What about Claressa Shields?

Published

12 years ago

October 8, 2012

claressa-shields-630x472 Colbert knows what rates. He had Claressa Shields on Sept. 25. But to be real, there probably should have been more of a hubbub surrounding Shields' gold medal, and her skills. She deserves better, and more.

It’s Saturday night, and not just any. Tonight is fight night at the McCarson household. My wife and I have the popcorn and drinks ready, and we’re sitting on the couch. We’re watching Andre Ward fight Chad Dawson on HBO. It’s one of the biggest fights of the year, and it’s on regular HBO, not PPV.

All is right in the boxing world.

During the telecast, HBO analyst Max Kellerman says something I agree with. He says Andre Ward is the last American boxer to win a gold medal.

But Max and I are wrong.

My wife turns to me with a look of almost-horror on her face. I wonder if I’ve spilled something on the couch or said something stupid, but no, it’s what Max said.

“What about Claressa?” she says. And she’s right. What about Claressa?

I see from Twitter that Claressa is thinking the same exact thing. I don’t know Kellerman personally, but having been around him a few times at fights, I know enough to think he didn’t mean it that way. Kellerman is the type of guy who talks and takes pictures with fans for as long as they want him to be there. He smiles and seems genuinely interested in what people have to say to him when they talk, and he doesn’t hurry off when he’s approached by someone. He makes eye contact, smiles and chats it up with them like it matters, because he knows it does.

He’s just made a mistake.

The two connect and Max apologizes to her. He says it’s his mistake, congratulates her and tells her she’s made everyone proud. The only problem is that he says this to her via Twitter where only a few people can see, and what he said on HBO that night was to millions of fight fans who might not have been sitting next to someone like my wife to let them know he’s wrong – we’re wrong.

Max and I are wrong because we operate under that same stodgy old paradigm that’s been in place for years: it’s had its moments, but for the most part, women’s boxing is just a sideshow.

Life Goes On

Honestly, I never really think about the series of events again until I’m talking to Claressa this week. I set up an interview with her publicist and make the call. She answers herself, probably tired after a long day from being at school. She’s a senior at Flint Northwestern High School in Michigan, just a kid really. Over the summer, she carried on her shoulders the hopes and dreams of women everywhere, but now she’s back to carrying normal things like school books.

For some reason, I’m nervous talking to her.

I ask Claressa what it’s like being an Olympic champion. I’ve talked to all sorts of fighters and sports figures before, but never a reigning gold medalist and most certainly not one as important as her.

“When you first win the gold medal, it’s so special,” she tells me. “It was my dream for so many years, and now I’ve accomplished my dream.”

It’s always nice to hear stories like this, so I’m genuinely excited to listen to it firsthand. But then she continues.

“Then, for like a week or so, I was like ‘what’s next’?” she says. “You know, after having the same dream so many times and then one day you lay down and you have the same dream but you wake up and you’ve got the gold medal wrapped around you, you get to thinking…why I am still having that dream? I already made it a reality, you know?”

It is at this point I start to think about Kellerman and that look on my wife’s face. Claressa keeps talking.

“I’ll definitely continue boxing,” she says. “The Olympics were just the first step. I still feel like I need to get my recognition. You know? I felt like I would get more recognition because I’m seventeen and I won the gold medal, but I didn’t.”

The knife begins to go in, but I don’t really feel it yet.

“It just seems like a women’s gold medal isn’t as valuable as a man’s gold medal. I don’t know…”

It is at this point that it hits me. We’ve failed her. I’ve failed her. Max has failed her. We. Have. All. Failed. Her.

Claressa comes from some rough stuff. She’s endured it, and she’s come out a better person for it. She’s only seventeen, but she’s wise in the way people who have to crawl from the bottom to the top are, and besides, nobody with the nickname “T-Rex” let’s little things like recognition get them down. If she did, she would’ve never started boxing in the first place.

Claressa’s father, Clarence Shields, was an amateur fighter nicknamed “Cannonball” because of his fast, hard punches. When Claressa first asked her dad if she could learn to box, he told her boxing was a man’s sport. Max and I would have probably told her the same thing; I know I probably would have. But Claressa kept at it anyway until, at eleven years old, her father finally gave in to her, thinking she’d surely get beat up and quit.

She didn’t.

“I’m not really the type of person to think ‘oh I wish I had this, oh I wish I had that’”, she says. “I just accept what I have and just make the best out of it.”

Claressa is a fighter.

A Real Boxer

Claressa is old school tough. She watches fight films of the greats and she emulates them. She considers herself a mash-up of Joe Louis and Ray Robinson. She tells me during one of her first matches in London, she heard someone compare her to Sylvester Stallone’s fictional movie character, Rocky Balboa.

This offends her.

