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CHAMBERS DECIDES IT’S TIME TO CRUISE (FOR NOW)

What is the difference between being heavyweight champion of the world and cruiserweight champion of the world?
Well, some would say the difference is zero.
Plus another number.
Even now, a quarter-century after his final bout as a cruiserweight, Evander Holyfield probably remains the greatest fighter ever to compete in that netherworld that exists between light heavyweight and heavyweight. On April 9, 1988, the “Real Deal” added Carlos “Sugar” DeLeon’s WBC cruiserweight championship to the WBA and IBF belts he already possessed when he stopped DeLeon in eight one-sided rounds at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas. It was Holyfield’s fifth defense of the then-190-pound title he ascended to when he outlasted rawhide-tough WBA champ Dwight Muhammad Qawi to take a memorable 15-round split decision on July 12, 1986, in Atlanta.
Holyfield had no difficulty making 190 pounds back then. Presumably, he could have held onto his cruiser titles for damn well as long as he pleased. With the exception of Qawi, the other fighters he defeated in his relatively brief reign – Henry Tillman, Ricky Parkey, Ossie Ocasio, Qawi again and, finally, DeLeon – hadn’t posed particularly significant challenges to his reign.
But Holyfield knew his history, and, obviously, his math. His purse for fully unifying the cruiserweight title against DeLeon was $300,000. Even as he was winning that matchup with almost casual ease, it was public knowledge that undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson had signed to defend his WBC, WBA and IBF titles against former champ Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall. Tyson was to receive a minimum of $15 million for that much-anticipated showdown to Spinks’ $13.5 million.
Is it any wonder Holyfield’s promotional company, Main Events, brought in Houston-based conditioning expert Tim Hallmark to bulk up their muscular yet lean king of the cruiserweights to make a run at possible eight-figure paydays? Holyfield would have had to fight and win 50 times to rake in what he received against DeLeon equal to what Tyson got for 91 seconds of demolition work against Spinks just 2½ months later.
Holyfield, of course, made the transition seamlessly, going on to win some version of the heavyweight crown four times while establishing himself as one of boxing’s all-time best big men. He stands as Exhibit A for why so many cruiserweights (and more than a few light heavyweights) have attempted to follow the same path, packing on pounds in the quest for greater glory and a heftier bank account. And it’s relatively easy to gain weight, right? Just pass the doughnuts or a six-pack of beer.
But sometimes it is more prudent to go in the opposite direction, at least temporarily, which is why smallish heavyweight contender “Fast” Eddie Chambers (36-3, 18 KOs) is slimming down to the cruiserweight limit (now 200 pounds) for his debut bout in the lower weight class, a scheduled 10-rounder against South Africa’s Thabiso Mchunu (13-1, 10 KOs) on Aug. 3 at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. The bout will be televised by the NBC Sports Network, which doesn’t appear to have the same aversion to cruiserweights that HBO, Showtime and other American broadcast outlets have shown since the division was introduced to scant enthusiasm in 1979.
Interestingly, Main Events president Kathy Duva – a publicist for the company which was then run by her late husband, Dan Duva, who oversaw Holyfield’s move up to heavyweight – not only has approved Chambers’ strategy of mixing it up with fighters more his own natural size, but she has readily endorsed it. Sometimes it is prudent for David to avoid Goliath, and for Jack to not climb that beanstalk.
“Our suggestion to Eddie was that it’s good to be able to walk around the rest of your life and say you were champion of the world,” said Duva, who now promotes Chambers along with Dan Goossen, of Goossen Tutor. “Eddie Chambers should be able to do that. He is that good. He has that kind of skill. In the cruiserweight division, he can dominate.
“Eddie still wants to win the heavyweight championship, and we’re OK with him moving back up to heavyweight eventually. But there is a better way to move him at this particular time. I’m playing chess. That’s what we do here. I need to position him, and it’s better to position him as the cruiserweight champion than as just another pretty good heavyweight, most of whom only have a goal in life to go to Germany and have somebody twice their size (read the Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali) beat the living hell out of them.”
The 6-1 Chambers knows what it’s like to almost always be the little guy trying to chop down much heavier opponents who tower over him. Although he was well behind on points in his March 20, 2010, title bout in Dusseldorf, Germany, against IBF/WBO/IBO/The Ring champion Wladimir Klitscho – who was 5 inches taller and outweighed him by 34¼ pounds – he hung in there until being stopped with less than a minute remaining in the 12th and final round.
