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All That Glitters Might Not Be Gold

History tells us that North America’s two great gold rushes – one was when the precious metal was discovered, in impressive quantities, near Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, Calif., on Jan. 24, 1848; the other was when a similar find in 1896, northwest Canada’s Yukon territory, triggered another stampede of prospectors and land speculators hoping to strike it big.
Only a fortunate few of the hundreds of thousands of get-rich-quick dreamers found their figurative pots of gold in the soil, streams and mountains, but their successes kept well-heeled, bling-bling-craving consumers of their day adorned in shiny rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Those successes also inspired generations that followed to seek a way to take the fast route from having almost nothing to posh residences on Easy Street.
The boxing equivalent of those famous gold rushes came in 1984, at the Los Angeles Olympics, when attorney Dan Duva – president of a Totowa, N.J.-based boxing company, Main Events, which ran mostly mid-level shows at a local ice rink – convinced six Olympic medalists to sign on the dotted line. Not all of the new members of the Main Events stable won gold medals (Evander Holyfield settled for bronze, but was denied a shot at a likely gold due to a controversial referee’s call in the semifinals, while Virgil Hill took a silver), but four others did. Between them, Pernell Whitaker, Meldrick Taylor, Mark Breland, Holyfield and Hill won multiple world championships as professionals (Tyrell Biggs never made it all the way to the top, losing his only shot at a heavyweight title when he taken out in seven rounds by Mike Tyson on Oct. 16, 1987) and earned themselves, and the company for whom they fought, tens of millions of dollars. Almost instantly, Main Events became a major player in the promotional wars, muscling its way into the uppermost tier alongside longtime power brokers Bob Arum and Don King.
Dan Duva passed away far too soon, at 44, on Jan. 30, 1996, from a brain tumor. His death caused a split among squabbling family factions, and ultimately a loss of influence for the company. Main Events, with its role in NBC Sports’ reinvolvement in boxing, has assumed an important if somewhat lesser prominence that it once enjoyed, with Kathy Duva, Dan’s widow, as its CEO. But the lessons – both positive and negative – from that 1984 Olympic bonanza continue to resonate.
Top Rank founder Arum, who turns 82 on Dec. 8, has pulled several pages from the dusty Main Events playbook with his hoarding of the top performers at the 2012 London Olympics. The four most notable all scored gold medals – that would be Vasyl Lomachenko (pictured above, in pro debut, photo by Hogan Photos), Zou Shiming, Egor Mekhontsev and Ryota Murata – and are the faces of Top Rank’s new direction, but Arum and his stepson, Todd duBoef, also have high hopes for non-medal-winning Olympians Felix Verdejo, Jose Ramirez and Oscar Valdez.
If there’s a significant difference between what Main Events did in 1984, and what Top Rank is doing now, it is this: None of the highly regarded Olympic fighters snared by Arum are Americans; all of Duva’s Olympic acquisitions were from and represented the United States.
“It’s not necessarily a global strategy, but I guess it is to some extent,” Arum said of the additions upon whom so much of Top Rank’s future will hinge. “You have to remember that the gold medalists in London were not Americans, because no Americans came close to winning any medals, much less gold medals.
“We could have continued doing what we had been doing, which is to put fights on in the United States with primarily American and Mexican fighters. And indeed, we will continue to do that. But then I saw the opportunity to expand our reach all over the world, particularly with the Chinese fighters. (Shiming, a two-time gold medalist, is the marquee attraction, but three of his non-Olympic countrymen also turned pro under the Top Rank banner.) There is a hunger for our product in places like China, especially with Chinese fighters.
“We’re attracting tremendous turnouts in Macau, at the Venetian. Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios will be our third card there, and our biggest by far. We’re doing unbelievable business.”
