Mexico City. A very muscular looking Marquez nearly stopped Fedchenko in the last two rounds but it ended in a decision.
Heavyweight hopeful Tyson Fury (18-0, 13 KOs) stopped Martin Rogan (14-3, 7 KOs) at the end of round five to win the Irish heavyweight title. The match was held Saturday April 14 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
San Diego’s Mercito Gesta (25-0-1, 13 KOs) pounded out Oscar Cuero (15-8, 12 KOs) at 1:38 of round eight. The lightweight match was held Saturday April 14 in Las Vegas on the Top Rank under card.
Germany’s Felix Sturm (37-2-2, 16 KOs) stopped Sebastian Zbik (30-2, 10 KOs) at the end of round nine. Both were contending for some version of the WBA super middleweight title. In a female title bout, Nadia Raoui (14-1-1) defeated Eileen Olszewski (7-4-2) by decision to retain the WIBA flyweight belt on April 14.
East L.A.’s Ramon Valadez (11-1, 6 KOs) stopped former Moreno Valley resident Kevin Hoskins (6-1, 4 KOs) at 1:08 of round three. The junior lightweight match was held in Costa Mesa. Also, heavyweight Alex Flores stopped Geovanni Serran (2-4) at 2:47 of round two on Thursday April 12.
UFC 145 features UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones (15-1) facing former team mate Rashad Evans (22-1-1) in a long anticipated mixed martial arts match on Saturday April 21. The Ultimate Fighting Championship card takes place in Atlanta. Also fighting will be Rory Macdonald, Che Mills, Brendan Schaub, Ben Rothwell and Miguel Torres among many others.
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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.
Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.
Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)
Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.
The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).
Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”
A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.
Other winners:
Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon
Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney
Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire
Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix
The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.
The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.
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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.
No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.
“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.
Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.
Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.
In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.
That was a bad sign for Stanionis.
Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.
In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.
It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.
Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.
After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.
Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.
“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.
Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.
Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.
“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.
“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”
Other Bouts
Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.
The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.
“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.
Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.
Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.
Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.
In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.
“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”
In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.
“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”
After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.
Photo credit: Matchroom
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