In Defense of The Sweet Science

Published

11 years ago

December 12, 2013

The subject of the abolition of boxing pops up periodically. No surprise, most of the time, the drums are beaten for the banishment of the sport after a fighter pays the ultimate price for their participation, their life.

On November 30, a sportswriter for the New York Daily News weighed in with a call to bury the manly art of self defense, putting forth that because we the people now know better, we should do better. His definition of “better” includes a world in which there is no structured setting for a person to test another person in hand-to-hand combat. My reaction to this effort by Filip Bondy? I offer that his thesis was flimsy, his reasoning largely thin and/or flawed, and while I will assume his intentions are good, that he is a fine fellow who means no harm, his editorial betrayed a considerable dosage of ignorance and patronization.

“Boxing has seen its time, and thank goodness that primitive era is done,” the writer put forth in a essay which ran in a Saturday edition of the News.Where to begin? Well, if this “primitive era” is over, I must have missed the memo. Last I checked, man’s inhumanity to man is still in evidence on an hourly basis, and if you permit me a diversion from the world of sport to the wider world, let’s talk about wars. The writer despises the presence of a sport he deems “repulsively gladitorial,” and it made me wonder what he thinks of, say, the war the United States has been partaking in the Middle East and thereabouts. The writers’ thesis and word choice left me pondering what he might think of his newspapers’ description, on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 of our participation in the Iraq War. “Despite false starts, failed opportunities and fatefully bad decisions, history will deem the war in Iraq a success,” it was stated in a Daily News op-ed.

Now, I don’t mean to be flippant, but I dare say the families of the near 5,000 Americans killed might not see the war as being so cut and dry. And was there something forbidding the News from mentioning the statistic which pegs the number of Iraqi civilians dead as a result of the US invasion as 1.4 million plus?

Success, huh? Want to reconsider that confident assertion, Daily News? Care to widen the scope of your “boxing should be abolished” op-ed, Mr. Bondy? Care to talk some more about this so-called “enlightened age” we live in, sir?

Now, some might say, hey Mike, Bondy is a sportwriter, we can’t expect him to traffic outside that narrow band. OK, gotcha. Let’s stick to sports. Another thing Bondy didn’t touch in his call to abolish is the mental and emotional makeup, the fierce and at-times all consuming desire of some humans to push themselves to the enth degree. I wouldn’t expect Mr. Bondy to be able to channel that urge; I don’t possess that, and evidently neither does he, as someone who sits on the sidelines and weighs in on the activities of bolder souls. But I’ve spoken to enough fighters–and that’s what they are, fighters, that is their identity, that is their calling, that is their reason for being–to know that these men and women need to test themselves in the ring. They need to prove to themselves and/or the world at large, what they are capable of doing, of being. They need a task, a goal that is larger than what Mr. Bondy and I need to make the time pass. And so, if we ban boxing, we must know without a single shadow of a mitigating doubt that they will seek avenues where they can explore this all-encompassing desire to compete with another being and themselves to such an extreme level.

They will do it in warehouses, dank places surrounded not by physicians and an ambulance at the ready, but by shady entrepeneurs whose structural support platforms consist of nothing beyond a stack of hundred dollar bills to the victor, and an ability to submerge any hint of conscience and decency which our athletic commissions evince on a daily basis.

Now, I’ve read Mr. Bondy, and sometimes enjoyed his work in the past. Most if not all of that material has touched on the sport of tennis. A fine sport, no doubt, one I’ve participated in myself. I enjoy a few sets each summer, in fact, and derive enjoyment from the act. But, let’s be clear, if we are to compare and contrast the thrill, and the deep-set satisfaction one can derive from attaining victory in a “mere” tennis match, as opposed to the satisfaction attained by a prizefighter who has left teaspoons (sometimes tablespoons!) of their blood and sweat on the mat and climbed off the canvas to score a knockout victory and win the heavyweight championship of the world…well, apologies to all the Federers out there, but I think the fighter has a hand up on the racquet man.

It didn’t surprise me that a Bondy took the opportunity to write that simplistic column, so slanted and lacking nuance, as it was printed in the wake of the Magomed Abdusalamov tragedy, which saw the Russian heavyweight suffer brain damage during his Nov. 2 bout against Mike Perez at the Madison Square Garden Theater in NYC.

