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Hey Guys, Size Does Matter…At Least Sometimes
Stand them next to one another and two things are immediately evident about heavyweight contenders Tyson Fury and Steve “USS” Cunningham, who square off the afternoon of April 20 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Fury, at 6-9 and 250 pounds, is really large, even in this era of super-sized heavyweights who often resemble a cross between NBA power forwards and NFL defensive ends.
Two-time former IBF cruiserweight champion Cunningham, at 6-3 and 203 for his most recent ring appearance, is, well, not so large. His physique is so lean he looks more like an Olympic swimmer or maybe a Calvin Klein underwear model.
At stake when they square off in a voluntary IBF elimination bout is a No. 2 ranking from that sanctioning body, a date for the winner with No. 1 Kubrat Pulev, and a title bout against IBF/WBA/WBO/IBO champion Wladimir Klitschko for the survivor of this latest mini-tournament to establish some sort of pecking order among big men not named Klitschko. (Wladimir’s older brother, Vitali, remains the WBC champ despite persistent rumors that he is considering retirement.)
The bout will be televised by the NBC Sports Network.
Fury (20-0, 14 KOs) is hardly a mini-anything. He towers above Cunningham (25-5, 12 KOs) like Goliath over David, Luis Firpo over Jack Dempsey, Ivan Drago over Rocky Balboa or 7-foot, 320-pound former WBA heavyweight titlist Nikolay Valuev would have over the late, great Rocky Marciano, who did all right as a heavyweight despite being just 5-11 and 188 pounds. But David stoned Goliath, Dempsey devastated Firpo, Rocky whittled down Drago and, to hear Marciano’s younger brother, Peter, tell it, the “Brockton Blockbuster” would have felled the 7-foot, 320-pound Valuev like a chainsaw-wielding lumberjack taking down a big tree with a soft, rotting trunk.
“Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better,” Peter Marciano said in September 2006, when queried as to how the real Rocky, who retired in 1955 with a 49-0 record, might have fared against the humongous Valuev, who at that time was 44-0 and considered by some as a possible threat to eclipse’s Marciano’s renowned unbeaten string. “That has to be made very clear to the public. Valuev is very slow and ponderous. Rocky fought a number of guys who were 30 or 40 pounds heavier than he was, and those were his easiest fights. It was the guys who were a little smaller, a little bit quicker, who threw punches in combinations, that gave Rocky a more difficult time.”
Let it be noted that Valuev’s alphabet reign came tumbling down three fights later, when he was dethroned on a majority decision by fellow Russian Ruslan Chagaev, who was Marciano-sized, at least height-wise, at 5-11, 228¼ the night the WBA version of the championship changed hands in 2009. And also take note of the fact that Valuev, who by then had regained the WBA title, was awarded a highly controversial majority decision over the then-46-year-old Evander Holyfield on Dec. 20, 2008, in Zurich, Switzerland. With the exception of two judges with sharp pencils and dubious eyesight, nearly everyone who observed Commander Vander outhustle the nearly immobile Valuev that night believed the wrong man got the nod.
So what possible advantages does Fury have over Cunningham, the U.S. Navy veteran with the faster fists, superior movement and admittedly lesser punching power? Well, let’s see. The big Englishman has one of the ass-kickingest actual names (no nickname necessary) ever. He’s ranked No. 4 by the WBC, No. 5 by the WBO and No. 8 by the IBF. Cunningham, who has had only two bouts at heavyweight since moving up from cruiser, is ranked in the top 15 by only one sanctioning body, No. 12 by the IBF.
Mostly, though, Fury has the benefit of being so very much younger (he’s 24 to Cunningham’s 36), taller, heavier and with a not-insignificant reach advantage (85 inches to 82). The old adage in boxing is that the good big man usually beats the good little man, but the difference in this instance borders on the ridiculous. As some basketball coach once said, you can’t teach large. Either you are or you aren’t. And, no, eating your way up from 157 to 257, as James Toney did over the course of his career, isn’t the way to go about altering the equation.
Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward, who worked with 6-5, 250-pound Lennox Lewis and 6-6, 245-pound Wladimir Klitschko before he passed away on Oct. 25, 2012, recognized the trend toward XXXL heavyweights dominating the division. Manny went to his grave advocating the addition of a new weight class, super heavyweight, to an already bloated lineup that already includes 17 divisions and four supposedly major sanctioning bodies. Such a division exists in Olympic boxing, so maybe that is an idea worthy of consideration by the powers that be. But what would that make Dempsey and Marciano if they came along today? Super light heavyweights? Junior cruiserweights?
