The Bite Fight….And The King of Cowboys

Published

11 years ago

May 30, 2013

The review copy of The Bite Fight: Tyson, Holyfield and the Night That Changed Boxing Forever arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago. The promotional flyer that accompanied the 222-page book called it “An unparalleled account of the infamous bite felt ’round the world.”

Written by George Willis, the excellent New York Post sports columnist, this behind-the-scenes account of one of the most bizarre nights in boxing history delivers on that heady promise. Everything you know, or think you know, about the fateful night of June 28, 1997, is in there, as well as some stuff you might not have heard at all.

But even George, gifted wordsmith and hard-digging reporter that he is, doesn’t know every tiny detail of what went on after Tyson’s teeth sank into Holyfield’s ears as if they were a medium-rare filet mignon at Ruth’s Chris. I have my own particular recollections of the aftermath of the “Bite Fight,” and they can’t be found in any book, magazine, newspaper or web site.

Until now.

TSS readers, you are about to learn of the (mostly) secret connection between Holyfield-Tyson II (Holyfield won their first matchup, and Tyson’s WBA heavyweight championship, on an 11^th-round TKO on Nov. 9, 1996) and the “King of the Cowboys,” Roy Rogers.

Well, at least there is a connection as far as my wife Anne, our youngest daughter Amy, our foreign-exchange student, Izumi Tirado, and I are concerned. When Tyson got the munchies and the spit hit the fan, he altered what I somewhat foolishly had presumed would be a working vacation, with three days scheduled to be spent with my female entourage in and around the Los Angeles area following the big bout. I had arranged for lodging at a nice hotel in Marina del Rey, Calif., where the plan was for our group to do Disneyland, Universal Studios and, you know, the whole tourist bit in the brief time allotted. I’d been to L.A. before, of course, but this was to be the first such experience for the missus, Amy and Izumi.

But then Tyson chewed off a one-inch chunk a Holyfield’s right ear in the third round, prompting no-nonsense referee Mills Lane to disqualify him prior to the start of Round 4, and … hey, you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men.

June 29 was not spent by our group in southern California; I was obliged to remain in Las Vegas, as was the army of media types who changed their travel plans to accommodate the post-bite set of circumstances. Anne, Amy and Isumi hung around the MGM Grand while I tried to find out what the very perturbed members of the Nevada State Athletic Commission planned to do in terms of disciplinary action for Tyson. On July 9, the NSAC socked him with a “lifetime suspension” subject to annual review (his boxing license was reinstated on Oct. 18, 1998) and a record $3 million fine, the maximum allowable under Nevada law.

So we got a late start for SoCal, on June 30, traveling by rental car across the desert. I can’t recall whether I possessed a cell phone in that technologically unadvanced age – if I did, the reception in the desert must have been pretty bad – so I stopped en route to call my editors at the Philadelphia Daily News and find out if there was anything new and interesting about the ongoing story on which I might need to be brought up to speed. It was like asking if the sun is hot and it gets dark at night. Of course there were fresh developments; I was told to check into the nearest hotel so I could make a few calls, gather any pertinent information and crank out another story or two or three.

On the way to that hotel, in Barstow, Calif., we passed a sign advising us that just ahead was the Roy Rogers Museum, where it was said that Roy himself and wife Dale Evans (birth name: Lucille Wood Smith), the “Queen of the West,” were on-site nearly every day, regaling visitors with tales of their many screen adventures amidst a treasure trove of memorabilia, including Roy’s stuffed palomino, Trigger.

“Oh, we have to stop there!” exclaimed Anne, who, like me, was an unabashed fan of Roy – born Leonard Slye on Nov. 5, 1911, in that noted Wild West outpost of Cincinnati, Ohio — through our constant Saturday-morning exposure to his movies and TV shows when we were children.

“Sorry,” I had to tell her. “I have to get to work on this Tyson stuff as quickly as I can. We can catch Roy the next time we’re out this way.”

You can probably guess the rest. Our three days in Los Angeles had been reduced to part of a single day, which meant the only place I got to take Anne and the girls was nearby Universal Studios. Amy seemed to particularly enjoy that experience, probably because she spotted comedian/actor Pauly Shore on the grounds, which probably seemed like a big deal to your average 15-year-old. Pauly Shore? All I could think was, he’s no Bob Hope. Or Roy Rogers, for that matter.

