Travis Kauffman Still Waiting On That Big Break He Needs

Published

12 years ago

August 20, 2013

Scan the top 15 ratings for the four most widely recognized world sanctioning bodies and you’ll see that there isn’t the shortage of U.S. heavyweights many believe to be the case. But most of the names listed belong to fighters over 30 years of age and, in the case of the highest-ranked American, Tony Thompson, over 40.

That whittles the supply of “young” American heavyweights – defined here as those on the sunny side of 30 – to three men who might or might not have the goods to represent a real challenge not only to reigning champions Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, but to a glut of other Eastern Europeans who dominate the rankings.

Two of those heavyweights you probably know about. Deontay Wilder (29-0, 29 KOs) is 27, a bronze medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and has won every one of his professional bouts by knockout, including a first-round starching of faded former WBO titlist Sergei Liakhovich on Aug. 9 in Indio, Calif., a fight which was televised by Showtime. Bryant Jennings (17-0, 9 KOs) is 28 and has been featured regularly in nationally televised scraps on NBC SportsNet, including a ninth-round stoppage of the aforementioned Liakhovich on March 24, 2012.

Then there is Travis Kauffman (24-1, 18 KOs). The Reading, Pa., fighter, who turns 28 on Wednesday, is not a former Olympian, hasn’t had the benefit of recent TV exposure and has no really recognizable names on his resume. Maybe he is the best of the young American heavys, as his father-trainer-manager, Marshall Kauffman, insists, but there aren’t many who have seen enough of him to objectively weigh in on the subject, despite Travis’ No. 13 ranking from the WBA.

One thing is certain: No matter what happens Friday night at the Valley Forge (Pa.) Casino and Resort in suburban Philadelphia, few are apt to sit up and take notice. Kauffman is paired against 32-year-old journeyman Arron Lyons (12-12-1, 9 KOs) — who’ll be fighting for the first time in 16 months — in a scheduled eight-rounder, and he’ll be expected to take care of business swiftly and emphatically. Kauffman-Lyons ostensibly isn’t even the main event of the evening; top billing is going to Naim Nelson (10-1, 1 KO), who defends his Pennsylvania lightweight title against Ryan Belasco (18-5-3, 3 KOs) in a scheduled six-rounder.

But those high-paying, high-visibility TV dates are hard to come by for someone who is not backed by a big-time promoter or manager , so Kauffman for now is obliged to play not only off-off-Broadway, but off-off-Broad Street (that’s Philly, folks).

Kauffman, who was on the cusp of much bigger and better things four years ago, before he was stopped in the fourth round of a ShoBox-televised fight against Tony Grano, still believes it can happen for him, and that he is a more complete and naturally gifted fighter than either Jennings or Wilder.

“I take nothing away from them, but I see so many things I could take advantage of if we fought,” Kauffman said. “Yeah, Wilder has a great jab and good power, but I think I’m better than him. Same thing with Jennings. I don’t consider Jennings to be so very talented, but his work ethic is unbelievable. He’s gotten as far as he has because he works so hard.”

Make no mistake, the 6-3½ Kauffman, who has fought at weights ranging from 221 pounds to 243, hasn’t always had the most disciplined approach to his craft. At one point between bouts, he allowed his weight to balloon to 310 pounds. The reformed bad boy – he has spent time in juvenile detention facilities and once was charged with statutory rape, although the charge eventually was dropped for lack of evidence – has had to deal with injuries (including two surgeries to his right hand and one to his left) and his less-connected handlers’ inability to secure the kind of fights he needs to get back into the limelight. He admits to occasional stretches of depression, none more severe than in the months after his powerhouse manager, Al Haymon, dropped him following the loss to Grano.

“It wasn’t so much that I lost,” Kauffman said of that fateful night of Sept. 18, 2009, in Indio, Calif. “It was more that Al Haymon turned his back on me. I had put my whole life into boxing and it felt like I lost it all in the blink of an eye. Let’s face it, Al Haymon was the one who was getting me that TV exposure in the first place. He’s got Floyd Mayweather. When he told me I could go all the way to the top, of course I believed him.”

Kauffman, who also had scored a third-round TKO of Malachy Farrell that was televised by ShoBox during his brief association with Haymon, suddenly found himself not only a step or two behind where he had been, but seemingly at the back of the line.

“Al Haymon had promised me that if I beat Tony Grano, my next fight, my coming-out party, would be on HBO for a minimum of $100,000,” Kauffman recalled. “I live in the inner city of Reading, Pennsylvania. I was showing my kids (he had four at the time, including two stepchildren, a number which has since climbed to five) nice houses in the suburbs. So when I lost and Al turned his back on me, it was devastating.