Cunningham stepped up to heavyweight last year because he has a family to support and frankly, his cruiserweight purses weren’t apt to put him on Easy Street for the rest of his life. As he entered his mid-30s, he made the calculated decision to grab at the bigger money and greater recognition that goes to light heavyweights and cruisers who successfully make the transition to heavyweight. It’s a route taken, with varying degrees of success, by Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles and, more recently, Michael Spinks, Holyfield, Toney, Roy Jones Jr. (who fought and won once at heavyweight), Al “Ice” Cole, Antonio Tarver and Jean-Marc Mormeck. Some were able to perform comfortably and successfully at the higher weight; most weren’t.
Before his Dec. 22, 2012, rematch with Tomasz Adamek in Bethlehem, Pa., Cunningham’s trainer, Naazim Richardson, addressed the perils of having someone as light as his fighter – Cunningham stepped between the ropes that afternoon at 203 pounds, 20 less than the 6-1½ Adamek – giving away so much heft. He joined Steward in forwarding the notion that a super heavyweight division might allow guys like “USS” to move up, but not that far up, and thus compete on a more equitable footing.
“There should be a super heavyweight division for those guys who are so freakishly big,” Richardson said. “At 203, 204, (Cunningham) still isn’t very big. When the possibility was raised of him moving up to heavyweight, I was, like, `Whoa.’ It’s like ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ Fee, fi, fo, fum. There’s literally giants up there at the top of the division.
“It’s not like they all fight that well, but they’re so big, it’s tough to match up with them physically. If I put boxing gloves on Shaquille O’Neal, he could probably go to 15-0 without much trouble.”
Cunningham looked much sharper than he did in his first matchup with Adamek, but the result was the same – a split-decision loss that, this time, left many observers scratching their heads in puzzlement. Even Adamek’s Polish co-promoter, Ziggy Rozalski, thought his countryman got an early Christmas present.
“You get scores like this and you’re, like, `Huh? What’s up? What’s the deal? What else do I have to do?’” a distraught Cunningham said at the postfight press conference. “
“Let me tell you, real men cry. We did our job and we did it beautifully. We did our thing in the ring. This saddens me, man.”
Cunningham also said he would take some time to contemplate his options, which some took to mean he might move back down to cruiserweight (he’d only have to take off 3 pounds, after all) or maybe even retire. But instead, he’s decided to try to scale the mountain again. It’s just that this time the figurative mountain is Everest, not a large hill like, say, Pike’s Peak. The Los Angeles Clippers’ Chris Paul is a superb point guard, but it might not be the wisest thing for him to try to post up teammate Blake Griffin, the 6-10 dunking machine, in one-on-one contests after practice.
Still, the usually humble Cunningham (he serves as a youth minister to a group of at-risk youths at a storefront church in the gritty Kensington section of Philadelphia) stole a page or two from another Philly guy, the notoriously chatty Bernard Hopkins, during a press conference to formally announce his matchup with Fury. If the punches fly as fast as did the insults unfurled by the fighters, spectators are in for a treat.
“I come up right at the cusp of kids (going) from fistfights to guns,” Cunningham said in channeling his inner B-Hop. “I was a street fighter. That’s what I did. I actually enjoy fighting. That’s way before I stepped in the gym. I started boxing when I was 19; all of this (the street fights) happened when I was 13, 14.
“Back then, there’s a code, and it still runs through the streets today. And that’s that the guys who talk a lot, they’re chumps.”
That was a not-so-veiled poke at the boastful English giant, but Cunningham was far from finished.
“You can talk all that you want,” Cunningham said, turning his body toward the increasingly furious Fury. “The only reason (Fury) is winning fights is because he’s big. Scrape him down to 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, he’s garbage. One thing I can say about the Klitschko brothers –and I’ve been in camp with Wladimir – they’re big, but they work hard, they’re talented, they’re skillful. If they were normal-sized, they’d still be champions.
“This dude right here is winning fights ’cause he’s big. He’s real big. He leans on guys and gets them tired. I don’t get tired; I get better. You understand?”
Not unexpectedly, Fury reacted as if Cunningham had just stomped on the Union Jack while calling Fury’s momma nasty names.
“This guy has no chance at all,” Fury said, glaring at Cunningham. “Let’s talk about talent, size, whatever you want, I’m the best fighter on the planet, in all weights. Nobody can beat Tyson Fury. I don’t care if he’s 7-foot or 3-foot tall.
