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RINGSIDE REPORT McCarson on the Maidana-Broner Card

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Welterweight Marcos Maidana solved “The Problem” in fine fashion Saturday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Maidana defeated Broner by unanimous decision 115-110, 116-109 and 117-109.

The problem with Adrien Broner is that he believes he is Floyd Mayweather. The issue with that, of course, is Broner doesn’t really understand who or what Mayweather really is. Mayweather is the consummate professional. His work ethic is unparalleled in the sport, and for all the glitz and glamour of his Money Team persona, Mayweather is as blue-collar as it gets in the places it counts most. He shows up on fight night of sound body and mind. He talks to the media, smiles for the cameras and takes pictures with fans. He signs autographs for hours and hours and hours.

Broner just wants the lifestyle. He’s brash, loud and arrogant. He wants to be celebrated for things he’s never done, and he acts as if he is already a living legend. At the weigh-in on Friday, he admonished fans who wanted autographs and rudely declined those in the media seeking quotes. He was too busy being so important, after all.

Maidana stunned Broner with a left hand early in Round 1. Broner waved him in and Maidana obliged. Maidana landed flush shots in a one-sided round. Broner was hurt but tried to play it off with showmanship and guile. A left hook sent Broner down to the canvas and set the tone for the rest of the night.

Maidana used a mixture of hard and wild punches. He hurt Broner badly in the second round. He was stumbling around the ring like a baby deer on ice at times. Broner gathered his wits about him by the end of the round but mostly got pummeled.

Both fighters got rough as the night wore on, but Broner consistently got the worse of things when it was all said and done. Sure, the gifted athlete had his moments. He was precise at times and made Maidana miss wide enough to earn some rounds, but Maidana was just too much grit, gumption and firepower. Broner was hurt in Round 3 by a hard left hook. Round 4 was fought at more a measured pace. Both did work from more of a distance than previous rounds. Broner landed jabs upstairs and down. Maidana kept the pressure on with unorthodox punching patterns.

In Round 5, Broner landed a nice uppercut to start out well, but Maidana erased it with a hard hook at the end of a three-punch combo. Back and forth it went. They were both landing punishing blows. Broner had his best round. Sure, he was still getting hit, but he also landed clean shots and dictated the pace of the round. Still, an undeterred Maidana threw the kitchen sink at him for good measure.

Broner did some fine work in Round 6. He took the fight to Maidana for most of the set, but again the hard-throwing Maidana landed heavy shots toward the end of the round.

Maidana threw punches in bunches in Round 7, and many of them landed. In Round 8, a booming left hook sent Broner down to the canvas again. The crowd cheered wildly. Broner did his best to hold Maidana and catch his breath. It worked, and Maidana lost his head a bit when he gave Broner a headbutt. Referee Laurence Cole immediately separated the men, taking a point away from the offender. Broner overly played up the foul, flailing around on the ground like a helpless child. Was he hurt as bad as he seemed? Or was he looking for a way out of the fight? Or maybe just a rest? Cole gave him a few minutes of respite, then ordered the men to continue.

Broner had a real problem now. He was still slowed from the Round 8 beating as Round 9 began. Maidana sensed it and came hard at him with thunderous blows. Broner tied him up, but Maidana landed a big left anyway. Then a right. Broner was hurt again. He moved quickly in retreat back and around the ring, but could not keep Maidana off of him. Another hard left was Broner’s punishment now. And another. Broner got his wits back when Maidana ran out of gas from all the punching, but it was a one-sided round for Maidana. Round 10 was back and forth. Broner was brave and proud. He would not suffer his first loss easily.

Maidana buzzed Broner to open Round 11, then Broner roared back with quick hooks and uppercuts. Then it was all Maidana again. He was a dominant force tonight. Broner hit Maidana after the bell. No point taken by Cole, but he called time and let Maidana rest an extra minute before the last round.

Round 12 was all Broner at the beginning, who must have known he needed a knockout to win. But Maidana, ever the willing warrior, spent the last minutes getting the better of some fantastically wild exchanges. When the final bell tolled, the pro-Maidana crowd cheered wildly for their man. He was the clear victor in perhaps the biggest upset of the year.

Thurman Takes Care of Soto Karass

Before the main event, welterweight Keith Thurman handed the brave Jesus Soto Karass a savage nine-round beating to remain undefeated and on the rise.

“I’m here to entertain!” exclaimed Thurman afterwards, and he certainly did.

An overhand right from Soto Karass in Round 1 stunned Thurman who recovered and knocked Soto Karass silly by the end with an overhand of his own as well as a left hook to the temple. He was the stronger puncher and it showed throughout the fight.