“These super heavyweights operate in a system that’s patently unfair,” Duva said. “Guys that big may be less skilled, but they’re still going to beat guys who are more talented, but are so much smaller. You never see that kind of disparity in the lighter weight classes. Look at (Floyd) Mayweather-(Canelo) Alvarez. How much of a big deal was it that Alvarez had to give up two pounds to fight at a catchweight demanded by the Mayweather camp? But when Eddie Chambers gets in the ring against some of these huge heavyweights, he’s expected to give up 30, 40, even 50 pounds – and still win.
“But guess what? With only a couple of exceptions, he still did win those kinds of fights. He went into the last round with Wladimir Klitschko and the only reason he got knocked out is because he was still trying to win, unlike most of the Klitschkos’ opponents.”
It’s hard to dispute Duva’s assertions. In his last six fights, Chambers was outweighed by an aggregate 232 pounds – an average of 38.7 pounds. The last time he fought someone lighter than himself was Oct. 3, 2008, when he came in at 219 pounds to 205 for Livan Hernandez, himself a bulked-up former cruiserweight.
Chambers, 31, a Pittsburgh native who since 2002 has been based on the other side of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, was a trim and career-low 202 pounds for his most recent ring appearance, a 12-round unanimous-decision loss to Tomasz Adamek for the vacant IBF North American heavyweight title on June 16, 2012, in Newark, N.J. But it should be noted that Chambers tore a muscle in his left biceps early on, an injury that reduced him to throwing almost nothing other than right-hand leads and is a major reason why he will have been inactive for 13½ months by the time he steps inside the ropes against Mchunu. Oh, yeah, and Adamek (a former light heavyweight and cruiserweight titlist) outweighed Chambers by the obligatory 23 pounds.
“I think it’s a good idea to go down to cruiserweight, maybe dominate for a few years, then come back up to heavyweight with a stronger position as a world champion,” said Chambers, who noted he is usually at 196 or 197 pounds after a workout these days. “I really want to become a world champion, regardless of what class it’s in. When you’re a world champion, you can take satisfaction in having that distinction for as long as you live. There are great fighters who never became world champions, but there is a tendency to feel that your career is not complete until you earn that title.
“I’ve been a ranked heavyweight for a long time, but I don’t have that world championship. My detractors will say that’s why I’m moving down. That’s all right. Let them say whatever they want. Now I get to fight guys my own size for a while. When you look at the size differential with some of these really big heavyweights – I’m mainly thinking about the Klitschkos – it can change your mind a little bit about the notion of entering the ring with at least an equal chance to win.”
Perhaps Chambers’ expectation of domination at 200 pounds is overly optimistic. The reigning cruiserweight champions might not pose quite as large a hurdle to clear as the brothers Klitschko, but it would be wrong to presume that Poland’s Krzsztof Wlodarczyk (48-2-1, 34 KOs; WBC), Panama’s Guillermo Jones (39-3-2, 31 KOs; WBA), Germay-based Cuban Yoan Pablo Hernandez (27-1, 13 KOs; IBF) and Germany-based Serbian Marco Huck (36-2-1, 25 KOs; WBO) are chopped liver. But the path to the world title “Fast” Eddie so cherishes has to have fewer potholes than the one to the heavyweight crowns hoarded by the Klitschkos. Besides, Chambers is not even ranked at heavyweight by any of the world sanctioning bodies at present.
It should be noted that WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner successfully stepped up two weight classes to challenge for Paulie Malignaggi’s WBA welterweight title in Broner’s first bout as a 147-pounder. Is it so unreasonable to believe that someone with Chambers’ credentials, should he impressively take care of Mchunu, could step to the front of the line for a shot at one of the cruiser kings?
Even Chambers, however, admits that the cruiserweight division, at least in the United States, traditionally has been regarded as the “black sheep” of boxing, which is why he even briefly
contemplated paring all the way down to the light heavyweight limit of 175. But then he thought of the debilitating effects that sort of downsizing had on Chris Byrd and Roy Jones Jr., who skipped over the cruisers altogether after having won heavyweight championships. No, trying for light heavyweight definitely would be a bridge too far.
“As much as I would love to try my hand at light heavyweight, which is one of the eight traditional divisions, and a division in which there was and is a lot of interest, I know what trying to go all that way down did to Chris and Roy,” Chambers said. “Trying to take off 20 or 25 pounds of muscle is harder, much harder, than trying to put it on. By skipping over the cruisers, those guys did damage to themselves. They never were the same.”