“Listen, Steve Cunningham’s in big trouble. Come April 20, this guy’s getting knocked spark-out, guaranteed, a hundred percent. I hope he and his trainer believe in magic because he’s going to need a lot of magic to beat Tyson Fury.
“Steve Cunningham and the whole of Philadelphia together couldn’t beat me. There’s not a man 200 pounds and up on the planet can beat me. I ain’t coming here to play games. I’m here to fight. You (Cunningham) talk a good game – I’m a tough guy, a gangster – but let’s be real. I’m a fighting man. Fighting is in my veins. You’re not even a heavyweight.”
Fury is right about one thing. Cunningham isn’t a legitimate heavyweight, at least by current standards. He’s a natural cruiserweight who’s just eaten a hearty lunch. Then again, maybe Cunningham is right, too. Fury could have risen so high in the rankings simply because he rises so high on the scales and has an exceptionally active pituitary gland.
Fee, fi, fo, fum, indeed. But whose soon-to-be-spilled blood is it we’re smelling here? That of the hulking Englishman, or of the comparatively compact Philadelphian?
Either way, it should provide a bit more information in the search for answers to the eternal questions that have been asked since cavemen began bashing one another. Does size really matter? And if so, how much?
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 299: Golden Boy in Saudi Arabia and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 299: Golden Boy in Saudi Arabia and More
A small brigade of Mexican and Latino-American fighters gathered at the beautiful Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Their mission: to export Mexican style fighting to the Saudi Arabia desert.
Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez defends the WBA cruiserweight title against WBO cruiserweight titlist Chris Billam-Smith and they will be joined by several other top Golden Boy Promotion fighters on Nov. 16 at the Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy and BOXXER promotions card called “The Venue Riyadh Season.”
Mexican fighters are known worldwide for their ferocity and durability. Ramirez, a former super middleweight champion, surprised many with his convincing win over former champion Arsen Goulamirian last March.
Now Ramirez seeks to unify the cruiserweight titles against United Kingdom’s Smith who has never fought outside of his native country.
“I will become the first Mexican cruiserweight unified champion. It’s exciting because my dream will come true this November 16,” said Ramirez.
Smith has a similar goal.
“This opportunity for me is huge,” said Smith. “I’ve been written off many times before.”
The cruiserweights will be joined by two top super lightweight warriors who’ve been itching to face each other like a pair of fighting roosters.
Arnold Barboza, an undefeated super lightweight contender from Los Angeles, has been chasing top contenders and world champions for the past six years. Former super lightweight champion Jose Ramirez simply wants action and a return to elite status.
“I’ve been wanting this fight since 2019 for whatever reason it never happened,” said Barboza. “I want to give credit and thanks to Oscar, he’s a man of his word. When I signed to Golden Boy, he said he was going to give me this fight.”
“It’s honorable Barboza saying he’s been chasing the fight since 2019. Now that he stands in the way for me to reclaim my titles it’s time to get that fight on,” said Ramirez.
Others on the Riyadh fight card include Puerto Rico’s WBO minimumweight world titlist Oscar Collazo defending against Thailand’s Thammanoon Niyomtrong, along with Oscar Duarte and lightweight contenders William Zepeda and Tevin Farmer.
One fighter missing from the card is Charles Conwell, the super welterweight contender they recently signed earlier in the year. He last performed on the Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Serhii Bohachuk clash in Las Vegas.
Conwell has similar talent to those two.
And what about the women fighters”
Yokasta Valle recently re-signed with Golden Boy Promotions. What is her next scheduled fight? She was spotted facing up against Australia’s Lulu “Bang, Bang” Hawton at a fight card. Is that on the horizon?
West Coast venues
Speaking of the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles, its just a few buildings north of the Belasco Theater where Golden Boy was staging its club shows for several years.
A majority of the boxing media favored that location for its cozy atmosphere and proximity to LA Live. A number of prospects that developed into contenders and world champions fought there including Vergil Ortiz Jr., Ryan Garcia, Joshua Franco, and Oscar Duarte.
On any given fight night celebrities like Mario Lopez, George Lopez and others would show up in the small venue that held several hundred fans in its ornate theater setting.
The Mayan Theater and Belasco Theater are still open for business. According to one source, LA Laker owner Jeannie Buss stages a pro wrestling show at one of those theaters.
