Five Years Later – Ring Magazine All-Star Report Card Revisited (Part Two)

Published

12 years ago

September 25, 2012

Part two of this TSS special will focus on the second ten fighters listed in Gavin Evans’ Ring Magazine article from exactly five years ago this month, the 2007 All Star Report Card, an article intended to grade the very elite of the sport and forecast where their careers might be headed. Let’s continue to have a look at who those folks were then versus whom they turned out to be.

Shane Mosley was riding a renewed sense of vigor in his career. Having won “just one out of six between ’01 and ’05, Mosley [had] returned to form, with five straight victories – in increasingly impressive style.” The steak would stop at five that very year, when Mosley lost a spirited decision in November against the then-still-undefeated Miguel Cotto. Evans calls Mosley “one of the outstanding lightweights of the modern era – unbeaten at the weight” while also being fairly critical of his association with “the notorious Balco organization, a supplier of illegal, performance enhancing drugs to various athletes”. Of course, one of those athletes turned out to be Mosley, who subsequently confessed to taking PEDs before his 2003 fight against Oscar De La Hoya. Still, Mosley is most assuredly heading for the International Boxing Hall of Fame once he becomes eligible. Both then and now, Mosley is a “popular and highly respected figure” despite his inability to ever become as golden of a goose as his rival/brief business partner, Oscar De La Hoya. Mosley retired just this year after being winless in his last four fights, one of them a draw against Sergio Mora.

Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto was undefeated through twenty-nine professional fights in 2007. Evans notes Cotto as being a “heavy-handed boxer” who uses a “cool, unflustered approach, hits extremely hard with both hands, and is particularly potent with his body attack”. Cotto defeated Mosley later that same year, then followed his up with a stoppage of tough contender Alfonso Gomez. In late 2008, Cotto was defeated by fellow welterweight slugger Antonio Margarito in one of the most highly anticipated contests of the year. The bout has since been the subject of much debate, due to alleged foreign plaster-like material found in Margarito’s gloves in a 2009 fight against Shane Mosley. Whatever happened in the first Cotto-Margarito fight, it did seem to take a lot out of Cotto. He has never quite regained his status as possibly the scariest fighter in his division, but his TKO win over Margarito in the rematch, and a 2012 fight against Floyd Mayweather showed he can still be a dangerous competitor to anyone. Cotto lost the decision in the latter, but bloodied Mayweather’s nose in a rough-and-tumble bout few expected. Cotto is still a huge draw in a sport that demands tough, aggressive heroes, and a fight against undefeated Mexican prospect Saul “Canelo” Alvarez would be an enormous hit at the box office for both fighters.

There is only one Ricky Hatton, and in 2007 he was still undefeated and on top of the British boxing world. Hatton is noted for being “an extremely aggressive fighter who uses his strength and stamina to crowd opponents”. That style made him a star in his home country, but it also got him a lot of attention and respect in America, too. Perhaps even more endearing to boxing fans was Hatton’s well chronicled “inclination towards beer swilling and pie eating between fights”, something that earned him the affectionate nickname “Ricky Fatton”. At twenty-eight, Hatton was trending up towards the pound-for-pound elite, so he took the chance to confirm his status against fellow superstar Floyd Mayweather that December. It was an absolutely brilliant fight night atmosphere in Las Vegas, but Hatton’s throng traveling well-wishers couldn’t help him against vintage Mayweather. After stunning Mayweather early, the dominant fighter of his era settled down to take over the bout, ultimately ending it over Hatton by TKO 10. Hatton rebounded the next year with wins over Juan Lazcano and Paulie Malignaggi, but met his demise against Manny Pacquiao in 2009 in perhaps the most brutal knockout of the new millennium. Hatton retired soon after, but he’s poised to make a comeback this November after a three year hiatus, which has many fight fans excited to once again raucously cheer for the gregarious welterweight from Manchester.

Houston’s Juan Diaz “rose above the lightweight pack with his emphatic win over Acelino Freitas” to make the twenty-three-year-old the preeminent up-and-coming boxing “buzzsaw” on the list. Evans notes Diaz as the “premier Diaz” of the time, proving his mettle against some of the best lightweights in the world to create quite the separation between himself and the other notable lightweight fighters of the era with the same surname, IBF titlist Julio Diaz and WBC champion David Diaz. Diaz was a pre-law student at the University of Houston – Downtown, and perhaps had his sights set outside the boxing ring sooner than most of his contemporaries because of it. Diaz stayed undefeated until losing a split decision versus veteran contender Nate Campbell in 2008. His marketability remained, though, and Diaz used it to get a bout against Juan Manuel Marquez in 2009. Diaz lost the thrilling contest by TKO 9, then lost two of his next three contests before calling it a career as a fighter and focusing on his outside-of-the-ring business exploits.