“Someone called me Rocky Balboa!” she says. “In my first fight at the Olympics, I was throwing a lot of punches…I was like…that’s an insult! He’s not even a real boxer. I was like NO, I do not box like him!”

Claressa tells me that in her first fight, her opponent’s strategy forced her to throw wider punches than normal. She says she knew she could land her hook, but in the first couple rounds she was missing by a few inches here and there, so she just kept throwing it. In the rest of her fights, she says she got back to what she does best.

“I was throwing wide punches [in that fight] but the next day, I was throwing sharp punches which is how I usually box,” she says. “I make them miss, and then I make them pay! That’s when you can see how much skill I have.”

Claressa says she looks up to the old school fighters and this doesn’t surprise me. She says she watches tapes of her idols, Joe Louis and Ray Robinson, the most, and that she has The Brown Bomber’s powerful left hook and a sweet, straight right like Sugar’s.

I tell her I’ve heard her compared to Marvin Hagler, and she laughs almost giddily and says what anyone would say to something like that.

“He was pretty good, too!”

A Brave New World

There has never been a Claressa Shields before. She’s new territory in boxing. Sure, we’ve had women boxers before, but we’ve never had a seventeen-year-old gold medalist who grows up immersed in the sport’s amateur ranks like she’s been. We’ve not had a girl who watches black and white film of the best fighters ever and then puts what she sees to use.

Claressa didn’t have someone like her to look up to, either. No one did. I ask her if she truly understands who and what she is, and what she’ll forever be to every girl who ever grows up in the United States wanting to be a boxer.

“It’s very special to be looked at as an inspiration,” she says, but she says it in a way that doesn’t give me the impression we’ve helped her understand how important she really is. This is where Max and I (and you) come back in.

You see, boxing is for everyone, and it’s at its very best when it combines the truth of tough, gritty and skilled competition with the mythologizing poetry of storytelling. It’s not that we make them to be more than they really are, rather we describe them in the most honest way we can. Gods of War, as Springs Toledo calls them, the best of the very best.

Claressa deserves to be part of that.

Her narrative is one of newness and hope. It’s something rare and unbelievable. It’s different. It’s special.She’s a pioneer of a sport that’s been around for centuries. She’s Amelia Earhart. She’s Jackie Robinson. She’s Billy Jean King. She’s Jack Johnson.

What about Claressa? Let’s give her the credit she’s due. She deserves it. It’s says something about us, the boxing community, that she hasn’t gotten it, and it’s something I don’t like. Let’s be better than that. Let’s rally around Claressa and all the other women who want to be treated as real fighters. Let’s make Claressa the show, not the sideshow. Let’s demand Golden Boy Promotions, Top Rank and Main Events start beating down her door to sign her the way they would’ve a man. Let’s demand Everlast and Grant to fight each other for her endorsement. I want her on the cover of Ring Magazine. I want Monday columns from BWAA members about her. Dan Rafael should be buddying up to her on Twitter, and Jim Lampley should be prepping for his extensive interview with her on HBO’s next installment of “The Fight Game.”

Boxing should take care of its own.

For now, Claressa has no idea what she’ll do next. She says she’s already back in the gym training, and that she’s already got a fight lined up next week in a PAL tournament. She’s a fighter, she says. It’s what she does.

“So I’ve been thinking about the next Olympics,” she tells me. “If I get two gold medals, there’s no way they cannot give [the recognition] to me then, right?”

I am not sure I know the answer to her question, and my heart breaks because of it. So should yours.

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The Sweet Science

Canelo vs Berlanga Battles the UFC: Hopefully No Repeat of the 2019 Fiasco

Published

1 day ago

September 9, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Canelo-vs-Berlanga-Battles-the-UFC-Hopefully-No-Repeat-of-the-2019-Fiasco

If one happens to be fan of both traditional boxing and MMA, then one has a choice to make this Saturday. Canelo Alvarez will be in action at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas defending his lineal 168-pound world title against Edgar Berlanga and two miles away in a competing Pay-Per-View card, the first-ever sporting event will be staged inside The Sphere, a UFC card bearing the title Riyadh Season Noche 306.

This won’t be the first time that a boxing card featuring the red-headed Mexican superstar went head-to-head with a UFC event. On Nov. 2, 2019, Canelo Alvarez fought Sergey Kovalev at the T-Mobile and 2,500 miles away, MMA stars Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal locked horns at Madison Square Garden. Both cards were PPV. Alvarez vs Kovalev was live-streamed on DAZN; Diaz vs Masvidal on ESPN+.

We don’t know which event generated the most profit, but the way things played out, this was a symbolic win for the UFC. On this night, the venerable sport of boxing and its adherents were reduced to a second-class citizen.