World title fight
England’s Nick Ball (20-0-1, 11 KOs) defends the WBA featherweight world title against Southern California’s Ronny Rios (34-4, 17 KOs) on Saturday Oct. 5, at M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England. Starting time for the Queensberry and Top Rank promotion card is 11 a.m. PT.
Ball was last seen nearly toppling WBC featherweight titlist Rey Vargas but lost last March. He then defeated Ray Ford for the WBA title
Fights to Watch
Fri. ESPN+ 2 a.m. PT Janibek Alimkhanuly (15-0) vs Andrei Mikhailovich (21-0)
Sat. ESPN+ 11 a.m. PT Nick Ball (20-0-1) vs Ronny Rios (34-4)
Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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Boxing Odds and Ends: ‘Paint-Gate,’ the Haney-Garcia lawsuit and More
This reporter chanced upon Manny “Flick” Savoy yesterday afternoon at a boxing gym in Las Vegas. That afforded me an opportunity to get his take on “paint gate.”
In case you missed it, Sandy Ryan was splashed with red paint on Friday as she left her hotel for Madison Square Garden where she would be defending her WBO world welterweight title against Mikaela Mayer. Manny Savoy was roughly 10 feet away from her when the incident happened. It happened so fast and was so unexpected that Savoy – who would be Ryan’s chief voice in her corner — never got a good look at the perpetrator who was wearing a hoodie.
A security camera captured the attack and Savoy keeps the little video on his cell phone. In the video that Savoy shared with me, one can see a late-model vehicle pull up and double-park. The man with the hoodie emerges from the passenger side holding a receptacle of some sort and then, moments later, rushes back without it and the car speeds off.
The paint-splashing was part of a multi-pronged assault. Sandy Ryan was defamed in leaflets that appeared around her hotel and near Madison Garden. The leaflets had Ryan’s image and the text, among other things, called her a whore. (We were shown a screenshot of one of the leaflets tacked to a pole, but it was not a close-up and we were only able to make out a few words.)
Who would do such a thing and why? Let’s rule out the possibility that the assault was random; that’s too far-fetched. Someone had to have been tipped-off when Sandy Ryan would emerge from her hotel. The defamatory leaflets, coupled with the paint attack and threatening messages from anonymous callers that Ryan says were left on her phone, are compelling evidence that this was a premeditated and well-thought-out scheme of attack.
Sandy Ryan and Mikaela Mayer were well-acquainted. They had known each other since their amateur days. Mikaela had sparred with Sandy in preparation for the 2016 Olympics. But what had been a warm relationship soured when Ryan hooked up with Mikaela’s coach Kay Koroma in Las Vegas at the same gym where Mayer regularly trained. Mikaela didn’t think that was kosher and eventually ditched Koroma in favor of Kofi Jantuah, a sundering that left hard feelings on both sides.
Ryan is firm in her belief that Mayer’s team was behind the attack. “What else could it be?” she says. Manny Savoy won’t go that far, but notes that Ryan, a British citizen with a home in Portugal, never spent enough time in New York to make any enemies there. Her fight with Mayer was her second fight in the U.S. and her first fight in the Big Apple.
Mikaela Mayer’s manager George Ruiz was quick to respond to Sandy Ryan’s veiled accusation: “Let me be clear. No one associated with Team Mayer had anything to do with the paint assault on you or the leaflets and the alleged anonymous threatening messages you say you received….Mikaela and Team Mayer want the perpetrator(s) found, caught, and punished to the full extent of the law.”
(The view from here is that while it seems logical that someone associated with Mayer orchestrated the attack, we would be shocked if Mikaela had any foreknowledge of it. The lady has far too much common-sense to get involved in a scheme that could ruin her boxing career and her promising post-boxing career as a TV boxing pundit.)
The presumed intent was to psychologically unsettle Sandy Ryan to where she couldn’t bring her A-game. (Sandy was a short favorite and the odds wavered only slightly, diluting the theory that the assault was orchestrated as part of a betting coup.)
As for the fight itself, it was outstanding. If Ryan was rattled, she didn’t show it although she came out on the short end of a majority decision, a decision that was somewhat controversial. (ESPN’s Mark Kriegel had Ryan winning six rounds to four.)
Ryan’s promoter Eddie Hearn has called on the WBO to mandate a rematch. “[Sandy] had to go back to her room, take all her clothes off, take all the paint off her body. [She had to be] emotionally shocked to pieces and yet she gave an incredible performance. The WBO, if they have any compassion, must order an immediate rematch.”
