Featured Articles
A Love Letter to Boxing
Tyson-Spinks hooked the writer on the sweet and savage science…and the sport has never let go of his heart and soul since then.
September is one of the better months in recent memory for our fine sport. We’ve already witnessed the coming-out party of future middleweight star Gennady Golovkin (RELEASE THE GOLVKIN!), we saw a barnburner between Daniel Geale and Felix Sturm, and we’ve got potential super fights Ward-Dawson and Chavez-Martinez yet to come. Augmented by a solid Showtime card featuring Canelo Alvarez as well as both a Klitschko title fight and documentary on HBO – well, what better time to reflect on why I love the sport?
It’s easy to get down on the sport sometimes. We all know how many things boxing seems to get wrong. There’s no reason to list them here.
For all its ailments, though, boxing does a lot of things right. The very nature of the sport draws men and women to it like moths to a flame and for damn good reason. There’s simply nothing like it.
A fight is like nothing else.
If you’ve ever been in a fist fight, you know that every second can feel like an eternity. It’s everything at once. Parts of it seem so long. Other parts seem so short, and before you know it, it’s all over. It’s like it never happened, but it did: like a dream.
So it is for those of us who try to capture the sport in written word, too. There is simply not enough time to capture the ebb and flow of a round (much less the entire fight) between the time the final bell rings to when an article goes to press. At the same time, a good fight seems to last forever.
It seems a riddle, this boxing of ours, but perhaps it’s no more strange than the very idea of the sport itself – two men (or women) enter a ring on guts and guile alone, intent on bashing each other’s faces in, and leave with a closer bond than even the best of friends could forge together.
So very strange it is, this sweet science, that all any of us can do is gather round to watch.
It is a science. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Find the meanest, toughest guy you can find on the street and have him head to a boxing gym. He’ll learn quickly the importance of method and approach.
It’s also an art. I dare say there is more art in today’s pugilism than what’s left in our popular music. Have a listen to your radio. You’ll see. Even our culture’s authors have left us rifling through bins of classic literature searching for something appreciable.
Ah, but boxing…
Behold Floyd Mayweather, the most gifted fighter in our sport. Like his outside the ring antics or despise them, you cannot help but be rendered speechless by his fistic brilliance.
Hail Manny Pacquiao, the brilliant embodiment of weaponized aggression. You may prefer a more defensive approach than his, but you can’t help but shudder at the piston-like precision of his ferocity.
Observe Andre Ward. His technical acumen is only superseded by the workings of his inner spirit aimed carefully towards doing what must be done to maintain his status as victor.
The list goes on and on.
Boxers are infinitely appreciable. So much so, in fact, that we give them nicknames to try and capture the essence of their craft. We call them things like “Sugar,” “Hitman” and “The Real Deal.”
Boxing is bigger than any other sport in the world, but it’s also somehow the least appreciated in today’s world. Any barfly will tell you the world’s greatest sportsman in the last 100 years was a boxer named Muhammad Ali. The same know-it-all tells you other combat sports have somehow passed it by.
He is wrong because his definition of our sport lacks authenticity. Boxing isn’t just a combat sport. It is more than that. Boxing is savage poetry. It is music infused with fire and spit and blood. It’s teeth and tenacity bolstered by artful repose.
Boxing is all that and more.
Yes, they kick and punch in mixed martial arts, but boxing is more than that. It is a gentleman’s agreement to tactically engage in the rhythm of souls brought together solely by a mutual intention to dole out punishment on each other’s bodies for the simple reason that each man exists.
Or maybe it’s just a fist fight for money. I can never tell.
But boxing is for everyone. Its fierce aggression and brutality can be appreciated by anyone, from the artist to the street vendor to the businessman. It’s for the barfly who thinks he knows about the sport because he hit his brother once and the busboy who’s never dared to punch anyone but can list every heavyweight champion who has ever lived. It’s for wives and sisters who see art in the decadence of bloodlust, and it’s for husbands and brothers who live vicariously through the Hectors and Achilles of their day.
Have you ever met a fighter in his old age that couldn’t help but stammer out words of longing for the bygone days that made him that way? Do you know boxing writers who travel by hook or crook to get to gigs that never pay more than their trip fare?
Boxing isn’t for the faint of heart. It is for the full of heart.
