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What Gives? No TV for Women’s Boxing (Part Two)

I’ve had about a week to think about it, and I still don’t get it. Women’s boxing is more appealing to me than all the other women’s sports that are getting televised, stuff like women’s basketball or golf. I mean, it’s boxing. You had me there, television…so why no women’s boxing? Did those sports go through the same thing? I mean, should golf (men or women) even be televised in the first place? Sigh.
I digress. In part one of this reflection, the wife told me women’s boxing doesn’t make it to television because the bigwig program directors simply don’t know what they’re doing. Flyweight champion Ava Knight echoed the very same sentiment. She told me no one will give her, or her talented cohort of contemporaries, a chance. Give us a chance, she says. A chance!
Still, I’m a fair-minded man. Two or three people saying the same thing doesn’t make it fact, so I decided to reach out to a few more people I know about the situation. First up was Kaliesha West, one of the top women champions in the sport today.
What do you think about it, Kaliesha? Why can’t women’s boxing get on TV?
“I’ve heard so many different reasons and they all sound the same. They all sound like someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. They’re just looking for an answer to shut-up whoever is asking the question. We need someone on top in boxing who knows what they’re talking about to coordinate female matches on every single major undercard there is…and to make sure it’s a female fighter who’s on top of her stuff, who knows what she’s doing. But they won’t do that. They’re just following the same thing that has been going on for years. And everyone is afraid to break it. No one has enough juevos to stand up, put it on and promote it.”
So far, Kaliesha seems to be on the same page as my wife and Ava. Still, I say, what happened? Remember the glory days of women’s boxing, Kaliesha? Laila Ali and Mia St. Jo—
“NO! What happened in those days was Mia St. John was on the cover of Playboy. Laila Ali is Laila Ali. All she had to do was say she wanted to be a tennis player and she’d been a famous tennis player, or a racquetball player and she’d been a famous racquetball player. Her name is what speaks. She had no amateur background, and she became a champion by fighting a lot ducks. Then you had Christy Martin, who was that diamond in the rough who had skill like the men. She’d go in there with girls who’d fight like it was a street fight or something, so yeah, she’d go in there and look spectacular, she looked great. She was a lot like female fighters who fight today, who fight great—today. But there has been no era of female boxing. There’s never been an era of female’s boxing!”
By now, I’m sort of afraid to ask anything more. West is practically screaming at me so I sheepishly ask what can change the sport for the better, mostly so I don’t have to talk for very long.
“It’s gonna take someone special. Someone who not only knows the science behind it, but someone who knows how to be a true champion in and out of the ring. It’s gonna take someone who not only represents women’s boxing, but also never lets it go unknown that the state of women’s boxing is crap.”
Maybe she’s calmed down a bit, or maybe my bravery is now buoyed by the realization that I’m phone with her and not within her physical reach, but I ask her about Ali again. Hasn’t she had that pedestal? Wouldn’t she speak up if it were really that bad?
“Laila Ali is about Laila Ali. I mean, if it doesn’t pertain to her, she isn’t interested. If I was in her shoes and I had a girl to come up to me who was world champion and tell her the struggle, I would feel for her and try to help. I would fight for her and the dozens other like. Just like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Just like that female tennis player, Billy Jean King. That special type of person is not on that platform right now.”
What West tells me isn’t all doom and gloom, just most of it. She says she’s excited for the new opportunities women are finding in the amateur game right now. She says it’s something that has never really been afforded women in the past, and she had tremendous things to say about our United States gold medalist Claressa Shields.
“I love Claressa Shields. She’s a real champion. She’s been knocking people out all over!”
Still, West knows what Claressa knows: it’s not just winning that matters. Despite being the first and possibly greatest female amateur boxer in the history of the United States, it isn’t Shields who received the most attention, it was bronze medalist Marlen Esparza.
I tell West my wife and I were surprised about what happened after the Olympics, or rather what didn’t happen. Claressa Shields was widely ignored. She wasn’t offered even half the slew of endorsements Marlen received before the Olympics started, and she wasn’t offered anything substantial enough by a boxing promoter to leave the amateur scene all together. What gives? Why didn’t the first appearance of women’s boxing in the Olympics really do anything for the sport?