The fault lay with the nitwits at DAZN. They thought it prudent to postpone the start of Alvarez-Kovalev until the Diaz-Masdival fight was finished. What resulted was an interlude that dragged on for a good 90 minutes after Ryan Garcia knocked out Romero Duno in 98 seconds in the semi-wind-up. Then came the ring walks, the National Anthems (there were three), and the long-winded introduction of the combatants. When the bell finally sounded to signify the start of the bout, it was 10:18 inside the arena and 1:18 am for the bleary-eyed folks tuning in back in the Eastern Time Zone. The backlash was fierce.

The competing shows this coming Saturday coincide with Mexican Independence Day Weekend. One might assume that this will give the PBC promotion at the T-Mobile a leg up as Canelo Alvarez is a must-see attraction within the Mexican and Mexican-American communities. However, the UFC card has something going for it that T-Mobile lacks. The venue is itself an allurement. The newest addition to the Las Vegas skyline, The Sphere has the WOW factor. Even long-time Las Vegas locals, supposedly jaded by a surfeit of architectural wonders, are mesmerized by the constantly changing light show on the exterior of the big globe. Inside, visitors will find the world’s highest resolution LED display.

Customizing the interior for UFC 306 was an expensive proposition. UFC honcho Dana White has pegged the cost at $20 million and concedes that without Saudi money it would not have been feasible. He says that Saturday’s show will be “one-off,” not merely the first combat sports event at The Sphere, but also the last because it would be too expensive to replicate. If that be true, attendees are advised to keep their ticket stubs. Years from now, they might command a nice price in the sports memorabilia marketplace.

The T-Mobile has Canelo, but The Sphere has Alexa Grasso who, akin to Canelo, hails from Guadalajara. Ms. Grasso, 31, just may be the second-most-well-known fighter in Mexico. In addition to holding the UFC flyweight title, she is an analyst for the UFC’s Spanish-language broadcasts.

Grasso will be defending her belts against Russia’s Valentina Shevshenko in the co-main. In the featured bout, bantamweight belt-holder Sean O’Malley will defend his title against Merab Dvalishvili.

The T-Mobile card on Prime Video comes with a suggested list price of $89.99 for U.S. buyers without a Prime Video account. That tab has been widely assailed as a rip-off. “It’s gouging fight fans, plain and simple,” says Kevin Iole who covered both boxing and MMA for Yahoo. (For the record, the UFC show on ESPN+ comes with a list price of $79.99, $10 cheaper if bundled with an ESPN+ subscription. The UFC folks are holding their breath that the event can be translated to the small screen without compromising the clarity of the picture. The logistics are daunting.)

The main bouts on the UFC card will be far more competitive based on the prevailing odds, but when it comes to combat sports, this reporter is a traditionalist. Agreed, that can be interpreted as an old fuddy-duddy stuck in his ways, but in my eyes boxing, a sport that rests on a far more arresting historic foundation, trumps the Johnny-come-lately that is the UFC.

Check back later this week as TSS West Coast Bureau Chief David A. Avila offers up a closer look at Alvarez vs Berlanga and some of the supporting bouts.

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Niyomtrong Proves a Bridge Too Far for Alex Winwood in Australia

Published

4 days ago

September 7, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Niyomtrong-Proves-a-Bridge-Too-Far-for-Alex-Winwood-in-Australia

Today in Perth, Australia, Alex Winwood stepped up in class in his fifth pro fight with the aim of becoming the fastest world title-holder in Australian boxing history. But Winwood (4-0, 2 KOs heading in) wasn’t ready for WBA strawweight champion Thammanoon Niyomtrong, aka Knockout CP Freshmart, who by some accounts is the longest reigning champion in the sport.

Niyomtrong (25-0, 9 KOs) prevailed by a slim margin to retain his title. “At least the right guy won,” said prominent Australian boxing writer Anthony Cocks who thought the scores (114-112, 114-112, 113-113) gave the hometown fighter all the best of it.

Winwood, who represented Australia in the Tokyo Olympics, trained for the match in Thailand (as do many foreign boxers in his weight class). He is trained by Angelo Hyder who also worked with Danny Green and the Moloney twins. Had he prevailed, he would have broken the record of Australian boxing icon Jeff Fenech who won a world title in his seventh pro fight. A member of the Noongar tribe, Winwood, 27, also hoped to etch on his name on the list of notable Australian aboriginal boxers alongside Dave Sands, Lionel Rose and the Mundines, Tony and Anthony, father and son.

What Winwood, 27, hoped to capitalize on was Niyomtrong’s theoretical ring rust. The Thai was making his first start since July 20 of 2022 when he won a comfortable decision over Wanheng Menayothin in one of the most ballyhooed domestic showdowns in Thai boxing history. But the Noongar needed more edges than that to overcome the Thai who won his first major title in his ninth pro fight with a hard-fought decision over Nicaragua’s Carlos Buitrago who was 27-0-1 heading in.

