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Pacquiao-Bradley: Another Travesty

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Bradley Pacquiao 120609 004aThe fighters managed a smile afterwards..but the fans still fume, and head for the exits. Too many think the sport is riddled with corruption. (Chris Farina-Top Rank photo)

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat to avoid further disappointment. Nobody is going to do anything about it.

Of all the sad things you can say about what happened at the MGM Grand Garden Arena Saturday night that is the surest and the saddest of all. Nobody is going to investigate a robbery conducted in front of over 14,000 eyewitnesses. Nobody is going to make it right. Nobody is even going to try.

Manny Pacquiao has been the recipient of a gift decision or two during his career, including in my opinion the draw and two razor-thin wins Las Vegas judges awarded him over the years against Juan Manuel Marquez. Frankly, I don’t believe he won any of those fights nor more than about a third of the 36 rounds fought between them.

Having said that, those decisions were at the worst only petty theft. They were at least in the first two cases, debatable. What was done to Pacquiao by Duane Ford and CJ Ross however was grand larceny at the Grand.

Ford and Ross were the two judges who committed robbery using a lead pencil, ruling that Timothy Bradley had defeated Pacquiao 115-113 when most observers, including prize fighters like George Foreman, Roy Jones, Jr., Evander Holyfield and even Floyd Mayweather’s father, saw a one-sided win for Pacquiao.

Ford tried to defend his score the following day in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by claiming Bradley had “given Pacquiao a boxing lesson.’’ Then in the next breath he admitted most of the rounds were close. The lesson in that is the 74-year-old Ford has seen his better days…and apparently not much of that fight.

There are two ways to look at the split decision win those judges gave Bradley. You can simply shrug your shoulders, holler about unproven corruptness and buy the next pay per view when it comes along or you can do what discerning shoppers do.

When the product turns bad you stop buying. That is what fight fans need to do until this matter is thoroughly investigated. Not that that will change anything but at least the people allegedly in charge will be on notice that someone is watching because Saturday night no one was – including the three judges at ringside.

The fault does not lie with Bradley or Pacquiao. Both fought bravely and well. They entertained, took risks and rewarded the fans with their efforts. But the result demeaned those efforts, the sport and the fans who pay everyone – including those judges and Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith “I Know Nothhhing’’ Kizer.

In less than 24 hours Kizer admitted he thought Pacquiao won but in the next breath said the officials’ work would not be reviewed. The chairman of the commission said it would not “second guess’’ the officials.

Then what are they there for? They don’t do an adequate job on medical exams, especially in the area of performance enhancing drugs. If they catch anyone it’s always after the fact until Dr. Margaret Goodman started actually using tests that might catch someone before hand and almost immediately forced the cancellation of two straight big-money fights as a result of positive tests for PEDs.

They allow endless mismatches as well. Hell, in California Antonio Margarito was allowed to slip two bricks in his gloves without anyone but Shane Mosley’s trainer noticing. So what are the regulators doing in the locker room? Having a Coke?

Now, worst of all, Kizer concedes they won’t even regulate the work of their own officials. So what does Kizer get paid for? Watching?

When an arena of over 14,000 people, nearly the entire Internet world, most professional fighters and commentators and almost the entire boxing press corps agree Pacquiao won somewhere between eight and 10 of the 12 rounds and CompuBox stats argue loudly against the decision how do you come out and say you’re not even going to look at it?

Because it’s boxing which despite the presence of guys like Kizer is the most under regulated business this side of Wall Street’s investment banks and hedge funds.

In sports, one understands how a referee or umpire can miss a call from time to time. But how do you miss an entire fight? Ford even got the 11th round wrong, which he gave to Pacquiao. That was the round after which Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach was so angry at him for taking it off he ordered him to go for a knockout in the 12th. And Ford thought he won it? Even the two blind mice in the other judging chairs disagreed on that one.

As for Ford’s statement that “Bradley gave him a boxing lesson’’ one needed only to listen to Tim Bradley to know otherwise. After his hand had been raised he said he’d have to go home and watch a tape to see “if I won the fight or not.’’

Usually if you give someone “a boxing lesson’’ you know it. Bradley didn’t but Ford did. If Ford thought he saw someone giving Manny Pacquiao a boxing lesson he must have been watching tape of Pacquiao-Marquez III on an iPad rather than the fight.

