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We Should Have PROOF Before We Label Marquez A Cheater…Shouldn’t We?

People smelled smoke, and assume that there is fire, and it was lit by Heredia, at Marquez’ behest. But…don’t we need more than circumstantial evidence to decide this is so? (Chris Farina-Top Rank)
Americans are big fans of conspiracy theories these days. Not a tremendous surprise; during tough times, some cling to religion, some to guns, and some to whacky, unproven narratives which help to tame the insecurities rife in their heads.
The other day, I was in my favorite coffee shop, talking with a young lady working behind the counter. The topic of guns, and the culture of violence, the casual acceptance of regular shootings, was being discussed.
The young lady dropped her voice and made an admission to me. “I think that shooting at that theater in Colorado, I think that guy was set up.”
“Wait…the killing of 12 innocents who went to see the new Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado in July by a nut named James Holmes…you think he didn’t do it, and was set up?”
Holmes was apprehended at the theater, in his warrior gear, and told cops, it was reported, that he’d booby trapped his apartment so they’d get blown up after he got locked up. He has not denied that he went on this murderous rampage.
Now, I wasn’t able to decipher why my barista friend is ignoring what looks like overwhelming evidence that Holmes was the lone gunman who committed this atrocious act. But this situation came to mind the day after Saturday’s KO shocker, win which 39 year-old Juan Manuel Marquez dropped and stopped Manny Pacquiao as if he tazed him at the MGM in Las Vegas.
Whispers turned to screams that this thing wasn’t on the up and up, that Marquez surely was juicing, that the result was tainted because…why, again? I waited for some evidence. I searched for a concrete, or even a semi concrete explanation why so many folks were fixated on PEDS in the aftermath of the fight of the year.
Instead of “concrete” I found and heard circumstantial chatter. Mostly, the “Marquez cheated” crew seems to focus on the presence of his strength and conditioning coach, Angel Heredia. The fighter hired Heredia before his third fight with Pacquiao, and has now used his services for three fights. The stern eyed crew points out that Heredia has a dirty–filthy, actually–past, as a peddler of steroids and other chemicals taken to improve performance during athletic events. When pinched for being a pusher to world class athletes, Heredia rolled over, received immunity from the Feds, and helped put away Trevor Graham, coach to elite sprinters Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery. Back then, Heredia was described as a Texas resident, and shot-putter who got roids in Mexico, and then doled them out to other athletes. Graham was described when that scandal blew up, in 2006, by his defenders as a whistleblower who sent a syringe of a designer PED dispensed by the notorious Victor Conte out of his BALCO shop in San Francisco to the US Anti-Doping Agency. That alert some said caused the investigation which snagged Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and other MLB long-ball artists in a snare to snag cheaters.
Now, as far as circumstantial evidence goes, Heredia admittedly is a sweet target for smack talk. The guy is a rat, who gave up friends and associates, so he’d get off easier in the eyes of the law. When he re-appeared on radar screens as Marquez’ coach, he was using a different name, for cripes sake; he was calling himself “Angel Hernandez.” Memories were refreshed, and Conte spread the word that Heredia got off scot free, and did no time, while he was sent to jail for four months for his involvement in illegal chemical performance enhancers. MaxBoxing’s dogged anti-doping crusaders Gabriel Montoya before the fourth Pacquiao-Marquez fight alerted people to a German documentary which features Heredia injecting a PED into his own belly, on camera, and then going into a pharmacy in Mexico and buying PEDs over the counter and then concocting a syrup which will aid performance and then not get flagged by drug testers. (It is not clear what Heredia had to gain by pointing out how simple it is to score PEDs and administer them. Was he compensated to appear in the doc? Was he simply bragging, portraying himself as a mover and shaker in sports, someone who is tacitly responsible for the superior performances offered by our heroes? Was he trying to wake us all up to the overwhelming prevalence of PEDs in basically all big-time sports?)
Further circumstantial evidence offered by those who feel there is a humongous black cloud over the Marquez win? They point to the weak performance by Marquez in his loss to Floyd Mayweather in 2009, and the bulbous shoulder muscles and over-all sterling physique he now boasts. And as of Sunday morning, they point to a newfound level of power possessed by Marquez that wasn’t, they say, present before. That single shot, that right counter which felled Pacquiao, was just too good to be true, they are saying. Oh, and what about that acne on Marquez, they say, isn’t that damning?
How in God’s name could a 39-year-old man, 12 or so year’s after the average male’s physical gifts begin to deteriorate, improve so dramatically at such a late stage.
These are all good questions, great questions…but we need answers, in the form of proof, smoking gun level, irrefutable proof, before we smear Marquez, or Heredia.
Is it fishy that Marquez showed a heretofore unseen brand of power against Pacquiao? The true believer in me, the part of me who wants to believe in the goodness that is there, even if buried, in most souls, doesn’t want to leap to conclusions. I prefer to believe that Marquez doesn’t cheat, that hard work and overwhelming desire and clean methods in training him brought him to victory Sunday. Maybe I am naive; I admit that possibility must be explored. Maybe, after all the dirt that has been laid out, all the positives, all the seemingly ludicrous explanations offered by the boxers who were busted, maybe I need to wake up, smell the stink in the air, and assume that the majority of the top tier performers are using illegal performance enhancers to get ahead.
But I’d rather all of us stopped trafficking in theories, and instead focused on reality. Until PROVEN otherwise, I think we should assume that Marquez didn’t cheat. I think we should embrace the reaction of Team Pacquiao and Manny, who congratulated Marquez for a job well done. (Will some of you assume that Pacquiao is able to clap Marquez on the back because you think he too uses chemicals to aid his strength and stamina, and thus, he feels the two were on an even playing field at the MGM in their fourth fight? Yes. Can part of me understand that urge? Again, yes.)
I am not condemning anyone for yelling fire, really, because smoke has been wafting. But our society has become all too willing to substitute facts and theory and gut instincts for proof, and dispense those theories all over the world in 140 characters or less.
Happily, there are bulldogs like Montoya who have the time, energy, effort and principles to pursue this most pressing issue in our game. I do hope that the continuing investigations into the usage of PEDs in the sport yield facts that cannot be explained away, or dismissed with doctors’ “the dog ate my homework” type notes. Because this sort of black cloud that is dumping a toxic rain of doubt and cynicism on this Fight of the Year diminishes the impact and intensity of the drama. I can only urge the power brokers in the game, the HBOs, Showtimes, Arums, Schaefers, et al, to solve this issue, and embrace random testing for the biggest of the big bouts, so we can cease the whispering and dispel that cloud of suspicion which now helps erode the enjoyment we derive from watching the best athletes in the greatest sport known to man do their thing.
Readers, weigh in with your suggestions on how to solve the PED problem. Hey, maybe you think that PEDs should be allowed and regulated, assuming that the cheaters will always be ahead of the good guys and the testers, so we should capitulate to sad reality and proceed accordingly. Go to our Forum, and add your three cents.
Follow me on Twitter here https://twitter.com/#!/Woodsy1069.
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“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.
It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”
Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”
But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”
Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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