A young Amir Khan, then only twenty, was already “one of the biggest names in British boxing” in 2007. Still, boxing experts like Evans saw his potential demise just around the corner. Sure, Khan possessed all the intriguing qualities in 2007 that he does now. His “blistering quickness of foot and hand”, exceptional reflexes, and long-range punching prowess made him a sensational prospect. However, his flaws where equally as evident then as they are now, too. Evans notes Khan as a young competitor who “leaves himself open to counters” before going through all the early times in his career he had either been buzzed or down on the canvas. Khan was knocked out by slugger Breidis Prescott in 2008, lost a split decision to Lamont Peterson in 2011, and was knocked out again just this year by Danny Garcia. Khan has recently decided to spit with his trainer, Freddie Roach, in search for answers to questions perhaps his chin has already told.

No one could have foreseen what Manny Pacquiao was about to do five years ago. Evans notes the constant improvement of the impressive champion, who was then already considered elite. His “footwork and balance” improved considerably under trainer Freddie Roach, but Pacquiao began one of the more impressive runs in history for a man his size that very year seemingly out of nowhere. Pacquiao decisioned Mexican superstars Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez in succession before moving up to lightweight to snag the WBC lightweight title from David Diaz. Afterwards, he utterly destroyed Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto at welterweight, then continued his historically great run by picking up wins against Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley. Pacquiao never made his way to the ring against Mayweather, though, which is the fight everyone has wanted to see for what seems like years now, and he has now lost a disputed decision to Timothy Bradley. No one is sure how many fights the thirty-three-year-old Filipino sensation has left in him, but he’s due for a fourth fight against nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez this December. Assuming he wins that one, he’d likely consider a rematch against Bradley before Mayweather, so fight fans may always be left wondering who the greatest fighter of the era truly was.

Forever undefeated Edwin Valero was just a few years and five fights from his death in 2007. Valero, who won every prizefight he ever had by stoppage, was “one of the big hitters of world boxing.” His career was momentarily halted after a failed MRI brain scan in 2004, but he found fights outside of the United States (the NYSAC had banned him because of it) to keep his career on track. He earned the WBC lightweight title in 2009 and held it until his tragic demise. Valero committed suicide in 2010 by hanging himself with his own clothes in a jail cell as he awaited arraignment for the alleged murder of his own wife, Jennifer Viera. With his death, fight fans are left wondering not only how good he could have been inside of the ring, but also how much damage was truly done to him by the sport we love. Was his tragic end a result of his craft, or was he merely drawn to pugilism because of something already inside of him?

Perhaps surprisingly, people were still wondering what to do with Juan Manuel Marquez in 2007. Five years ago, Marquez had yet to face Pacquiao a second or third time. He was fresh off an important win over Marco Antonio Barrera but had yet to really solidify himself as the best lightweight in the world and a legit contender for top tier pound-for-pound status. Nonetheless, Marquez was praised for his “blend of sharp counterpunching, controlled power, head-shifting defensive prowess, and his defined sense of time and distance.” To put it another way, over these last few years Marquez has shown himself to be a master pugilist, a true technician. He’s been close enough in every Pacquiao fight to be seen the victor in the eyes of many, and he’s constantly challenged himself against the very best. Since his last loss, in 2006 to Chris John, Marquez has only lost three times, twice to Pacquiao and once to Floyd Mayweather. During that timeframe, he’s defeated numerous notables, including Rocky Juarez, Juan Diaz (twice) and Joel Casamayor.

It’s funny to see Chris John on the list. The Indonesian featherweight, who was also an amateur Wushu gold medalist in his home country, defeated Juan Manuel Marquez in 2006, but has never really cashed in on it despite his undefeated record remaining intact. Sure, he suffered a bogus draw against Rocky Juarez in 2009 in the latter’s hometown, but avenged it in Las Vegas later in the year. Since then, he’s remained a titlist who never seems to get a big break against a big money opponent. Is it because he’s too dangerous? Or is he being protected by his handlers? He’ll need solid opponents to establish any sort of lasting legacy (with U.S. fight fans at least), so securing bouts against the likes of Yuriorkis Gamboa, Orlando Salido or Mikey Garcia is vitally necessary for the 33-year-old.

Finally, junior featherweight Rafael Marquez, younger brother of Juan Manuel Marquez, rounded out the list of twenty top fighters in the sport. Marquez had just scored a sensational win over Israel Vazquez in 2007. He’d go on to lose the next two to Vazquez in succession, then evened it up in 2010 with a third round knockout of his archrival in culmination of one of the greatest four fight series of the modern era (perhaps fittingly knotted up at two apiece). The fights took their toll on both fighters, though, and Marquez hasn’t quite excelled at the elite level since. He’s lost two of his last four, including an eighth round stoppage by hard-hitting Juan Manuel Lopez. Evans notes some significant talk at the time of the Marquez brothers “being the best boxing brothers in the sport’s history.” Indeed, they’d be on the very short list of siblings to discuss worthy of said honor, likely alongside the Klitschkos (Wladimir and Vitali) and the Spinks (Michael and Leon).

So there you have it, folks. Now, I can throw this old Ring Magazine in the recycling bin and (like you) go back to getting all my latest boxing news and information from The Sweet Science and The Boxing Channel.

You can email Kelsey McCarson at theboxingstop@yahoo.com, or follow him on twitter @TheRealKelseyMc.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

2 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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