It is for men like Evander Holyfield and Arturo Gatti. It’s for those who see victory in defeat and hope when the dawn seems darkest. It is for women like Claressa Shields and Marlen Esparza who have so few shoulders of giants to stand on, but do so anyway. It’s for men who carve livings out of it any way they can and for the rest of us who try but can’t seem to do it. It’s for the people who save up money to travel hours away from their homes to see a fight from the most expensive seats they can afford, and it’s for the working men and women who scrounge together just enough cash with their friends and relatives to buy this month’s big pay per view.
Boxing is for anyone and everyone who wants it. It is ours.
I remember the first fight I ever saw. Don’t we all? I was just a boy then. Mike Tyson was the scariest man on the planet. I was mesmerized by him the way we used to be with ghosts, goblins and the boogeyman, but Mike Tyson was real.
Some would say he came to the ring that night against Michael Spinks like a crazed animal, but there was more to it than that. Spinks would not fear senseless violence. Spinks would have a plan against such a Neanderthal tactic as that. He’d have strategy against directionless savagery, but scientifically trained brutality was all together a different kind of beast. Tyson was honed fury, forged under the watchful eye of Cus D’Amato, a professor of the sport who filled Mike’s brain with images of frightful pioneers like Jack Dempsey and Sonny Liston.
Tyson stormed through the helpless Spinks in ninety-one seconds that night, and I was hooked forever.
It is perhaps too ambitious to transmit all that boxing means to me in something as silly as words, but maybe, like boxing, the reward isn’t always in the result, but in the undertaking.
Someone once told me that burning embers don’t remember what they were before the flame. So it is with the souls engulfed in the fires of boxing. Whether it was because of my age or my vocation at the time, I do not remember who I was before I began to love boxing. Frankly, I would not want to.
Jaron “Boots Ennis and Eimantis Stanionus are in the wrong era.
If they had fought in the late 70s and early 80s the boxing world would have seen them regularly on televised fight cards.
Instead, with the world’s attention span diluted by thousands of available programming, this richly talented pair of undefeated welterweights Ennis (33-0, 29 Kos) and Stanionis (15-0, 9 Kos) will battle in the smaller confines of Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City on Saturday April 12.
Thankfully, DAZN will stream the WBA and IBF welterweight world title fight on the Matchroom Boxing card.
If not for DAZN these two elite fighters and the sport of pro boxing might be completely invisible to the sports entertainment world.
These welterweights are special.
Ennis, a lean whip-quick fighter out of Philadelphia, stylistically reminds me of a Tommy Hearns but not as tall or long-armed as the Detroit fighter of the past.
“Win on Saturday and I’m the WBA, IBF and Ring Magazine champion, and then we’ll see what’s next. But I am zoned in on Stanionis,” said Ennis the IBF titlist.
Lithuania’s Stanionis and his pressure style liken to a Marvelous Marvin Hagler who would walk through fire to reach striking distance of a foes chin or abdomen.
“Ennis is slick, explosive, and they say he’s the future of the division. That’s why I signed the contract. I don’t duck anyone—I run toward the fire,” Stanionis said.
When Hagler and Hearns met in Las Vegas on April 1985, their reputations had been built on television with millions watching against common foes like Roberto Duran and Juan Roldan. Both had different styles just like Stanionis and Ennis and both could punch.
One difference was their ability to take a punch.
Hagler had a chin of steel, Hearns did not.
When Ennis and Stanionis meet in the boxing ring this Saturday, each is facing the most dangerous fighter of his career. Whose chin will hold up is the true question?
“This isn’t gonna be a chess match. This is going to be a war,” said Stanionis who holds the WBA title. “I’m stepping into that ring to test him, break him, and beat him. Let’s see how he handles real pressure.”
Ennis just wants to win.
“I’m at the point right now where I don’t care what people say,” said Ennis. “I’m here to do one thing and that’s put hands on you, that’s it.”
Golden Boy in Oceanside, CA
Next week budding star Charles Conway (21-0, 16 Kos) meets Mexico’s Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 Kos) in the semi-main event at Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California on Saturday April 19.
The two super welterweights are both ranked in the top 10 and the winner moves up to the elite level of the very stacked super welterweight division.
Conwell, who trains in Cleveland, Ohio, has been one of boxing’s best kept secrets and someone few champions and contenders want to face. Take my word for it, this kid can fight.
On the main event is undisputed female flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 Kos) defending all her titles against Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 Kos).
Fundora is quickly becoming the most feared champion in boxing.
360 Promotions
Super welter prospect Sadridden Akhmedov (15-0, 13 Kos) meets Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 Kos) in the main event on Saturday April 19, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif. The 360 Promotions event will be streamed on UFC Fight Pass.
