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Finally, the Ring A Country For Young Men

Khan and Garcia both made weight, both scaling in at 139 pounds ahead of their Saturday clash.
It was 12:30 a.m., a time when under normal circumstances this retired sports writer should have been sound asleep. But maybe it was the percussion made by the pelting rain upon the rooftop of my sister-in-law’s New Orleans-area condo, where the wife and I are spending a few pleasant weeks in our old hometown visiting with family members and friends before our return to Philadelphia. If not that, possibly it was a mild case of indigestion from the generous portion of spicy Cajun fare I consumed at dinner some hours earlier. In any case, I was up and about, mostly awake and wishing I wasn’t. So, naturally, I did what many occasional insomniacs do: I turned on the television set in the otherwise unoccupied living room to watch whichever was the best of the late-late movies on one of the 75 or so available cable channels.
As luck, or maybe fate, would have it, the pick of the litter was a more recent classic, No Country For Old Men, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Picture and starred the always watchable Tommy Lee Jones as a folksy, back-country 1980s Texas sheriff trying to make sense of a series of murders committed by a sociopathic killer from another part of the world, whose weapon of choice was highly unusual.
Nearly a week has passed since that rainy night, and as I sit here pondering the approach I will take to the story I am about to write, it occurs to me that there might be an inspired reason why I awoke when I did, and elected to sit through the 2½ -hour entirety (including commercials) of a movie I already had watched probably seven or eight times.
Unlike most areas of our youth-obsessed culture, boxing is indeed a country for old men, which perhaps has contributed to the sport’s failure to attract as many new devotees as, say, mixed martial arts or the X-Games, where nut cases on skateboards and dirt bikes risk their health performing daredevil maneuvers without ever having to take a punch. In an era in which it is increasingly difficult to identify potential superstar fighters in their 20s, and some of the best-known practitioners of the pugilistic arts continue to be such fortysomethings as Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones Jr., Evander Holyfield and James Toney, even our interminable wait for a pairing of 35-year-old Floyd Mayweather Jr. and 33-year-old Manny Pacquiao almost qualifies as a dream showdown of ascending talents.
All of which stamps Saturday night’s super lightweight matchup of WBC champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (23-0, 14 KOs) and former WBA and IBF 140-pound titlist Amir “King” Khan (26-2, 18 KOs), at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, as the boxing equivalent, or close to it, of Kevin Durant vs. LeBron James in the NBA Finals, or wunderkinds Bryce Harper vs. Mike Trout in some World Series in the not-so-distant future.
All right, so Garcia, 24, and Khan, 25, aren’t yet members of the highly exclusive and ever-shrinking fraternity of boxing superstars. Part of that is attributable to the fact their professional development hasn’t been as accessible to the public as were those of Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, whose meteoric rises in their formative professional stages owed in no small part to receiving regular exposure on free, over-the-air network television. The best, most anticipated scraps now are almost always on premium-cable or pay-per-view, freezing out thrifty fans on a budget who don’t subscribe to HBO or Showtime, or, even if they did, would prefer not to receive PPV-inflated monthly cable bills the size of new-car installment notes.
When Hearns was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y., on June 10, thousands of middle-aged idolators turned out to see him, Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler share the dais, serving as reminders of a golden age that has passed and isn’t that likely to come around again unless certain parameters of the game can be changed. Part of that process is the need for promoters to expose the lead ponies in their respective stables to the type of risky showdowns that tend to jeopardize unblemished records and alphabet titles, as fabricated as those distinctions might be. It seems hard to believe now, but Leonard was only 25 when he took his 30-1 record into the ring on Sept. 16, 1981, at Caesars Palace against Hearns, who was 32-0 and still a month shy of his 23rd birthday. Oh, sure, Leonard embellished his burgeoning legend with a come-from-behind 14th-round stoppage of the very game “Hit Man,” but Hearns performed well enough that that defeat did not erode his popularity, just as his damn-the-torpedoes loss to Hagler in their 1985 slugfest also served to elevate his status as an all-time great rather than to take it down a notch.
It didn’t hurt, of course, that Garcia, who captured the vacant WBC crown on March 24 with his unanimous decision over faded icon Erik Morales (who had relinquished the title a day earlier when he failed to make weight), and Khan both are promoted by Golden Boy, making the negotiations less confrontational than is frequently the case. Also facilitating matters is the fact that Khan, who had been preparing for a late-May rematch with the man who had wrested the WBA and IBF titles from him on a controversial split decision, Lamont Peterson, tested positive for steroids and was stripped of those belts.
