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Hopkins Looking At Stevenson, Ward, Even Mayweather
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There is a dark cloud from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean that hovers like radioactive fallout over IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins’ Oct. 26 defense against Germany’s Karo Murat in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall.
That dark cloud has a name: Morrade Hakkar.
Even with the emergence of highly credible European champions and contenders in multiple weight classes, those fighters tend to mostly ply their trade in and around their own countries, and off American TV. (Hopkins-Murat will be televised by Showtime Championship Boxing.) There is a lingering suspicion among more than a few U.S. boxing buffs that foreign fighters with whom they are generally unfamiliar – be they from Europe, Asia, South America or Africa – are somehow less worthy than homegrown Americans, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. And, let’s face it, Murat (25-1-1, 16 KOs) – who will be making his first professional appearance on these shores – is very much a mystery man, despite his No. 2 ranking from the IBF, to fight fans who will be in attendance in Boardwalk Hall or catching the action on Showtime.
No wonder there are those, including Hopkins (53-6-2, 32 KOs; seen above in Hogan photo) who are hoping, even praying, that the 31-year-old German is a vast upgrade over Hakkar, who furnished the opposition (well, sort of) for B-Hop’s only world title bout in his hometown of Philadelphia. That matchup, in which Hopkins successfully defended his IBF/WBC/WBA middleweight crowns on an eighth-round stoppage of an overmatched and clearly frightened Hakkar on March 29, 2003, in the since-demolished First Union Spectrum, was such a stink bomb that Larry Merchant’s post-fight interview with the winner began with him asking if Hopkins was “embarrassed” to have fought someone as inept as the French stiff.
“Why should I be embarrassed?” an indignant Hopkins responded. “I didn’t make the guy the No. 1 contender. (HBO) gave Roy Jones four years to fight school teachers and policemen. Roy can do it and I can’t? I’m asking to fight the best fighters. I’m 38. I’m so ancient, why aren’t the great, young fighters calling out the old man?”
If he truly felt that way, why didn’t Hopkins simply ditch one of his bejeweled championship belts, Merchant persisted, as Riddick Bowe once did, rather than to proceed with a mandatory that he felt was beneath him?
“To give up any of my belts would be like taking a shotgun and blowing my own foot off,” Hopkins explained. “If I’m not getting big fights with three belts, how am I going to get them if I give any of my belts away? I don’t see why I should be punished when (the world sanctioning bodies) continue to put guys (at No. 1) who ain’t supposed to be there. I’m not the problem.”
But there was a problem, according to HBO senior vice president Kery Davis, and one that boxing, or maybe Hopkins, needed to correct if it was to avoid what had just taken place in the ring when Hakkar did his impression of a fleeing thief being pursued by a satin-trunked cop.
“This was an embarrassing mismatch in terms of a mandatory,” Davis fumed. “This is why you hate mandatories. We wanted to get Bernard a bigger name, but this is the guy he wanted to fight.”
It should be noted that Karo Murat is Hopkins’ mandatory challenger. The IBF’s No. 1 contender, Polish-born, Chicago-based Andrzej Fonfara (24-2, 14 KOs), is coming off a ninth-round stoppage of Gabriel Campillo on Aug. 16, and thus was unavailable to jump in against Hopkins on such short notice. And, besides, is Fonfara any more of a household name in the U.S. than Murat?
Ten years after Morrade Hakkar and things would not appear to have changed much for the aging legend or for the fight game in general. Hopkins is now 48, the last of the padded-glove dinosaurs, still guarding the belt he said offers him a measure of protection against sinister guys in suits who would strip him of his relevancy, and still calling out the hot, young stars who could give him the big fights, big paydays and historic significance he says are necessary to keep him interested.
“If there was something more significant on the table, even without a title, sure, we could have rolled with that,” said Hopkins, the oldest man ever to have won a widely recognized world championship, a distinction he clearly cherishes. “I’ve done that before. I could vacate my title, say this guy (Murat) is not worthy, go for somebody with a bigger name. But there was nothing like that out there for me at this time. I can’t just sit around, close to 50, and not fight. So Golden Boy wants me to go ahead with this and keep my title, so we all decided to do it.
