CAUTION: Golovkin Remains A Mystery Still

Published

12 years ago

July 1, 2013

Ron Borges

Saturday night Gennady Golovkin proved what we already knew. What he did not prove is whether he is the best middleweight in the world.

The undefeated WBA-IBO champion’s punching power was never in question. When you have the highest knockout percentage of any active world champion as well as the highest in middleweight championship history it doesn’t matter whether you’ve knocked out the top names in the division, which he has not.

Power is power and if you’ve got the kind Golovkin has it’s obvious, as it was when he dropped challenger Matthew Macklin with a savage left to the liver that crumpled him to the floor in a heap at 1:22 of the third round, unable to get up for several minutes after he was counted out by referee Eddie Cotton.

But the truth is the man Golovkin beat was already beaten before he entered the ring. For more than a week Macklin kept talking about how he hadn’t really wanted the fight yet, insisting he needed one more tune-up before facing Golovkin, even though this was Macklin’s third shot at the middleweight title.

That is a man who doesn’t want to be where he ended up, which was trapped inside the ropes with Golovkin patiently boring in on him like termites in the woodwork.

After talking a good game until the week before the fight, Macklin (29-5, 20 KO) entered the ring at the MGM Grand Theatre filled with self-doubt. His movements from the beginning were skitterish, his feet seldom set to punch, his eyes darting here and there, his worry obvious.

That, of course, is the curse of the big puncher. It has benefited fighters for decades. It is a spell of fear that comes over an opponent that ends the fight before it begins, rendering that opponent incapable of the kind of calm patience necessary to do his job.

Most observers miss this nuance, seeing only the explosion and assuming the sole cause is the unbeatable devastation of the knockout artist. But fighters, especially champions, know differently.

The best of them see deeper things. They see the eyes of the opponent and know what it means. They see the weaknesses of the champion and know how to expose and exploit them.

That is why Gennady Golovkin’s performance Saturday night, impressive as it was, did not satisfy all the skeptics in the crowd. It made clear to them, not that they had any doubt, that he has dynamite in both hands but it did not quite convince them yet that he will detonate it no matter who the competition is.

“People talk about punching power,” said Andre Ward, the undisputed super middleweight champion and an analyst working at ringside Saturday night for HBO.

“He is always in position to punch. It’s from that Soviet (amateur system, where he was allegedly 350-5 before turning pro). He has a strong base, strong foundation. He puts a lot of pressure on people, and it starts with his feet. He gets into position, then is able to unload the big shot.’’

And then came the “but.’’

“Until somebody is able to dominate (Sergio) Martinez, he’s in that top spot (in the middleweight division),’’ Ward said after the fight. “He’s struggled his last couple of fights but he holds onto that top spot.

“I don’t know what’s going on with negotiations behind the scenes with Golovkin. They say that nobody wants to fight him. He’s doing this (knocking out guys), but not the top competition so I’ll keep Martinez in the top spot.

“I’d like to see Golovkin against a young fighter like Kid Chocolate (Peter Quillin). If he can do that against a fighter like that you can say he’s a top spot (guy).’’

Ward made clear without saying it that he has no fear and no doubt what would happen if all the talk of Golovkin moving up to 168 in pursuit of him came to fruition. In his mind it would be Golovkin’s first true test at the highest level of the sport and he would not pass it.

For all his toughness, Macklin lost a disputed decision he probably deserved over Felix Sturm, was stopped by Martinez after 11 rounds in which Macklin dropped Martinez early but ended up taking a beating and now was non-competitive against Golovkin. In other words, and there’s no disrespect meant by this but he is not a top level talent.

Even Macklin’s trainer, former world champion Buddy McGirt, did not seem as impressed as you might have expected, in part because he knew before the fight what became obvious as Macklin walked into the ring with the look of someone staring at a hangman’s noose with his name on it.

“He has the power, you can‘t take that away from him,’’ McGirt said after the fight, “but I’d still like to see him in a dogfight against a boxer who can punch. He’s in an era where there are no great middleweights. That’s not his fault but it takes a little shine off him. I still think he hasn’t been tested.

“The best fighters are patient fighters. They stay calm under pressure. Matthew got caught with a shot because he felt Golovkin was getting the momentum and he had to do something. He got anxious.’’

Not without good reason. After quickly stopping Macklin, Golovkin is now on a streak of 14 straight KOs and takes the approach that one of the inevitable things in life is that he will render his opponent unconscious sooner rather than the later, an opinion not surprisingly also held by his trainer, the very able Abel Sanchez.

“He’s an animal in the ring when he’s right,’’ Sanchez said. “He’s the best fighter I ever trained. From 154 pounds to 168 pounds no one can stand up to his power.’’

Such a person, of course, has never existed. No one could stand up to Jack Dempsey until Gene Tunney did…twice. No one could stand up to Mike Tyson until Buster Douglas did. No one could stand up to Thomas Hearns or Sonny Liston or The Great John L. or every big puncher there ever was…until somebody did. The only one who can say no one did is Rocky Marciano because, well, no one did, although truth be told he fought in an era not unlike the fallow one Golovkin is in now.

Whether Golovkin’s somebody is presently in the middleweight division remains to be seen but for all his glorification over the weekend, he remains a mystery, as even he seemed to inadvertently hint at after the fight.

“I expected a tougher fight,’’ Golovkin (27-0, 24 KO) admitted. “I gave him a good opportunity early in the fight to see what he had. When he didn’t take it I knew it would be an easy fight.

“The left hand (to the body) is something we worked on in the gym. When I saw he was open for it, I drilled him with it. I knew he wasn’t going to get up.’’

All true. Equally true was that Macklin was halfway to the floor before he left his dressing room. That is not to hint he was a coward because he was not. He was just an opponent who didn’t believe he could win and when that is the case you seldom do and against a guy like Golovkin you never do.

But the biggest names in the division, guys like Martinez, Quillin and Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr., as well as Ward at 168, will not leave their dressing room with such a deficit of mind.

They will carry with them the serenity of the great fighter, the kind Golovkin (27-0, 24 KO) clearly possessed against Macklin and all his other opponents. It is the serenity of faith in yourself and your gifts but also faith in your will as well as your skill.

It is a faith Golovkin has but a faith that has not yet been tested. Only then will we learn if he is to join names like Hagler, Monzon, Hopkins, Greb, Ketchel, Robinson and the few other truly great middleweight champions.

For now he is a 31-year-old fighter with a big punch that is serving him well and rightly exciting boxing fans and the sport. He is on his way to bigger challenges.

If he passes them Gennady Golovkin will be what people say he is but words alone will not make it so. It’s a funny thing about greatness in boxing. It’s something you have to prove against people who already have established their own.

Those kind of fighters, and there are not many of them these days, are different from the Macklins and the Gabriel Rosados and Nobuhiro Ishidas of the world. They have what you have and it’s more than a punch.

Until Gennady Golovkin gets the opportunity to test himself in that hot cauldron we wait to see if he is what he says he is or if he’s just another guy who could punch holes in guys like Matthew Macklin even before he hit them.

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Ron Borges

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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