We flew back to Philadelphia from LAX, which meant no return trip across the desert to Vegas and no stopping off at the Roy Rogers Museum. Then, on July 6, 1998, it was reported that Roy Rogers was dead at the age of 86. He was physically beyond our reach, at least in this dimension.

To this very day, I don’t think Anne has forgiven Mike Tyson for the missed opportunity he caused her.

The Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, Calif., closed a few years later and in 2003 its contents were moved to Branson, Mo., where another museum was operated by Roy and Dale’s son, Roy “Dusty” Rogers Jr. But Roy Sr. had left instructions to Dusty to shut everything down once the museum started to operate at a loss, which it did, and it shut its doors permanently on Dec. 12, 2009. A public auction of Roy’s most treasured keepsakes was held in New York City on July 15, 2010, with sales totaling $2.98 million. Among the items which sold at much higher prices than the auctioneers had expected was Roy’s 1964 Bonneville, which went for $254,500; an even more cherished ride, stuffed Trigger, was purchased by a Nebraska cable TV network for $266,500. Trigger’s fancy saddle and bridle fetched a whopping $386,500, one of Roy’s shirts sold for $16,250 and one of the beloved hero’s favorite cowboy hats – white, of course – for $17,500.

Which got me to thinking: What would the most distinctive memento from the front end of our Bite Fight adventure, the chewed-off piece of Holyfield’s ear, be priced at if it still existed and were somehow made available to a collector looking for that extra-special piece of boxing history?

I went back through my own voluminous files – sorry, George, you weren’t the only reporter to assiduously chronicle the event – and rediscovered that that the missing part of Holyfield’s ear was, in fact, really missing. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, it still is.

Mitch Libonati, a member of the MGM Grand’s Convention Services staff, took possession of the severed piece of flesh, at least temporarily. “A buddy of mine said Evander had been bitten,” Libonati said. “I didn’t see it, but I did see that Tyson had spit something out. There was a melee in the ring after the fight and when it cleared up, I found it. I picked it up, put it in a latex glove and ran back to the locker room.

“I told some of Evander’s people, `I have a piece of Evander’s ear. I’m sure he wants it.’” According to Libonati, heavyweight Michael Grant, a member of the Holyfield camp, took the piece of ear and placed it in an ice bucket that included several other latex gloves.

“But the piece didn’t get (to Valley Hospital),” Tim Hallmark, Holyfield’s conditioning specialist, said on June 29. “Somewhere in the locker room to the ambulance to the hospital, it never turned up. The plastic surgeon (Julio Garcia) and I were rooting around in three or four gloves in the ice pack, but we never found it.

“I’m not a doctor, but I imagine if somebody found it at this point, it wouldn’t be in very good shape.”

I’ll leave it to George to provide additional details, which he does in Chapter 12 of his book, cleverly entitled Ear Piece.

Garcia, who was born in Cuba and came to this country with his father, an orthopedic surgeon, 37 years prior to the Bite Fight, was watching the pay-per-view telecast at a pool party in Southwest Las Vegas when Holyfield and the upper portion of his right ear became separated.

“Some poor guy is going to get called in to sew him up,” Garcia, in Willis’ book, recalled thinking. Five minutes later, Garcia’s beeper began to buzz. He was being immediately summoned to the emergency room at Valley Hospital.

“Traditionally, human bites are the most prone to infection,” Garcia said of the task he was being asked to perform. “They’re worse than a dog bite. We have more bacteria in our mouth than a dog has.”

But Garcia had an even more daunting task. The latex glove containing the piece of Holyfield’s ear had been placed in a red biohazard bag, but when Garcia examined the bag’s contents, he found only a piece of skin, not the cartilage. And matters got worse from there; after Garcia left to change into operating garb and to scrub, he returned to find the red biohazard bag missing. He suspects it might have accidentally been thrown away, but who knows for sure? Perhaps a souvenir-seeking hospital employee or bystander had grabbed it.