Mostly, though, this appealing bout, which will be televised by HBO, was made because two young, hungry and confident fighters wanted to test themselves against someone who brought many of the same attributes to the table, and because each knows the only way to step up to the threshold of superstardom is to say what the hell and take a chance now, when it actually means something.
“I felt it was a big opportunity,” said Garcia. “Khan was supposed to fight Peterson again, but when that fell through, my manager (Al Haymon) reached out to me and said, `Do you want to fight the guy? I know you can beat him.’ I said, `Yeah, I know I can beat him, too, so let’s do it.’
“I’ve watched Khan for years. I never thought he was as good as people were making him out to be. Boxing is too political sometimes. Fighters get to be champions and all of a sudden they or their managers just want to play it safe so they can hold onto the title for a long time. Boxing needs to get exciting again, with more fights between two young, strong, fast guys in their primes.
“I didn’t have to take this fight. I could have gone another way. But I heard what was being said after I won the WBC championship. `Danny Garcia beat an old man.’ It was like I wasn’t getting the credit I believed I deserved. That’s why I said yes to a fight with Khan. I want to show the world that I’m the real deal, and I’m going to be on top for a long time.”
Those sentiments were more or less echoed by Khan, who is thrilled that at least one of his former 140-pound titles, the WBA version, also will be on the line on Saturday night, the WBA having tossed its hardware into the pot as a result of Peterson testing dirty.
“We spoke to Golden Boy (CEO Richard Schaefer) and he said, `What do you think of Danny Garcia (as a replacement opponent)? I jumped to the occasion. I remember watching the highlights when Garcia beat Erik Morales. He’s a good fighter and he has a name that I thought would be in my future because he’s young, he’s good and he’s strong. I thought, `I’m going to have to keep an eye on this guy.’
“I would have liked to settle the score properly (with Peterson), but Garcia and I have similar speed and similar movements. We’re both unorthodox. And having two world titles on the line makes the fight even bigger.”
As well thought of as Garcia was prior to his conquest of Morales (he was a 2005 Under-19 U.S. champion and a 2006 U.S. national champion as an amateur), he didn’t enter the pro ranks as heavily hyped as was Khan, a silver medalist for Great Britain at the tender age of 17 at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Boxing writers from the United Kingdom had been rhapsodizing about him to their American counterparts for years, touting Khan, who is of Pakistani descent, as the second coming of “Prince” Naseem Hamed. And when Khan took out the great Marco Antonio Barrera, or what remained of him, in five rounds on March 14, 2009, in Manchester, England, it served to largely erase the memory of his shocking, first-round knockout by Breidis Prescott two bouts earlier, also in Manchester.
Despite those two defeats on his resume, Khan is anywhere from a 3½ -1 to a 6-1 favorite, depending on which wagering establishment is setting the odds. The extent of Garcia’s longshot status does seem a bit wide, but that could be the result of all those vocal and free-spending Brits putting next month’s rent money on their hero, whereas Garcia still is trying to expand his base of support. A victory over Khan would do much to further his ambitions to be recognized as top-tier fighter and bankable attraction.
It remains to be seen whether either Garcia or Khan, or both, ever rise to the prominence of a Leonard or a Hearns, although the suspicion is that much work needs to be done for them to even enter that discussion. But they are young guns willing to back up their conviction in themselves where it counts, inside the ropes.
For that, fights fans of all ages should be grateful.
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Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas

Sebastian Fundora proved too tall and too powerful for challenger Chordale Booker in retaining the WBC and WBO super welterweight titles by TKO on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Despite a year off, Fundora (22-1-1, 14 KOs) showed the shorter fellow southpaw Booker (23-2) that rust would not be a factor in front of the crowd at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
“I felt ready this whole time. I’ve been working very hard,” said Fundora.
Behind a massive height advantage Fundora jabbed away at Booker, the subject of an award-winning documentary called “The Boxer” in 2016. It portrayed his journey from nearly being imprisoned and having boxing as an outlet to success on the streets.
Booker tried to offset Fundora’s height but could not.
Fundora established his long spearing jab to maintain a zone of safety and when Booker ventured past the zone, he was met with uppercuts and lefts.
