Boxing’s ‘Cold War’ Continues, With Different Combatants

Published

11 years ago

October 30, 2013

Two press conferences on the same day, in the same town, illustrated just how intense boxing’s “Cold War,” circa 2013, continues to rage. And there is no sign that the distrust, apprehension and outright hostility that separate the warring factions is going to end with a peace treaty that might or might not be to the mutual benefit of the combatants, but surely would to frustrated fight fans who are continually asked to choose sides.

The first media gathering was held at 6:30 p.m. in a side room at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, a few hours before IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins defended his title on a rousing unanimous decision over German challenger Karo Murat, the main event of a Showtime-televised tripleheader. The principals were Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports and Event Programming, and Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer (seen in photo courtesy of Jayson Colon/Fight Images). They sat at a rectangular folding table to inform reporters of two big boxing cards that would be televised by Showtime on back-to-back Saturday dates, Dec. 7 and Dec. 14. The first, from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., would be headlined by the all-Brooklyn matchup of Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi; the second, from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, is topped by the pairing of WBA welterweight champ Adrien Broner and Argentina’s Marcos Maidana. Each card would include four televised bouts, six of which would be for world titles.

“There was a rumor that Showtime was out of money and we had put all our best talent already on pay-per-view and we didn’t have anybody meaningful to fight for the rest of the year,”said Espinoza, who described the two cards, on regular Showtime, as an “early holiday gift” for boxing buffs. “I was aware of those rumors and speculation, and I know what the source was.”

Not that Espinoza would spoil his and Schaefer’s self-congratulatory announcement by mentioning the naysayer’s identity, but there was a strong suspicion among the assembled media types was that he is a former member of the late Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department who once was described as the “master of trickeration” by another promotional arch-rival.

Espinoza joked that the funds to finance the blockbuster cards meant that Showtime had “canceled our Christmas party for the year” and that “we’re just happy we could find enough quarters in the couches” to put the cards together at such late dates on the fiscal calendar. He also stressed that the money would come from Showtime’s 2013 budget and not mark an early withdrawal from the one for 2014.

Toward the end of the 20-minute session, someone asked Schaefer if it was true that Canelo Alvarez, a Golden Boy and Showtime fighter, would make his first post-Floyd Mayweather Jr. ring appearance against Miguel Cotto, who is with Top Rank and HBO, and if officials from the other side of boxing’s widest divide would sit in on any negotiations for such a bout.

“No,” Schaefer flatly said of the possibility that his company would offer a tentative olive branch to Bob Arum, with whom he has been embroiled in a nasty, ongoing verbal spat that easily outstrips any rancor that once existed between Arum and Don King. “There’s nobody with Top Rank that’s going to be sitting in that meeting. If Miguel Cotto wants to fight (on Showtime and against Alvarez), no problem. But it will have to be without Top Rank.”

Meanwhile, in the Philippines where Arum was with Filipino national hero Manny Pacquiao, who will take on Brandon Rios on Nov. 23 in Macau, China, a fight which will be televised via HBO Pay-Per-View, was just as disdainful of Schaefer, Golden Boy president (and former Top Rank headliner) Oscar De La Hoya and, presumably, Espinoza for choosing to do business with such presumed low-lifes as the GBP honchos.

“I dislike Schaefer and De La Hoya intensely,” Arum said a few days earlier. “God knows King and I, when we were real bitter rivals, we always found time to do big fights together. But I will not forgive these two bums defaming Manny Pacquiao,” which Arum said Schaefer had done in telling Filipino reporter Ronnie Nathanielsz that Pacquiao had used performance-enhancing drugs.

Although Schaefer refrained from returning verbal fire at Arum, at least on this occasion, he hasn’t always been so shy on the subject of his discontent. During an interview with Boxingscene.com’s Rick Reeno, Schaefer depicted Arum as a back-stabber who would resort to any dirty trick to advance his own agenda.

“The Showtime CEO, Les Moonves, was a personal friend of (Arum’s),” Schaefer said. “They used to go on vacations together. But Arum is not capable of having relationships. He bleeped his own buddy. Arum brought Pacquiao (to Showtime, for his Nov. 14, 2009, bout with Miguel Cotto) and Showtime did a terrific job. The single biggest pay-per-view of Pacquiao’s career was on Showtime. And then (Arum) takes him back to HBO and basically bleeps his own friend. As a result, he became persona non grata on Showtime.”

If you an optimistic sort who dares to believe this Hatfields-McCoys feud might be resolved any time soon, listen to what Hopkins said at his postfight press conference after he had dispatched Murat, approximately six hours after Espinoza and Schaefer had told the media about the wonderful events they would be bringing to the public in December.

Asked if he was serious about a possible catch weight fight with Mayweather, which seems highly unlikely, Hopkins said he’d rather gather up the rest of the 175-pound championship belts, as he did in becoming the undisputed middleweight ruler in 2001.