Soto Karass stood his ground in Round 2, ripping hooks to Thurman’s torso. Both landed meaningful blows in a torrid three minutes of action. Soto Karass was warned for a low blow.

Soto Karass was relentless in Round 3, coming forward with punches high in both power and volume. He strafed Soto Karass around his midsection and ripped him up top with a hard right hand. Round 4 was similar. Soto Karass was content to grind forward while Thurman circled to his left. Thurman is a smart fighter. He loaded up on punches likes hooks and uppercuts for counters to try and deter Soto Karass as much as possible.

After making Soto Karass miss more than any previous round, Thurman did real damage in Round 5. Thurman knocked Soto Karass down to his bottom, backwards into a neutral corner after a jab, cross, left hook combination. Thurman helped his adversary hit the deck with a slight forearm push on the way down after the hook had done it’s damage.

Thurman fought smart in Round 6, moving around and timing thunderous single punches from distance. Soto Karass was still pressing forward, but appeared tired and with less steam on his punches than before. Thurman’s jab and footwork was key to him taking Round 7, and a hard right hand didn’t hurt things either. Soto Karass did have a bit of success when pinning Thurman against the ropes, but it wasn’t enough to make traction.

Round 8 was close. While Soto Karass was pressing forward with constant pressure, Thurman’s counters seemed to lose their zip. Soto Karass landed a nice hook and right hand in the round that might have given him the edge, though Thurman connected with some missiles before the bell rang.

A hard right hand from Thurman in Round 9 sent Soto Karass reeling to start it, but the brave, tough warrior pressed on. Tired, hurt, and a little befuddled now, he stayed with his approach of sliding forward with small steps to close the distance on his opponent, an increasingly dangerous proposition. The end was near. Thurman stopped Soto Karass in his tracks with a tremendously powerful left hook, a right hand, then another, then a hook and another. The referee jumped in to stop it at 2:21 as poor Soto Karass fell down to his bottom in defeat.

Other Action

Light heavyweight Beibut Shumenov defeated Tomas Kovacs by Round 3 knockout. After the bout, Shumenov said he expected a bout with Bernard Hopkins in 2014.

Shumenov was the stalker against Kovacs. He worked his way into the fray behind a long jab, then opened up with a quick three-punch combo which ended with a left hook to knock Kovacs down near the end of Round 1. Kovacs took a count, but made it to his feet before 10. The bell sounded and he was free to continue. Shumenov played it safe in Round 2, working carefully but with enough aggression to keep Kovacs in danger. Kovacs took a knee from a left uppercut but got up to take several hard right hands.

Shumenov ate some right hands in the third, but used a stinging jab to keep Kovacs off balance enough until he could land a hard right hand to end things. Kovacs went down and the referee halted the bout at 2:55 of Round 3.

Super bantamweight Leo Santa Cruz outworked Cesar Seda over 12 rounds. It was a workmanlike effort from the universally loved volume puncher. Seda gave Santa Cruz various angles to keep his opponent from steamrolling over him, but couldn’t do enough to win many rounds. Judges at ringside scored it 116-11, 115-112 and 117-110 for Santa Cruz.

Bantamweight prospect Rau’Shee Warren defeated Jose Silveira by unanimous decision. Judges at ringside scored the bout 80-72 all three ways. Warren used fast and busy hands to befuddle his outclassed opponent over all eight rounds. The three-time Olympian said speed was a critical part of his arsenal as he moves forward in his transition from amateur to professional.

Former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor dominated J.C. Candelo on Saturday night. Taylor ended things with a jab-cross combo at 2:08 of Round 7. He was winning every round with a stiff jab and thunderous right hand, something he said he worked on rigorously during training camp. Taylor said he felt sharp in the bout, and that he expects a world title shot in 2014.

Lightweight prospect Robert Easter, Jr. looked the part of a future world champion in his short bout. The Cincinnati-based fighter used a hard left hook to double over Hardy Paredes of Chile in the very first round. The bout was called at :30 of Round 1.

Lightweight Jamel Herring dissected Lance Williams in just two rounds to continue his undefeated career. Herring scored two quick knockdowns in Round 2, then one more to finish him. Herring was a 2012 Olympian for the United States.

Finally, junior welterweight Ricardo Alvarez defeated Rod Salka by unanimous decision. Alvarez is one of Canelo’s older brothers, and does not appear as gifted.

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Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-Paul and ‘Boots’ Ennis

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Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured with his friend and training partner Joey Dawejko).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way.  So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

**

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.”  What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

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With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era.  Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

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The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

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Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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