The rematch, if it happens, won’t be in New York. Advised to leave the city for her own safety, Sandy Ryan got out of town in a hurry.
—
In an article published here on June 23, Thomas Hauser wrote about the possible ramifications to Ryan Garcia’s failed PED test beyond the sanctions imposed upon him by the New York State Athletic Commission. Garcia’s victory over previously undefeated Devin Haney at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on April 30, 2024, was a changed to a no-contest when ostarine, a banned substance, was discovered in Garcia’s urine samples.
Hauser speculated that Team Haney might file a lawsuit against Garcia. By using a performance-enhancing substance, Garcia denied Devin a level playing field, yielding a result that adversely affected Devin’s future earnings, or so it would be argued.
Team Haney was paying attention. Six days ago, on Sept. 27, they filed a lawsuit in New York seeking compensation for “battery, fraud, and breach of contract.”
If successful, the lawsuit, which has polarized the boxing community, may benefit the sport. “Win, lose, or draw in court, I think this is actually a good thing to deter fighters from using performance enhancing drugs because the [current] penalty is not strict enough,” said Eddie Hearn in a conversation with Boxing Social.
—
This is a boxing site, but kindly indulge me as I go off-topic and say a few words about Pete Rose who passed away at his home in Las Vegas on Monday, one day after appearing with several of his former Cincinnati Reds teammates at a sports memorabilia show in Nashville.
I never felt sorry for Pete because he was an a-hole. Ask some of the veteran blackjack dealers here in Las Vegas and you will be hard-pressed to find one who has a nice word to say about him. However, whether his lifetime ban from baseball should have been lifted so that he could go into the Hall of Fame while he was still alive…well, that’s a horse of a different color.
Pete Rose was baseball’s all-time hit king, but forget the stats; he transcended the sport.
News of Pete’s death transported me back more than three decades to a conversation I had with my young son who hadn’t yet started kindergarten. He had become a fan of the Atlanta Braves, one of two teams (the other was the Cubs) whose home and away games were nationally televised.
One day, when he was watching baseball and I was in the next room, he came in and said, “dad, so-and-so [the player’s name eludes me] just did a Charlie Hustle.”
I have no idea where he got that from and he likely wouldn’t have recognized Pete Rose if he had bumped into him on the street – Pete had been out of baseball for some time – but I knew exactly what he was talking about. He had just witnessed a player on the Braves beat out an infield hit or maybe a bunt by sliding head-first into first base.
A friend e-mailed me yesterday from North Carolina and said, “From my view, the Hall is diminished by not having him in there rather than the other way around.”
I share that sentiment. If you disagree, we can still be friends.
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Alycia Baumgardner is Legit, but her Title Defense vs Persoon was a Weird Artifice
Women’s fights were bursting out all over this past weekend. The bout that warranted the most attention, one could argue, was the match between Alycia Baumgardner and Delfine Persoon. That’s because it had the most world titles at stake; Baumgardner was recognized as the world super featherweight champion by all four major sanctioning bodies. But this fight got lost in the shuffle because two other female title fights were packaged on larger platforms. On Friday at Madison Square Garden, airing on ESPN, Mikaela Mayer captured the WBO welterweight title from Sandy Ryan. On Saturday in Sheffield, England, airing on Sky Sports in the UK and globally on DAZN, Terri Harper wrested the WBO lightweight title from Rhiannon Dixon.
Baumgardner vs. Persoon, the capstone of an all-female, nine-bout card, was staged before an invitation-only audience at a film and TV production studio situated near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The card, all nine bouts, was livestreamed on BrinX.TV, a fledging, sports-oriented streaming platform. We made it a point to check it out, less because we were smitten by the card than because we had heard of BrinX.TV and we didn’t quite understand it.
Baumgardner kept her hardware in a bout that ended inconclusively (more about that later). As for BrinX.TV which bills itself as the next generation of sports and entertainment (company motto: ‘The Kingdom of Awesomeness”), we still don’t quite understand it.
Here’s what we know: BrinX.TV is into niche sports. Examples include freestyle trampolining, downhill skateboarding, powerboat racing, and jai alai. “The more unique the sport, the more passionate its fans,” says BrinX.TV co-founder and spokesperson John Brenkus.
Where it gets weird is that viewers have a chance to compete for cash prizes while watching a competition. However, to have skin in the game, one apparently has to purchase something. There’s a shopping channel component in the BrinX.TV business model.