“Look, the light heavyweight division is heating up. I was watching when Adonis Stevenson (the WBC 175-pound champ) beat up Tavoris Cloud. Me and him would be a big fight. Me and (Sergey) Kovalev, too, or me and Andre Ward, even me and (Julio Cesar) Chavez Jr. You know Chavez can’t make 160 anymore, or even 168. (Gennady) Golovkin could come up and we could maybe do something at a catch weight.
“I’ll even throw another name out there that might sound crazy. If Floyd Mayweather is what he says he is, if he wants to come up in weight like Oscar did, I can come down and we can come to some sort of arrangement. I want to do something really big before I leave this game because that’s why I’m in the business. Yeah, I got the record for being the oldest world champion, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. But I want to go out with a fight as big as when I fought my friend and business partner, Oscar De La Hoya. I prefer superfights. I don’t want to fight mandatories. For what? Unless it’s a mandatory against somebody that everybody knows, a superstar like myself.”
To get to that megabucks finale, or maybe similarly important fights on the way to his big sendoff, Hopkins believes he needs to hold onto a title that is anything but worthless, no matter what some pundits insist. Maybe Mayweather is so monstrously important that he doesn’t need a belt to command public attention, but Hopkins, ever the conspiracy theorist, said that without one he is naked to the whims of behind-the-scenes types that have long sought to shuttle him off to the sideline where his big mouth would be effectively silenced.
“To get these guys to fight me I must hold my belt,” Hopkins said. “I got to hold the belt hostage. Because if I don’t, some of these guys are always going to choose a less dangerous champion to fight than Bernard Hopkins.”
Which brings us back to Karo Murat, the German who at least talks the talk. And maybe he is the unexpected rock slide that will derail Hopkins’ 25-year chug into boxing history.
“Bernard Hopkins is 48 years of age,” Murat said after the fight with Hopkins, which originally had been scheduled for July 13 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., before it was delayed due to visa problems for Murat. “Will he be ready for me? I do not know. What I can say is that I will be my best on Oct. 26. When I am through messing up his old bones it will make me a star in an instant.”
So what does Hopkins think of Murat, who is making the familiar I’ll-kick-your-ass noises that everyone makes before the first bell rings?
“I can’t tell you s— about the guy, other than what I seen on YouTube,” Hopkins admitted. “Naazim (Richardson, Hopkins’ trainer) said he seen him once or twice when he was over there in Germany with Steve Cunningham.
“But, really, I’ve fought so many guys with so many different styles in my career, I can adapt and make whatever adjustments I need to make. And it’s not like I’m taking him light in any case. I’m preparing for him like he’s somebody that everybody knows because that’s the way I have to think. Fighters like this are tricky. You want people to come up to you on the street and say, `Man, that guy you’re fighting is good!’ You know they’d be saying that if I was fighting Adonis Stevenson or Andre Ward.
“I mean, the fact that he isn’t known much in the U.S. doesn’t mean he can’t fight. It’s just that you have to get as up mentally for someone who’s not known as you do for the guys everybody knows. I’ve always got my mind right for every fight, which is why I’ve stayed on top as long as I have. If I wasn’t like that, I could easily overlook this guy then, boom, he beats me because I didn’t bring my `A’ game.”
One wonders what would have happened to Hopkins had he gone to sleep on Hakkar, whom he probably could have defeated even if he had brought only his `D’ game.
“I once fought a guy like this from France – uh, what’s his name again? – who literally ran around the ring all night. A horrible fight. I won, I stopped him, but it was horrible.
“This guy (Murat) is way better than the French guy, but the situation is sort of similar. I know (Murat) got knocked out by Nathan Cleverly, and I’ve got that fight on DVD, but to be honest, I stopped watching it.
“Is he fundamentally sound? Yeah. He basically comes straight forward, hands up, tries to outwork you. He’s got that European style, doesn’t do anything fancy. So, yeah, the burden is on me to perform. I’m carrying all the weight for this fight, even in the promotion of it.
“There are a lot of possible distractions, but I know what I got to do, and I’m gonna do it.”
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
There’s not much happening on the boxing front this month. That’s consistent with the historical pattern.
Fight promoters of yesteryear tended to pull back after the Christmas and New Year holidays on the assumption that fight fans had less discretionary income at their disposal. Weather was a contributing factor. In olden days, more boxing cards were staged outdoors and the most attractive match-ups tended to be summertime events.