“It’s not a locked facility,” said Garcia, who nonetheless performed a 45-minute procedure to repair, as best he could, Holyfield’s raggedy ear. “Any person could have come into that area and taken it.”

One story that has made the rounds is that someone from Holyfield’s camp wound up with the cartilage and sold it in New York where it was purchased for $25,000 by a stockbroker. Another has it that the cartilage lies in a trophy case displayed in the memorabilia section of a restaurant in Cincinnati (Roy Rogers’ hometown!) although the granddaughter of the founder of the restaurant says the gristly thing on display there is actually from a chicken and was placed in a glass case as “a joke.”

Perhaps you have heard of the “Six Degrees of Separation” theory involving Kevin Bacon, in which virtually every other actor you can think of can be linked to fellow actor Bacon or one of Bacon’s movies within six easy-to-connect dots. For our family, that premise more or less holds true with Mike Tyson.

But first let it be noted that where we missed out on seeing the “King of the Cowboys,” we did not miss out on seeing the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” Elvis Presley, in an eerily similar situation. Anne and I, natives of New Orleans, were living down South in the 1970s when an entertainment reporter friend advised me he could procure tickets for us, if we wanted them, to the May 5, 1975, Elvis concert at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson. Elvis diehards were pitching tents days in advance of those ducats going on sale, and Anne was, at best, lukewarm about attending in any case. We liked Presley’s music for the most part, but it wasn’t as if we thought he walked on water or anything.

“But the guy is not in real good shape,” I said of the fat Elvis, whose health was obviously deteriorating. “We better see him now, because we might never get another chance.”

It didn’t happen quite as quickly as it did with Roy Rogers, but Elvis passed away on Aug. 16 (Anne’s birthday), 1977, at the too-young age of 42. Which brings us to …

The night of June 8, 2002, in Elvis’ longtime home of Memphis, Tenn. WBC/IBF heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis – who had had a piece of his left leg chomped by Tyson during a scuffle at a New York press conference to officially announce the much-anticipated matchup – savagely kayoed the erstwhile “baddest man on the planet” in eight rounds. A pundit might say that Lewis had sunk his own teeth into Tyson and chewed off a chunk, without so much as opening his mouth in the ring. Lewis’ fists had served as his incisors.

I thought of all this when I made the obligatory pilgrimage to Graceland, Elvis’ mansion-turned-museum, a few days before Lewis-Tyson, and every time I grabbed a, um, quick bite at a Roy Rogers Restaurant, a chain of fast-food joints in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that, as of August 2012, have been reduced in number to 49 from its previous high of 650. There probably are more people around today who think of roast beef sandwiches, cheeseburgers and fried chicken rather than blazing six-guns and a galloping Trigger when they think of Roy Rogers, if they think of him at all.

Hard times, it would seem, can descend even on the most heroic of figures, as well as the most villainous. Tyson and Holyfield are bereft of all or most of their nine-figure fortunes, the aura of their fame dimming along with the boxing skills that made them icons. Tyson, now a reasonably placid stay-at-home husband and father, tours the country as the star of a one-man stage show in which he essentially beats himself up for the snarling pit-bull image he so relishly created when his bite was even more dangerous than his bark. Most of whatever income he brings in these days goes to the Internal Revenue Service and a long line of creditors.

On Nov. 14, I will be one of 14 inductees into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2013, along with – you guessed it – Mike Tyson. I figure the ghosts of Elvis and Roy will be floating somewhere around the room, so connected are they in their own way to Mike and me.

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Bernard Fernandez

Golden Boy in Riyadh Results: Zurdo Ramirez Unifies Cruiserweight Titles

Published

22 hours ago

November 16, 2024

David A. Avila

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Mexico’s Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez endured the grinding style of England’s Chris Billam-Smith to become the unified WBO and WBA cruiserweight champion by unanimous decision after a bruising battle in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

“I’m a true champion,” said Ramirez.

Ramirez (47-1, 30 KOs) used angles and experience to out-maneuver the very strong Billam-Smith (20-2, 13 KOs) in Golden Boy Promotion’s first joint adventure with “Riyadh Season” in Riyadh, Saud Arabia.