“Once again this month, we were witness to another boxing atrocity in the city,” Mr. Bondy wrote. The between the lines message could be construed as: once again, and this happens ALL the time, the savage sport left another poor soul rendered fallen, because of the haplessness of overseers. And anyone interpreting Bondy’s messaging in that fashion would be, at best, left with an incomplete conception of that event, and at worst, a fallacious takeaway. I take slight issue with the inclusion of the word “atrocity.” Here’s what I think Bondy did; cursorily examined the Magomed bout, and went to town. He didn’t study the film, see that Mago was still looking to land a KO in the waning seconds of the bout. He evidently didn’t know or wasn’t swayed by the fact that a renowned neurologist spent time with Mago post-bout, assesssing him. No, Bondy wanted to play the self-righteous preacher role, and bemoan the “atrocity,” and prove his bonafides by going all in, and calling for abolition, rather than an examination of practices and protocol that perhaps could be clarified or tweaked to better serve the health and well being of the fighters. You could, I suppose, forgive the man for engaging in unsubtle lobbying suited for the platform he works off of, the tabloid. I won’t, but you could.

And let’s be clear here: Magomed Abdusalamov entered this bout, and this sport, with his eyes wide open. He is and was a fighter to the core, one not prone to quitting, not built like most of us folks to wave a white flag when the going gets tough. He knew what that price could be for his participation, they all do. Do they ponder that potentiality excessively? No, it wouldn’t be prudent, it would in fact be crippling. But ample information, from a hundred years of data collection, is available to any and all pugilist who considers entering the ring and testing their will and skill. And Magomed, being a man operating with free will, engaged in the one life he knew to be available to him, choosing to practice a combat sport which satisfied, I presume, his soul, and offer him a path to improved economic status.

About that “improved economic status.”

I have no way of knowing Mr. Bondy’s net worth, his level of economic comfort, or lack thereof. But I’m hopeful, if not overly optimistic, given the limited scope of his piece, that he understands that in these times, many if not the majority of young adults are at the very least occasionally dubious of their prospects to reach a higher economic level than their parents did. Wage growth has been flat for the masses for 40 years, 50% of us who rent now pay a third or more of our income to the landlord, as opposed to 38% ten years ago, and the costs of higher education have soared more than 500% since 1985 (as opposed to “only” about 200% for gasoline).

For a Caucasian like me, who came from a home where attending college was a given, the path to reasonable prosperity is not so vague. I know I’m fortunate. Does Mr. Bondy comprehend that if he gets his way, and the sport is abolished, that one path to prosperity will be removed for people who don’t enjoy multiple options to a place of prosperity? Perhaps Mr. Bondy isn’t aware that a US citizens’ prospects to jump upward in social class is the third lowest among developed nations. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that in the coming decades, we might well see even more skilled boxers being produced in the US, if Mr. Bondy doesn’t get his way, as one in five American children now live in poverty. Most of us understand that from the most meager existences, some of the most majestic athletes are borne, as it is impossible to manufacture in an atmosphere of abundance the reservoir of determination that grows in some of the superlative souls who beat the grim odds and lift themselves out of dire straits. Now, when the world gets its head screwed on straight, and we better address issues of wealth disparity, and the Rand acolytes are removed from positions of power, then, Mr. Bondy, you and me can revisit the topic. But until then, I’d appreciate you not so blithely lobby for the removal of one road to prosperity for those of meager means.

I take issue with Mr. Bondy’s lobbying, ostensibly, I guess, on behalf of the fighters who he reduces to being “just poor, desperate minorities getting their heads ripped apart internally, synapse by synapse.” I have yet to meet the man who campaigned in the battleground of the sweet science, achieved a level of acclaim and monetary reward, and looks back with nothing but regret, wishing the Bondys of the world had succeeded in deciding for them their life path. Hey, maybe we can revisit Bondy’s concern for the “poor, desperate minorities” when more paths to prosperity are fashioned in a more equitable fashion. And perhaps I will have less scorn for the Bondy piece when he acknowledges the damage done by alcohol, which does a more complete job in ripping heads and lives apart, and skewing synpapses than boxing could ever hope to achieve if there were ten times the number of events held annually.

Mr. Bondy notes that people are more aware of the costs of ring battle, and that the concussion debate and examination is touching other sports. He says its “absurd” to sanction a sport in which the aim is to knock out the foe. There, I’ve found some common ground with Mr. Bondy; I have occasionally come to the same conclusion. It can look absurd. As can the sport of football, which features two men running at 20 MPH and then butting heads like rams. As can the sport of auto racing, which features a person hurtling themselves around a course at 180 MPH, wrapped in a vehicular grenade, and seeking to avoid hitting a wall which could disintegrate their body.