There were exceptions, of course. On Jan. 17, 1941, an SRO crowd of 23,180 filled Madison Square Garden to the rafters to witness the welterweight title fight between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. (This was the third Madison Square Garden, situated at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, roughly 17 blocks north of the current Garden which sits atop Pennsylvania Station. The first two arenas to take this name were situated farther south adjacent to Madison Square Park).
This was a rematch. They had fought here in October of the previous year. In a shocker, Zivic won a 15-round decision. The fight was close on the scorecards. Referee Arthur Donovan and one of the judges had it even after 14 rounds, but Zivic had won his rounds more decisively and he punctuated his well-earned triumph by knocking Armstrong face-first to the canvas as the final bell sounded.
This was a huge upset.
Armstrong had a rocky beginning to his pro career, but he came on like gangbusters after trainer/manager Eddie Mead acquired his contract with backing from Broadway and Hollywood star Al Jolson. Heading into his first match with Zivic – the nineteenth defense of the title he won from Barney Ross – Hammerin’ Henry had suffered only one defeat in his previous 60 fights, that coming in his second meeting with Lou Ambers, a controversial decision.
Shirley Povich, the nationally-known sports columnist for the Washington Post, conducted an informal survey of boxing insiders and found only person who gave Zivic a chance. The dissident was Chris Dundee (then far more well-known than his younger brother Angelo). “Zivic knows all the tricks,” said Dundee. “He’ll butt Armstrong with his head, gouge him with his thumbs and hit him just as low as Armstrong [who had five points deducted for low blows in his bout with Ambers].”
Indeed, Pittsburgh’s Ferdinand “Fritzie” Zivic, the youngest and best of five fighting sons of a Croatian immigrant steelworker (Fritzie’s two oldest brothers represented the U.S. at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics) would attract a cult following because of his facility for bending the rules. It would be said that no one was more adept at using his thumbs to blind an opponent or using the laces of his gloves as an anti-coagulant, undoing the work of a fighter’s cut man.
Although it was generally understood that at age 28 his best days were behind him, Henry Armstrong was chalked the favorite in the rematch (albeit a very short favorite) a tribute to his body of work. Although he had mastered Armstrong in their first encounter, most boxing insiders considered Fritzie little more than a high-class journeyman and he hadn’t looked sharp in his most recent fight, a 10-round non-title affair with lightweight champion Lew Jenkins who had the best of it in the eyes of most observers although the match was declared a draw.
The Jan. 17 rematch was a one-sided affair. Veteran New York Times scribe James P. Dawson gave Armstrong only two rounds before referee Donovan pulled the plug at the 52-second mark of the twelfth round. Armstrong, boxing’s great perpetual motion machine, a world title-holder in three weight classes, repaired to his dressing room bleeding from his nose and his mouth and with both eyes swollen nearly shut. But his effort could not have been more courageous.
At the conclusion of the 10th frame, Donovan went to Armstrong’s corner and said something to the effect, “you will have to show me something, Henry, or I will have to stop it.” What followed was Armstrong’s best round.
“[Armstrong] pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in twenty-five years of attendance at these ring battles,” wrote Dawson. But Armstrong, who had been stopped only once previously, that coming in his pro debut, had punched himself out and had nothing left.
Armstrong retired after this fight, siting his worsening eyesight, but he returned in the summer of the following year, soldiering on for 46 more fights, winning 37 to finish 149-21-10. During this run, he was reacquainted with Fritzie Zivic. Their third encounter was fought in San Francisco before a near-capacity crowd of 8,000 at the Civic Auditorium and Armstrong got his revenge, setting the pace and working the body effectively to win a 10-round decision. By then the welterweight title had passed into the hands of Freddie Cochran.
Hammerin’ Henry (aka Homicide Hank) Armstrong was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. Fritzie Zivic followed him into the Hall three years later.
Active from 1931 to 1949, Zivic lost 65 of his 231 fights – the most of anyone in the Hall of Fame, a dubious distinction – but there was yet little controversy when he was named to the Canastota shrine because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had fought a tougher schedule. Aside from Armstrong and Jenkins, he had four fights with Jake LaMotta, four with Kid Azteca, three with Charley Burley, two with Sugar Ray Robinson, two with Beau Jack, and singles with the likes of Billy Conn, Lou Ambers, and Bob Montgomery. Of the aforementioned, only Azteca, in their final meeting in Mexico City, and Sugar Ray, in their second encounter, were able to win inside the distance.