Footwork by Ramirez seemed to surprise Billiam-Smith whose relentless approach could not corral the Mexican fighter who was fighting only for the second time at cruiserweight.

The former super middleweight champion used his experience and ability to create punching angles to optimum success against Billam-Smith. The movement confused the British fighter who never could find a solution.

“He has consistent shots,” said Billam-Smith. “I had trouble tracking him.”

But Billam-Smith used his relentless attacking style for all 12 rounds despite suffering a cut near his eye in the sixth round. He never quit and pounded away at Ramirez who simply out-punched the incredibly strong British cruiserweight.

No knockdowns were scored. Billam-Smith did have success in the 10^th round but couldn’t overcome the overall success Ramirez had tallied with body shots and straight lefts throughout the contest.

“It meant a lot for me to try and stop him,” said Ramirez. “But he’s pretty tough.”

After 12 rounds of bruising action all three judges saw Ramirez the winner 116-112 twice and 116-113.

Barboza’s Quest

After 11 years Arnold Barboza (31-0, 11 KOs) finally got his wish and met former super lightweight champion Jose Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs) in the boxing ring and handed him only his second defeat.

“It was a long time coming,” Barboza said.

Barboza started slowly against the pressure style of Ramirez but soon gathered enough information to determine his own attack. Accuracy with jabs and body shots opened things up for the Southern California fighter from El Monte.

Ramirez seemed to lose that fire in his legs and usually attacking style. Though he occasionally showed the old fire it was only in spurts. Barboza took advantage of the lulls and pierced the former champion’s guards with accurate jabs and quick body shots.

He was sharp.

After 10 rounds all three judges favored Barboza 96-94 twice and 97-93.

“This was my championship fight,” said the undefeated Barboza. “I respect everything about him (Ramirez) and his team.” Ramirez’s only previous loss came in a bout with Josh Taylor for the undisputed world title at 140 pounds.

Lightweight clash

William Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) survived a knockdown to out-punch former champion Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) and walk away with a split decision victory in their lightweight confrontation.

“I knew it was going to be a tough fight,” said Zepeda. “He surprised me a little bit.”

Zepeda opened up with his usual flood of punches from every angle and soon found himself looking up from the floor after Farmer floored him with a perfect counter-left in the third round.

It took the Mexican fighter a few rounds to find a way to avoid Farmer’s counter lefts and then the deluge of blows resumed. Though Farmer continued to battle he couldn’t match the number of blows coming from Zepeda.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Farmer 95-94 but the two other judges saw Zepeda by 95-94 scores.

“I just brought it to him,” said Farmer who knew it was a close fight.

Puerto Rico’s New Unified Champ

In a battle between minimumweight world titlists Puerto Rico’s Oscar Collazo (11-0, 8 KOs) knocked out Thailand’s KO CP Freshmart (25-1, 9 KOs) to become the WBO and WBA champion.

Freshmart, also known as Thammanoon Niyomtrong, was the longest reigning champion in the 105-division weight class for a total of eight years. That was quickly ended as Collazo’s floored the strong Thai fighter three times during their clash of champions.

Body shots proved beneficial to Collazo as both exchanged blows to the abdomen but the Puerto Rican added flashy combinations to control the fight for six rounds.

“I saw him breathing hard,” said Collazo.

Possibly understanding he was falling behind, Freshmart began to advance more aggressively and forced exchanges with the fast Boricua. Bad idea.

During a furious exchange in the sixth Collazo connected with a counter right hook on the chin and down went Freshmart. He recovered and finished the round.

Collazo opened the seventh searching for an opening and immediately connected with another right hook during an exchange of blows with the Thai fighter. Down went Freshmart again but he got up to fight again. Collazo moved in cautiously again and this time fired a left uppercut that finished Freshmart at 1:29 if the seventh round.

“We got the stoppage,” said Collazo the unified WBO and WBA minimumweight champion.

Puerto Rico has another unified world champion in Collazo.

“I want all the belts,” Collazo said.

Duarte edges Akhmedov

Mexico’s Oscar Duarte (28-2-1, 22 KOs) scrapped past Botirzhon Akhmedov (10-4, 9 KOs) in a rugged super lightweight battle to win by unanimous decision. But it was a close one.

