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Here Comes Michael Hunter

In boxing, the changes to what a competitor must do from what he learned as an amateur are some of the most pronounced among all sports. Gone is the headgear and overly padded gloves. The bouts are longer; the scoring, different. In basketball, the players might have to adjust to the length of the three point line, but the goal is still ten feet high and they still wear shoes. In football, touchdowns are still worth six points and the competitors do not suddenly stop wearing helmets.
But this is boxing.
Michael Hunter, Jr., a two time national champion and 2012 Olympian knows all of this already, and he’s anxious to give it a go anyway.
This is a boxer.
“I think the amateurs restricted allowing me to express myself in the ring,” he told TSS. “They don’t allow you to do certain things, and in the pros you have a lot more freedom. My nickname was the Professional Amateur, so I think it’s going to be a lot easier for me to make that transition. I just have to slow down the pace, just change a few things here and there.”
Hunter is intelligent and affable. His voice is soft, and his responses elicit a friendliness not usually found among those choosing the brutal toil of fists over more agreeable comforts found in almost all other vocations. Make no mistake, though, he’s a fighter through and through. The twenty-four year does not lack confidence.
“That’s the ultimate dream for me, to be the heavyweight champion of the world…to be the new big star as far as boxing is concerned. That’s my dream. That’s what I want to do, you know? I want to be the new face in boxing as far was heavyweights go.”
Hunter has the pedigree. His father, Mike Hunter, Sr., was a heavyweight contender in the 1990s. He worked as a sparring partner for Mike Tyson and notched wins over notables Oliver McCall, Pinklon Thomas and Tyrell Biggs before his career was derailed by drug addiction. Junior told TSS his chief inspiration is his father, who was tragically gunned down in 2006 during a Los Angeles police sting.
“It’s still difficult,” the fighter said about dealing his father’s passing. “I’m just trying to fulfill…well, he never won the heavyweight championship…never really got a shot at it, and I would just like to fulfill that, and just take on what he left behind.”
Hunter said he’s had a leg up on the competition ever since he was a kid. He comes from three generations of fighters and said he was constantly around the sport because of it. Even when he wasn’t fighting, he said, he was studying the science of the sport with his eyes.
“When I was growing up, and at first I just thought it was natural, I realized I understood a lot more about boxing than kids my age because I watched it every day. I was in the gym every day watching and learning.”
Hunter parlayed that knowledge into numerous amateur accolades which culminated in the 2012 London Olympics. While he enjoyed his time as an amateur, he always looked at the time spent there as a stepping stone to becoming a professional. Mostly, he said, being a professional will allow him to finally be himself.
“Boxing is about entertainment, and that’s what I like to do. That’s how I express myself in the ring. In the amateurs, they make you have one particular style…it’s all about a point system. In the pros, they allow you to be yourself, to do things you can’t do in the amateurs.”
Boxing is about winning, too, of course, and Hunter said he knows he will ultimately be judged by his win-loss record. When asked which of his finely tuned amateur skills will translate best to the tough scruff of professionalism, Hunter aptly submitted a multi-faceted answer.
“My biggest strengths are my mind, my speed and my boxing background.”
Hunter’s trainer is Kenny Crooms, a modestly successful light middleweight from the late 70s who is also helping fulfill managerial duties for the time being. Hunter said he and Crooms are still the process of building a team, and that he doesn’t’ really have any specific manager or promoter right now. He wants to take things slow while he sets the stage for what he’s hoping is a world class career. While talks with big name promotional companies such as Top Rank and Golden Boy have been had, Hunters said he wasn’t anxious to sign anything until he gets the deal he wants. He’s keeping his options open.
Hunter’s plan is to fight ten times this year, though he realizes he’s already a bit behind.
“It’s still early, though, so that’s what I’d like to do for my first year and maybe about the same for my second year at eight or nine fights. Athletes, especially boxers, only have a small window for their careers, and a lot of people don’t make it out with their right mind, so I want to get in and then get out of there.”
Hunter is a thinker. He said he has many interests outside of boxing, and that he’s already planning for whatever comes after. It’s a refreshingly mature approach to a ring career, one too often left to ends instead of beginnings.
With an eye to the future, TSS finished up the discussion by asking where the talented heavyweight, bravely stepping into the harsh world of professionalism, saw himself ten years from now.
“Hopefully, I’ll be thinking about retirement! In ten years, I want to be on top of the world as far as boxing is concerned and thinking about just a couple more fights before moving on to other aspects of my life. I don’t just want to be known as a boxer. I have a lot of different dreams, goals and aspirations I want to accomplish. Hopefully, I’ll be known for all of them!”
Michael Hunter will make his professional debut in the heavyweight division on March 9 at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona. The event will be promoted by Iron Boy Promotions. You can follow the fighter on twitter @MHunter2012.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.
One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.
Take your pick.
The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.
Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.
Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.
If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.
He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.
During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.
Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.
Fundora
Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.
Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.
Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.
Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.
Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?
When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.
This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.
Commerce Casino
Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.
UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.
Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.
It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.
Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?
That’s a question for another day.
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).
Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).
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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.
Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.
Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)
Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.
The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).
Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”
A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.
Other winners:
Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon
Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney
Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire
Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix
The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.
The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.
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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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