Navy Vet Steve Cunningham Cruises To Battleship Status

Published

13 years ago

September 7, 2012

Steve Cunningham

The two-time IBF champ is better known in Germany than his native Philadelphia…but he still plugs on, looking for that breakthrough opportunity. The heavyweight division is where the opportunity lies.

Sooner or later they all look up – well, a lot of them, anyway — and are hypnotized by the prestige and more substantial purses that presumably await in the heavyweight division. That’s why the really good light heavyweights of another era, and today’s cruiserweights, eventually fall under the spell of that familiar siren song. “The heavyweights are where the big bucks and the glory are,” the voice of temptation calls out to them, like the snake in the Garden of Eden beckoning Eve to chomp into the forbidden apple.

Some truly outstanding light heavyweights, Billy Conn, Archie Moore and Bob Foster among them, wandered north of their natural weight class to reach for delectable fruit that would so often prove beyond their grasp. But the snakes whose fangs sank so deeply into those heavyweight dreams, the Joe Louises, Rocky Marcianos and Joe Fraziers, were only somewhat larger than their marginally undersized opponents. Now the size gap between the heavyweight elite and the wannabes has widened by a considerable margin. It’s not just the dominant Klitschko brothers who are so much taller and heftier than the light heavys and cruisers daring to upgrade; it is not unusual for many world-ranked heavyweights to go 6-6 and 245 pounds or more. One recent holder of the WBA version of the title, Russia’s Nikolai Valuev, went 7 feet and 300-plus pounds.

But, hey, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, which is why the latest division-jumper to try his hand against the really big boys is two-time former IBF cruiserweight champion Steve “USS” Cunningham (24-4, 12 KOs), who makes his heavyweight debut Saturday night against journeyman Jason Gavern (21-10-4, 10 KOs) in a 10-rounder on the undercard of a show headlined by the 12-round pairing of Tomasz Adamek (46-2, 28 KOs) and Travis Walker (39-7-1, 31 KOs) in the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

Not coincidentally, Adamek also is a former IBF cruiserweight titlist who several years ago discovered that his sport’s rewards are potentially greater for bulked-up 200-pounders willing to risk a beatdown from a giant in exchange for heavyweight-sized recompense.

“It did,” Cunningham, a former petty officer second class in the U.S. Navy and father of three, said of the financial inducements that led him to attempt, at 36, to engage heavyweights who aren’t merely destroyers, but battleships and aircraft carriers. “I’m a two-time cruiserweight champion, but I haven’t seen even a percentage of those seven-figure purses. I made a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a fight here and there, but other than that, cruiserweights don’t do anything in America. That’s why I fought so often in Europe. I was chasing that lucrativeness.

“I know Marco Huck (a German) is making pretty good money as a cruiserweight, but I was an African-American fighting in Germany. I didn’t speak the language. We thought that my being a really good fighter was what mattered most, and it did to an extent. I feel I was pretty well accepted over there. But, you know, it’s not that easy to sell an American who doesn’t speak German when he’s fighting in Germany all the time.”

Join the Navy and see the world? Cunningham took up boxing relatively late, during his Navy enlistment, but it was the fight game as much as anything that kept his passport well-stamped. He has fought in South Africa (once), Poland (twice) and Germany (five times), most of the appearances in Germany coming after his eight-year contract with Don King Productions expired and he signed the best deal that was available upon his becoming a promotional free agent. That was with Sauerland Event’s Kalle Sauerland, who hoped to take advantage of Cunningham’s popularity in Europe that owed to his matchups with Poland’s Krzysztof Wlodarczyk and Adamek.