A former Muai Thai champion, Niyomtrong/Freshmart turns 34 later this month, an advanced age for a boxer in the sport’s smallest weight class. Although he remains undefeated, he may have passed his prime. How good was he in his heyday? Prominent boxing historian Matt McGrain has written that he was the most accomplished strawweight in the world in the decade 2010-2019: “It is not close, it is not debatable, there is no argument.”

Against the intrepid Winwood, Niyomtrong started slowly. In round seven, he cranked up the juice, putting the local fighter down hard with a left hook. He added another knockdown in round nine. The game Winwood stayed the course, but was well-beaten at the finish, no matter that the scorecards suggested otherwise, creating the impression of a very close fight.

P.S. – Because boxrec refused to name this a title fight, it fell under the radar screen until the result was made known. In case you hadn’t noticed, boxrec is at loggerheads with the World Boxing Association and has decided to “de-certify” the oldest of the world sanctioning bodies. While this reporter would be happy to see the WBA disappear – it is clearly the most corrupt of the four major organizations – the view from here is that boxrec is being petty. Moreover, if this practice continues, it will be much harder for boxing historians of future generations to sort through the rubble.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 295: Callum Walsh, Pechanga Casino Fights and More

Published

5 days ago

September 6, 2024

David A. Avila

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Super welterweight contender Callum Walsh worked out for reporters and videographers at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Thursday,

The native of Ireland Walsh (11-0, 9 KOs) has a fight date against Poland’s Przemyslaw Runowski (22-2-1, 6 KOs) on Friday, Sept. 20 at the city of Dublin. It’s a homecoming for the undefeated southpaw from Cork. UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card.

Mark down the date.

Walsh is the latest prodigy of promoter Tom Loeffler who has a history of developing European boxers in America and propelling them forward on the global boxing scene. Think Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin and you know what I mean.

Golovkin was a middleweight monster for years.

From Kevin Kelley to Oba Carr to Vitaly Klitschko to Serhii Bohachuk and many more in-between, the trail of elite boxers promoted by Loeffler continues to grow. Will Walsh be the newest success?

Add to the mix Dana White, the maestro of UFC, who is also involved with Walsh and you get a clearer picture of what the Irish lad brings to the table.

Walsh has speed, power and a glint of meanness that champions need to navigate the prizefighting world. He also has one of the best trainers in the world in Freddie Roach who needs no further introduction.

Perhaps the final measure of Walsh will be when he’s been tested with the most important challenge of all:

Can he take a punch from a big hitter?

That’s the final challenge

It always comes down to the chin. It’s what separates the Golovkins from the rest of the pack. At the top of the food chain they all can hit, have incredible speed and skill, but the fighters with the rock hard chins are those that prevail.

So far, the chin test is the only examination remaining for Walsh.

“King’ Callum Walsh is ready for his Irish homecoming and promises some fireworks for the Irish fans. This will be an entertaining show for the fans and we are excited to bring world class boxing back to the 3Arena in Dublin,” said Loeffler.

Pechanga Fights

MarvNation Promotions presents a battle between welterweight contenders Jose “Chon” Zepeda (37-5, 28 KOs) and Ivan Redkach (24-7-1, 19 KOs) on Friday, Sept. 6, at Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula. DAZN will stream the fight card.

Both have fought many of the best welterweights in the world and now face each other. It should be an interesting clash between the veterans.

Also on the card, featherweights Nathan Rodriguez (15-0) and Bryan Mercado (11-5-1) meet in an eight-round fight.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. First bout at 7 p.m.

Monster Inoue

Once again Japan’s Naoya Inoue dispatched another super bantamweight contender with ease as TJ Doheny was unable to continue in the seventh round after battered by a combination on Tuesday in Tokyo.

Inoue continues to brush away whoever is placed in front of him like a glint of dust.

Is the “Monster” the best fighter pound-for-pound on the planet or is it Terence Crawford? Both are dynamic punchers with skill, speed, power and great chins.

Munguia in Big Bear

Super middleweight contender Jaime Munguia is two weeks away from his match with Erik Bazinyan at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. ESPN will show the Top Rank card.

“Erik Bazinyan is a good fighter. He’s undefeated. He switches stances. We need to be careful with that. He’s taller and has a longer reach than me. He has a good jab. He can punch well on the inside. He’s a fighter who comes with all the desire to excel,” said Munguia.

Bazinyan has victories over Ronald Ellis and Alantez Fox.

In case you didn’t know, Munguia moved over to Top Rank but still has ties with Golden Boy Promotions and Zanfer Promotions. Bazinyan is promoted by Eye of the Tiger.

This is the Tijuana fighter’s first match with Top Rank since losing to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last May in Las Vegas. He is back with trainer Erik Morales.

Callum Walsh photo credit: Lina Baker

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