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The Saga of Jack Dempsey’s “Loaded” Gloves: Part 2

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This is the second of a two-part series on the ongoing question of whether Jack Dempsey’s gloves were loaded when he fought Jess Willard in 1919.

Jack “Doc” Kearns had stories to tell. He had taken Jack Dempsey from near-hoboism poverty and transformed him into a heavyweight champion; he had staged some of the most financially lucrative fights in history, even the first in Las Vegas; he had also managed other great boxers, including Archie Moore, Joey Maxim and Mickey Walker; and this was all after he prospected for gold in the Klondike.

Read part one right here at TSS.

In the last years of his life, Kearns was serving as a matchmaker for the International Boxing Club and decided to team up with United Press International sportswriter Oscar Fraley to write his memoirs. Fraley had just ghostwritten and published, “The Untouchables” for the late Eliot Ness, and was able to tackle Kearns’ story.

The two created an autobiography full of colorful tales, including a visit to an incarcerated Al Capone to discuss promoting him and psyching out Yvon Durelle in a 1958 bout by having Moore wave to his wife after Durelle had thrice sent him to the canvas in the first round. However, every other story paled in comparison to what he had to say about Dempsey’s bout with Jess Willard in 1919.

Questions had always surrounded Dempsey’s winning of the heavyweight title with such a savage knockout of Willard. As Sports Illustrated noted, “Jack Dempsey’s devastation of the giant Jess Willard on that broiling Fourth of July in Toledo 45 years ago was so complete—and so unexpected—that a rumor of foul play has persisted to this day: a rumor that Dempsey’s gloves were loaded. Willard has long insisted, bitterly, that the rumor is true. Dempsey has always denied it.”

Kearns died on July 7, 1963, shortly after approving the final draft of memoirs, “The Million Dollar Gate,” and securing a deal with Sports Illustrated to publish two excerpts from the book. One, “The Days of Wine and Bloody Noses,” chronicled Kearns managing of and carousing with Walker.  The second, titled, “He Didn’t Know the Gloves Were Loaded,” presented his untold and unpublished account of the Willard bout.

According to Kearns, he knew Dempsey could dispatch Willard inside of the fight’s scheduled 12 rounds, but had bet $10,000 on 10-1 odds that Dempsey would knock him out in Round 1. It was a high-risk, high-reward gamble for $100,000 and Kearns needed insurance. It’s best to let him now describe what happened in his own words.

I had schemed and connived over too many years to let anything go wrong with a bet like that, let alone with the championship of the world. The hell with being a gallant loser. I intended to win.

My plan had to do with a small white can sitting innocently among the fight gear on the kitchen table. I poured myself a nightcap and picked up the can, grinning at the neat blue letters on its side. All it said was “Talcum Powder.” Then I latched the kitchen door and went to a corner cupboard that extended from tabletop height to the ceiling. I pulled over a chair and stood on it to reach into a niche far back on the topmost shelf. Not even a drunk would have thought of hiding a bottle in that spot. Several days earlier, on an unaccompanied trip into Toledo, I had bought another can of powder. This one was labeled “Plaster of Paris,” and I was looking for it now. It was there.

I put the two cans side by side on the kitchen table. Then I found a knife and pried off their lids. I spread out a handkerchief and dumped the talcum powder into it, then knotted the corners together. Next I poured the plaster of Paris into the talcum-powder can and replaced the lid. Set back among the fight gear—the bandages, the Vaseline, the razor blades, the cotton—it looked as innocent as any of them. There was just one more thing to be done. I picked up the plaster of Paris can and the handkerchief full of talcum powder, unlatched the kitchen door and walked the 50 yards to the shore of Maumee Bay, where I pitched the whole business out into the dark waters. That was why the party had to end before dawn. That was something I wanted no man to see. Standing there in the dark, I knew we were as ready as Dempsey’s condition and my plotting ability could make us.

It may seem strange but, returning to the house, my conscience was easy. I was a product of the days—have they ever ended?—when it was every man for himself. In those times you got away with everything possible. Turn your head, or let the other guy turn his, and knuckles were wrapped in heavy black bicycle tape or the thick lead foil in which bulk tea was packaged. The net result was much like hitting a man with a leather-padded mallet. The rules were lax then, officials were not at all fussy and there were few boxing commissions.