After capturing the IBF title on his second shot at Wlodarczyk, in Katowice, Poland, on June 26, 2007, Cunningham became one of boxing’s more frequent U.S. exports to Europe. He stopped the highly regarded Huck in the 12^th round of a dandy first defense, in Bielefeld, Germany. He then nearly overcame three knockdowns to relinquish his championship to Adamek on a rousing split decision on Dec. 11, 2008, at the Prudential Center. Many have called it the best cruiserweight fight of all time, although that memorable slugfest might have to share space on the top tier with Evander Holyfield’s 15-round split decision over Dwight Muhammad Qawi on July 12, 1986, and James Toney’s 12-round, unanimous decision over Vassily Jirov on April 26, 2003.

After two successful defenses of his IBF cruiser strap, Adamek moved up to heavyweight, clearing the way for Cunningham to again win that title when he stopped Troy Ross in five rounds in Neubrandenburg, Germany, on June 5, 2010. He again made one successful defense, outpointing Serbia’s Enad Licina in Muelheim, Germany, before a six-round, technical-decision setback to Germany-based Cuban Yoan Pablo Hernandez on Oct. 1, 2011, in Neubrandenburg. A rematch with Hernandez, this past Feb. 4 in Frankfurt, Germany, also didn’t end as Cunningham would have wanted as he lost a unanimous decision.

Cunningham might have continued to ply his trade before appreciative audiences across the pond, but he couldn’t resist the emotional pull of his home country and, more specifically, his hometown of Philadelphia.

“Germany has great boxing fans, but Philadelphia’s in my heart,” said Cunningham, who has continued to live in Philly since his discharge from military service. “I take Philly with me every time I go someplace else. I did it in the Navy, and I’m doing it in boxing, too.”

No doubt Cunningham’s decision to step up to heavyweight was influenced by his wife-manager, Livvy, and his new promoter, Kathy Duva of Main Events, who has plumbed this territory before with Holyfield, the biggest heavyweight star ever to rise up from the cruisers, and Adamek. If your primary consideration is how many dollars (or Euros) you rake in, Adamek, who once held the WBC light heavyweight title, probably made as much or more for being taken out in 12 rounds by WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko on Sept. 10, 2011, as he did for all seven of his cruiserweight bouts.

Then again, money isn’t all that matters to a fighter who takes such obvious pride in himself, his profession and his roots as does Cunningham.

“When I won my first title overseas and came home, there was no reception at the airport,” Cunningham recalled. “After I won the title for a second time and came home, it was more of the same. And when stopped Huck in a great fight and came home, same thing.

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt me. But, in a way, it made me stronger. I made up my mind that I had to do what I had to do, whether anyone in Philly recognized me or not.”

Naazim Richardson, best known for his work with Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley, called it an “outrage” that Cunningham is less familiar to the average Philadelphia sports fan than the Eagles’ long snapper or a late-season minor league callup with the Phillies.

“As far as I could tell, it never bothered him,” said Richardson, who has been with Cunningham for his last five fights. “It bothered me. We’d be on the street together and someone would come up to me and say, `Hey, Naazim, what do you have coming up next?’ I’d say, `Excuse me, but this is the two-time cruiserweight champion of the world, Steve Cunningham, standing next to me.’ And the guy would go, like, `Oh.’

“It’s just incredible to me that Steve isn’t more recognized in his hometown. This is a champion who works as hard, if not harder, than other champions I’ve been with.”

Cunningham expects to weigh in “around 208 pounds” for the fight with Gavern, who, at 6-2, is an inch shorter than the Navy veteran but has ranged from 233 to 249 on the scales during his pro career. The road to heavyweight contention figures to be progressively steeper and more hazardous thereafter, but Cunningham dares to believe a high-paying date with Vitali or Wladimir Klitchko is in his future, or at least a long-awaited rematch with Adamek.

“I think I’ll be able to hold my own,” Cunningham said. “I’ve been in with guys bigger than me before. Maybe not that much bigger, but you have to have the mindset that you can do anything you put your mind to. I’m a Christian. I read my Bible. Everybody knows about how David slew Goliath.”

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Bernard Fernandez

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

5 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

Jaron-'Boots'-Ennis-Wins-Welterweight-Showdown-in-Atlantic-City

In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

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