MONDAY AM QB: Matthysse Takes Checkered Flag

Published

12 years ago

May 20, 2013

004-Matthysse-victory-IMG5-20-2013 ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. _ Anyone who has ever attended a NASCAR race knows there is a world of difference between watching the sport on television and being there in person. On TV, the cars don’t seem nearly as fast, or as powerful, as they really are. If you’re sitting in the stands, especially if you’re close to the track, the noise and vibration of a 190-mph racecar vrooming past is akin to finding yourself at the edge of a tornado.

Saturday night, in Boardwalk Hall, referee Steve Smoger had an especially close view of the high-octane thrust of Argentine power puncher Lucas “The Machine” Matthysse, and it was Smoger who decided to wave the checkered flag before the completion of lap, uh, Round 3, lest Lamont Peterson slam into the retaining wall once too often.

Peterson (31-2-1, 16 KOs), whose IBF junior welterweight championship was not on the line in the catchweight bout (the contract limit was 141 pounds), had already been floored three times when Smoger stepped in and waved it off 2 minutes, 14 seconds into the third of the scheduled 12 rounds. To let matters continue beyond that point, Smoger decided, would simply be to invite disaster for the obviously woozy Peterson.

“The first significant punch (Matthysse) landed in Round 1, I could see Lamont was very hurt,” said Smoger. “But he recovered. In Round 2, I was very tempted to stop it after the first knockdown, but Lamont recovered again. He responded to me verbally. He walked to me when I asked him to. Still, I said to myself, `The next time he takes a shot like that, I’m putting an end to this.’”

So when Matthysse (34-2, 32 KOs), whose 94.1 knockout percentage is among the highest of any fighter in any weight class, sent Peterson crashing to the canvas for the third time, Smoger knew what to do.

“His power,” Smoger said of Matthysse, “is very significant.”

No ratings information yet as to the size of the Showtime audience for the televised doubleheader — IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander (25-1, 14 KOs) was awarded a seventh-round TKO over England’s Lee Purdy (20-4-1, 13 KOs) in a non-title bout when Purdy’s corner did not allow him to come out for Round 8 — but the on-site audience, a disappointing 4,250, had to realize that what they had just seen might be the start of something big. There is the very real possibility American fight fans had just witnessed the arrival of boxing’s Next Big Thing, even if that big thing is 30 years old, doesn’t speak English and has been a professional since 2004.

When you have the potential to take anyone out at any time with a well-placed haymaker, by definition you are star material.

“I asked Paulie Malignagggi (the WBA welterweight titlist who was in attendance), `Who can beat this guy?’” said Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, who can see Matthysse-generated dollar signs shimmering in the near future. “Paulie said, `Somebody who can fight a perfect fight for 12 rounds. And by `perfect,’ I mean somebody who can’t even get touched by the guy because if you get touched, you’ll probably go down.’”

The probable next opponent to be touched by Matthysse –and who might prove more capable of touching him back than was Peterson –is WBC/WBA super lightweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (26-0, 16 KOs ), who also is a fair hand at making short nights of his fights. Garcia was at ringside to scout Matthysse in what now seems to be an almost-done deal for a Sept. 7 slugfest, probably in the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

“It’s very likely,” Schaefer said off a Garcia-Matthysse matchup that would come prepackaged as a contender for Fight of the Year consideration. “I’ve discussed the fight with Al Haymon, Danny’s manager, who represents Lucas as well. That’s the fight we’re going to do. It’s a fight I want to do, it’s a fight fans want to see. Danny Garcia is a fighter who’s never turned down anybody. He’s a great fighter. A lot of people might underestimate him, but he always steps up and delivers. He delivers big.”

Among those disposed to underestimate Garcia is Matthysse, who dissed the Philadelphian as just another victim-in-waiting.

“He’s a slow fighter,” Matthysse said of Garcia, notwithstanding the champion’s zippy nickname. “He’s slow, he’s wide open. I know I would win that fight as well.”

Garcia, for his part, doesn’t sound like someone inclined to duck anyone.

“You know me,” he said earlier last week. “I’ll fight anybody.”