“He’s a great fighter, a warrior,” said Duarte of Akhmedov.

Akhmedov started faster using angles and bursts of punches as Duarte looked to counter. In the second half of the 10-round fight the extra energy expended by the fighter from Uzbekistan seemed to tire him. Mexico’s Duarte took advantage and looked stronger in the second half of the match.

All three judges saw Duarte the winner 98-92, 97-93, 96-94.

Welterweights

Saudi Arabia’s Ziyad Almaayouf (6-0-1) and Mexico’s Juan Garcia (5-6-1) fought to a majority draw after six rounds of action.

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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Jake Paul Defeats Mike Tyson plus Other Results from Arlington, Texas

Published

1 day ago

November 16, 2024

David A. Avila

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The power of Mike Tyson.

Tyson’s power was on display in the people he attracted from all over the world to fill up the 72,000-seat Texas stadium and to capture the interest of more than 160 million viewers on Netflix. But, not in the prize ring on Saturday.

Youth and Jake Paul (11-1, 7 KOs) were the winners after eight tepid rounds over legendary heavyweight champion Tyson (50-7, 44 KOs) who failed to beat the chains of time. But he did stir them a bit at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Paul moved in and out of danger against Tyson the former undisputed heavyweight champion whose name struck terror in the 80s and 90s. Though the social media influencer had a 31-year younger body, he could not take full advantage.

“I was afraid he was going to hurt me,” admitted Paul.

In the opening round Tyson stalked Paul like a hungry lion about to pounce on a piece of meat. The younger fighter used his legs and smart jabs to keep separation. It was a wise decision.

At times Paul would unleash quick combinations, but the experienced Tyson’s muscle memory kicked in and he easily avoided the blows. But from the third round on the legs seemed to lock up and every movement seemed a struggle.

Paul landed left hooks to the head but Tyson managed to avoid their full power. And when Tyson connected with a left uppercut in the fifth round Paul wagged his tongue to acknowledge it connected, but the power was not damaging.

The eight two-minute rounds were perfect for this fight.

When a 58-year-old body is forced to fight for its life with all the necessary tools such as agility, endurance and quickness, the mind can play tricks. But Tyson was resolute and kept advancing against Paul in every round.

In the seventh round the aged heavyweight rekindled a second wind and fired dangerous combinations for the first time since the second frame. His winning spirit blazed for a moment or two until Paul unleashed his own combination blows. The moment for miracles had passed.

The final round saw Paul use more jabs and a few combination punches. Tyson tried to fire back but was unable to get his legs to cooperate. Still, his bravado was intact and Paul marked the last 10 seconds by bowing down humbly in front of Tyson. Paul had survived the lion’s maw.

“He’s the greatest heavyweight to ever do it,” said Paul of Tyson. “He’s a really tough and experienced fighter.”

Tyson was almost silent after the fight.

“I knew he was a good fighter. I came prepared,” said Tyson.

Katie Taylor Wins Again

In an even more brutal fight than their first encounter, undisputed super lightweight champion Katie Taylor (24-1) again edged out Amanda Serrano (47-3-1) after 10 bloody rounds to win by unanimous decision.

It was Serrano who jumped on Taylor in the first round and ravaged the Irish fighter with rifling lefts that snapped her head back. There was no wasting time to get acquainted.

Taylor got her footing in the third round with her quick-handed flurries. Though Serrano landed too it was Taylor’s resilience that kept her from being over run by the Puerto Rican’s power blows.

In the third round however, Taylor rushed in with blows and then grabbed Serrano and butted her with her head. A bloody gash opened up on the side of the Puerto Rican’s right eye. The referee quickly acknowledged it was a butt that caused the bad cut.

In the next round the cut opened up even more and the referee and ringside physician asked if she wanted to continue. She acknowledged to continue though the fight could have been stopped and judged by the scores accumulated up to that point. Serrano probably would have won.

Serrano did not want to stop.

“I chose to be great,” Serrano said. “I’m a Boricua. I’ll die in the ring.”

For the remainder of the fight the two combatants battled furiously. It was even more savage than their first encounter in New York two years ago. The referee repeatedly warned Taylor for intentionally diving in with her head and took one point away in the eighth round. He could have deducted more but did not.