I can go on…and I would end up, forgive me, in the same place. That is a place of dismissiveness of Bondy’s call: if we’re speaking out against sanctioning dangerous practices, shouldn’t we all band together and exit the realm of sports, which offers endless hours of diversion and enjoyment in a world which always has been and will be in need of both, because of the brutish nature of existence for all us masses of men who lead lives of quiet desperation…and instead transition to the real world, and the unending thirst for warfare?

I could go on and on..and I will, actually, since there is something to take offense at in every paragraph of the Bondy piece. What about when the Daily Newser writes, “Whenever a boxer gives up, like Sonny Liston or Roberto Duran, he is mercilessly mocked for the rest of his career.” That is such a simplistic and buffoonish reduction and is so nakedly idiotic as to discourage examination, for the assertion is so facile. To say or imply that the life of Liston or Duran can be boiled down to nothing more than their being an object of ridicule is remarkably ignorant. Let’s backtrack, shall we, to their upbringing. Liston and Duran had in common that their youth was spent in circumstances that would have demolished the soul of most who had to firewalk through it.

Liston was the 24th of 25 kids, and a growling belly was too frequently the norm for him growing up in Arkansas and St. Louis. Shoes were a luxury. Duran fended for himself in a Panama slum and was selling newspapers at age seven. Dad bolted, mom was overwhelmed, so he’d often forage in garbage cans for meals. And both men persevered. And found a sport which would put up with their idiosyncracies of temperament, and instead of leaving behind a wake of carnage and lives–their own, maybe others–lost, and are enshrined in Halls of Fame which boast of their will and skill and accomplishments, which is more than will be said or Mr. Bondy and me, I dare say. Bondy, it seems, hasn’t paused to consider that without boxing, which he hopes will soon be banished, the malevolence of those Durans and Listons would have been directed at any number of innocents.

Every day, at least one kid walks off a street of a slum, in America, and the world over, and comes under the spell of the ring and, hopefully, one or two role models who see themselves in that little boy lost. And a boy adrift and headed for the shoals of sorrow is re-directed, and reborn, in a milieu by no means perfect, but one that affords him, even despite the blows that will rain down on him, a more respectable and fruitful arc of life than he would have been inflicted with otherwise.

Great God, Mr. Bondy, none of us maintain the sport is perfect, and all involved should always be examining ways to make it better, and keep the participants as safe as humanly possible; but sir, there are by no means infinite options for self-improvement for young people whose higher education comes not from classrooms inside Ivy-covered walls, but from negative role models who succumb to the false hope of easy money and self-destructive thrill-seeking…Do you really want to abolish this proven path to a better place, Mr. Bondy? What say you stick to the racquet game, and let the people who have a better grasp of all sides of this sweet and savage science do the analysis of the sports’ strengths and weaknesses.

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Michael Woods

Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal

Published

7 hours ago

April 10, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Dzmitry-Asanau-Flummoxes-Franesco-Patera-on-a-Ho-Hum-Card-in-Montreal

Camille Estephan’s Eye of the Tiger Promotions was at its regular pop stand at the Montreal Casino tonight. Upsets on Estephan’s cards are as rare as snow on the Sahara Desert and tonight was no exception.

The main event was a 10-round lightweight contest between Dzmitry “The Wasp” Asanau and Francesco Patera.

A second-generation prizefighter – his father was reportedly an amateur champion in Russia – Asanau, 28, had a wealth of international amateur experience and represented Belarus in the Tokyo Olympics. His punches didn’t sting like a wasp, but he had too much class for Belgium’s Patera whose claim to fame was that he went 10 rounds with current WBO lightweight champion Keyshawn Davis.

Two of the judges scored every round for the Wasp (10-0, 4 KOs) with the other seeing it 98-92. Patera falls to 30-6.

Co-Feature

Fast-rising Mexican-Canadian welterweight Christopher Guerrero was credited with three knockdowns en route to a one-sided 10-round decision over Oliver Quintana. A two-time Canadian amateur champion, Guererro improved to 14-0 (8).

The fight wasn’t quite as lopsided as what the scorecards read (99-88 and 98-89 twice). None of the knockdowns were particularly harsh and the middle one was a dubious call by the referee.

