Atlantic City Gala Recalls Good Times Perhaps Lost Forever

Published

12 years ago

June 4, 2013

The mostly middle-aged crowd at 23 East, a bar in Ardmore, Pa., on Philadelphia’s Main Line, was clearly into the live rock ’n’ of a stage show headlined by Tommy Conwell, the front man for a popular local group from the 1980s, Tommy Conwell & the Young Rumblers.

“The ’80s are coming back!” Conwell yelled into the microphone, to the approval of his relatively small but enthusiastic audience. And maybe that really can be the case to some degree. There always are going to be music lovers who choose to remain rooted in the sounds of their youth because, well, thinking of the Young Rumblers as still being young is a convenient way of forgetting the graying or thinning of their own hair, or the formation of spare tires around their waists and those worrisome crow’s feet around their eyes.

One night later and 65 miles to the East, there was a similar celebration of what was. The second annual Atlantic City All Stars Boxing Gala at Resorts Casino Hotel, in a sense, was like a gathering of members of the Flat Earth Society. There had been good times for boxing in the ’80s along the boardwalk, and plenty of them, but good times and those who helped make them happen have a way of slipping away with the passage of time. Aging boxers are in their own way like Young Rumblers whose rumbling now is mostly confined to memory. When the hits stop coming, what alternative is there but to recycle past glories?

“There are mixed emotions,” admitted Jonathan Diego, the former Atlantic City prosecutor who conceived the black-tie-optional event and serves as its chairman and foremost cheerleader. “`Bittersweet’ is a good word to describe it. It’s sweet that you can get 50 former champions , referees and judges in the same room. The bitter part is that we don’t have as many big fights, world championship fights, in Atlantic City as we once had.”

Ken Condon, the Sports and Entertainment consultant for Caesars Entertainment, has waved the banner for Atlantic City boxing even longer than Diego (he was there, in the marketing department, when Resorts became the first A.C. casino to open its doors in 1978), and just as passionately. He sees a pinpoint of light at the end of what for years had been an ever-darkening tunnel.

“Boxing is cyclical,” said Condon, one of a group of award recipients Saturday night that included, among others, former world champions Virgil Hill (who’ll be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 9), Iran Barkley, William Joppy, Keith Holmes, Cory Spinks, DeMarcus Corley and contenders Chuck Wepner, Ivan Robinson, Jameel McCline and John Scully. “Atlantic City has always been receptive to good boxing. I think more (casino) properties are starting to add boxing to their marketing programs. Things are getting a little better in that respect. But we have a ways to go yet.”

If the rate of fight cards continues to hold through 2013, there is a strong likelihood double-digits will be reached, with the total number of shows topping out somewhere between 15 and 20. Even as honorees strode to the podium to accept their plaques from Diego and master of ceremonies Mike Mittman, less than a mile down the boardwalk there was a J Russell Peltz-promoted card headlined by junior welterweight Teon Kennedy’s 10-round unanimous decision over Carlos Vinan.

But while a 20-fight-card year might seem puny in comparison to the early- to mid-1980s, when Atlantic City averaged 130 shows from 1982 to 1985, when it was the site of a staggering 145 events, it is a damn sight better than the even punier five cards that were staged in the erstwhile capital of East Coast boxing in 2009, which marked the sport’s nadir down the shore.

So what happened? How could something so, well, great do an about-face and march backward toward near-irrelevance? Everyone has his own theory on the rise and fall of Atlantic City boxing.

“In the late 1970s, all through the ’80s and even into the ’90s, there was a level of success you almost couldn’t expect,” said Roy Foreman, George Foreman’s younger and shorter brother who for a quarter-century has split his time between his Texas and New Jersey residences. “We knew there would have to be a lull, eventually.

“I hope more people, influential people, begin to realize that boxing built Atlantic City. I don’t mean the actual buildings, but fight fans poured into this town for boxing matches. That’s why they came for, not just for the gambling. They came from New York, they came from Philadelphia, they came from Washington. And they didn’t just come to see superstars like Mike Tyson and George. A lot of fighters made their reputations here, and they developed their own followings.

