OLYMPICS ASSESSED: Shields Rocked, The Men Stumbled Badly in London

Published

12 years ago

August 15, 2012

Shields Rocked That gold tasted sweet to the Flint Fury, Claressa Shields. But her effort can't mask the sour taste of a medal-less effort from the men's side in London.

From an American perspective, the 2012 London Olympics will be remembered as Claressa Shields' Games. Better that, better to look on the bright side that is the gold medal obtained by the 17 year old brashtalker from Flint, Michigan than to ponder for too long the ignominy that is the performance by the men's side of the squad.

Zero medals. The nine guys didn't take home so much as a bronze, and if not for the high schooler from Flint, and a bronze taken home by fellow female Marlen Esparza, the US would have been saddled with the buzzkill fact that every US squad came back home with at least a bronze. (In the first year boxing was in the summer Games, 1904, only Americans took part. Ah, the good old days…)

I refuse to diminish middleweight Shield's feat, her 19-12 win over Russian Nadezda Torlopova, and I haven't heard anyone suggesting Shields' or Esparaza's wins get an asterisk, but the women's side featured 12 boxers apiece in three weight classes as opposed to 10 classes of up to 30 men apiece. Yeah, it was a thin debut class. Still, I like Shields, with her solid basics and asskicking 'tude to bring home the top medal even in a deeper field.

The nine guys who gloved up for the US I hope chipped in for at least a decent gift basket for Shields, the Flint Fury, daughter of a streetfighter, because if she didn't win a gold, the snapback on the guys would have been bordering on vicious.

Rau'Shee Warren's opening round loss, his third in a row, is a negative standout from the London fiasco. The Ohioan got a bye to start, but was dumped out by Nordine Oubaali, a Frenchman, 19-18. Probably time for the three-time loser to exit the am ranks; he's just 25, so he could of course try again, and aim for Brazil in 2016, but perhaps his style is better suited for the pros. “It's kind of telling me it's time to move to another level,” he said after the loss, an indication of the direction he will head in.

Bantamweight Joseph Diaz Jr. gave reason for optimism, before the men's chances funneled down the drain, with a 19-9 opening round win over Pavlo Ishchenko of the Ukraine. The kid from Cali, who started boxing at age eight, showed some nice traits and skills, as the 19 year-old lefty put his punches together quite often against the loser, and used body work to good effect. In the round of 16, he was paired with Cuban Lazaro Alvarez, age 21, who took bronze home with him. The judges said Diaz lost, 21-15, but Teddy Atlas and Bob Papa of NBC didn't love their tally. Atlas thought Diaz should have won the second round, and had a cushion entering the third round. “I though Diaz carried the fight,” Atlas said. Many are high on Diaz' chances as he pivots to the pro game; the kid with a six-grader's face has a nice back story, having learned to box after being bullied in school. No reason some promoter doesn't market him to the same folks who revere Justin Bieber.

Californian lightweight Jose Ramirez, age 19, got off to a solid start, winning a 21-20 decision over Frenchman Rachid Azzedine in the round of 32. He showed a long jab, exhibited some decent footwork at times, but had a tendency to get a bit wild against a semi-crude foe. Ramirez met up with Uzbek Fazliddin Gaibnazarov in the next round. He started slowly, a trait that annoyed many watchers of the US crew. (Volume is key in this scoring system, and history doesn't often favor patient tacticians. I mean, the scorers might miss a scoring blow during a flurry, but you can be sure they won't give you a point if you aren't throwing but rarely.) Down 12-5 entering the third, Ramirez got hungry and aggressive, while Gaib tried to run and hold to run out the clock, but it was too little, too late, and the Uzbek scored a 15-11 win. “Most likely I'm going to go professional,” he told KFSN, of Fresno. “I'm going to step up to a pro career and we'll see where that takes me. I know it's going to be exciting. I know a lot of companies have been looking at me for a long, long time. And now they're excited to know that I'm going to turn pro.”

Jamel Herring, the 26-year-old Marine out of Long Island, didn't make it out of the first round. In his light welterweight tangle, he lost 19-9 to Daniyar Yelessinov of Kazkhstan. He could have in retrospect tried to be first more during the fight. Props to the captain of the squad for not getting down, though, and keeping on encouraging his mates after he lost his tussle. Does he have a pro career in him? Let's see how he does if he works with a top-level trainer.

Texan Errol Spence was the last hope for the men's team, but he lost a 16-11 decision to Russian Andrey Zamkovoy in the welterweight quarterfinals last Tuesday. He'd actually lost his opener to India's Krishan Vikas, but that loss was overturned on appeal, because Vikas held excessively. In the loss to the Russian, Spence too often let the winner be first, and will need to fix that moving forward.

“It leaves a bad taste in all our mouths,” Spence told NBCOlympics.com after his loss. “We all have great athletes. We didn't think we were going to come out here and not be winning medals. After this Olympics, our whole organization needs to get together and come up with a new gameplan to get back on top.” Sensible words from the Texan, who will head to the pro ranks.

Cleveland's Terrell Gausha, who trains in California, got our hopes up with a stoppage win in his opener. The middleweight, who has some issues with wildness, and balance, took out Armenian Andranik Hakoyan, displaying a nice aggressive streak. But he got stopped out in the round of 16, by Indian Vijender Singh, by a score of 16-15. “I disagree with that decision,” Teddy Atlas said after. “I disagree with much of what I've seen in the Olympics boxing competition.” He used the “C” word, “corrupt,” when talking to a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and he delved deeper into that to TSS, which you can check out a bit later. The 24 year-old is leaning toward turning pro, and Atlas singled him out as one of the guys he liked, especially for his aggression and desire.