And while Macau is morphing into boxing’s latest preferred destination – Arum noted that the gaming palaces in the gleaming Chinese city rake in nearly nine times the money of all the casinos in Nevada, making it “Las Vegas on steroids” – there are also profits to be mined in Japan, where Murata holds virtual rock-star status, and Eastern Europe, which is the region of the world from which two-time gold medalist Lomachenko (Ukraine) and Mekhontsev (Russia) emerged.
“Ukraine and Russia already have a tremendous interest in boxing,” said Arum, who pointed out that the Olympians sought him out at first, not the other way around. “Ukraine, thanks to the Klitschko brothers – one of whom (Vitali) is even going to run for president! – has shown itself to be an important market for boxing. And the popularity of boxing in Russia is going up as high as President (Vladimir) Putin’s approval rating.”
Curiously, all four members of Top Rank’s touted crop of golden boys have relocated to the U.S., where they can train under the watchful eyes of their employer. Lomachenko, Mekhontsev and Shiming have taken up residence in California, while Murata is training at the Top Rank gym in Las Vegas. It is possible that all or some could become headliners in this country, as did Panama’s Roberto Duran and the Philippines’ Pacquiao, but the plan for now is to showcase them in or close to their home countries, where they already are household names.
“The bigger weight guys (Lomachenko is a featherweight, Meihontsev a light heavyweight and Murata a super middleweight) came in as professional-ready fighters. I think their styles will translate well to the United States when they fight in the United States, but their (possible success) here will not be the be-all and end-all,” Arum continued. “Look at (Gennady) Golovkin. People in America want to watch him because he’s a tremendous fighter, a very entertaining fighter. Ruslan Provodnikov, Artie Pelullo’s fighter, same thing. These Eastern European kids are real warriors. People everywhere just love to watch them fight.
“That’s not especially true for Zou Shiming just yet. He was taught for so long to do what it took to score points in the amateur system. His trainer, the great Freddie Roach, has been working to get him to sit down on his punches and so forth. Right now, he’s more of a project than the other three. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s already hugely popular in China.”
But Kathy Duva, who has been down this path before, sounds a note of caution. Oh, sure, her husband struck the mother lode in those ’84 Olympians – well, at least some of them – but she said it would be a mistake for any promoter to presume that a gold medal automatically transforms an amateur phenom into a pro with vast earning potential. Besides, she said, many of the most highly regarded amateurs have developed a sense of entitlement that sometimes proves to be more trouble than they’re worth.
“We have evolved so far from the way things used to be,” Duva said. “Back then, before we signed those guys, we used to invest a fortune in them even though we had no right to sign them. Main Events and (manager) Shelly Finkel sank a fortune into certain fighters, even before the Olympics, to bring them into pro camps so they could train with the pros and to learn under good managers. It’s part of the reason they were so freakin’ good.
“Pernell Whitaker was in our camps years before we signed him. So was Mark Breland. There was a time when Riddick Bowe was in our camps. Evander and Meldrick Taylor, on the other hand, were people we first encountered at the Olympics.
“We used to bring these fighters in almost as a public service, to move them along and teach them what they needed to learn to succeed in the Olympics and beyond. At the Olympic Box-offs, Whitaker lost his first fight at Caesars Palace. That night he went into a ballroom with my father-in-law (Hall of Fame trainer Lou Duva),who shadowboxed him through what he was going to have to do to beat the same kid the next day and thus lock up his place on the team. To this day, Pernell attributes his victory in that fight to Lou showing him what to do.”
But there’s always a “but,” isn’t there? And Kathy Duva said gratitude on a fighter’s part can only take a promoter so far when someone else shows up waving a more lucrative contract.
“The world was different then,” she sighed. “We put a lot of money up. We didn’t get a lot of it back. We had to be wildly successful to reap the benefits of those investments. We were with Whitaker. We were not with Tyrell Biggs and Mark Breland. Holyfield turned out to be the guy we made the most money with, and we invested nothing in him prior to his turning pro, although we gave all of them big signing bonuses.