“You can hear the boos in the crowd,’’ poor Bradley (29-0, 12 KO) said. “Everybody feels I lost the fight.  This is boxing. Nov. 19th we can do the rematch.

“It was a good, competitive fight. Every round was pretty close. Pacquiao won the early rounds. Later rounds I controlled with my jab. Moving.’’

What jab?

According to CompuBox statistics, Bradley landed 12 fewer jabs than Pacquiao (63-51), which meant he averaged 4 ½ jabs per round. He had a connection rate of only 11 per cent because he missed or had blocked nearly all of the pawing, range finder type jabs he threw, none of which came with any sting behind them. They were not offensive in any way except to someone like Larry Holmes or Foreman, whose jabs were lethal weapons. Bradley’s wasn’t even a tracer because seldom did anything come in behind it.

If you throw 449 jabs and miss 398 of them how did that help you control anything? It didn’t. But Keith Kizer sees no problem and Duane Ford says he saw a “boxing lesson.’’ I say we saw another travesty in a sport that long ago cornered the market on them.

Truth be told, even the guy who got it right got it wrong. Roth had the correct winner but that’s all he had right in scoring the bout 115-113 for Pacquiao after giving Bradley the final three rounds.  I saw Pacquiao winning 117-111 and felt I’d been exceedingly kind.

HBO’s unofficial scorer Harold Lederman, a former judge of world championship fights himself so unlike everyone else who Ford dismissed as unknowing would seem to have at least a reasonable understanding of Ford’s job, awarded only one round to Bradley, scoring the fight 119-109. So a former professional judge differed with Kizer’s judges by HALF A FIGHT yet he says there’s no need to review it.

That says as much about what’s wrong with boxing as the rest of the sport’s shenanigans. If this were the NFL or major league baseball, league officials would already have reviewed the controversial events and announced publicly what they’d found. If there was wrong doing or human error, they would say so.

Boxing officials? They just shrink back into the cave from which they sprung knowing nobody is going to do anything because, frankly, other than the fighters and a few loyalists, nobody really cares any more.

Boxing is looked upon by most sports fans today the way you look at your kooky uncle: occasionally interesting but seldom to be taken seriously which is how they get away with what happened Saturday night.

What really gave this outcome a stench that left the Twitter world atwitter was that in the weeks leading up to the fight Bradley openly kept talking of a Nov. 10 rematch already been arranged. He had posters made up and a phony ticket to that fight but later insisted it was all just hype.

Surely it was but if boxing regulators think the larger public believes that they are fooling themselves more than Duane Ford was when he said Pacquiao got a boxing lesson.

“When I came into the ring [after the fight], I said to Tim, 'You did very well,' and he said 'I tried hard and I couldn't beat the guy,’’ claimed Bob Arum, who promotes both fighters. “Something like this is so outlandish, it's a death knell for the sport. This is f—— nuts. I have both guys, and I'll make a lot of money in the rematch, but it's ridiculous.

“You have these old f—- who don't know what the hell they're looking at. It's incompetence. Nobody who knows anything about boxing could have Bradley ahead in the fight.

“You all know who won. I hope boxing recovers because this isn’t arguing about a close decision. This is an absurdity. Everybody involved in boxing should be ashamed. Let’s be honest about the situation.”

Why start now?

The placid Pacquiao urged observers “not to be dismayed or be discouraged at the result. I respect the decision but 100 per cent I believe I won the fight. In your heart you know who won but the best attitude is respect and professionalism.’’

No, the best attitude is to not buy any more fights until something forceful is done about this kind of theft. The decision may not be the worst in my memory but it’s the worst I can remember without spending a week thinking about it. Certainly it was worse than both the Pernell Whitaker-Julio Cesar Chavez and Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield decisions because at least they were draws so no title changed hands. In this case, the loser got the title and the winner got the shaft.

By Sunday Arum was claiming he would not stage the rematch despite the fact he is contractually obligated to do so if Pacquiao insists upon it until a full investigation into how the judges came to their decision is held. Earlier he hinted if the fight does go off it will likely be taken to Texas instead of back to Nevada, which means the city and the state will lose millions in revenue.

If that happens, maybe then somebody in state government will finally take a look at regulators who are unwilling to regulate their own business and unable to see blind incompetence when it’s staring them – and millions of witnesses – in the face.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong

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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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