“Honestly, I didn’t expect anything. You know why? Because I knew the one who was getting the love and getting attention was not going to open her mouth for the rest of us.”
What can be done, Kaliesha?
“There is nothing anyone can do unless they’re that lucky favorite. Marlen is the lucky favorite. She’s got entertainment and Hollywood behind her. It’s so sad the way it is for Claressa. She’s not getting endorsements the way she should be. But she’s young enough to turn into another Anne Wolfe…but even ten times better! She knows a little of what it is like for the professionals now. She won a gold medal and it was empty at the top. We won world titles in other countries and it was empty at the top. Thank God she’s young enough…”
Damn, Kaliesha. Damn.
Truth be told, Kaliesha is one of the most entertaining fighters I’ve ever talked to in the sport. She brings everything to the table. She’s smart, genial and she knows how to stir things up. She’s Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and Emilia Earhart. She’s fascinating to the point of proving all on her very own that the naysayers are wrong about women’s boxing. I stumbled across a feature done on her in the UK for a sports magazine program called Trans World Sport. Basically, it took the producers about 13 minutes to put every single U.S. television outlet to shame. The dynamic between the fighter and her father/trainer, Juan West, is Shane and Jack Mosley times ten. The feature shows a fighter more interesting than a prime Oscar De La Hoya ever was, yet she continues to languish in relative obscurity because the programming decision-makers are refusing to look for anything other than the next male boxing star.
I finish up my foray into questioning the powers that be with a discussion with Kaliesha’s father. Juan West was a boxing champion in the Navy and fought six fights as a professional before deciding to become a trainer. He’s helped bring along several notable amateur and professional fighters, including heavyweight Chris Arreola. Maybe he’ll paint a more positive outlook on the situation women are facing.
“The world of boxing is full of hustlers and frauds. I’ve had fighters who began training ten years after Kaliesha and they were televised first. They didn’t have the style, the charisma or the skillset she has. They were just male.”
Nope. Juan paints as bleak a picture as ever. He wants to get Kaliesha on television but opportunities to do so are few and far between. It’s almost impossible, he tells me.
“It’s a monopoly for men. Women just have to fall into a slot. They have to be on standby and be lucky and end up on television by coincidence. As far as on purpose? It’s been impossible. Kaliesha has been televised about six or seven times now, always in other countries. Never in the United States. It’s a shame.”
But why is this happening?
“Lately, the promoters have just been pretty much chauvinistic thinking the women in the world aren’t worthy of being on television. I know that if anyone would have watched Claressa Shields in there winning her gold medal, they’d have seen a fighter just as good as Mike Tyson in there at destroying women bigger than her. That right there should’ve been the grand opening but it didn’t open any doors for women. People aren’t’ going to view what they don’t know anything about, so they’re going to have take those fighters like Kaliesha, Claressa Shields and Ava Knight, the ones that are extraordinary, and follow their careers.”
Juan tells me he and Kaliesha are happy to talk to me. He says the two can be as open and honest about the situation as anyone because they have absolutely nothing to lose. Let that sink in for a second. She’s one of the more recognizable women in the sport, the bantamweight champion, and she’s got nothing to lose.
Nothing.
At the end of things, I believe I am convinced. Something has to give for the women to be successful, and that something has to be us. We need to support them, and where television networks or promoters or advertisers are refusing to do so, we should demand it. It’s something that has to be done. Women deserve just as fair a shake as men do in the sport. And let’s face it, the standard of fairness in our beloved boxing is already set so low, it can’t be too difficult to achieve.
My dear friends, I can’t tell you how often my eyes have been subjected to a bout between two men who didn’t deserve to be fighting on television. There simply has to be room, then, for a few women who do.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 313: The Misadventures of Canelo and Jake Paul (and More)

Avila Perspective, Chap. 313: The Misadventures of Canelo and Jake Paul (and More)
Boxing news has taken a weird arc.
For the past 20 years or so, social media has replaced newspapers, radio and television as a source for boxing news.
And one thing is certain:
You cannot truly rely on many social media accounts to be accurate. Unless they are connected to actual reputable journalists. There are not that many.
