He Saw Manny Pacquiao, and Was Hit By The Thunderbolt

Published

12 years ago

December 5, 2012

There is a great scene from the Best Picture of 1972, The Godfather , that reminds me of why boxing fans are so taken with certain fighters. Temporarily exiled American Michael Corleone is walking the hills in Sicily with two bodyguards when he glimpses the lovely Apollonia and is instantly mesmerized. It might be the best example ever captured on celluloid of someone falling in love at first sight.

“I think you got hit by the thunderbolt,” one of the bodyguards tells the smitten Michael.

For boxing buffs, the thunderbolt hits when we first catch sight of someone we hadn’t seen before, and maybe even hadn’t heard anything about, but whose style, charisma or power have the effect on us that Apollonia had on Michael Corleone. We immediately reserve a part of our heart for that fighter, and the likelihood is that he resides there for the remainder of his ring career, and possibly forever.

For some readers of TSS, the object of their affection was a young destroyer named Mike Tyson, who took the world by storm in the mid-1980s. For others, those who cherish toe-to-toe action above all else, the man-crush might have been on Matthew Saad Muhammad or Arturo Gatti, whose high threshold of pain enabled them to go to hell and back so relentlessly that many opponents were unable to remain their traveling companions all the way to the final bell. If your preference is garish outfits and outrageous behavior, you might have fallen hard for Jorge Paez or the late Hector “Macho” Camacho. If you are partial to those blessed with blindingly obvious talent, Muhammad Ali and Roy Jones Jr. might qualify as your faves. Female fans, in particular, had a thing for the matinee-idol looks of Oscar De La Hoya.

The purpose of this particular missive is to tell the story of two such instances of someone falling under a fighter’s sway, with little or no advance warning, and to ask TSS readers for their own recollections of similar Michael-sees-Apollonia moments. What makes us tumble head over heels for a particular fighter? Is there a rhyme or reason for it, some feasible explanation that provides the sort of data a researcher could quantify? Or is it simply luck of the draw, a product of our own natural leanings toward someone who fits our mental image of what a boxing hero should be?

One caveat: Excluded are fighters who already were well-known to the world at large at the time a given fan joined his crowd of worshipers. If you didn’t fully commit yourself to Ali until, say, his first fight with Joe Frazier, or the other way around, that doesn’t count. Those guys were already international icons, which prohibits them for purposes of this discussion from being accorded the out-of-the-blue qualities of an Apollonia when she wandered into Michael Corleone’s sight line.

For retired Associated Press boxing writer Ed Schuyler Jr., the thunderbolt came in the form of a dark-haired Panamanian force of nature named Roberto Duran. For me, it was also a dark-haired destroyer of whom I had little or no advance knowledge, except that he was a southpaw and from the Philippines. His name: Manny Pacquiao.

Much has happened since the first time I laid eyes upon Pacquiao, in what was his first bout in the United States. “Pac Man” eventually became a global superstar, as did Duran, which certified that my highly favorable first impression of him, as was the case for Fast Eddie with Duran, was entirely justified. But 11-plus years have gone by; Pacquiao is 33, with some telltale signs of slippage that an objective reporter, which I consider myself to be, cannot overlook. If Pacquiao were to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday, instead of taking on Juan Manuel Marquez for the fourth time, my pick to win would be Mayweather. I’m not even sure Pacquiao can extend his record against Marquez to 3-0-1; all three previous bouts in their series were highly competitive, and if you’re among those who believe that JMM deserved the nod in each of the other scraps, I won’t say you have no basis for forming that opinion.

But who knows? If Apollonia hadn’t been blown up by that car bomb, and she and Michael had stayed married, maybe they would have started arguing and wound up being divorced. Perhaps Michael, upon his return to America, would have rethought his romantic situation and started canoodling with his previous flame, Kay. The thunderbolt that hits you at the start of something isn’t always guaranteed to electrify you for all time.

Still, there’s something about that giddy rush a boxing buff feels when he yields to the appeal of a hot new attraction. So travel, if you will, down the path that Schuyler took when Duran knocked hkm for a loop, as Apollonia did to Michael, or the young Manny did to me. It is, after all, the reason we watch fights and fighters.

Schuyler, 77, an inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame who retired in April 2002 after nearly 32 years on the AP fight beat, recalled his first glimpse of Duran in a conversation we had several years ago.

“We went up to Grossinger’s in the Catskills to watch Ken Buchanan train,” Schuyler said. “Buchanan wasn’t in the gym yet, but in the ring was this dusky, dark-haired guy, Roberto Duran. He was so … so … I don’t know, like an animal. A panther. I just had this sense that this kid (Duran was 20 at the time) was born to fight.”

That feeling of impending destiny intensified the night of Sept. 13, 1971, when Duran – whose 24 previous professional bouts (all victories) had occurred in his native Panama or Mexico – took on a rugged journeyman, Benny Huertas, on the undercard of a show headlined by Buchanan’s defense of his WBA lightweight championship against another Panamanian, Ismael Laguna, in Madison Square Garden. Duran obliterated Huertas as if he were a flimsy shack on the beach in the face of a Category 5 hurricane’s landfall.

“Duran blew through Huertas in less than a round, and Benny could fight,” Schuyler said. “I remember thinking, `We’re going to have to watch this guy.’”

Manos de Piedra retuned to Panama for three more winning bouts before making his next trip to the U.S., in which he scored an emphatic, 13^th-round stoppage of Buchanan on June 26, 1972, in Madison Square Garden, lifting the Scotsman’s WBA 135-pound title in the process. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Fast-forward nearly 39 years to the day, to June 23, 2001. Pacquiao was making his first ring appearance in America, after logging 31 bouts in the Philippines, one in Japan and two in Thailand, as a short-notice replacement for the injured Enrique Sanchez against the reigning IBF super bantamweight titlist, Lehlo Ledwaba of South Africa. Pacquiao was such a prohibitive underdog that night in Las Vegas’ MGM Grand – the main event was De La Hoya’s wresting of the WBC super welterweight championship from Javier Castillejo – that the Vegas sports books did not post a line on the fight or accept wagers on its outcome.

I remember the arena, which would fill almost to capacity by the time De La Hoya and Castijllo made their way to the ring, was more than half-empty as Pacquiao began to take target practice on the unfortunate Ledwaba, who must have felt very much as Huertas did when Duran teed off on him. My report in the Philadelphia Daily News indicated that the nearly anonymous Pacquaio had in effect stolen the spotlight from De La Hoya, at least among those who were in the arena when he was abusing the soon-to-be-dethroned South African. My account read that Pacquiao “electrified the crowd” of 12,480 while “flooring Lewaba three times and beating him bloody.”

In the game of what-if, which we all play at times, it easy to imagine prime-on-prime matchups of Duran and Pacquiao at both 135 and 147 pounds, much as is fun to imagine Jack Dempsey vs. Rocky Marciano or Ali vs. Tyson. It is what fight fans do. In fact, it probably is easier imagining Duran vs. Pacquiao at this point than Pacquiao vs. Mayweather, which Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, has likened to “chasing a rabbit we can’t catch.”

So what do you say, TSS readers? What fighter or fighters hit you with the thunderbolt, and why?

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Bernard Fernandez

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

Published

20 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10^th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11^th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

5 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

5 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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