Marcus Browne of Staten Island, NY liked his chances to leave London with a medal, telling me before his first match, “I'm not cocky, but confident. I'm not going to say I might lose, settle for silver. I know I have what it takes to win gold, but I got to put the work in. I've put my foot in my mouth a couple times, and don't like the feeling.” But Aussie Damien Hooper outworked the 21 year-old light heavyweight, who wasn't able to ramp up in the crucial third round, when Hooper turned on the juice, after being down 6-5. Hooper scored a standing eight late, while the New Yorker spent too much time avoiding contact rather than causing it. At the end, Hopper scored a 13-11 victory. One can see Browne having better luck with smaller gloves and no headgear, however.

Our heavyweight entrant, Michael Hunter II, didn't manage to get the gold he wanted to honor his dad, the late Michael Hunter I, who is remembered as a decent pro and mainstay on USA's “Tuesday Night Fights.” Against Russian Artur Beterbiev in the round of 16, the opener for both men, he fought on the back foot a great deal, engaged in regular clinches and looked to be gassed out a bit more than you'd like after three rounds. The score after three stood at 10-10 and the Russian got the nod through a tiebreaker against the Las Vegan. Being a heavyweight, you expect that he will sift through a few offers and transition to the pro game, always on the lookout for a Klitschko Killer, or at least, someone who can test the Brothers K. Or someone who can at least be presented to the people as a plausible foe.

Californian Dominic Breazeale made the leap from football to boxing, but it is hard to picture the super heavyweight who played QB at Northern Colorado as being a factor in the near future as pro, let alone a Klitschko Killer. Dom got a bye, but then was handed a tough task in the round of 16, in Magomed Omarov of Russia. The 26 year-old didn't register a point in the first round, and his form lagged as his energy waned, and he lost by a 19-8 score. Does he he really dig boxing, or does he see boxing as a so-so substitute for an NFL career? That remains to be seen.

Cover Girl Marlen Esparza, the flyweight from Houston, defeated Karlha Magliocco from Venezuela in the quarters, 24-16, and clinched a bronze then and there. Her stellar smile dimmed in the semi, against China's Ren Cancan, who defeated the 23 year-old. Ren, a 10-8 winner, waited and countered Esparaza in a bout which featured warnings to both boxers for inactivity. Esparza has nice basics, punches in bunches, is a slick mover and could clean up in the endorsement arena. She says she's leaving boxing and heading off to college. “My body is falling apart already,” she said to KHOU.com. “I’m in sports medicine four hours a day.”

Queen Underwood, a lightweight from Seattle, Washington has to be seen as a winner, just for getting to London. Her dad was jailed for a sex crime, she started running with a druggy crowd and tried to commit suicide, before getting her head together, and finding structure in boxing. yes, yet another of the hundreds of people annualy who use boxing to better themselves, give them structure, purpose and a concrete goal. Great Britain's Natasha Jonas beat Underwood, 21-13, in the round of 16. She was visibly emotional in a post-fight interview, needing time to collect herself and stave off tears, showing an admirable level of desire.

The lady who leaves London as the standout star in the States, Shields, just 17, showed some of the fire, and fury and desire that was too often absent in the guys' efforts. She downed by a score of 18-11 vet Anna Luarell, age 32, of Sweden in the quarters, showing some of the best pure boxing instincts of any fighter, male or female, on the US squad. Next up was Marina Volnova of Kazakhstan, who was no match for the Flint Fury. Shields scored two knockdowns, won all four rounds and exited with a 29-15 win. Her foe had ample international experience, something the US team, with shoddy leadership and funding, hasn't enjoyed of late. Volnova since 2008 fought in China, Turkey, Russia, Greece and Poland, while Shields has never crossed an ocean. But that same fire and resolve that had her deciding to leave her parents house to live with her aunt in Flint carried her to a win over a more tested opponent. “I didn’t have to, I just decided,” she told NBC regarding the move to her aunt's. “I’ve always wanted to live with Tammy to help my boxing.” Contrast that sort of confident decision-making and candor with some of the knucklehead yapper pros who are Twitter legends, and it just makes you like Shields that much more. Last Thursday, Shields became the youngest Olympic boxing champion since 1924, as she downed Nadezda Torlopova, a Kazakhstani boxing for Russia. Shields didn't have a problem showing an elder, age 33, that all US teens aren't bloated gamers. Shields' body work, which didn't show up in the points column, affected Torlo, who didn't know how to handle bunches of punches flying at her face and gut. No one couldn't love Shields' head movement as she slipped a Torlo combo in the final round, in which she stayed aggressive, but smart, while protecting a 15-10 lead going into the final frame. She's been fighting for six years, but you either have an instinct for fighting, or you don't, and Shields just does. Her brain contains the knowledge to do it the right way, physically, and her character is of a variety that I dare say a few of the guys from this London squad would do well to emulate.

Check back a bit later, and hear what Teddy Atlas, who called the boxing for NBC, has to say about the US showing; warning, Teddy pulls no punches. We'll ask a couple other smart folks what can be done to get the US boxing program back to a respectable level.

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Michael Woods

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

5 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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