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CJ Ross & Eugenia Williams Might Have A Lot To Talk About
The goal of gender equality, at least as it pertains to the participation of females as boxing judges for world championship bouts, took another major hit Saturday night when already-controversial judge C.J. Ross (first name: Cynthia) saw Canelo Alvarez win six of 12 rounds against Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Fortunately for everyone else who was actually paying attention to what had transpired in the ring, the other two assigned judges, Craig Metcalfe and Dave Moretti, had Mayweather (seen above, in Hogan photo, reacting to the egregious Ross card) ahead by respective margins of 117-111 and 116-112, their more prudent assessments resulting in “Money” claiming the WBA and WBC super welterweight titles that had belonged to the red-haired Mexican.
It might even be argued that Metcalfe and Moretti were overly generous to the game but outclassed Canelo. Some astute observers had Mayweather pitching a 120-108 shutout, and he also won by a Grand Canyonesque margin on my personal scorecard, 119-109. So all’s well that ends well, right?
Uh, maybe not. It has been duly noted that Ross – in the first major assignment of her career — also saw Timothy Bradley Jr. as a 115-113 winner in his June 9, 2012, matchup with WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. Virtually everyone else pegged Pacquiao as an easy winner, but in this case Ross’ blurred vision was compounded by the fact that another judge, Duane Ford, also turned in a 115-113 scorecard for Bradley, who came away with a split decision in what some have termed as a bigger robbery than the Brink’s Job.
So now Ross has followed the Pacquiao-Bradley debacle with her perplexing take on Mayweather-Alvarez, which should lead to only one logical conclusion: Someday she probably will be inducted into the new Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame.
Another female judge whose name, fairly or not, is destined to live in infamy is that of Eugenia “Jean” Williams, whose much-derided scorecard favoring Evander Holyfield in his March 13, 1999, heavyweight unification showdown with Lennox Lewis incited a firestorm of criticism, the heat and magnitude of which even Ross’ dubious scoring for Mayweather-Alvarez was unable to match. Williams submitted a card favoring Holyfield, the IBF and WBA champ, as a 115-113 winner which, coupled with the 115-115 card turned in by British judge Larry O’Connell, enabled Holyfield to hold onto his belts on a split draw. The other judge, South Africa’s Stanley Christoudoulou, had WBC titlist Lewis ahead by a 116-113 margin.
It was the last world championship fight worked by Williams, an Atlantic City, N.J., resident who nonetheless continued to draw judging assignments in her home state deep into 2012. Her last judging gig came on Oct. 12, 2012, Dorin Spivey’s 10-round majority decision over Rod Salka for the NABA lightweight championship at the Tropicana Hotel & Casino in A.C. Williams – who was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011 – had Spivey, who retained his fringe title, coming out on top, 97-93.
No boxing judge’s entire body of work, regardless of gender, should be judged solely on the basis of one unpopular and disputed call, and Williams at least had a reasonably extensive resume heading into Lewis-Holyfield I (Lewis won the rematch, eight months later, on a unanimous decision). She had drawn assignments for 29 previous world title fights, including Ray Mercer-Tommy Morrison, Riddick Bowe-Jesse Ferguson and Holyfield-Mercer. Williams also should be given some credit for attempting to explain her rationale for going with Holyfield, which included scoring the fifth round for him, a round in which he was rocked several times and seemingly was on the verge of being knocked out by Lewis. Ross, on the other hand, has not gone public with any defense of her scorecard for Mayweather-Alvarez.
“I have no qualms with someone disagreeing with me,” Williams said a few days after Lewis-Holyfield I. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But I know what I saw and I’m standing firm that I did the right thing. I have no regrets.”
Well, at least she didn’t until she was called in to testify before a Grand Jury empaneled by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to investigate charges that the three assigned judges for Lewis-Holyfield I had received improper benefits. In addition to her receiving a fee of $5,150 for the assignment, as did O’Connell and Christoudoulou, their hotel bills and meals were paid for by Holyfield’s promoter, Don King, although that was not uncustomary for such events.
