Pacquiao-Bradley Undercard Has Philly Flavor

Published

12 years ago

June 5, 2012

JonesSotoKarass2 Hogan15 Mike Jones (left, against Jesus Soto Karass) is one of the new Philly fighters who are trying to make a stamp similar to their 70s era brethren.

Some of the more popular dishes in Manny Pacquiao’s homeland of the Philippines are pork menudo, pancit molo, maja blanca, inihaw na liempo and dinuguan at puto. It can be presumed that Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KOs), who defends his WBO welterweight championship Saturday night against Timothy Bradley (28-0, 12 KOs) at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, chowed down on all or some of that highly satisfying and tummy-filling fare in bulking up from 106 pounds, his jockey-level weight for his professional debut on Jan. 25, 1995, to the career-high 145 he carried for his May 7, 2011, bout with Shane Mosley.

It is on the Pacquiao-Bradley undercard, however, that the taste of the evening’s events runs more toward that of a Philly cheesesteak. Two Philadelphia born-and-bred fighters, welterweight Mike Jones and super bantamweight Teon Kennedy, bid for world titles on the televised portion of the pay-per-view slate, while highly acclaimed amateur Jesse Hart, son of 1970s middleweight contender Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, enters the pro ranks, also at middleweight.

Should Jones and Kennedy come back as titlists – Jones (26-0, 19 KOs) will be favored in his showdown with veteran Randall Bailey (42-7, 36 KOs) for the vacant IBF 147-pound belt; Kennedy (17-1-2, 7 KOs), who challenges WBA super bantam champ and two-time Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux (9-0, 7 KOs), won’t be – they would join with Danny “Swift” Garcia (23-0, 14 KOs) as world champions, the first time Philly has held that distinction since Bernard Hopkins, Nate Miller and Charles Brewer were simultaneous strapholders in 1997.

“It could make Philadelphia the boxing capital of the world again, like it used to be,” Doc Nowicki, who holds a managerial interest in all three Philly fighters on Saturday’s card, said of the possibility of a sweep by his guys, and maybe even a more bountiful yield moving forward as America’s best fight town (which its citizenry has always believed itself to be) attempts to reclaim some of its 1970s glory.

“With this crew of guys that we have now, and even with some young amateurs we’re looking at, it could be huge. We could have four or five guys from Philadelphia that could be world champions at the same time. When’s the last time that’s ever happened?”

The answer is never, although some of Nowicki’s optimism is rooted in the current reality of four major world sanctioning bodies and 17 weight classes, an explosion of available titles that have diluted the meaning of the word “champion.” Still, making it to the top of the mountain is a notable achievement, even if the summit isn’t nearly as high or as difficult to scale as it was in that golden era of the ’70s, when Philly at one point boasted four of the world’s top 10-rated middleweights (Hart, Bennie Briscoe, Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts and Willie “The Worm” Monroe), not to mention heavyweight Joe Frazier, light heavyweight Matthew Saad Muhammad and bantamweight Jeff Chandler, all of whom held world championships at some point during that halcyon decade. The ’70s were also graced by such Philadelphia-based contenders as welterweight Stanley “Kitten” Hayward and heavyweight Jimmy Young. Light heavyweight and cruiserweight champ Dwight Muhammad Qawi was from right across the Delaware River, in Camden, which makes him at least a quasi-Philly fighter, if you’re giving that designation in accordance with the horseshoes-and-hand-grenades theory that closeness counts.

Not that those very good times, when the Spectrum was the site of bouts that routinely drew screaming crowds of 8,000 to 12,000, are coming back any time soon, if ever. Demolition of the Spectrum was completed in May 2011, and the Blue Horizon, the 1,500-seat bandbox that The Ring a few years ago declared was the best place in the world to watch a boxing match, has been dark since super bantamweight Coy Evans scored a six-round decision over Barbaro Zepeda on June 4, 2010. Most of the big fights involving Philadelphia fighters now take place elsewhere, with Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall – 55 or so miles removed from where the Spectrum once stood – anointed as the closest thing to a home base for those who will never know what it felt like to ply their trade before large, adoring local turnouts. Even the great Bernard Hopkins, long the primary face of Philly boxing, fought only twice in his hometown over the past 18½ years, and just once while defending a world title – a desultory eighth-round stoppage of frightened French middleweight challenger Morrade Hakkar on March 29, 2003, in the Spectrum.