Plaster of Paris is known in construction as sheetrock or drywall. In theory, when Kearns sloshed water on Dempsey’s bandaged hands and then applied the plaster of Paris-laced talcum powder the gloves would be like cement. Of course, the alleged plan did not completely work out for Kearns, since the bell saved Willard at the end of the first round. While he absolved Dempsey of any complicity in his actions, Kearns wrapped up the article by reinforcing how what he did was feasible.

In all his subsequent career Dempsey never inflicted such dreadful damage on an opponent. And he did it to this one in the very first round. There may be those who will wonder how it could possibly be that Dempsey didn’t know his gloves were loaded. Actually, it isn’t too surprising. He was young, and this was the most unnerving day of his hungry life. Until the bell rang and he slipped the leash, he was like a man who had been hypnotized. Afterward, when I cracked off the bandages and ditched them, he was so numb at being the heavyweight champion of the world that you could have hit him with a hammer and he wouldn’t have blinked an eye.

Sports Illustrated scheduled the article for publication for January 13, 1964. On January 8, the magazine contacted the 68-year-old Dempsey to inform him of the article. Even though he had bitterly broken with Kearns following his bout with Luis Angel Firpo in 1923, he had always credited him for his early success and had even served as a pallbearer at his funeral.

Dempsey sent a letter to Sports Illustrated, stating that it would face court action if it published Kearns’ story. The magazine said it was going ahead with the piece so he provided his response.

“Ridiculous! I could take an oath. In fact I will,” said Dempsey as he raised his right hand in a booth at his New York restaurant. “I hope to God I die right now, and my wife and children, too, if there is any truth in what Kearns said.”

Sports Illustrated also contacted Willard, who was 82 and living a quiet life outside of Los Angeles. Still somewhat bitter from a bout that left him with a shattered jaw, broken ribs, a broken nose, four missing teeth and partial hearing loss, he felt somewhat vindicated.

“I’m glad that Kearns finally was man enough to admit it. First time Dempsey hit me, I knew those gloves were loaded,” said Willard, who pointed to his left cheekbone. “Put your hand here. Feel that bone moving around? That’s what them cement gloves did to me.”

The issue published with a cover that read, “Dempsey’s Gloves Were Loaded” and a cautionary editor’s note stating, “It is a good yarn; it is also a declaration that a heavyweight champion of the world was robbed of his title and with it the fortune that title came to be worth in the Golden Twenties.”

Kearns kept few friends throughout his fast life. Dempsey had many and they came to his defense. Leonard Sacks, his former business manager, said that he and Jimmy de Forest, Willard’s trainer, both watched the taping and “there was no possible chance that anything illegal could have been done.” The great bantamweight champion Pete Herman said that he owned Dempsey’s gloves from the bout and that there was no evidence of plaster of Paris being used.

“I knew Kearns. I know Dempsey. Kearns word was not to be trusted,” said Georges Carpentier, the former light heavyweight champion whom Dempsey knocked out in 1921. “He hated Dempsey, and now in his memoirs is trying to hurt Dempsey again. I believe Kearns’ hatred of Dempsey was so strong that it is even working now from beyond the grave.”

On January 22, the Milwaukee Journal reported that it had debunked Kearns’ allegation by applying plaster of Paris to a fighter’s fist the way he described. The result was “a thin layer of soft cement, which cracked at a slight touch.” Numerous letters to the editor of Sports Illustrated reported the same conclusion. In his column the next day, Red Smith applauded the Journal for the getting to the truth, but wrote “it’s a little saddening the way debunkers are always shooting our most charming legends full of holes.”

Not finding the legend or experience charming at all, Dempsey filed a $3 million libel suit against Time Inc., the publishers of Sports Illustrated, in April of 1964. The two reached an agreement in September of 1965, with the magazine stating in its September 27 issue:

Jack Dempsey has been a friend of Sports Illustrated since publication began in 1954. He has cooperated with us in the production of a number of stories concerning boxing, and he has also made public appearances in our behalf to promote the business fortunes of this magazine.