“One guy … Shelly even paid for his mother’s funeral, not to mention unbelievable amounts of training expenses and all kinds of other things. We put well into six figures in him. It was a lot of money. Then, when it came time for him to turn pro, the guy said, `Well, if you give me a million-dollar signing bonus, I’ll sign with you. If not, I’ll sign with these other guys who are offering me a million.’ I’ll never forget that my husband and Shelly fell out about this in a big way. My husband said … well, I’d rather not repeat what he said. His position was we had already put a half-million dollars into this kid, now we have to pay the same amount as somebody else?
“Really, I don’t think the old system was particularly good. If it hadn’t been for Evander Holyfield, that whole deal would have been a total bust for us.”
It’s a lesson which taught Kathy Duva never again to go all-in too soon on any Olympic hero.
“For years we have not signed an Olympic kid directly out of the amateurs since 2000,” she said. “I will never do it again. Golden Boy as well as Top Rank is playing into that world, but without the benefit of years of bad experiences. The thing is, you can’t sign up these kids forever. Whoever wants to make a big investment that early, God bless ’em.”
So who will be Top Rank’s Holyfield equivalent? There might be several gold medal winners to slide easily into pro superstardom, or there might be none. The only thing that’s ever certain in boxing’s big crap shoot is, well, uncertainty. You place your bet and take your chances, and hope that those old bones being rolled don’t come up snake-eyes.
Teddy Atlas doesn’t have a horse in this race, but, as a boxing commentator for NBC during its coverage of the past four Olympiads, he has observed Lomachenko, Mekhontsev, Shiming and Murata fairly closely. He believes Top Rank’s gambit could pay off handsomely, even if he is not a fan – that’s putting it mildly — of what Olympic boxing has become.
“It’s a joke,” he said of the perceived miscarriages of justice that frequently have called into question the fairness of the scoring. “Take Shiming, for example. I don’t think he deserved the gold medal in London. I’m not alone in thinking that. I’m not so sure about the gold he got in Beijing (in 2008) either, but there was nothing to prevent him from getting a gold in Beijing, and probably not in London. A lot of what’s involving in the scoring of Olympic boxing is, let’s face it, political. AIBA is not an honest organization. Their body of work speaks for itself.
“So why did Top Rank sign Shiming? Because there’s a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow in China. There’s a pot of gold at the beginning of the rainbow, too. They love the guy in China and Top Rank saw him as a way to tap into that huge market, that virgin market. They’re going to reap the benefits whether he throws wide punches or not, or even whether he can really fight or not. Top Rank has the resources to pick the right opponents for Shiming and keep him moving on down the road.”
But if Shiming is a question mark, Atlas sees Lomachenko as an exclamation point.
“He’s the most interesting of them all because he’s the best of them all,” Atlas said of the 25-year-old southpaw, who posted a 396-1-1 record as an amateur that, at first glance, almost appears to be a misprint. “He’s a versatile fighter, but most importantly, he’s a real fighter. He’s a fighter in every way.”
Arum evidently also believes that Lomachenko is special. Coached by his father, Anatoly, he is 1-0 as a pro, having knocked out a tough Mexican, Jose Ramirez, in four rounds on the undercard of the Timothy Bradley-Juan Manuel Marquez fight in Las Vegas on Oct. 12. Ramirez entered that bout with a 25-3 record that included 15 victories inside the distance, and had never previously been stopped.
No fighter ever has won a professional world title in his pro debut, and the only man ever to make the attempt was Pete Rademacher, the1956 Olympic gold medalist in Melbourne, Australia, who lasted four rounds with heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson on Aug. 22, 1957. Lomachenko, in what would be only his second pro bout, is likely to challenge WBO 126-pound champion Orlando Salido (40-12-2, 28 KOs) in January, and after that he wants to test himself against another former Olympic gold medalist, Cuban defector Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8 KOs), who holds the WBA and WBO super bantamweight straps.