It was a puzzle Booker could not figure out.
Fundora won the WBO and WBC titles with an upset over Australia’s much heralded Tim Tszyu. Though accepting the fight within mere weeks of the fight to replace Keith Thurman, the fighter known as the “Towering Inferno” was able to out-fight the favored Aussie to win by split decision.
Nearly a year passed since winning the titles and the months without action did not deter him from stepping on the gas second round and overwhelming the shorter Booker with a blistering attack.
Booker tried to survive and counter but no such luck.
In the fourth round a right hook by Booker was met with a thunderous four-punch combination by Fundora. A left uppercut snapped the head back of Booker who was clearly dazed by the blow. Another three-punch combination and the fight was stopped at 2:51 of the fourth round.
Fundora retained the WBC and WBO titles by technical knockout.
“We were training to wear him down,” said Fundora. “I’m a powerful fighter. With this fight I guess it showed even more.”
The two-belt champion is now smack in the middle of one of the most talented weight division in men’s boxing.
“I would love to be undisputed like my sister,” said Fundora of his sister Gabriela Fundora the undisputed flyweight world champion. “
Other Bouts
Arizona’s Jesus Ramos Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) knocked out Argentina’s Guido Schramm (16-4-2) in the seventh round of their super welterweight match. Ramos, a southpaw, caught Schramm with a left that paralyzed him along he ropes. The referee stopped the match at 1:38 of the seventh.
Arizona’s Elijah Garcia (17-1, 13 KOs) survived a knockdown by talented veteran Terrell Gausha (24-5-1) in the first round to mount a rally and win by split decision after 10 rounds in a middleweight match up.
Photo credit: Ryan Hafey / Premier Boxing Champions
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Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman

Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
For pretty much the entirety of my career as a sportswriter, I have doggedly adhered to the principle that there is a line separating professional integrity from unabashed fandom, and for me to cross it would be a violation of everything I believed in as a representative of whatever media outlet I was writing for at the time. In 50-plus years, only once did I cross that line. It was when I was in Canastota, N.Y., for an International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend and I had submitted the winning bid in a silent auction for an autographed photo of the great Carmen Basilio, being hoisted onto the shoulders of trainer Angelo Dundee and another cornerman after winning a title bout. I have that photo, which also was signed by Angelo, hanging on the wall of my apartment.
I broke my self-imposed rule by asking Carmen to pose with me holding the photo because he was my father’s favorite fighter, and thus mine when I was a little kid watching the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Friday Night Fights with my dad, a former pro welterweight and Navy veteran of World War II in the Pacific before he became a much-decorated police officer. Anyway, Carmen was long-since retired and I chose to believe that on the grand scale of professional propriety, my posing with him was nothing more than a small blip on a very large radar screen.
But with the shocking news that George Foreman had passed away on March 21, at the age of 76, it suddenly occurred to me that my idealistic principles have forever prevented me from having an autographed photo of Big George hanging on the same wall with the one of Basilio, which I no doubt will regret to my dying day. If I had bent my own standards of how a sportswriter should act in his dealings with one of his interview subjects, I might even have had one of George and I together, side by side, as is the case with any number of my colleagues who asked for and were granted photo op access to the famous athletes they covered.
Why do I now place George Foreman in a separate category from so many other elite fighters I have covered during my career? Had I not rigidly held to my belief that it was unprofessional and maybe even a bit unethical to cross that inviolable line, I might now have photos of myself standing alongside Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Lennox Lewis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns, Bernard Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad, not to mention such legends of other sports as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Walter Payton, Wayne Gretzky, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and the quarterbacking family of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning.
I had, of course, covered a number of Big George’s fights, but although he knew of me, it was not to the extent that he considered me to be a friend. All that changed, however, through the intercession of a mutual friend, boxing publicist Bill Caplan, whose relationship with George was longstanding and so deeply ingrained as to be almost familial.