We have been his friend, too, and, not wanting to hurt this famous sports figure, we printed his vigorous denial of Kearns’s allegations.

Now we are pleased to record a happy ending to this story. Since publication, no evidence has come to us to support the tale told by Kearns, and we support and wholeheartedly accept Jack Dempsey’s denial.

Good men, of which Dempsey is one, are sorely needed in boxing in these troubled days.

As for Kearns’ memoirs…“The Million Dollar Gate” was scheduled for publication in September of 1964, but the controversy delayed the release until December of 1966. The book that hit the shelves did not include the plaster of Paris story.

Willard died in 1968 at the age of 86. In one of his last interviews, he said, “[Dempsey] must’ve had something in his left glove. The whole right side of my face was caved in.”

We will never know if foul play actually took place on July 4, 1919. Like all humans should strive to be, Dempsey was a much different man when he passed away in 1983 at the age of 87. If he had any secrets from his early days with Kearns, he never publicly shared them, but it’s hard to believe something was not askew with this bout.

The New York Times’ Arthur Daley summed up the question of doctored gloves when he wrote in 1964, “How else could a single punch splinter a cheekbone into 13 pieces?”

Since that question will never be answered, this fight will continue to raise eyebrows.

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Hall of Fame Boxing Writer Michael Katz (1939-2025) Could Wield His Pen like a Stiletto

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One of the last of the breed – a full-time boxing writer for the print edition of a major metropolitan daily – left us this week. Hall of Fame boxing writer Michael Katz was 85 when he drew his last breath at an assisted living facility in Brooklyn on Monday, Jan. 27.

Born in the Bronx, Katz earned his spurs writing for the school newspaper “The Campus” at the City College of New York. He was living in Paris and working for the international edition of the New York Times when he covered his first fight, the 15-round contest between Floyd Patterson and Jimmy Ellis at Stockholm in 1968. He eventually became the Times boxing writer, serving in that capacity for almost nine years before bolting for the New York Daily News in 1985 where he was reunited with the late Vic Ziegel, his former CCNY classmate and cohort at the campus newspaper.

From a legacy standpoint, leaving America’s “paper of record” for a tabloid would seem to be a step down. Before the digital age, the Times was one of only a handful of papers that could be found on microfilm in every college library. Tabloids like the Daily News were evanescent. Yesterday’s paper, said the cynics, was only good for wrapping fish.

But at the Daily News, Michael Katz was less fettered, less of a straight reporter and more of a columnist, freer to air his opinions which tended toward the snarky. Regarding the promoter Don King, Katz wrote, “On the way to the gallows, Don King would try to pick the pocket of the executioner.”

With his metaphoric inkwell steeped in bile, Katz made many enemies. “Bob Arum would sell tickets to a Joey Buttafuoco lecture on morals and be convinced it was for a noble cause,” wrote Katz in 1993. Arum had had enough when Katz took him to task for promoting a fight on the night of Yom Kippur and sued Katz for libel.

“It was out of my hands, HBO picked the date,” said Arum of the 1997 bout between Buster Douglas and John Ruiz that never did come off after Douglas suffered a hand injury in training. (Arum would subsequently drop the suit, saying it wasn’t worth the hassle.)

At press luncheons in Las Vegas, the PR people always made certain to seat Katz with his pals Ed Schuyler, the Associated Press boxing writer, and Pat Putnam, the Sports Illustrated guy. They reveled in each other’s company. But Katz also made enemies with some of his peers on press row, in some cases fracturing longstanding friendships.

“I like Hauser,” wrote Katz in a review of Thomas Hauser’s award-winning biography of Muhammad Ali, “and was afraid that after Tom put in those thousands of hours with Ali, somehow the book couldn’t be as good as I wanted. With relief, I can report it’s better than I had hoped.”

The two later had a falling-out.

Katz’s most celebrated run-in with a colleague happened in June of 2004 when he scuffled with Boston Globe boxing writer Ron Borges in the media room at the MGM Grand during the pre-fight press conference for the fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Sturm. During the fracas, Katz, Borges, Arum, and Arum’s publicist Lee Samuels toppled to the floor. The cantankerous Katz, who initiated the fracas by attacking Borges verbally, then wore a neck brace and carried a cane.