“I have it in my mind that Lomachenko is going to knock Salido out,” Atlas offered. “Lomachenko can fight inside, he can fight outside, he can box, he can use his legs, he can counter a little bit. He’s intelligent in the ring. And he has that supreme confidence that he can be and will be the best.”
Said Arum: “I’d heard for years that Lomachenko was the best amateur in the world, but I’d also heard that it would be nearly impossible to sign him because he wanted millions of dollars to turn pro. But that wasn’t true. He came to me and we made a deal in short order. All he asked is that we move him quickly, not with the usual four- and six-rounders.
“I tried to get Lomachenko a title fight for his pro debut, but these organizations, particularly the WBO, said, `Bob, we can’t do it. He’s got to fight some contender first.’ That’s why he fought Ramirez.
“All right, so I couldn’t get him a title fight for his pro debut, but I told him I could do that for his second fight and that’s what we’re doing.”
Maybe the real question is, regardless of how the Top Rank Olympic champs fare, whether there ever again will be the sort of gold rush that paid major dividends to Dan Duva in 1984 and possibly to Arum moving forward.
“We’re not producing fighters like we used to,” Arum said of the medal shutout for U.S. boxers in London, the first time that has ever happened in any Olympics. “There’s been a tremendous fallout. Just look at the guys who represented us in 2012. The only one we were really interested in was Jose Ramirez, who we signed. Verdejo (from Puerto Rico) might turn out to be the most outstanding of our Olympic guys. Lomachenko told me Verdejo was the toughest fight that he ever had in the amateurs, and Verdejo was just 19 at the time.
“Apart from the talent shortage, there’s also a bias against U.S. fighters. They know they’re going to get cheated in international matches. The people who run amateur boxing in the United States don’t stand up to these AIBA bums. You see the results.
“We have a kid, Jesse Magdaleno, who definitely has world-class potential. We told him to stay in the amateurs, to try to go to the Olympics and maybe win a medal. He held off on signing him. He went downstairs and about five minutes later he came back. He said, `Nah, I don’t want to put up with all that amateur crap. I want to go pro.’ He’s been fighting for us since he was 18. He’s undefeated, a junior featherweight and a tremendous talent.
“There’s a lot of guys like that. Look, I was in Atlanta (in 1996) when Floyd Mayweather got out-and-out screwed in the semifinals. He won that fight easy. If they can cheat a Floyd Mayweather out of a gold medal, or a Roy Jones, they can cheat anybody.”
But you have to wonder: If the pool of Olympic wannabes in America is drying up, what about the rest of the world? If Olympic boxing dies, is it even possible for a Lomachenko or a Mekhontsev or a Murata to rise up and become pro attractions? The NFL and NBA have colleges serving as their feeder system. The Olympics have been the launching pad for many outstanding pro careers, but what if some day viewers tune in to the quadrennial sports festival and find only synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics?
That is a question for another time. For now, Top Rank has staked its claim to a potential gold mine that it hopes will yield large nuggets of the real thing and not just a load of iron pyrite.
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History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.
This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.
Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.
Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.
And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.
Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.
Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.
The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.
In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.
Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)
The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.
Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.
That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.
The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.
The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.
Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.
Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.
Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:
Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)
Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.
Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”
Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.
What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.
What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.
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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.
The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.
Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.
Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.
Co-Feature
In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.
The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.
A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.
Other Bouts
In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.
Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.
Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.
Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.
Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.
Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.
Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.
Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.
There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.
There were no knockdowns in this rematch.
The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.
It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.
Nothing changed in their second meeting.
Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.
The blows came in bunches.
In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.
Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.
Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.
During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.
But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.
“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.
Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.
“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.
Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.
“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.
Female Flyweight Battle
Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.
Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.
Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.
The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.
Neither fighter could take over the fight.
After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.
Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.
Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.
Puerto Rico vs Mexico
Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.
Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.
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