“To be honest with you, I’d rather unify the titles,” Hopkins said. “I’d rather be the guy that has all the titles, like I proved in the middleweight division. But there’s a Cold War going on, and that Cold War going on is that HBO don’t want to do business with my family, and my family is Golden Boy Promotions. I ride and die with people that ride and die with me.”

None of the comments being offered suggests that there will be peace in our time insofar as premium-cable boxing is involved. There is no one like President Ronald Reagan, speaking in Berlin on June 12, 1987, and telling his Soviet counterpart, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Two and a half years later, the Berlin Wall did in fact come down. But, hey, that was only international politics. Boxing squabbles frequently are more bitter and enduring than lightweight scraps like capitalism vs. communism, and the Schaefer/Showtime vs. Arum/HBO one increasingly looks like it will go the distance, and then some.

It wasn’t always so. When it served their purposes, Arum and King – who, in a moment of inspiration, coined that “master of trickeration” phrase to describe the Top Rank founder — would smile for the cameras, shake hands and pretend to make nice, so long as each made a healthy profit from calling a temporary cease-fire. Just two examples of such uneasy truces were the Sept. 18, 1999, megafight between Arum’s De La Hoya (oh, the irony) and King’s Felix Trinidad, and the June 9, 2007, bout between Arum’s Cotto and King’s Zab Judah.

Even more astounding, the June 8, 2002, showdown between WBC/WBO/IBO heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis and former champ Mike Tyson in Memphis, Tenn., was televised by both pay-per-view arms of HBO and Showtime. Lewis, an HBO fighter, stopped Tyson, who was then with Showtime after a long run on HBO, in eight rounds.

So why can’t a page or two from days gone by be torn from a dated playbook that suggested that co-existence was possible, as least in theory? Well, there are several reasons. For one, although Arum and King might have loathed each other, their relationship was almost cuddly-warm in comparison to the utter hatred in which Arum and Schaefer hold one another. For another, Showtime seemed at least a bit more willing to bend when it was dealing from a less favorable position, an acknowledgment that HBO had much deeper financial resources and a far more extensive volume of subscribers. But that gap has narrowed considerably during Espinoza’s two-year stewardship, and Showtime – in part because of its huge commitment to Mayweather, the sport’s biggest and most bankable star – is feisty enough to stand toe-to-toe with HBO, which haughtily still proclaims itself as the “Heart and Soul of Boxing,” instead of settling for stick-and-move tactics.

Hopkins might crave the opportunity to gather up those light heavyweight straps that belong to other fighters, but trying to do so in the present climate seemingly is as far-fetched a possibility as Lindsay Lohan becoming a nun. It wouldn’t appear be that difficult to pair B-Hop with WBA champ Beibut Shumenov, who is now part of the Golden Boy stable, but WBO champ Sergey Kovalev (who is promoted by Main Events) and WBC titlist Adonis Stevenson (Yvon Michel) have been getting good-paying HBO gigs, and it is reasonable to conclude that HBO Sports boss Ken Hershman – the former boxing head of Showtime, another irony — would let either escape to Showtime to swap punches with Hopkins.

But if Shumenov is the only unification option open to Hopkins, upon further reflection the ageless wonder isn’t sure if he wouldn’t rather take a more lucrative detour.

“I don’t think anybody really knows Shumenov,” Hopkins said. “I want a big, super fight. Shumenov is not a super fight.”

Too many super fights, or fights that might be perceived as such, remain dreamy notions to the public so long as Schaefer/Showtime and Arum/HBO are entrenched in their determination to withhold their attractions from any interaction with the enemy. Cold War? Oh, yes. Frigid, even. These mine-is-bigger-than-yours battles are won or lost in corporate headquarters, without a single punch being thrown by champions who are obliged to pledge total allegiance to one side or the other.

King, contacted by TSS, actually hesitated to weigh in on this updated version of his legendary staredowns with Arum. Maybe the fact that His Hairness requested time to offer a definitive opinion, instead of firing from the lip, might be the biggest upset of all.

“I’d have to put some thought into that,” King said. “It would be tantamount to treachery for me to say something stupid. The game has taken on a different kind of life. Let me think about that and get back to you on that.”

But King, being King, did offer a bit of insight before sitting down to more fully assess the situation.

“It all reverts back to the networks,” he allowed. “That would be the beginning point of what I say and how I say it, so I have to be careful.

“Ross Greenburg would still be at HBO if it weren’t for Bob,” King continued, a reference to Greenburg’s forced exit as HBO Sports president after Arum took the Pacquiao-Cotto fight to Showtime, much to the dismay of Greenburg’s bosses. “Bob still has a lot of influence because he has a superstar (in Pacquiao), so you have to say that he has done his job.”

So has Schaefer, for that matter. And part of his and Arum’s job descriptions, it would seem, is to denigrate the other as often and as crassly as possible. If Joe Fan gets splattered by some mud in the crossfire, just chalk it up as boxing’s new reality, or at least a variation of an old one.

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Bernard Fernandez

Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

3 hours ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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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

Published

2 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

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.

Mizukii Hiruta

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

Published

2 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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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.

Dainier Pero

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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