By the way, it has been written that no event of any kind at any of the four Madison Square Gardens ever drew a larger crowd than the crowd that turned out on Jan. 17, 1941, to see the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. Needless to say, prizefighting was big in those days.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
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In his fifth title defense, lineal cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) successfully defended his belt with a brutal fourth-round stoppage of former sparring partner David Nyika. The bout was contested in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia where Opetaia won the IBF title in 2022 with a hard-earned decision over Maris Briedis with Nyika on the undercard. Both fighters reside in the general area although Nyika, a former Olympic bronze medalist, hails from New Zealand.
The six-foot-six Nyika, who was undefeated in 10 pro fights with nine KOs, wasn’t afraid to mix it up with Opetaia although had never fought beyond five rounds and took the fight on three weeks’ notice when obscure German campaigner Huseyin Cinkara suffered an ankle injury in training and had to pull out. He wobbled Opetaia in the second round in a fight that was an entertaining slugfest for as long as it lasted.
In round four, the champion but Nyika on the canvas with his patented right uppercut and then finished matters moments later with a combination climaxed with an explosive left hand. Nyika was unconscious before he hit the mat.
Opetaia’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants Opetaia to unify the title and then pursue a match with Oleksandr Usyk. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, holds the WBA and WBO versions of the title and is expected to be Opetaia’s next opponent. The WBC diadem is in the hands of grizzled Badou Jack.
Other Fights of Note
Brisbane heavyweight Justis Huni (12-0, 7 KOs) wacked out overmatched South African import Shaun Potgieter (10-2), ending the contest at the 33-second mark of the second round. The 25-year-old, six-foot-four Huni turned pro in 2020 after losing a 3-round decision to two-time Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov. There’s talk of matching him with England’s 20-year-old sensation Moses Itauma which would be a delicious pairing.
Eddie Hearn’s newest signee Teremoana Junior won his match even quicker, needing less than a minute to dismiss Osasu Otobo, a German heavyweight of Nigerian descent.
The six-foot-six Teremoana, who akin to Huni hails from Brisbane and turned pro after losing to the formidable Jalolov, has won all six of his pro fights by knockout while answering the bell for only eight rounds. He has an interesting lineage; his father is from the Cook Islands.
Rising 20-year-old Max “Money” McIntyre, a six-foot-three super middleweight, scored three knockdowns en route to a sixth-round stoppage of Abdulselam Saman, advancing his record to 7-0 (6 KOs). As one can surmise, McIntyre is a big fan of Floyd Mayweather.
The Opetaia-Nyika fight card aired on DAZN pay-per-view (39.99) in the Antipodes and just plain DAZN elsewhere.
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R.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
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Paul Bamba, a cruiserweight, passed away at age 35 on Dec. 27 six days after defeating Rogelio Medina before a few hundred fans on a boxing card at a performing arts center in Carteret, New Jersey. No cause of death has been forthcoming, leading to rampant speculation. Was it suicide, or perhaps a brain injury, and if the latter was it triggered by a pre-existing condition?
Fuel for the latter comes in the form of a letter that surfaced after his death. Dated July 25, 2023, it was written by Dr. Alina Sharinn, a board-certified neurologist licensed in New York and Florida.
“Mr. Bamba has suffered a concussion and an episode of traumatic diplopia within the past year and now presents with increasing headaches. His MRI of the brain revealed white matter changes in both frontal lobes,” wrote Bamba’s doctor.
Her recommendation was that he stop boxing temporarily while also avoiding any other activity at which he was at risk of head trauma.
Dr. Sherinn’s letter was written three months after Bamba was defeated by Chris Avila in a 4-round contest in New Orleans. He lost all four rounds on all three scorecards, reducing his record to 5-3.
Bamba took a break from boxing after fighting Avila. Eight months would elapse before he returned to the ring. His next four fights were in Santa Marta, Colombia, against opponents who were collectively 4-23 at the time that he fought them. The most experienced of the quartet, Victor Coronado, was 38 years old.