It was a quick turnaround for Guerrero who scored the best win of his career 8 weeks ago in this ring. The spunky but out-gunned Quintana, whose ledger declined to 22-4, was making his first start outside Mexico.

After his victory, Guerrero was congratulated by ringsider Terence “Bud” Crawford who has a date with Canelo Alvarez in September, purportedly in Las Vegas at the home of the NFL’s Raiders. Canelo has an intervening fight with William Scull on May 4 (May 3 in the U.S.) in Saudi Arabia.

Other Bouts of Note

In a fight without an indelible moment, Mary Spencer improved to 10-2 (6) with a lopsided decision over Ogleidis Suarez (31-6-1). The scores were 99-91 and 100-90 twice. Spencer was making the first defense of her WBA super welterweight title. (She was bumped up from an interim champion to a full champion when Terri Harper vacated the belt.)

A decorated amateur, the 40-year-old Spencer has likely reached her ceiling as a pro. A well-known sports personality in Venezuela, Suarez, 37, returned to the ring in January after a 26-month hiatus. An 18-year pro, she began her career as a junior featherweight.

In a monotonously one-sided fight, Jhon Orobio, a 21-year-old Montreal-based Colombian, advanced to 13-0 (11) with an 8-round shutout over Argentine campaigner Sebastian Aguirre (19-7). Orobio threw the kitchen sink at his rugged Argentine opponent who was never off his feet.

Wyatt Sanford

The pro debut of Nova Scotia’s Wyatt Sanford, a bronze medalist at the Paris Olympics, fell out when Sanford’s opponent was unable to make weight. The opponent, 37-year-old slug Shawn Archer, was reportedly so dehydrated that he had to be hospitalized.

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Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams

Published

2 days ago

April 9, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The flags at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, are flying at half-staff in honor of boxing trainer Kenny Adams who passed away Monday (April 7) at age 84 at a hospice in Las Vegas. Adams was formally inducted into the Hall in June of last year but was too ill to attend the ceremony.

A native of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Adams was a retired Army master sergeant who was part of an elite squadron that conducted many harrowing missions behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War. A two-time All-Service boxing champion, his name became more generally known in 1984 when he served as the assistant coach of the U.S. Olympic boxing team that won 11 medals, eight gold, at the Los Angeles Summer Games. In 1988, he was the head coach of the squad that won eight medals, three gold, at the Olympiad in Seoul.

Adams’ work caught the eye of Top Rank honcho Bob Arum who induced Adams to move to Las Vegas and coach a team of fledgling pros that he had recently signed. Bantamweight Eddie Cook and junior featherweight Kennedy McKinney, Adams’ first two champions, bubbled out of that pod. Both represented the U.S. Army as amateurs. McKinney was an Olympic gold medalist. Adams would eventually play an instrumental role in the development of more than two dozen world title-holders including such notables as Diego Corrales, Edwin Valero, Freddie Norwood, and Terence Crawford.

When Eddie Cook won his title from Venezuela’s 36-1 Israel Contreras, it was a big upset. Adams, the subject of a 2023 profile in these pages, was subsequently on the winning side of two upsets of far greater magnitude. He prepared French journeyman Rene Jacquot for Jacquot’s date with Donald Curry on Feb. 11 1989 and prepared Vincent Phillips for his engagement with Kostya Tszyu on May 31, 1997.

Jacquot won a unanimous decision over Curry. Phillips stopped Tszyu in the 10^th frame. Both fights were named Upset of the Year by The Ring magazine.

Adams’ home-away-from-home in his final years as a boxing coach was the DLX boxing gym which opened in the summer of 2020 in a former dry cleaning establishment on the west-central side of the city. It was fortuitous to the gym’s owner Trudy Nevins that Adams happened to live a few short blocks away.

“He helped me get the place up and running,” notes Nevins who endowed a chair, as it were, in honor of her esteemed helpmate.

No one in the Las Vegas boxing community was closer to Kenny Adams than Brandon Woods. “He was a mentor to me in boxing and in life in general, a father figure,” says Woods, who currently trains Trevor McCumby and Rocky Hernandez, among others.

Akin to Adams, Woods is a Missourian. His connection to Adams comes through his amateur coach Frank Flores, a former teammate of Adams on an all-Service boxing team and an assistant under Adams with the 1988 U.S. Olympic squad.