“I had my ups and downs with him,” wrote Borges on social media upon learning of Katz’s death, “but we traveled the world together for nearly 50 years and I long admired his talent, his willingness to stand up for fighters and to call out the b.s. of boxing and its promoters and broadcast entities who worked diligently to try and destroy a noble sport.”

A little-known fact about Michael Katz is that he played a role in getting one of the best boxing books, George Kimball’s vaunted “Four Kings,” to its publishing house. Kimball, who passed away in 2011, an esophageal cancer victim at age 67, was hospitalized and too ill to finish the proofing and editing of the manuscript and enlisted the aid of Katz and an old friend from Boston, Tom Frail, an editor at the Smithsonian magazine, to complete the finishing touches. “If there are any mistakes in the book,” wisecracked Kimball, “blame them.”

Katz was one of the first sportswriters to hop on the internet bandwagon, moving his tack to HouseofBoxing.com which became MaxBoxing.com. That didn’t work out so well for him. Some of his last published pieces ran in the Memphis Commercial Appeal and in the Las Vegas weekly Gaming Today.

A widower for much of his adult life, Katz was predeceased by his only child, his beloved daughter Moorea, a cancer sufferer who passed away in 2021. Her death took all the spirit out of him, noted matchmaker and freelance boxing writer Eric Bottjer in a moving tribute.

During a moment in Atlantic City, Bottjer had been privy to a different side of the irascible curmudgeon, “a beautiful soul when open and vulnerable.” The best way to honor Katz’s memory, he writes, is to reach out to a long lost friend. Pass it on.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Ernesto Mercado, Marcel Cerdan and More

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The TSS Fighter of the Month for January is super lightweight Ernesto “Tito” Mercado who scored his sixth straight knockout, advancing his record to 17-0 (16 KOs) with a fourth-round stoppage of Jose Pedraza on the undercard of Diego Pacheco vs. Steven Nelson at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas.

Mercado was expected to win. At age 35, Pedraza’s best days were behind him. But the Puerto Rican “Sniper” wasn’t chopped liver. A 2008 Beijing Olympian, he was a former two-division title-holder. In a previous fight in Las Vegas, in June of 2021, Pedraza proved too savvy for Julian Rodriguez (currently 23-1) whose corner pulled him out after eight rounds. So, although Mercado knew that he was the “A-side,” he also knew, presumably, that it was important to bring his “A” game.

Mercado edged each of the first three frames in what was shaping up as a tactical fight. In round four, he followed a short left hand with an overhand right that landed flush on Pedraza’s temple. “It was a discombobulating punch,” said one of DAZN’s talking heads. Indeed, the way that Pedraza fell was awkward. “[He] crushed colorfully backward and struck the back of his head on the canvas before rising on badly wobbled legs,” wrote ringside reporter Lance Pugmire.

He beat the count, but referee Robert Hoyle wisely waived it off.

Now 23 years old, Ernesto “Tito” Mercado was reportedly 58-5 as an amateur. At the December 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials in Lake Charles, Louisiana, he advanced to the finals in the lightweight division but then took sick and was medically disqualified from competing in the championship round. His opponent, Keyshawn Davis, won in a walkover and went on to win a silver medal at the Tokyo Games.

As a pro, only one of Mercado’s opponents, South African campaigner Xolisani Ndongeni, heard the final bell. Mercado won nine of the 10 rounds. The stubborn Ndongeni had previously gone 10 rounds with Devin Haney and would subsequently go 10 rounds with Raymond Muratalla.

The Ndongeni fight, in July of 2023, was staged in Nicaragua, the homeland of Mercado’s parents. Tito was born in Upland in Southern California’s Inland Empire and currently resides in Pomona.

Pomona has spawned two world champions, the late Richie Sandoval and Sugar Shane Mosley. Mercado is well on his way to becoming the third.