Shown a videotape of the fight, including the fifth round that was so called into question, Williams waffled, saying that, in retrospect, she would have given that round to Lewis, thus leveling her final scorecard at 114-114. She suggested that her line of sight had been blocked by Lewis’ broad back and by ringside photographers jostling for position along the apron.
“What I saw on TV is not the same as what I saw that night,” she testified. “I can only go by what I looked at that night and I scored that accordingly.”
Before and after her grand jury appearance, Williams was pilloried as a know-nothing judge, or worse.
“I gave Evander three rounds, at the most,” said Lewis’ trainer, Emanuel Steward. “From what I saw, it looked like Lennox was working with one of his sparring partners. But this sparring partner got $20 million. It was not even a close fight. Lennox controlled him with the jab, played with him when he wanted to. We were actually having fun.
“This hurts boxing. We just can’t laugh it off. Undisputed heavyweight championship of the world. New York. Madison Square Garden. And to see what happened here … No, you can’t say, `Oh, well, that’s just boxing.’ I think it’s disgusting.”
Promoter Bob Arum, the Top Rank honcho who had no ties to either fighter, weighed in on the controversy as a presumably unbiased observer.
“I’ve been in boxing 35 years and I never heard of Jean Williams,” huffed Arum, who was contacted at his Las Vegas office by the New York Post. “She has no experience in big fights. Why was she picked for this one? The fight wasn’t even close. I had it 10-2 for Lewis. This isn’t a difference in opinion. This was blatantly wrong.”
It would be just as blatantly wrong for sexists – hey, you know who you are – to lump Williams and Ross as a matched pair, conclusive proof that women have no place in the fight game. There are female judges whose work has not been similarly defaced by accusations of incompetence or dishonesty. Adalaide Byrd, for one, has a pretty sterling reputation, and onetime judge Melvina Lathan has earned her spurs as the respected executive director of the New York State Athletic Commission. I’m certainly not going to forever hang Williams out to dry for one eyebrow-raising scorecard, and even Ross deserves another chance to rehab her reputation, although if I’m NSAC executive director Keith Kizer, I might have her work her way back to big assignments through a series of less high-profile fights.
In a TSS tribute to women’s boxing pioneer Jackie Tonawanda, who was 75 when “Lady Ali” died of colon cancer in June 2009, I described the hurdles female fighters have to face to be taken seriously in boxing, that most macho of athletic endeavors. By extension, the same might be said of women promoters, judges and referees.
Men are supposed to be the hunter-gatherers of the human species, and as such certain occupations have long been thought (at least by guys) as their exclusive preserve. While males go off to war as soldiers, protect our streets as cops and stain boxing rings with their blood, the ladies are supposed to stay home, bear our children, bake us cookies and, if they really need to get out of the house and earn a paycheck, serve society as nurses, secretaries, waitresses, beauticians and, oh, maybe as pole dancers.
I was, of course, being facetious. But Cynthia J. Ross’ latest tale from the crypt isn’t making it easy to advance the notion that women are as capable of scoring a boxing match as their male counterparts. And if she doesn’t believe her six-rounds-apiece assessment of Mayweather-Alvarez won’t hurt her, in a professional sense, someone should put her in touch with Jean Williams.
You’d have to figure they’d have a whole lot to talk about.
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Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce
Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.
Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.
The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.
In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.
It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.
For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.
Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.
It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.
“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”
Trinidad Wins Too
Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.
Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.
“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”
After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.
Other Bouts
Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.
Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.
Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.
More Winners
Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More
Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.
Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.
Hopefully the worst is over.
Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.
“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.
UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.
Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.
“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.
He knows talent.
Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.
Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.
Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.
Can Trinidad reach world title status?
Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.
It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.
Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.
Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.
Doors open at 4:30 p.m.
Boxing and the Media
The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.
Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.
Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.
Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.
MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.
Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.
Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.
It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.
Photos credit: Lina Baker
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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards
Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.
When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.
Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.
Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”
Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.
“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”
True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.
While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.
“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.
Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.
A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”
After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.
Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.
Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.
Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.
“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.
The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.
Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.
Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.
This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.
Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.
There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.
Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.
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