Claims of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Jake Paul reaching an agreement to fight each other this year were rampant on social media sites. No contracts had been signed between the two parties, but several social media accounts claimed the fight was happening. One claimed: “it was official.”
It is not happening as of Friday Feb. 7. 10 a.m. Pacific Time.
A statement by Most Valuable Promotions was sent Friday Feb. 7, to various boxing publications that emphasized the Canelo-Paul fight is not official.
“MVP was deep in negotiations for a blockbuster fight between Jake Paul and Canelo Alvarez on Cinco de Mayo weekend in Las Vegas…This situation is a reminder not to believe everything you read.”
The past few days numerous social media accounts were posting erroneously that Paul and Canelo Alvarez were fighting on a certain date and place. It was jumped on by other social media accounts like Piranhas and gobbled up and spit out as actual verified news.
Fake news is happening more and more. I hate that term but it’s becoming more common.
Many accounts on social media sites are not trained journalists. They don’t understand that being the first to spit out news is not as important as being accurate.
Also, there is no such thing as using the term “according to sources” without naming the source. Who made the claim?
Third, verification of a fight comes from the promoters. They are the most reliable methods of verifying a pending fight. It’s their job. Don’t rely on a fighter, a trainer or somebody’s friend. Call the promoter involved and they will verify.
Otherwise, it’s just rumor and exaggeration.
There are social media accounts with trained journalists. Find out which social media accounts are connected to actual news media sources and established by trained journalists. A real journalist verifies a story before it is published.
R.I.P. Michael Katz
Recently, a highly respected journalist, Michael Katz, passed away. He wrote for various newspapers including the New York Times and for various boxing web sites such as Maxboxing.com and a few others.
Katz covered prize fights beginning in 1968 with the heavyweight fight between Floyd Patterson and Jimmy Ellis. Read the full story in www.TheSweetscience.com by Arne Lang.
I first came across Katz probably in 1994 when I began covering boxing events as a writer for the L.A .Times. During media press conferences Katz was one of the more prominent writers and very outspoken.
The New York-bred Katz could tell you stories about certain eras in boxing. I happened to overhear one or two while sitting around a dinner buffet in the media rooms in Las Vegas. He always had interesting things to say.
Boxing writers come in waves during each era. Today this new era of boxing writers has dwindled to almost nothing. Writing has been overtaken by boxing videographers. The problem is during an actual fight, videographers cannot record the fight itself. The media companies sponsoring the fight cards don’t allow it. So, after a fight is completed, very few descriptions of a fight exist. Only interviews.
Written journalism is shrinking due to the lack of newspapers, magazines and periodicals. The only sure way to know what happened is by seeing the fight on tape. You won’t see many stories on a bulletin board at a boxing gym because there are fewer boxing writers today. The written history of a championship fight has shrunk to almost nothing.
Katz was one of the superb writers from the 1960s to the 2000s. It’s a shrinking base that gets smaller every day. It’s a dying breed but there are still some remaining.
Fights in SoCal
All Star Boxing returns with two female fights on the card on Saturday Feb. 8, at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.
Stephanie Simon (1-0) and Archana Sharma (3-2) are scheduled to headline the boxing card in a super lightweight main event. Others on the boxing event include Ricardo De La Torre, Bryan Albarran and Jose Mancilla to name a few.
Doors open at 6 p.m. No one under 14 will be admitted. For more information call (323) 816-6200.
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 10:30 a.m. Derek Chisora (35-13) vs Otto Wallin (27-2).
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Biyarslanov TKOed Mimoune at Montreal; Jalolov Conspicuous by his Absence

It was a cold and snowy night in Montreal, depressing the turnout at the Montreal Casino where Camille Estephan’s Eye of the Tiger Promotions presented a six-fight card that aired in the U.S. on ESPN+.
The match-up that had the most intrigue, although not the main event and not expected to be remotely competitive, centered around heavyweight Bakhodir Jalolov who would be returning to the professional ranks after an absence of almost 14 months during which he fattened his extraordinary amateur profile. But the Montreal Commission nixed the match, ostensibly because Jalolov took sick after the weigh-in.