The chief sponsor of the all-female boxing card was Ninja Pirates Misfits which appears to be a clothing brand with no relation to the 2012 animated film, “The Pirates! Brand of Misfits.” It must be a brand-new brand because the only item offered for sale during the boxing card was a $45 tee shirt. We might be wrong, but we were left with the impression that the player that won the most money finagled his way to the top of the leaderboard by buying the most tee shirts.
One doesn’t merely make a fashion statement by purchasing a Ninja Pirates Misfits tee shirt. A portion of the receipts, we were told, would go to increasing the prize pool for the boxers while, in a wider context, “elevating women in sports.”
The card moved at a brisk pace through the first five fights. It slowed to a crawl when John Brenkhus addressed the audience from the center of the ring. “The energy here is amazing,” said Brinkhus to the largely subdued crowd of perhaps 200 people, some of whom were dressed in formal attire. Later in the show, he brought Laila Ali and then former NFL player Dez Bryant into the ring and gushed over them while they reciprocated by congratulating him for “making history.”
Brenkus intentionally created the impression that this was the first all-female card in the annals of boxing. It was no such thing.
Not quite two years ago, there was an all-female show at London’s O2 Arena, a Matchroom promotion topped by two compelling title fights, Claressa Shields vs Savannah Marshall and Mikaela Mayer vs Alycia Baumgardner, with former Olympians Lauren Price, Caroline Dubois, Karriss Artingstall and Ginny Fuchs showcased in four of the nine supporting bouts.
Moreover, a quick google search reveals that the O2 event wasn’t the first of its kind. On July 13, 1979, there was an all-female card at the LA Sports Center. A very good bantamweight, Graciela Casillas, made her pro debut on the undercard which also included a fight for Mirian “Lady Tyger” Trimiar who would be named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020 along with her cohort, the fraudulent Jackie Tonawanda.
Baumgardner vs. Persoon: The Fight
Alycia Baumgardner, 15-1 with 7 KOs heading in, was a unified champion. In her most recent bout, in July of last year, she avenged her lone defeat with a lopsided decision over Christina Linardatou.
Delfine Persoon, who brought a 49-3 (19) record, will be the first fighter from Belgium to go into the Hall of Fame, of that we are quite certain. Two of her three losses came at the hands of Irish superstar Katie Taylor and the first of those losses, underneath Joshua-Ruiz I at Madison Square Garden, was a barnburner that could have gone either way. There were scattered boos when Taylor was announced the winner by majority decision, notwithstanding the fact that the crowd was teeming with Brits.
But Persoon wasn’t the same fighter against Alycia Baumgardner that she had been back in the day when she touched gloves with Katie Taylor. She was now 39 years old (Baumgardner is 30) and entered the ring wearing a large brace over her right knee, an apparatus that compromised her mobility.
In the first round, Alycia knocked Persoon off-balance with a left-right combination. It was ruled a knockdown when both of Persoon’s gloves brushed the canvas.
In round four, with Baumgardner up by 4 points on all three cards through the three completed rounds, a clash of heads left the Belgian with a nasty gash above her right eye and referee Laurence Cole, on the advice of the ring doctor, stopped the fight. By rule, the bout had to go four full rounds to go to the scorecards. It fell 23 seconds short and was ruled a “no-contest.” Ergo, Baumgardner retained her titles.
Afterthoughts
Of the 18 ladies on the BrinX.TV card, eight were making their pro debut and several of these novices were already in their 30s. But, while they were new to boxing, they were not new to combat sports.
In the new world order, there’s a lot of crossover, especially at the club fight level. Boxrec, the sport’s indispensable record keeper, now carries BK (bare knuckle) and TCL (Team Combat League) results. Add MMA to the mix and there are now four pieces to the combat sports pie, five if one counts kickboxing as a separate entity. And while many women boxers in the past had a kickboxing background, nowadays there is more fluidity across multiple disciplines (a major headache for state boxing commissions).
Of the undercard fighters, we were most impressed by super bantamweight Isabel Vasquez, a 21-year-old Floridian, and junior welterweight Stephanie Simon, a 30-year-old former Marine and former U.S. national amateur champion. Both would appear to have bright futures at the professional level.
A final note: We would be remiss if we failed to note that BrinX.TV is free and that one doesn’t have to jump through hoops to summon it up. Hooray for that. And for the record, this reporter didn’t buy any Ninja Pirates Misfits tee shirts; we already had plenty in the closet (just kidding).
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