But maybe that is to be expected. How are you going to keep them tied to home when they’ve appeared in such magnificent venues as Cowboys Stadium, the Mandalay Bay and Madison Square Garden, as Jones has after he graduated from his 10-bout apprenticeship at the New Alhambra (now the Asylum Arena) in South Philadelphia? Philly fighters remain fiercely proud to be recognized as keepers of their city’s proud pugilistic legacy, but now they’re accustomed to taking their act on the road, most often to glitzy casino sites.

“It’s pretty much normal now,” Jones, who is rated No. 1 by the IBF to Bailey’s No. 2, said of his introduction to brighter lights, much larger audiences and the pressure attendant to rapidly rising expectations. “I’ve been on some pretty big stages, in fights televised by HBO. I won’t go in there all nervous and overanxious because it’s a world title fight. The guy across from me will be trying to take my head off, same as it was in South Philly. I got to take his head off before he does it to me.”

Although Jones and Kennedy are promoted by Philadelphia-based J Russell Peltz, their appearance in conjunction with a high-visibility event such as Pacquiao-Bradley is hardly a coincidence. Jones, a lean welter whose physique and style — if not yet his accomplishment level — are reminiscent of a young Thomas Hearns, was said by Peltz to have “a chance to be a megastar” in the spring of 2009, which is why Top Rank bought a chunk of his promotional rights. Top Rank founder and CEO Bob Arum, as is the case with many major promoters, likes to control both fighters whenever possible, and an impressive victory by Jones over Bailey could put his name in the mix for a future big-bucks date with Pacquiao, the lead pony in the Top Rank stable. Some of Pacquiao’s more recent bouts were against Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito, all of whom bore the Top Rank imprimatur.

“We saw that possibility a year ago, after the second (Jesus) Soto Karass fight, when Mike came back and proved to the world how good a boxer he was,” Nowicki said of a dream pairing of his guy and Pacquiao.

Kennedy is not under contract to Top Rank, but to secure his shot at the Arum-promoted Rigondeaux he had to agree to a three-fight deal with Top Rank should he pull off the upset. It’s the boxing version of someone, this case Arum, taking out an insurance policy against possible disaster. Even if Rigondeaux loses, Arum still would hold paper on the new champ.

But Kennedy, who is 0-1-1 in his two most recent bouts – a 12-round beatdown by Alejandro Lopez and a 10-round majority draw with Christopher Martin – said he will enter the ring against Rigondeaux with an unencumbered mind, which hasn’t always been the case. He had to bear the burden of being the victor in the Nov. 20, 2009, death match with Francisco “Paco” Rodriguez, in which Rodriguez slipped into a coma with a brain bleed after the fight and was taken off life support two days later. And prior to his scrap with Lopez, Kennedy faced multiple felony charges in conjunction with a shooting. It was later determined to be a case of mistaken identity, and all charges against Kennedy were dropped.

“I really didn’t want him to take that (Lopez) fight because I didn’t think he was focused,” Nowicki said. “So what did he do? He followed the guy around like a little puppy dog, and he lost. In the next fight, Martin probably expected Teon to do the same thing.”

Kennedy said he didn’t expect to get a title shot this soon, but he insisted Rigondeaux will be in for a surprise if he expects to tune up the guy who looked so, well, ordinary against Lopez and Martin.

“I’m in this position now and I’m going to make the most of it,” he said. “(Rigondeaux) is well-schooled, but he hasn’t fought a fighter like me yet.”

Hart wasn’t supposed to be in Vegas just yet. He is supposed to be with the U.S. Olympic boxing team, preparing for this summer’s London Games. But a double-tiebreaker loss to Terrell Gausha in the 165-pound final of the USA National Boxing Championships squashed Hart’s dream and sent him in another direction.

“It don’t get no bigger than this,” Hart, who was signed by Top Rank, said of his pro debut on a Pacquiao undercard. “I won the Olympic Trials, but I’m on the biggest stage that there is right now. This is what I was born to do. My dad told me that when I was a baby, he put a pair of little boxing gloves in my crib.

“It’s not my turn yet, but I look to be in the main event of an event like this in three years. I don’t want to just become a world champion, but to put my name in the history books as one of the greatest fighters of all time. I won’t stop until I’m better than Sugar Ray Robinson.”

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Bernard Fernandez

Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-289-East-L.A.-A-Fight-Town-Claressa-Shields-and-More

Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

2 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-Jake-Paul-and-Women's-Boxing-a-Curmudgeon's-Take

Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Former-World-Bamtamweight-Champion-Richie-Sandoval-Passes-Away-at-age-63

Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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