Main Event
The main event was a 10-round junior welterweight contest between well-acquainted southpaws Arthur Biyarslanov (pictured) and Mohamed Mimoune. The Toronto-based, Russian-born Biyarslanov, nicknamed the Chechen Wolf, had no trouble with his 37-year-old French opponent, taking Mimoune out in the second round.
Mimoune did not appear to be badly hurt after Biyarslanov knocked him to the canvas, but he had no antidote when Biyarslanov swarmed after him. With nothing come back Biyarslanov’s way, the referee sensibly waived it off. The official time was 2:16 of round two.
Biyarslanov (18-0, 15 KOs) looks like he can make some noise in the talent-rich 140-pound division. Mimoune, who had been stopped five times previously, declined to 24-7.
Co-Feature
Albert Ramirez, a 32-year-old Venezuelan, ranked in the Top Five by all four relevant sanctioning bodies, moved a step closer to a title fight with a third-round stoppage of Marco Calic.
As an amateur, Ramirez, who improved to 20-0 (17 KOs), defeated Cuban stalwarts Erislandy Savon and Julio Cesar La Cruz in 5-round fights. Tonight, he put his opponent away with a fusillade of punches. After rising from a knockdown, Calic got a brief respite when Ramirez was warned for an illegal punch behind the head, but Cacic’s body language informed us that the end was near.
The official time was 2:10 of round three. A 37-year-old Croatian making his North American debut, Calic lost for the second time in 17 starts.
More
In a match-up between former Olympians contested at the catch-weight of 178 pounds, Montreal-based Mehmet Unal, who represented Turkey in the 2016 Games, scored a third-round stoppage of Ezequiel Maderna. The final punch was a looping right hand that knocked Maderna off his pins, leading to what some would argue was a quick stoppage. The official time was 1:41 of round three.
It was the second knockdown scored by Unal, the first coming in the previous round, a knockdown that was more of a push. But Maderna was holding his own in what was an entertaining fight for as long as it lasted. Unal, although rough-around-the-edges, is undefeated (12-0, 10 KOs) as a pro. Maderna, a 38-year-old Argentine, saw his ledger dip to 31-14.
Fast rising welterweight Christopher Guerrero scored the best win of his career with a fourth-round stoppage of Swiss journeyman Dennis Dauti. A two-time Canadian amateur champion, born in Mexico, Guerrero channeled Julio Cesar Chavez and ended the bout with a left hook to the body. Dauti made it to his feet although he was in obvious pain. Guerreo then tossed him to the canvas (officially a slip) and the referee waived it off before Guerrero (13-0, 8 KOs) had the opportunity to land another punch. The 31-year-old Dauti (25-6-2) hadn’t previously been stopped.
Super middleweight Moreno Fendero who has drawn comparisons with stablemate Christian Mbilli, had an easy workout with Edison Demaj, stopping the German-Albanian trial horse in the third round.
The 25-year-old Moreno, a former member of the French Army, scored three knockdowns before the match was halted at the 1:36 mark of the third round. The final knockdown was a looping right hand that landed high on Demaj’s temple. He beat the count, but the referee waived the match off with the approval of Demaj’s corner. Fendero improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The overmatched Demaj falls to 13-4-1.
In the TV opener, lightweight Avery Martin-Duval, a local product, advanced to 13-0-1 (7) with an 8-round unanimous decision over French import Keshan Koaly (6-1-2) The scores were 77-74 and 77-73 twice
From Nice with roots in the French territory of Guadalupe, Koaly knocked Martin-Duval to his knees in the second frame with a jab to the midsection. Two rounds later, the local lad landed the best punch of the fight, staggering Koaly with a counter right hand that immediately caused a purplish welt to develop under his right eye. From that point on, Martin-Duval controlled the action.
Upsets are extremely rare on Eye of the Tiger events. Tonight was no exception.