Also, Roxy Verduzco (3-0) meets Jessica Radtke (1-1-1) in a six rounds featherweight battle.
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Jarron Ennis (33-0) vs Eamantis Stanionis (15-0).
Photo credit: Mark Robinson
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Camille Estephan’s Eye of the Tiger Promotions was at its regular pop stand at the Montreal Casino tonight. Upsets on Estephan’s cards are as rare as snow on the Sahara Desert and tonight was no exception.
The main event was a 10-round lightweight contest between Dzmitry “The Wasp” Asanau and Francesco Patera.
A second-generation prizefighter – his father was reportedly an amateur champion in Russia – Asanau, 28, had a wealth of international amateur experience and represented Belarus in the Tokyo Olympics. His punches didn’t sting like a wasp, but he had too much class for Belgium’s Patera whose claim to fame was that he went 10 rounds with current WBO lightweight champion Keyshawn Davis.
Two of the judges scored every round for the Wasp (10-0, 4 KOs) with the other seeing it 98-92. Patera falls to 30-6.
Co-Feature
Fast-rising Mexican-Canadian welterweight Christopher Guerrero was credited with three knockdowns en route to a one-sided 10-round decision over Oliver Quintana. A two-time Canadian amateur champion, Guererro improved to 14-0 (8).
The fight wasn’t quite as lopsided as what the scorecards read (99-88 and 98-89 twice). None of the knockdowns were particularly harsh and the middle one was a dubious call by the referee.
It was a quick turnaround for Guerrero who scored the best win of his career 8 weeks ago in this ring. The spunky but out-gunned Quintana, whose ledger declined to 22-4, was making his first start outside Mexico.
After his victory, Guerrero was congratulated by ringsider Terence “Bud” Crawford who has a date with Canelo Alvarez in September, purportedly in Las Vegas at the home of the NFL’s Raiders. Canelo has an intervening fight with William Scull on May 4 (May 3 in the U.S.) in Saudi Arabia.
Other Bouts of Note
In a fight without an indelible moment, Mary Spencer improved to 10-2 (6) with a lopsided decision over Ogleidis Suarez (31-6-1). The scores were 99-91 and 100-90 twice. Spencer was making the first defense of her WBA super welterweight title. (She was bumped up from an interim champion to a full champion when Terri Harper vacated the belt.)
A decorated amateur, the 40-year-old Spencer has likely reached her ceiling as a pro. A well-known sports personality in Venezuela, Suarez, 37, returned to the ring in January after a 26-month hiatus. An 18-year pro, she began her career as a junior featherweight.
In a monotonously one-sided fight, Jhon Orobio, a 21-year-old Montreal-based Colombian, advanced to 13-0 (11) with an 8-round shutout over Argentine campaigner Sebastian Aguirre (19-7). Orobio threw the kitchen sink at his rugged Argentine opponent who was never off his feet.
Wyatt Sanford
The pro debut of Nova Scotia’s Wyatt Sanford, a bronze medalist at the Paris Olympics, fell out when Sanford’s opponent was unable to make weight. The opponent, 37-year-old slug Shawn Archer, was reportedly so dehydrated that he had to be hospitalized.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
The flags at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, are flying at half-staff in honor of boxing trainer Kenny Adams who passed away Monday (April 7) at age 84 at a hospice in Las Vegas. Adams was formally inducted into the Hall in June of last year but was too ill to attend the ceremony.
A native of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Adams was a retired Army master sergeant who was part of an elite squadron that conducted many harrowing missions behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War. A two-time All-Service boxing champion, his name became more generally known in 1984 when he served as the assistant coach of the U.S. Olympic boxing team that won 11 medals, eight gold, at the Los Angeles Summer Games. In 1988, he was the head coach of the squad that won eight medals, three gold, at the Olympiad in Seoul.
Adams’ work caught the eye of Top Rank honcho Bob Arum who induced Adams to move to Las Vegas and coach a team of fledgling pros that he had recently signed. Bantamweight Eddie Cook and junior featherweight Kennedy McKinney, Adams’ first two champions, bubbled out of that pod. Both represented the U.S. Army as amateurs. McKinney was an Olympic gold medalist. Adams would eventually play an instrumental role in the development of more than two dozen world title-holders including such notables as Diego Corrales, Edwin Valero, Freddie Norwood, and Terence Crawford.
When Eddie Cook won his title from Venezuela’s 36-1 Israel Contreras, it was a big upset. Adams, the subject of a 2023 profile in these pages, was subsequently on the winning side of two upsets of far greater magnitude. He prepared French journeyman Rene Jacquot for Jacquot’s date with Donald Curry on Feb. 11 1989 and prepared Vincent Phillips for his engagement with Kostya Tszyu on May 31, 1997.