My newspaper, the Philadelphia Daily News, had sent me to Los Angeles to cover a bout in which Julio Cesar Chavez was to fight Philly’s Ivan Robinson. Despite increasing pain, I somehow managed to file features on both main-event participants in the days before fight night prior to my arrival at the Staples Center in a condition that had gone from bad to worse. Bill noticed my distress in the press room and said he was going to get a ringside physician to check me out. “Maybe after the fight I came here to cover is over,” I told him, grimacing through gritted teeth. But Bill insisted that I get a medical opinion, and quickly, and the doctor who took my blood pressure said it was at a near-stroke level and that I needed to be transported by ambulance to a hospital ASAP. In the emergency room, it was determined that I was suffering from an unpassed kidney stone, a problem I had had several times previously, but not to this extent. I did not cover the fight I had come to see, of course, but I was able to make it back home alive and reasonably well before receiving additional treatment.
George Foreman did the foreword for my first boxing anthology, Championship Rounds, but he consented to do so only after he consulted with Bill Caplan to inquire if I was a writer who could be trusted not to twist his words to fit my own narrative. Bill told him I was a fair guy and that he should do the foreword once he had read the manuscript and deemed it worthy of an endorsement. It didn’t hurt that when I spoke with George by telephone, I remarked that he “owed” me. “Why do I owe you?” he asked, seemingly amused. “Because I bought two of your grills,” I replied, which drew the chuckle from him I had hoped to get.
More than a few of my colleagues at various media outlets can accurately say that George considered them to be his friends, but my relationship with him continued to grow. It didn’t hurt that I was on very amicable terms with his younger brother Roy Foreman, who lives just outside Atlantic City, and whenever I needed to speak to George directly he either answered right away or returned my call at his earliest convenience. I also don’t think it hurt that my father had once appeared in a primary undercard bout of a show in San Diego in the 1940s that was headlined by the great Archie Moore, who would later serve as one of George’s most trusted advisers. Before George’s very respectable but losing performance against heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, the challenger confided that “Archie is the only one who can tell me anything. When Archie Moore takes you to the side to tell you something, you can’t argue because he knows. I can’t argue with Archie Moore. When he tells me something, I have to say, `Yes, sir, that’s right.’”
Maybe the only person George trusted as much as the “Old Mongoose” was Bill Caplan, and it was Bill who told his dear friend of the abject grief my family and I were enduring after my wife, who had been battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, passed away on May 5 of last year. I would prefer not to divulge any details of something that shall forever remain private, but what George did in support of me and mine, and to honor the memory of a great lady who he never met, went above and beyond.
I included stories I did on George in three of my five boxing anthologies that already are in print (a sixth likely will come out this June), and I’d like to believe that our connection was solid enough that he shared the sort of insights that revealed him to be so much more than a devastating puncher inside the ropes. He was a quality human being in his everyday life, an individual who was widely admired and deserved to be recognized as such. But even if that were not the case, he would stand nearly alone for his ability to hit as hard as any heavyweight who ever lived. In recalling what it was like to share the ring with Big George in the epic “Rumble in the Jungle,” which Ali won by eighth-round knockout on Oct. 30, 1974, the victor said, “If you take any two heavyweights you can think of, and multiply (their punching power) by two, that’s George Foreman.”
Maybe Foreman might have fared better in that much-hyped bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, had he paced himself a bit more, but then that would not have been in keeping with his long-held belief that it did not pay for a powerful puncher to parcel his energy in measured doses.
“When you’re a puncher, it’s a real mysterious, almost magical thing,” he told me. “Guys who can’t punch, one thing they got to have is a lot of bravery because they knew they had to go 10 rounds, 12 rounds, 15 rounds almost every time. Punchers live with the fear if a fight keeps going another round, another round, they’re somehow going to lose. Every fight I ever had, I went for the knockout and nothing else. I didn’t really think I could win a decision. Even when I won on points, I felt like I failed.”
But even Big George didn’t have enough power to kayo the Grim Reaper indefinitely, although he might have dared to believe he could make that happen by dint of his indomitable will. After he won his first heavyweight championship, dethroning Joe Frazier by registering six knockdowns in less than two rounds on Jan. 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica, the new king of the big men said, “All of a sudden I’m beating a guy like Joe Frazier, who could punch like he could and never stop coming at you? I left there thinking, `Nobody can stand up to me.’ I just believed that if I caught anybody with a right uppercut or a left hook, he’s gone. I could knock anybody out with either hand. It seemed impossible to me that I could lose.”
In posting a 76-5 career record with 68 victories inside the distance, Big George didn’t lose often. Now that he’s taken his earthly leave, I can only regret the fact that I didn’t cross that line and ask him to pose for a picture with me. I hope he somehow knows that I shall forever be in debt for the graciousness he exhibited toward my wife and my family when we needed just such a gesture not only from a legendary fighter, but a true friend.