“Sometimes it’s tough in there,” explained Taylor.

Serrano’s right hooks and left crosses found their mark repeatedly. Taylor’s quick combinations and strafing rights blazed often. It was up to the judges after 10 rounds had expired. All three judges saw it in favor of Taylor 95-94.

Many in the crowd booed. Even the announcers seemed surprised.

“She’s a fantastic champion,” said Taylor of Serrano. “She’s a hard puncher and tough.”

Serrano seemed displeased by the decision, but happy for the success of the fight card.

WBC Welterweight Title Fight

The theme for the WBC welterweight title fight was only sissies block and slip punches as Mario Barrios (29-2-1, 18 KOs) the champion and challenger Abel Ramos (28-6-3, 22 KOs) slugged each other gruesome for 12 bloody rounds and a split decision.

Barrios retains the WBC title.

“I knew it was a close fight,” Barrios said. “He made it a war.”

The two Mexican-American warriors blasted each other with knockdowns but somehow continued to battle on.

Texas-born Barrios was defending his title for the first time and Arizona’s Ramos was finally invited to challenge for a world title. He accepted.

Barrios opened up with sharp jabs and rocked Ramos with a straight right. He almost went down. In the second round he was not as lucky and was floored with a perfect three-punch combination. Ramos smiled and resumed the fight.

After a few more one-sided rounds in favor of Barrios, who trains in Las Vegas with Bob Santos, the match seemed to be dominated by the welterweight champion. It was a false read.

Ramos opened the sixth round in a more aggressive attack and began hammering Barrios with right hands. A three-punch combination blasted the champion to the ground and forced him to take an eight-count. He barely survived the round as the crowd panted.

“He can crack,” said Barrios.

For the remainder of the match both fought back and forth with Barrios finding success with jabs and rights to the body. Ramos rocketed rights on the champion’s head and occasional left hooks but the right seemed lasered to Barrios head.

Both of their faces were swollen and bloodied by punches to the face and neither seemed willing to quit. After 12 rounds one judge saw Ramos the winner 114-112, another saw Barrios win 116-110, and a third judge saw it 113-113 for a split draw. Barrios retains the WBC title.

“It was a great fight for the crowd,” said Ramos with a smile. “Two warriors like us are going to give an action-packed performance.”

Indian Fighter Wins

Neeraj Goyat (19-4-2) of India defeated Brazil’s Whindersson Nunes (0-1) in a super middleweight fight after six rounds. No knockdowns were scored but Goyat was the busier and more skilled fighter.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 304: Mike Tyson Returns; Latino Night in Riyadh

Published

3 days ago

November 14, 2024

David A. Avila

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Iron Mike Tyson is back.

“I’m just ready to fight,” Tyson said.

Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs) faces social media star-turned-fighter Jake Paul (10-1, 7 KOs) on Friday, Nov. 15, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Netflix will stream the Most Valuable Promotions card that includes female super stars Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano.

It’s a solid fight card.

The last time Tyson stepped in the prize ring was 19 years ago. Though he’s now 58 years old there’s a boxing adage that fits perfectly for this match: “it only takes one punch.”

Few heavyweights mastered the one-punch knockout like Tyson did during his reign of terror. If you look on social media you can find highlights of Tyson’s greatest knockouts. It’s the primary reason many people in the world today think he still fights regularly.

Real boxing pundits know otherwise.

But Tyson is not Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis, he’s facing 20-something-year-old Paul who has been boxing professionally for only five years.

“I’m not going to lose,” said Tyson.

Paul, 27, began performing in the prize ring as a lark. He demolished former basketball player Nate Robinson and gained traction by defeating MMA stars in boxing matches. His victories began to gain attention especially when he beat UFC stars Anderson Silva and Nate Diaz.

He’s become a phenom.

Every time Paul fights, he seems to improve. But can he beat Tyson?

“He says he’s going to kill me. I’m ready. I want that killer. I want the hardest match possible Friday night, and I want there to be no excuses from everyone at home when I knock him out,” said Paul who lured Tyson from retirement.

Was it a mistake?