Woods was working with Nonito Donaire when he learned that he had cancer (now in remission). He cajoled Kenny Adams out of retirement to assist with the training of the Las Vegas-based Filipino and they were subsequently in the corner of Woods’ fighter DeeJay Kriel when the South African challenged IBF 105-pound title-holder Carlos Licona at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Feb. 16, 2019.

This would be the last time they worked together in the corner and it proved to be a joyous occasion.

After 11 rounds, the heavily favored Licona, a local fighter trained by Robert Garcia, had a seemingly insurmountable lead. He was ahead by seven points on two of the scorecards. In the final round, Kriel knocked him down three times and won by TKO.

“I will always remember the pep talk that Kenny gave DeeJay before that final round,” says Woods. “He said ‘You mean to tell me that you came all the way from across the pond to get to this point and not win a title?’ but in language more colorful than that; I’m paraphrasing.”

“After the fight, Kenny said to me, ‘In all my years of training guys, I never saw that.’”

The fight attracted little attention before or after (it wasn’t the main event), but it would enter the history books. Boxing writer Eric Raskin, citing research by Steve Farhood, notes that there have been only 16 instances of a boxer winning a world title fight by way of a last-round stoppage of a bout he was losing. The most famous example is the first fight between Julio Cesar Chavez and Meldrick Taylor. Kriel vs. Licona now appears on the same list.

Brandon Woods notes that the Veterans Administration moved Adams around quite a bit in his final months, shuffling him to hospitals in North Las Vegas, Kingman, Arizona, and then Boulder City (NV) before he was placed in a hospice.

When Woods visited Adams last week, Adams could not speak. “If you can hear me, I would say to him, please blink your eyes. He blinked.

“There are a couple of people in my life I thought would never leave us and Kenny is one,” said Woods with a lump in his throat.

Photo credit: Supreme Boxing

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Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights

Published

4 days ago

April 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Weekend-Recap-and-More-with-Accents-on-Heavyweights

There were a lot of heavyweights in action across the globe this past weekend including six former Olympians. The big fellows added luster to a docket that was deep but included only one world title fight.

The bout that attracted the most eyeballs was the 10-rounder in Manchester between Filip Hrgovic and Joe Joyce. Hrgovic took the match on three weeks’ notice when Dillian Whyte suffered a hand injury in training and was forced to pull out.

Dillian Whyte is rugged but Joe Joyce’s promoter Frank Warren did Joe no favors by rushing Filip Hrgovic into the breach. The Croatian was arguably more skilled than Whyte and had far fewer miles on his odometer. Joyce, who needed a win badly after losing three of his previous four, would find himself in an underdog role.

This was a rematch of sorts. They had fought 12 years ago in London when both were amateurs and Joyce won a split decision in a 5-round fight. Back then, Joyce was 27 years old and Hrgovic only 20. Advantage Joyce. Twelve years later, the age gap favored the Croatian.

In his first fight with California trainer Abel Sanchez in his corner, Hrgovic had more fuel in his tank as the match wended into the late rounds and earned a unanimous decision (98-92, 97-93, 96-95), advancing his record to 18-1 (14).

It wasn’t long ago that Joe Joyce was in tall cotton. He was undefeated (15-0, 14 KOs) after stopping Joseph Parker and his resume included a stoppage of the supposedly indestructible Daniel Dubois. But since those days, things have gone haywire for the “Juggernaut.” His loss this past Saturday to Hrgovic was his fourth in his last five starts. He battled Derek Chisora on nearly even terms after getting blasted out twice by Zhilei Zhang but his match with Chisora gave further evidence that his punching resistance had deteriorated.

Joe Joyce will be 40 years old in September. He should heed the calls for him to retire. “One thing about boxing, you get to a certain age and this stuff can catch up with you,” says Frank Warren. But in his post-fight press conference, Joyce indicated that he wasn’t done yet. If history is any guide, he will be fed a soft touch or two and then be a steppingstone for one of the sport’s young guns.

The newest member of the young guns fraternity of heavyweights is Delicious Orie (yes, “Delicious” is his real name) who made his pro debut on the Joyce-Hrgovic undercard. Born in Moscow, the son of a Nigerian father and a Russian mother, Orie, 27, earned a college degree in economics before bringing home the gold medal as a super heavyweight at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He was bounced out of the Paris Olympics in the opening round, out-pointed by an Armenian that he had previously beaten.

Orie, who stands six-foot-six, has the physical dimensions of a modern-era heavyweight. His pro debut wasn’t memorable, but he won all four rounds over the Bosnian slug he was pitted against.