Jacquot won a unanimous decision over Curry. Phillips stopped Tszyu in the 10th frame. Both fights were named Upset of the Year by The Ring magazine.
Adams’ home-away-from-home in his final years as a boxing coach was the DLX boxing gym which opened in the summer of 2020 in a former dry cleaning establishment on the west-central side of the city. It was fortuitous to the gym’s owner Trudy Nevins that Adams happened to live a few short blocks away.
“He helped me get the place up and running,” notes Nevins who endowed a chair, as it were, in honor of her esteemed helpmate.
No one in the Las Vegas boxing community was closer to Kenny Adams than Brandon Woods. “He was a mentor to me in boxing and in life in general, a father figure,” says Woods, who currently trains Trevor McCumby and Rocky Hernandez, among others.
Akin to Adams, Woods is a Missourian. His connection to Adams comes through his amateur coach Frank Flores, a former teammate of Adams on an all-Service boxing team and an assistant under Adams with the 1988 U.S. Olympic squad.
Woods was working with Nonito Donaire when he learned that he had cancer (now in remission). He cajoled Kenny Adams out of retirement to assist with the training of the Las Vegas-based Filipino and they were subsequently in the corner of Woods’ fighter DeeJay Kriel when the South African challenged IBF 105-pound title-holder Carlos Licona at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Feb. 16, 2019.
This would be the last time they worked together in the corner and it proved to be a joyous occasion.
After 11 rounds, the heavily favored Licona, a local fighter trained by Robert Garcia, had a seemingly insurmountable lead. He was ahead by seven points on two of the scorecards. In the final round, Kriel knocked him down three times and won by TKO.
“I will always remember the pep talk that Kenny gave DeeJay before that final round,” says Woods. “He said ‘You mean to tell me that you came all the way from across the pond to get to this point and not win a title?’ but in language more colorful than that; I’m paraphrasing.”
“After the fight, Kenny said to me, ‘In all my years of training guys, I never saw that.’”
The fight attracted little attention before or after (it wasn’t the main event), but it would enter the history books. Boxing writer Eric Raskin, citing research by Steve Farhood, notes that there have been only 16 instances of a boxer winning a world title fight by way of a last-round stoppage of a bout he was losing. The most famous example is the first fight between Julio Cesar Chavez and Meldrick Taylor. Kriel vs. Licona now appears on the same list.
Brandon Woods notes that the Veterans Administration moved Adams around quite a bit in his final months, shuffling him to hospitals in North Las Vegas, Kingman, Arizona, and then Boulder City (NV) before he was placed in a hospice.
When Woods visited Adams last week, Adams could not speak. “If you can hear me, I would say to him, please blink your eyes. He blinked.
“There are a couple of people in my life I thought would never leave us and Kenny is one,” said Woods with a lump in his throat.
Photo credit: Supreme Boxing
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
A Fresh Face on the Boxing Scene, Bryce Mills Faces His Toughest Test on Friday
Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: Callum Walsh Returns to Madison Square Garden
Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
Ever-Improving Callum Walsh KOs Dean Sutherland at Madison Square Garden
Avila Perspective, Chap. 318: Aussie Action, Vegas and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie
Nick Ball Wears Down and Stops TJ Doheny Before the Home Folks in Liverpool
Avila Perspective, Chap. 317: Callum Walsh, Dana White and More
High Drama in Japan as ‘Amazing Boy’ Kenshiro Teraji Overcomes Seigo Yuri Akui
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More
Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello
Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams
Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights
Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello
Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie
Avila Perspective, Chap. 318: Aussie Action, Vegas and More
Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title
Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: Callum Walsh Returns to Madison Square Garden
Ever-Improving Callum Walsh KOs Dean Sutherland at Madison Square Garden
-
Featured Articles4 weeks agoA Fresh Face on the Boxing Scene, Bryce Mills Faces His Toughest Test on Friday
-
Featured Articles3 weeks agoBernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
-
Featured Articles3 weeks agoA Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
-
Featured Articles4 weeks agoNotes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: Callum Walsh Returns to Madison Square Garden
-
Featured Articles3 weeks agoSpared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title
-
Featured Articles3 weeks agoSebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
-
Featured Articles2 weeks agoBoxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
-
Featured Articles4 weeks agoEver-Improving Callum Walsh KOs Dean Sutherland at Madison Square Garden