The Tyson versus Paul match is part of a co-main event pitting the two best known female fighters Katie Taylor (23-1) and Amanda Serrano (47-2-1) back in the ring again. Their first encounter two years ago was Fight of the Year. Can they match or surpass that incredible fight?

“I’m going to do what I do best and come to fight,” said Serrano.

Taylor expects total war.

“I think what me and Amanda have done over these last few years, inspiring that generation of young fighters, is the best thing we could leave behind in this sport,” said Taylor.

Also, WBC welterweight titlist Mario Barrios (29-2, 18 KOs) defends against Arizona’s Abel Ramos (28-6-2, 22 KOs) and featherweight hotshot Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (13-0, 8 KOs) meets Dana Coolwell (13-2, 8 KOs). Several other bouts are planned.

Riyadh Season

WBA cruiserweight titlist Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez headlines a Golden Boy Promotions card called Riyadh Season’s Latino Night. It’s the first time the Los Angeles-based company has ventured to Saudi Arabia for a boxing card.

“Passion. That’s what this fight card is all about,” said Oscar De La Hoya, CEO of Golden Boy.

Mexico’s Ramirez (46-1, 30 KOs) meets England’s Chris Billam-Smith (20-1, 13 KOs) who holds the WBO title on Saturday Nov. 16, at The Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy card.

Ramirez surprised many when he defeated Arsen Goulamirian for the WBA title this past March in Inglewood, California. The tall southpaw from Mazatlan had also held the WBO super middleweight title for years and grew out of the division.

“I’m very excited for this Saturday. I’m ready for whatever he brings to the table,” said Ramirez. “I need to throw a lot of punches and win every round.”

Billam-Smith is slightly taller than Ramirez and has been fighting in the cruiserweight division his entire pro career. He’s not a world champion through luck and could provide a very spectacular show. The two titlists seem perfect for each other.

“It’s amazing to be headlining this night,” said Billam-Smith. “He will be eating humble pie on Saturday night.”

Other Interesting Bouts

A unification match between minimumweight champions WBO Oscar Collazo (10-0) and WBA titlist Thammanoon Niyomtrong could be a show stealer. Both are eager to prove that their 105-pound weight class should not be ignored.

“I wanted big fights and huge fights, what’s better than a unification match,” said Collazo at the press conference.

Niyomtrong, the WBA titlist from Thailand, has held the title since June 2016 and feels confident he will conquer.

“I want to prove who’s the best world champion at 105. Collazo is the WBO champion but we are more experienced,” said Niyomtrong.

A lightweight bout between a top contender from Mexico and former world champion from the USA is also earmarked for many boxing fans

Undefeated William “El Camaron” Zepeda meets Tevin Farmer whose style can provide problems for any fighter.

“There is so much talent on this card. It’s a complicated fight for me against an experienced foe,” said Zepeda.

Tevin Farmer, who formerly held the IBF super featherweight title now performs as a lightweight. He feels confident in his abilities.

“You can’t be a top dog unless you beat a top dog. Once I beat Zepeda what are they going to do?” said Farmer about Golden Boy.

In a non-world title fight, former world champion Jose Ramirez accepted the challenge from Arnold Barboza who had been chasing him for years.

“I’m ready for Saturday to prove I’m the best at this weight,” said Ramirez.

Arnold Barboza is rubbing his hands in anticipation.

“This fight has been important to me for a long time. Shout out to Jose Ramirez for taking this fight,” said Barboza.

Special note

The fight card begins at 8:57 a.m. Saturday on DAZN which can be seen for free by non-subscribers.

Fights to Watch (all times Pacific Time)

Fri. Netflix 5 p.m. Mike Tyson (50-6) vs Jake Paul (10-1); Katie Taylor (23-1) vs Amanda Serrano (47-2-1); Mario Barrios (29-2) vs Abel Ramos (28-6-2).

Sat. DAZN, 8:57 a.m. Gilberto Ramirez (46-1) vs Chris Billiam-Smith (20-1); Oscar Collazo (10-0) vs Thammanoon Niyomtrong (25-0); William Zepeda (31-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-6-1); Jose Ramirez (29-1) vs Arnold Barboza (30-0).

Mike Tyson photo credit: Esther Lin

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