“People tell you it’s just one loss, to forget about it and move on, but it’s not that easy. I really didn’t want to box no more. And it’s been an up-and-down battle ever since. I’ve had my share of injuries. Now it’s time to (crap) or get off the pot. Mentally, I feel as good as I did before the Grano fight, when I was the most talked-about American heavyweight besides Chris Arreola. But after I lost to Grano, it was like everybody forgot who Travis Kauffman was. I won’t lie to you, it hurt.”

Steve Farhood, the ShoBox commentator who was a ringside for Kauffman’s fights with Farrell and Grano, said he is disappointed that Kauffman crawled into a hole following the Grano fight instead of dusting himself off and getting right back to work, preferably in a rematch with his conqueror.

“He was in complete control against Grano, but as soon as things started going against him, it was over. He got stopped,” Farhood said. “I don’t want to make it sound too much like I’m taking a shot at the kid, but look at Seth Mitchell. When he got beat (by Johnathan Banks), he got right back in the ring with the fighter who had beaten him. And while he wasn’t particularly impressive, he was victorious. Kauffman would have shown me a lot more if he had rematched with Grano and won. Instead, he’s fought mostly fighters with losing records.

“You can tell a lot about a fighter by who his handlers put him in with. To this point, (a low level of competition) has been the knock against Deontay Wilder, and you can the same thing about Travis Kauffman.”

But it’s not really the same thing, is it? Mitchell, the former Michigan State linebacker, continued to have the Golden Boy promotional machine in his corner. Without Haymon’s managerial clout to open doors, Kauffman’s career became even more dependent on his dad, who freely admits he doesn’t have the resources to maneuver his son into more lucrative dates than the stay-busy kind he’s taking against Lyons.

“Travis’ biggest drawback, probably, is me,” said Marshall Kauffman, who also has trained former world champs Kermit Cintron and Hasim Rahman. “And the biggest positive for him probably is me, too. We’ve had to deal with that whole father-son, coach-boxer thing that sometimes gets in the way. I don’t think it’s as much of an issue as it used to be. A lot of those kinks have been ironed out over the years.

“But there’s only so much I can do on a limited budget. Look, I’d have Travis fight someone like Liakhovich any time, any place. But you have to have enough money to pay Liakhovich enough money to entice him into the ring. Same thing with Bowie Tupou, who Jennings beat. I just can’t afford to pay those guys enough to appear on a small club card with no TV, like I’m doing at Valley Forge.”

So Travis Kauffman is obliged to take another off-the-radar fight against Lyons, the latest in a line of opponents who pose no real threat to someone his admittedly biased father calls “by far the best American heavyweight out there.” Only eight of the fighters who have faced Kauffman have winning career records, and the cumulative of everyone he has fought is 277-304-23, with 194 wins inside the distance and 164 KO losses.

It’s not that Kauffman hasn’t mixed it up with higher-quality guys. He has sparred with, among others, Rahman, Arreola, Eddie Chambers, Oleg Maskaev, Dominick Guinn and Malik Scott. But sparring sessions aren’t the same things as fights that count, and Kauffman can only hope to catch the sort of break that Jennings did when, on short notice, he and Maurice Byarm found themselves in the main event of the first NBC SportsNet “Fight Night” card after an injured Chambers fell out.

So what’s needed for Travis Kauffman to again wangle his way into position to make some noise in a depleted heavyweight division that is literally crying out for a young American contender?

“Patience. Persistence,” said the father. “Something will open up, eventually. Of course, it can happen a lot quicker when you have a Top Rank or a Golden Boy or a Main Events behind you. But you also have to be smart about the choices you make.

“When Grano fell out of a fight with (Tomasz) Adamek, Travis got offered his spot, but he would have had only one week to get ready, and that wasn’t nearly enough time. Look, you always have to be ready for a chance like that, but you also have to make sure the reward outweighs the risk. Give Travis six to eight weeks to train and he’ll be only too glad to fight anybody.”

Travis said the mistake too many fighters make is to jump into a seemingly lucrative situation when the circumstances aren’t right.

“I have too much pride to take a fight on short notice when I’m not in shape,” he said. “I know a lot of guys who do that simply because they need the money. Do I need the money? Absolutely. Who doesn’t need money? But I want to be heavyweight champion of the world. If I take a fight when I’m not ready and lose, I’ll probably never get the right kind of opportunity again.

“Sometimes you feel, like, cursed. I got offered a fight with Seth Mitchell, but it was on the same day I underwent surgery on my right hand. So much for that.

“You almost feel like quitting sometimes, but I’ve never worked a 9-to-5. For me to give up boxing now and to try to find a regular job, with no experience, would be hard. I can’t take care of five kids working at McDonald’s. So what choice do I have except to keep pushing ahead?”

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Bernard Fernandez

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Recap and More

Published

3 hours ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-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 contest 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

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

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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

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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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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