Marcel Cerdan Jr

Born in Casablanca, Marcel Cerdan Jr was four years old when his dad ripped the world middleweight title from Tony Zale. A good fighter in his own right, albeit nowhere near the level of his ill-fated father, the younger Cerdan passed away last week at age 81.

Fighting mostly as a welterweight, Cerdan Jr scored 56 wins in 64 professional bouts against carefully selected opponents. He came up short in his lone appearance in a U.S. ring where he was matched tough against Canadian champion Donato Paduano, losing a 10-round decision on May 11, 1970 at Madison Square Garden. This was a hard, bloody fight in which both men suffered cuts from accidental head butts.

Cerdan Jr and Paduano both trained for the match at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills. In the U.S. papers, Cerdan Jr’s record was listed as 47-0-1. The record conveniently omitted the loss that he had suffered in his third pro bout.

Eight years after his final fight, Cerdan Jr acquired his highest measure of fame for his role in the movie Edith et Marcel. He portrayed his father who famously died at age 33 in a plane crash in the Azores as he was returning to the United States for a rematch with Jake LaMotta who had taken away his title.

Edith et Marcel, directed by Claude Lelouch, focused on the love affair between Cerdan and his mistress Edith Piaf, the former street performer turned cabaret star who remains today the most revered of all the French song stylists.

Released in 1983, twenty years after the troubled Piaf passed away at age 47, the film, which opened to the greatest advertising blitz in French cinematic history, caused a sensation in France, spawning five new books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. Cerdan Jr’s performance was “surprisingly proficient” said the Associated Press about the ex-boxer making his big screen debut.

The French language film occasionally turns up on Turner Classic Movies. Although it got mixed reviews, the film is a feast for the ears for fans of Edith Piaf. The musical score is comprised of Piaf’s original songs in her distinctive voice.

Marcel Cerdan Jr’s death was attributed to pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer’s. May he rest in peace.

Claressa Shields

Speaking of movies, the Claressa Shields biopic, The Fire Inside, released on Christmas day, garnered favorable reviews from some of America’s most respected film critics with Esquire’s Max Cea calling it the year’s best biopic. First-time director Rachel Morrison, screenwriter Barry Jenkins, and Ryan Destiny, who portrays Claressa, were singled out for their excellent work.

The movie highlights Shields’ preparation for the 2012 London Olympics and concludes with her training for the Rio Games where, as we know, she would win a second gold medal. In some respects, the movie is reminiscent of The Fighter, the 2010 film starring Mark Wahlberg as Irish Micky Ward where the filmmakers managed to manufacture a great movie without touching on Ward’s famous trilogy with Arturo Gatti.

The view from here is that screenwriter Jenkins was smart to end the movie where he did. In boxing, and especially in women’s boxing, titles are tossed around like confetti. Had Jenkins delved into Claressa’s pro career, a very sensitive, nuanced biopic, could have easily devolved into something hokey. And that’s certainly no knock on Claressa Shields. The self-described GWOAT, she is dedicated to her craft and a very special talent.

Shields hopes that the buzz from the movie will translate into a full house for her homecoming fight this coming Sunday, Feb. 2, at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan. A bevy of heavyweight-division straps will be at stake when Shields, who turns 30 in March, takes on 42-year-old Brooklynite Danielle Perkins.

At bookmaking establishments, Claressa is as high as a 25/1 favorite. That informs us that the oddsmakers believe that Perkins is marginally better than Claressa’s last opponent, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse. That’s damning Perkins with faint praise.

Shields vs. Perkins plus selected undercard bouts will air worldwide on DAZN at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT.

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Ringside at the Cosmo: Pacheco Outpoints Nelson plus Undercard Results

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Ringside at the Cosmo: Pacheco Outpoints Nelson plus Undercard Results

LAS VEGAS, NV – Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Promotions was at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas tonight for the second half of a DAZN doubleheader that began in Nottingham, England. In the main event, Diego Pacheco, ranked #1 by the WBO at super middleweight, continued his ascent toward a world title with a unanimous decision over Steven Nelson.