Las Vegas

The fight in Las Vegas between former Olympians Richard Torrez Jr and Guido Vianello was a true crossroads fight for Torrez who had an opportunity to cement his status as the best of the current crop of U.S.-born heavyweights (a mantle he inherited by default after aging Deontay Wilder was knocked out by Zhilei Zhang following a lackluster performance against Joseph Parker and Jared Anderson turned in a listless performance against a mediocrity from Europe after getting bombed out by Martin Bakole).

Torrez, fighting in his first 10-rounder after winning all 12 of his previous fights inside the distance, out-worked Vianello to win a comfortable decision (97-92 and 98-91 twice).

Although styles make fights, it’s doubtful that Torrez will ever turn in a listless performance. Against Vianello, noted the prominent boxing writer Jake Donovan, he fought with a great sense of urgency. But his fan-friendly, come-forward style masks some obvious shortcomings. At six-foot two, he’s relatively short by today’s standards and will be hard-pressed to defeat a top-shelf opponent who is both bigger and more fluid.

Astana, Kazakhstan

Torrez’s shortcomings were exposed in his two amateur fights with six-foot-seven southpaw Bakhodir Jalolov. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, the Big Uzbek was in action this past Saturday on the undercard of Janibek Alimkhanuly’s homecoming fight with an obscure French-Congolese boxer with the impossible name of Anauel Ngamissengue. (Alimkhanuly successfully defended his IBF and WBO middleweight tiles with a fifth-round stoppage).

Jalolov (15-0, 14 KOs) was extended the distance for the first time in his career by Ukrainian butterball Ihor Shevadzutski who was knocked out in the third round by Martin Bakole in 2023. Jalolov won a lopsided decision (100-89. 97-92, 97-93), but it did not reflect well on him that he had his opponent on the canvas in the third frame but wasn’t able to capitalize.

At age 30, Jalolov is a pup by current heavyweight standards, but one wonders how he will perform against a solid pro after being fed nothing but softies throughout his pro career.

Hughie Fury

Hughie Fury, Tyson’s cousin, has been gradually working his way back into contention after missing all of 2022 and 2023 with injuries and health issues. Early in his career he went 12 in losing efforts with Joeph Parker, Kubrat Pulev, and Alexander Povetkin, but none of his last four bouts were slated for more than eight rounds.

His match this past Friday at London’s venerable York Hall with 39-year-old countryman Dan Garber was a 6-rounder. Fury reportedly entered the fight with a broken right hand, but didn’t need more than his left to defeat Garber (9-4 heading in) who was dismissed in the fifth round with a body punch. In the process, Fury settled an old family score. Their uncles had fought in 1995. It proved to be the last pro fight for John Fury (Tyson’s dad) who was defeated by Dan’s uncle Steve.

Negotiations are reportedly under way for a fight this summer in Galway, Ireland, between Hughie Fury and Dillian Whyte.

Looking Ahead

The next big heavyweight skirmish comes on May 4 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Efe Ajagba and Martin Bakole tangle underneath Canelo Alvarez’s middleweight title defense against William Scull.

Ajagba has won five straight since losing to Frank Sanchez, most recently winning a split decision over Guido Vianello. Bakole, whose signature win was a blast-out of Jared Anderson, was knocked out in two rounds by Joseph Parker at Riyadh in his last outing, but there were extenuating circumstances. A last-minute replacement for Daniel Dubois, Bakole did not have the benefit of a training camp and wasn’t in fighting shape,

At last glance, the Scottish-Congolese campaigner Bakole was a 9/2 (minus-450) favorite, a price that seems destined to come down.

On June 7, Fabio Wardley (18-0-1, 17 KOs) steps up in class to oppose Jarrell Miller (26-1-2) at the soccer stadium in Wardley’s hometown of Ipswich. In his last start in October of last year, Wardley scored a brutal first-round knockout of Frazer Clarke. This was a rematch. In their first meeting earlier that year, they fought a torrid 10-round draw, a match named the British Fight of the Tear by British boxing writers.

Miller last fought in August of last year in Los Angeles, opposing Andy Ruiz. Most in attendance thought that Miller nicked that fight, but the match was ruled a draw. For that contest, Miller was a svelte 305 ½ pounds.

Wardley vs. Miller is being framed as a WBA eliminator. Wardley, fighting on his home turf, opened an 11/5 (minus-220) favorite.

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