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Bakhodir Jalolov Returns on Thursday in Another Disgraceful Mismatch

How good is Bakhodir Jalolov? Some would argue that in terms of pure talent, the six-foot-seven southpaw from Uzbekistan who has knocked out all 14 of his opponents since turning pro, is better than any heavyweight you can name. Others say that this can’t possibly be true or his braintrust wouldn’t keep feeding him junk food. Jalolov has been brought along as gingerly as Christopher Lovejoy who was exposed as a fraud after running up a skein of 19 straight fast knockouts,
One thing that’s indisputable is that Jalolov was one of the best amateurs to come down the pike in recent memory. A three-time Olympian and two-time gold medalist, Jalolov won 58 of his last 59 amateur bouts. The exception was a match in which he did not compete which translated into a win by walkover for his opponent, countryman Lazizbek Mullojonov.
The circumstances are vague. Was Jalolov a no-show because of an injury or illness or a technicality? Amateur boxing, save in a few places or in an Olympic year, is the quintessential niche sport. The mainstream media does not cover it.
What we do know, thanks to boxrec, is that Jalolov caught up with Mullojonov in May of last year in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk and won a split decision. And Mollojonov was no slouch. He too won a gold medal at the Paris Games, winning the heavyweight division to give the powerful Uzbekistan contingent the championship in the two heaviest weight classes.
Jalolov, whose late father was a champion free-style wrestler, has answered the bell as a pro for only 35 rounds. The Belgian-Congolese campaigner Jack Mulowayi came closest to taking the big Uzbek the distance, lasting into the eighth round of an 8-round fight. But when Jalolov closed the show, he did it with a highlight reel knockout, knocking Mulowayi into dreamland with a vicious left hook.
The KO was reminiscent of Jalolov’s most talked-about win as an amateur, his first-round blast-out of Richard Torrez Jr at a tournament in Ekaterinburg, Russia, in 2019. Torrez, knocked out cold with a left hook, left the ring on a stretcher and was removed to a hospital for evaluation.
This was the first AIBA-sanctioned international tournament in which pros were allowed to compete and WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman was incensed, calling the match-up “criminal” in a tweet that was widely circulated. (Jalolov then had six pro fights under his belt.) They would meet again in the finals of the Tokyo Olympiad with the Uzbek winning a unanimous decision.
Perhaps there will be a third meeting down the road. When Jared Anderson was roughed-up and stopped by Martin Bakole, Torrez Jr (currently 12-0, 11 KOs) vaulted ahead of him on the list of the top home-grown American heavyweights. But Torrez Jr, a short-armed heavyweight who overcomes his physical limitations with a windmill offense, would be a heavy underdog should they ever meet again.
Bakhodir Jalolov’s last bout before heading off to Paris was against the obscure South African Chris Thompson. His match on Thursday at the Montreal Casino in Montreal pits him against an obscure 33-year-old Frenchman, David Spilmont.
Spilmont’s last two opponents were the same guy, an undersized Lithuanian slug who has lost 36 of his 41 documented fights. It seems almost inevitable that Spilmont will suffer the same fate as Thompson who was KOed in the first round.
There’s talk that Jalolov doesn’t really care how far he advances at the professional level; that he has his sights set on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles where he would have an opportunity to become only the fourth boxer to win three Olympic gold medals, joining the immortal Teofilo Stevenson, Hungarian legend Laszlo Papp, and Cuban standout Felix Savon. Were he to accomplish the hat trick, they would build monuments to him in Uzbekistan. But, if that is his mindset, he’s skating on thin ice. There’s no guarantee that boxing will be on the docket at the Los Angeles Games and, if so, the powers-that-be may choose to roll back the calendar to the days when the competition was off-limits to anyone with professional experience.
While it’s true that Jalolov needs to work off some rust, a pox on promoter Camille Estephan and his enabler, the Quebec Boxing Commission, for not dredging up a more credible opponent than the grossly overmatched David Spilmont.
—
Jalolov vs. Spilmont is ostensibly the co-feature. The main event is a 10-round junior welterweight clash between Movladdin “Arthur” Biyarslanov (17-0, 14 KOs) and Spilmont stablemate Mohamed Mimoune (24-6, 5 KOs). Undefeated light heavyweights Albert Ramirez and Mehmet Unal will appear in separate bouts on the undercard. The Feb. 6 event, currently consisting of seven bouts, will air in the U.S. on ESPN+ starting at 6:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. PT.
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