“Now, the city is hurting. We have to find a way to do whatever it takes to bring it back to what it was, or somewhere near to what it was. The main problem is taxes. We need to get Gov. Christie and the legislature to give boxing some sort of tax break to make things more attractive to fighters and promoters. Guys would love to fight here more. Floyd Mayweather told me one of the best times he had was when he came here (to fight Arturo Gatti).”

Diego is mindful of the obstacles between the still-bleak current reality and a new dawn of progress. Not only is the economy gelatin-soft, but the cost of doing business is getting steeper, as is the competition from neighboring states that have legalized casino gambling to the detriment of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos, some of which are losing their battles with the bottom line. It’s hard to argue with such depressing facts as the 42 percent in lost casino revenues (from $5.2 billion to barely $3 billion) since 2006, at a time when casino revenue for the United States as a whole has increased 4.8 percent. Some 10,300 Atlantic City casino jobs have disappeared through layoffs and attrition, and the bad news could get worse when online gambling in Delaware goes into effect in the fall.

Joe Lupo, the senior vice-president of operations for one of Atlantic City’s glitziest casino properties, the Borgata, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that “the Jersey shore will never be quite the same due to the fact we are completely surrounded by gaming on all sides.”

So how boxing stage a comeback amid the overall chaos enveloping Atlantic City as a whole? Well, there are steps that might be taken, if only the powers that be choose to take them.

One is to identify a headliner, an Arturo Gatti type, who can become the city’s franchise fighter as was the late, great blood-and-guts brawler – who will be posthumously inducted into the IBHOF on June 9 – when he regularly packed Boardwalk Hall.

“In the ’80s boxing was at its height with Tyson and all those big stars that regularly appeared here,” Condon said. “I do think you’re going to see more and more boxing shows every year here. What I’ve tried to do is to find East Coast fighters who can develop a following and who want to make Atlantic City their boxing home. Obviously, we were able to do that very successfully with Arturo.

“Look, Mayweather-level fights are few and far between. They usually wind up in Vegas, anyway. We’re always hopeful we can find the next Arturo Gatti.”

To Diego, whose uncle is former middleweight contender Dave Tiberi, the solution could be as simple as giving up some money on the front end to make more on the back end.

“I don’t think some of these entertainment directors really understand the fight game and how boxing can benefit their properties,” he said. “Their predecessors did.

“A big part of the issue is cost. The reality is that staging boxing now costs a lot of money. Back in the day, you’d get a four-corner deal where a promoter would get the venue and hotel rooms for the fighters and their cornermen for free. The casinos just presumed they would get that money, and more, from fans (patronizing) their casinos and restaurants.

“Now those same properties are asking promoters to pay for everything. It’s cost-prohibitive for smaller- and medium-sized shows.”

The downside took some time to develop, just as the upside did. Casino gambling was approved by New Jersey voters in 1976, and Resorts – then known as Merv Griffin’s Resorts – opened with great fanfare on May 26, 1978. Two years later, French director Louis Malle’s 1980 film Atlantic City, starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, depicted not only the extent of the resort town’s decades-long deterioration, but the steps taken to restore its former opulence with the erection of the gambling palaces that began to rise like so many steel skeletons. It was a transitional period from one era to the next, and with it the hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Make no mistakes, part of the vision was the realization of what boxing had meant to Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace, which opened in 1966, and to the neon-bathed desert outpost as a whole. Nudged by financier and casino owner Donald Trump, city fathers began to hype Atlantic City as the “boxing capital of the world.”

“It became very competitive between us and Vegas, maybe even a little contentious,” Larry Hazzard Sr., the chairman of the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, from 1985 to 2007, said in 2009. “But we had the edge because we had Tyson.”

Mike Tyson, for those with short memories or are too young to remember, once was as big or bigger than basketball’s Michael Jordan or golf’s Tiger Woods. His status as an Atlantic City icon began modestly – with eight appearances mostly in ballroom settings when he was gaining notoriety as a young knockout artist – but it gained traction soon after Trump threw truckloads of money at him to become the marquee attraction in Boardwalk Hall, and the face of Trump’s ambitious boxing operation headquartered at Trump Plaza.