Pacheco glides round the ring smoothly whereas Nelson wastes a lot energy with something of a herky-jerky style. However, although Nelson figured to slow down as the fight progressed, he did some of his best work in rounds 11 and 12. Fighting with a cut over his left eye from round four, a cut that periodically reopened, the gritty Nelson fulfilled his promise that he would a fight as if he had everything to lose if he failed to win, but it just wasn’t enough, even after his Omaha homie Terence “Bud” Crawford entered his corner before the last round to give him a pep talk (back home in North Omaha, Nelson runs the B&B (Bud and Bomac) Sports Academy.

All three judges had it 117-111 for Pacheco who mostly fought off his back foot but landed the cleaner punches throughout. A stablemate of David Benavidez and trained by David’s father Jose Benevidez Sr, Pacheco improved to 23-0 (18). It was the first pro loss for the 36-year-old Nelson (20-1).

Semi wind-up

Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz, who as a pro has never fought a match slated for fewer than 10 rounds, had too much class for Hermosillo, Mexico’s rugged Omar Salcido who returned to his corner with a puffy face after the fourth stanza, but won the next round and never stopped trying. The outcome was inevitable even before the final round when Salcido barely made it to the final gun, but the Mexican was far more competitive than many expected.

The Cuban, who was 4-0 vs. Keyshawn Davis in closely-contested bouts as an amateur, advanced his pro record to 5-0 (2), winning by scores by 99-91 and 98-92 twice. Salido, coming off his career-best win, a 9th-round stoppage of former WBA super featherweight title-holder Chris Colbert, falls to 20-2.

Other TV bouts

Ernesto “Tito” Mercado, a 23-year-old super lightweight, aims to become the next world champion from Pomona, California, following in the footsteps of the late Richie Sandoval and Sugar Shane Mosely, and based on his showing tonight against former Beijing Olympian and former two-division title-holder Jose Pedraza, he is well on his way.

After three rounds after what had been a technical fight, Mercado (17-0, 16 KOs) knocked Pedraza off his pins with a short left hand followed by an overhand right. Pedraza bounced back and fell on his backside. When he arose on unsteady legs, the bout was waived off. The official time was 2:08 of round four and the fading, 35-year-old Pedraza (29-7-1) was saddled with his third loss in his last four outings.

The 8-round super lightweight clash between Israel Mercado (the 29-year-old uncle of “Tito”) and Leonardo Rubalcava was a fan-friendly skirmish with many robust exchanges. When the smoke cleared, the verdict was a majority draw. Mercado got the nod on one card (76-74), but was overruled by a pair of 75-75 scores.

Mercado came out strong in the opening round, but suffered a flash knockdown before the round ended. The referee ruled it a slip but was overruled by replay operator Jay Nady and what would have been a 10-9 round for Mercado became a 10-8 round for Rubalcava. Mercado lost another point in round seven when he was penalized for low blows.

The scores were 76-74 for Mercado (11-1-2) and 75-75 twice. The verdict was mildly unpopular with most thinking that Mercado deserved the nod. Reportedly a four-time Mexican amateur champion, Rubalcava (9-0-1) is trained by Robert Garcia.

Also

New Matchroom signee Nishant Dev, a 24-year-old southpaw from India, had an auspicious pro debut (pardon the cliché). Before a beaming Eddie Hearn, Dev stopped Oakland’s Alton Wiggins (1-1-1) in the opening round. The referee waived it off after the second knockdown.

Boxers from India have made large gains at the amateur level in recent years and Matchroom honcho Eddie Hearn anticipates that Dev, a Paris Olympian, will be the first fighter from India to make his mark as a pro.

Undefeated Brooklyn lightweight Harley Mederos, managed by the influential Keith Connolly, scored his seventh knockout in eight tries with a brutal third-round KO of Mexico’s Arturo de Isla.

A left-right combination knocked de Isla (5-3-1) flat on his back. Referee Raul Caiz did not bother to count and several minutes elapsed before the stricken fighter was fit to leave the ring. The official time was 1:27 of round three.

In the opener, Newark junior lightweight Zaquin Moses, a cousin of Shakur Stevenson, improved to 2-0 when his opponent retired on his stool after the opening round.

Photo credit: Melina Pizano / Matchroom

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