Editor’s note: Bernard Fernandez entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the class of 2020. The greatly-admired publicist Bill Caplan, now in his late 80’s, entered the Hall in 2022.
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Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie

In his first fight at 140 pounds and his first fight in Sydney, his hometown, in more than eight years, George Kambosos Jr scored a unanimous decision over late sub Jake Wyllie, a fellow Aussie who took the fight on five days’ notice. Kambosos won by scores of 115-113 and 117-111 twice.
Wyllie, a massive underdog, had his moments, particularly in round eight, and scored a moral victory by lasting the distance. At the final bell, it was Kambosos that looked the worse for wear after suffering a bad gash above his left eye from an accidental head butt in round nine, but most observers were in accord with the two judges that gave him nine of the 12 rounds.
Kambosos, who improved to 22-3 (10), scored his signature win in November of 2021 at Madison Square Garden with a narrow decision over lightweight belts holder Teofimo Lopez. Heading in, the Sydneysider, a longtime Manny Pacquiao sparring partner, was considered nothing more than a high-class journeyman and, notwithstanding that well-earned upset, the shoe still fits.
Astutely managed, Kambosos parlayed that triumph into several lucrative paydays with another forthcoming as he is slated to meet IBF 140-pound belt-holder Richardson Hitchins in June providing that the cut is fully healed. Hitchins captured the title in December in San Juan with a split decision over another Aussie, Liam Paro.
A 24-year-old Queenslander, Jake Wyllie had won 16 of his previous 18 fights with one no-contest. He was a step-up from Kambosos’ original opponent, 37-year-old Indonesian Daud Yordan who pulled out with an injury. After the match, Wyllie said, “I fought my heart out tonight and I feel like I am destined for great things.” With his gutsy effort, he earned a contract from Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn.
Co-feature
Queensland southpaw Skye Nicolson, one of Eddie Hearn’s favorite fighters, suffered her first pro defeat in the semi-wind-up, losing a split decision to U.S. import Tiara Brown who came in undefeated (18-0, 11 KOs) but hadn’t defeated anyone of note and was lightly-regarded. The popular Nicolson, making the third defense of the WBC featherweight title she won in Las Vegas with a wide decision over Denmark’s Sarah Mahfoud, was a consensus 8/1 favorite.
This was an entertaining affair. The scores were 97-93 and 96-94 for Brown with the dissenter favoring Nicholson (12-1) by a 96-94 tally. Tiara Brown, a 36-year-old Floridian, is one of several top-tier female boxers represented by Philadelphia booking agent Brian Cohen.
Other Bouts of Note
In a WBA bantamweight title fight, Cherneka Johnson successfully defended her title with a seventh-round stoppage of Nina Hughes. The one-sided affair was stopped by the referee at the 46-second mark of round seven with the assent of Hughes’ corner. A 30-year-old Australia-based New Zealander of Maori stock, Johnson advanced to 17-2 (7 KOs).
This was a rematch. They fought last year in Perth and Johnson won a majority decision that was somewhat controversial when Hughes was originally, but erroneously, identified as the winner. A 42-year-old Englishwoman, Hughes declined to 6-2.
Teremoana Junior, one of the newest members of the Matchroom stable, blasted out James Singh in the opening round. A six-foot-six heavyweight from Brisbane with a Cook Islands lineage, Teremoana came out with guns blazing and Singh, a burly but fragile Fijian, lasted only 132 seconds before he was rescued by the referee.
Teremoana, who turned pro after losing to the formidable Bakhodir Jalolov in the Paris Olympics, has won all seven of his pro fights by knockout. None of his opponents has lasted beyond the second round.
In a 10-round light heavyweight contest, Imam Khataev (10-0, 9 KOs) was extended the distance for the first time in his career by Durval Elias Palacio, but won comfortably on the cards (98-90, 99-89, 99-89).
Despite the wide scores, this was a hard fight for the Australia-based Russian, an Olympic bronze medalist whose physique is sculpted from the same mold as Mike Tyson (relatively short of stature with a thick neck hinged to a thick torso). Khataev had a point deducted for a low blow in round five and ended the bout with a swollen left eye. A 34-year-old Argentine, Palacio proved to be better than his record, currently 14-4.
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