Tyson fought five times in Atlantic City after he became heavyweight champion for the first time, but the biggest night of all for him, and for boxing on the boardwalk, was June 27, 1988, when he squared off against fellow unbeaten Michael Spinks.

Let Spinks’ manager, the loquacious Butch Lewis (who was 65 when he died on July 23, 2011), explain just how wild a scene it was the night Atlantic City boxing reached its absolute apex.

“It was the biggest event in the world at that time – not just in this country or in boxing,” Lewis recalled in 2009. “I’m talking the whole bleepin’ world. If there was a Superdome in Atlantic City, we could have filled that sucker up twice over. The demand for tickets was just crazy. (The announced attendance was a sold-out 21,785.)

“I was getting calls from everybody you could think of – superstar athletes, big-time entertainers, politicians, right up to the White House. `Butch, you gotta get me in,’ they all said. But there wasn’t anything I could do. Ringside tickets had a face value of $1,500 – remember, this is 1988 dollars we’re talking about – and they were being scalped for more, a lot more, and that’s only if the people lucky enough to have ’em were willing to sell, which they weren’t.

“Anyway, Richard Pryor calls and tells me he’ll do anything to get in. Richard and me were close, so I had to try, right? I checked around, called in some favors and, somehow, I got him two tickets somewhere in the first three rows, right behind Magic Johnson.

“The fight happens. Slim (Spinks) gets knocked down in the first round. Even before he went down, Magic stood up. Boom, boom, the fight ends just like that (after an elapsed time of 91 seconds). Richard calls me later and says he never saw a punch, all he saw was Magic Johnson’s back.

“Richard is yelling, `Bleeper-bleeper, I could just as well have stayed home!’” Lewis, cracking himself up, said in replicating Pryor’s frantic, profane indignity. “But you know what? At least Richard was in the house. That was one night when you had to be there. And if you couldn’t actually be in the arena, you at least had to be in Atlantic City, taking in the wild scene. All the hotels had closed-circuit telecasts and those sold out, too.

“People who couldn’t get into Boardwalk Hall were milling around outside and offering hundreds of dollars for ticket stubs to the people who were coming out after the fight ended. They were willing to pay good money for stubs! I never saw or heard anything like that before. But, in a way, I understood. They wanted to be able to go back to wherever they came from and tell their friends and co-workers, `See, I was there.’”

But nothing lasts forever, not for Tommy Conwell or Mike Tyson, or for municipalities either. Not only did boxing begin to lose prominence in Atlantic City, but the Miss America Pageant relocated to Las Vegas in 2006. (Miss America 2014 will be crowned in Boardwalk Hall on Sept. 15, the first in a three-year return engagement in its ancestral home.) The famous diving horses at the Steel Pier stopped diving in 1978. Even finding a saltwater taffy shop along the boardwalk isn’t as easy as it once was.

So now those who would at least partially restore Atlantic City boxing peer into an uncertain future, aware of the impediments that still exist but steadfast in their shared belief that progress is being made, if incrementally. Diego insists the second annual Atlantic City All Star Boxing Legends Gala will not be the last.

“This really is a labor of love,” he said. “I’ve been a boxing fan since I was a preteen. In the ’70s and ’80s I watched guys like Ray Mancini, Livingstone Bramble, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns. It was a classic era for boxing and fans got to see the best of the best.

“I was there when my uncle David fought James Toney for the middleweight title. He got robbed. All right, he was in trouble in the first and second rounds, but he dominated the rest of the way. He was the far busier and more effective fighter. That fight inspired me to become more involved in the sport.

“I remember when Uncle David used to hold his `Night of Champions’ in Wilmington, Delaware. He had guys like Smokin’ Joe Frazier come in. I went to a couple of those events and thought, `Why can’t we do something like that in Atlantic City, only bigger and better?’ And this is bigger and better. It’s going to keep getting bigger and better.”

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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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