The cruiserweight division, for whatever reason, never gained the popularity some thought it might have gained when it was created as a bridge between light heavyweight and the larger heavyweights who were beginning to emerge in the late 1970s. It takes a real boxing history buff to recall that the WBC was the organization to sanction a cruiserweight title bout, which pitted Marvin Camel against Mate Parlov on Dec. 8, 1979. In what might be considered an omen, that fight did not even produce a champion; it ended in a draw. But Camel etched his name in the record books when he defeated Parlov in a rematch three months later. The WBA then went into the cruiserweight business in 1982, the IBF in 1983.
Alas, Camel is far less celebrated as the first cruiserweight champ than is former New York Yankee Ron Blomberg, who became the first designated hitter in Major League Baseball when he strode to the plate on April 6, 1973, for his historic first at-bat against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.
To her credit, Duva is no Johnny-come-lately when it comes to heralding the potential glories of the cruisers. Prior to Adamek’s IBF cruiserweight defense against Bobby Gunn on July 11, 2009, Duva mounted her soap box to proclaim that there should be a more prominent place of honor for the 200-pounders.
“All these huge heavyweights are the reason the division is in the sorry state it’s in,” Duva said. “Big, lumbering guys who can’t get out of their own way are never going to make exciting fights. Let’s face it, if you’ve got a 6-5, 240-pound, athletic guy in the United States, he’s probably playing basketball or football.
“Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson … those were small heavyweights. They could have gotten down to 200 if they had to. And think about some of the great heavyweights throughout history – Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, even Joe Louis. They’d probably be cruiserweights today.”
Four years later, Duva is beating the same drum.
“If I had my way, I would rename the cruiserweight division the heavyweight division, because that’s what it really is,” she said. “I would call anything about, say, 220 the super heavyweight division, like they do in the Olympics. That’s what I would do if I were in charge of the world. Cruiserweight is a terrible name. It doesn’t sound tough enough, or something. If the cruiserweights were called
heavyweights, and bigger heavyweights were called super heavyweights, a lot more people would be interested in seeing today’s cruiserweights.
“Let’s be honest. Super heavyweights are slower. They often win by imposing their size on smaller opponents. But cruiserweight fights are fun to watch. They’re more exciting. I’m just fortunate I have this platform at NBC where we can do things that network TV executives elsewhere generally don’t want to do, which is to give these guys a chance.
“Some of the best fights I’ve ever seen were in the cruiserweight division, or involved small heavyweights or big light heavyweights who could make cruiserweight if they tried. The best fight I ever saw in person was Matthew Saad Muhammad and Yaqui Lopez, who were big light heavys. Great cruiserweight fights were Holyfield-Qawi, the first one, and Adamek-(Steve) Cunningham, also the first one. We were fortunate to promote both those fights.”
Duva’s plan is to have Chambers fight regularly on the NBC Sports Network, which will help him develop more of a following if he can get more eyeballs in the U.S. to see what he can do at a weight that presumably fits him better.
“I think the way for him to go is to dominate the cruiserweight division, and to be seen on television doing it,” she continued. “This is an American athlete, a tremendously articulate young man, nice personality, good-looking, charming as hell. He’s got everything. But he’s always portrayed as the little guy with no chance.
“But that little guy went to Germany and beat (Alexander) Dimitrenko, a guy twice his size. But nobody on this side of the Atlantic saw it, so what good did it do him? We have to change that.”
Holyfield, of course, is the most notable exception to the widely accepted rule of thumb that cruiserweight champions – think Al “Ice” Cole and Jean-Marc Mormek — don’t make much of a splash at heavyweight. So maybe Chambers’ second expedition at heavyweight, if and when he makes it, won’t be any more of a breakthrough journey than the first.
“Some cruiserweights will move up and do well, and some won’t,” she reasoned. “What the goal should always be is to provide entertainment to boxing fans. With Eddie, we think it’s best to take a step back, figure out what’s broken, and how to fix it.
“One of the things I’ve been on the warpath on for quite some time is the idea that being a cruiserweight is somehow second-rate. It’s so absurd. Somehow, some way, we have to change that kind of thinking.”
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.
The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.
The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.
Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.
Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.
A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.
In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.
Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.
Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.
In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.
Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.
Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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