Matthysse isn’t without his vulnerabilities, given his split-decision losses to Zab Judah and Alexander, although his supporters insist that he was jobbed on both occasions. But his status as a really big bopper continues to grow, putting him in a category with such legendary KO artists as Earnie Shavers, Julian Jackson and a handful of others who had to be considered dangerous for every second of every round, regardless of the round-by-round scorecards submitted by the judges.

IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins, at 48, has seen and done everything there is to do in the ring, and was as wowed as Malignaggi by Matthysse’s demonstration of blunt-force trauma. He was so impressed, in fact, that the Golden Boy executive, in a moment of candor, admitted that he wouldn’t be too eager to put his Philly homeboy, Garcia, in with Matthysse just yet.

“I’ve never seen a (junior welterweight) hit like a heavyweight, or close to it,” Hopkins said. “I guarantee, there’s a lot of 140-pound guys who are not sleeping good tonight.

“My strategy (for fighting someone like Matthysse) would be to get the guy snoring. As soon as he got to the point where he was falling asleep, then I would start fighting. That’s the strategy you got to use against somebody who’s got dynamite in both hands. You got to get him to blow off some steam.

“Peterson was doing the right thing early on, but somehow he got brave or tired. Brave and tired can turn all men into (losers).”

And what of Garcia, whose courage and willingness to mix it up is beyond dispute? Would he meet Matthysse head-on, and maybe be the guy to land the first crushing shot win?

“I told Richard I don’t want to see that fight right now,” said Hopkins, who considers Garcia something of a protégé. “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t do it.”

Asked if Garcia’s meat-and-potatoes style was “tailor-made” for Matthysse, Hopkins said, “Yes.”

Alexander, a slick southpaw whose title also was not on the line –Purdy, a late fill-in for the injured Kell Brook, came in a pound over the 140-pound limit at the weigh-in, and was able take off only two-tenths of a pound within the allotted period –has that disputed split decision over Matthysse to his credit, but he clearly does not pack the putaway pop of the Argentine. He landed 176 of 625 punches against Purdy, 157 of those connections being “power” shots, according to CompuBox, but the stoppage was more a matter of steady, incremental damage than the result of a Matthysse-type lightning bolt.

“I hurt my left hand in the first round,” Alexander explained. “I had to switch up and use my right, my hook and my uppercut.”

Next up for Alexander might be a unification bout with WBC welterweight king Floyd Mayweather Jr., widely acknowledged as the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. The St. Louis resident believes he can pull off the upset, if given the chance.

“Everybody wants to prove they’re the one to beat Floyd,” he said. “I definitely want that fight. I’ve never shied away from any opponent. I’ve been fighting since I’ve been seven years old. What makes him better than me?”

Uh … a firm grasp on reality? Not that Alexander is chopped liver, but his best doesn’t beat Mayweather’s best. That’s pretty much guaranteed. But everyone who throws down with Floyd harbors the hope that maybe, just maybe, he’ll have the off-night of their dreams. And even they catch Floyd at the top of his game, well, at least the payday for making the attempt is sure to salve their pain.

To his credit, Peterson, who retained his title strap despite the beatdown, insisted he was ready, willing and maybe even able to again put himself into Matthysse’s line of fire after going down three times.

“”The beginning plan was to keep boxing,” Peterson said. “Sometime in the second round I got hit in the back of the head and got a little upset. I got a little more reckless and wanted to bang. I could feel the fight heating up. I kind of abandoned the plan a little bit and I paid for it.

“He’s a good puncher. He had me hurt. I was hoping (Smoger) wouldn’t stop the fight because I feel I can weather any storm. I was willing to fight on.”

It is the warrior’s creed, one that the late Arturo Gatti – Atlantic City’s longtime franchise fighter who had consecrated the canvas in Boardwalk Hall with no small amount of his and his opponents’ blood – would surely appreciate. But Matthysse can bring the crowd to its feet even when he misses, which is what happened when he fell down after whiffing on a huge left hook in the second round. He didn’t miss the next time he threw a loaded-up bomb, setting into motion the chain reaction that had Smoger on Good Samaritan alert.

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Bernard Fernandez

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

Published

20 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published

5 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

Co-Feature

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

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

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

Other Bouts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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

Published

5 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

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

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

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

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

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

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

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

The blows came in bunches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

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

Female Flyweight Battle

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

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

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

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

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

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

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

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

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

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

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