He won all four inside the distance and ten more knockouts would follow, the last against Medina in a bout sanctioned by the World Boxing Association for the WBA Gold title. As widely reported, the stoppage, his 14th, broke Mike Tyson’s record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year. That would have been a nice feather in his cap if only it were true.
Born in Puerto Rico, Paul Bamba was a former U.S. Marine who spent time in Iraq as an infantry machine gunner. In interviews on social media platforms, he is well-spoken and introspective without a trace of the boastfulness that many prizefighters exhibit when talking to an outsider. Interviewed in a corridor of the arena after stopping Medina, he was almost apologetic, acknowledging that he still had a lot to learn.
His life story is inspirational.
His early years were spent in foster homes. He was homeless for a time after returning to civilian life. Speaking with Boxing Scene’s Lucas Ketelle, Bamba said, “I didn’t have any direction after leaving the Marine corps. I hit rock bottom, couldn’t afford a place to stay…I was renting a mattress that was shoved behind someone’s sofa.”
He turned his life around when he ventured into the Morris Park Boxing Gym in the Bronx where he learned the rudiments of boxing under the tutelage of former WBA welterweight champion Aaron “Superman” Davis. “I love boxing,” he would say. “The confidence it gives you permeates into other aspects of your life.”
Bamba’s newfound confidence allowed him to carve out a successful career as a personal trainer. His most famous client was the Grammy Award winning R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo who signed Bamba to his new sports management company late in the boxer’s Knockout skein. Bamba was with Ne-Yo in Atlanta when he passed away. Ne-Yo broke the news on his Instagram platform.
Paul Bamba had been pursuing a fight with Jake Paul. Winning the WBA Gold belt opened up other potentially lucrative options. In theory, the holder of the belt is one step removed from a world title fight. Next comes an eliminator and, if he wins that one, a true title fight attached to a hefty purse will follow…in theory.
Rogelio “Porky” Medina, who brought a 42-10 record, had competed against some top-shelf guys, e.g., Zurdo Ramirez, Badou Jack, James DeGale, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant; going the distance with DeGale and Plant. However, only two of his 42 wins had come in fights outside Mexico, at age 36 he was over the hill, and his best work had come as a super middleweight.
Thirteen months ago, Medina carried 168 ½ pounds for a match in New Zealand in which he was knocked out in the first round. He came in more than 30 pounds heavier, specifically 202 ¼, for his match with Paul Bamba. In between, he knocked out a 54-year-old man in Guadalajara to infuse his ledger with a little brighter sheen.
Why did the WBA see fit to sanction the Bamba-Medina match as a title fight? That’s a rhetorical question. And for the record, the record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year wasn’t previously held by Mike Tyson. LaMar Clark, a heavyweight from Cedar City, Utah, scored 29 consecutive knockouts in 1958 after opening the year by winning a 6-round decision. (If you are inclined to believe that all or most of those knockouts were legitimate, then perhaps I can interest you in buying the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Clark was being primped for a fight with a good purse which came when he was dispatched to Louisville to fight a fellow who was fairly new to the professional boxing scene, a former U.S. Olympian then known as Cassius Clay who knocked him out in the second round in what proved to be Clark’s final fight.
Paul Bamba was a much better fighter than LaMar Clark, of that I am quite certain. However, if Paul Bamba had gone on to meet one of the world’s elite cruiserweights, a similar outcome would have undoubtedly ensued.
One can summon up the Bamba-Medina fight on the internet although the video isn’t great – it was obviously filmed on a smart phone – and pieces of it are missing. Bamba was winning with his higher workrate when Medina took his unexpected leave, but one doesn’t have to be a boxing savant to see that Paul’s hand and foot speed were slow and that there were big holes in his defense.
This isn’t meant to be a knock on the decedent. Being able to box even four rounds at a fast clip and still be fresh is one of the most underrated achievements in all of human endurance sports. Bamba’s life story is indeed inspirational. When he talked about the importance of “giving back,” he was sincere. In an early interview, he mentioned having helped out at a Harlem food pantry.
Paul Bamba had to die to become well-known within the fight fraternity, let alone in the larger society. One hopes that his death will inspire the sport’s regulators to be more vigilant in assaying a boxer’s medical history and, if somehow his untimely death leads to the dissolution of the fetid World Boxing Association, his legacy would be even greater.
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