Brownsville Helped Make Curtis Stevens & Lots of Other Fighters

Published

7 years ago

January 23, 2014

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that boxing is a sport that draws far more participants from the so-called wrong side of the tracks than from more prosperous zip codes. Put it this way: Henry Milligan, the former light heavyweight and cruiserweight from Wilmington, Del., who held a master’s degree from Princeton University, is like the tail that wagged the dog, not the other way around.

By those commonly accepted standards, middleweight contender Curtis “Showtime” Stevens fits the description of what an up-by-the-bootstraps fighter is supposed to be: Hard, tough and a product of his environment. And that is even more likely to be the case when the environment in question is the famously mean streets of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y., incubator of some of the more accomplished fighters the world has come to know.

Brownsville, whose 2010 population of 58,300 constitutes a tiny sliver of Brooklyn’s nearly 2.6 million residents, is 76.7 percent black; only 29.9 percent of 18-and-ups are high school graduates and the median household income is a well-below-poverty-level $15,978.

Two-time former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson unquestionably is the most famous product of Brownsville’s pugilistic school of hard knocks, but the neighborhood also birthed many other world titlists, including Riddick Bowe, Shannon Briggs, Zab Judah and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad.

Now along comes the 28-year-old Stevens (25-4, 18 KOs), who takes on Patrick “The Machine” Majewski (21-2, 13 KOs) in the 10-round main event of a fight card at Resorts Atlantic City. The other bout which will be televised by the NBC Sports Network pairs cruiserweight contenders Thabiso Mchunu (14-1, 10 KOs) and Olanrewaju Durodala (17-1, 16 KOs) in another scheduled 10-rounder.

“I think it’s something that must be in the atmosphere in Brownsville,” Stevens said when asked about the aforementioned list of top-tier fighters to have emerged from the always-raging turf wars there. “Growing up in Brownsville, you find out fast that the streets are rough. We learn how to fight, how to defend ourselves, at an early age. Some of us decide to put those fighting skills to better use by going pro. Instead of letting our talent go to waste, we take it to the gym and make something of it.

“I imagine it’s like that in North Philadelphia and anywhere else where you got to fight to survive. The streets can eat you up, man. You got to make sure your mind is right and your body tight.”

Tyson, when he was in Tokyo in the days leading up to his Feb. 11, 1990, title defense against Buster Douglas, regaled some media members with a tale of some of Brownsville’s other feisty creatures. “One day I was out running at 3 a.m., near the Imperial Palace, and I saw this big rat run out from under the wall,” Tyson said. “Now, I couldn’t believe there would be rats where the emperor lived.”

Asked to rate Japanese rats against the domestic version he grew up around, Tyson could only smile. “There’s no comparison,” he said. “The rats in Brooklyn would eat these rats. One time I saw a rat and a cat, and they were fighting hard! There was a crowd of people standing around, watching. People in Brownsville will watch any kind of fight.”

Stevens can relate. In his only shot at a world title to date, back on Nov. 12 in The Theater at Madison Square Garden, a curiously detached Stevens was stopped at the end of eight rounds by WBA/IBO middleweight champ Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. It is a performance that still haunts Stevens, who said he did not allow the full measure of his Brownsville side to come out.

“I was thinking too much and not reacting,” he said. “When I got home the next day, I looked at the replay of the fight and seen at times I was able to back him up when I let my hands go. But I didn’t do it enough. That was me being nervous and over-thinking.

“We went back to the gym, made our corrections. What I learned from that fight was this: Don’t think, just react. This fight, you’ll see. I’m going to do less thinking and more reacting.”

Nobody is liable to confuse Majewski, who is 34 and unranked by all the major sanctioning bodies (so is Stevens, for that matter), with an instrument of destruction like Golovkin. The impressive record of the Atlantic City fighter, by way of his native Poland, has been crafted mostly against second-level opposition, but he knows this is his big chance at something better and he doesn’t intend to blow it. “This is my shot in the middleweight division,” Majewski said. “Curtis Stevens is a known fighter. I’m not – yet. To be known, I have to pass through him.”

Stevens understands that his image as a gritty Brownsville homeboy was smudged against Golovkin, and he is aware that anything less than a spectacular effort against Majewski is apt to push him further out of the spotlight in and around a weight class that is teeming with talent and potential big-money, high-visibility matchups.

“I don’t know too much about (Majewski),” Stevens acknowledged. “But it’s not the opponent that I’m fighting; it’s me, myself. As long as I’m comfortable, relaxed and having fun, my night is going to go great.

“Would I like to fight Golovkin again? Yeah. I wanted that fight the first time. Look, I’m not mad that I asked for the fight. I’m not mad at what happened. I’m mad that I didn’t let my hands go and do what I know I’m capable of doing. But I’m going to climb right back up to the top of the ladder. If I get another chance at Golovkin, I’ll know better what to do and what not to do.”

Making some of the most obviously attractive bouts, though, isn’t as easy as it should be, as Stevens is quick to point out. Fighters fight, but they aren’t promoters or television executives, who more or less deal the cards the guys in the ring are obliged to play.

“Some of those fights might never happen because some promoters don’t get along with each other, and HBO doesn’t get along with Showtime,” he said. “Can everybody just put aside their differences for the good of boxing? If they can just try to do that, you’ll see boxing back where it needs to be.”

And maybe Brownsville, and Stevens, will be, too.

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Bernard Fernandez

Boxing Odds and Ends: The Sept. 26 Horn of Plenty and Other Notes

Published

2 days ago

September 15, 2020

Arne K. Lang

Boxing-Odds-and-Ends-The-Sept-26-Horn-of-Plenty-and-Other-Notes

Considering the constraints, the month of September has been a pretty good month for professional boxing. And the month will close with a flourish. Eight world title-holders will be in action on the 26^th, the last Saturday of the month.

Five of the belt-holders will appear on the SHOWTIME PPV doubleheader featuring the Charlo twins. The most intriguing fight on that card finds Jermall Charlo risking his belt and his undefeated record against rugged Sergiy Deveryanchenko. At last glance, Jermall was a consensus 17/10 (minus-170) favorite. In baseball, a 17/10 favorite is a heavy favorite. In boxing, not so. A serious handicapper who wouldn’t think of laying 17/10 in a baseball game would have no hesitation about laying these odds in a boxing match.

When Deveryanchenko steps into the ring, 51 weeks will have elapsed since his last fight, his bruising tiff with Gennadiy Golovkin. Jermall Charlo hasn’t been on the shelf for quite that long, having last fought in December.

A more interesting match on this particular Saturday, at least in the eyes of this reporter, will unfold earlier that day in Munich when the curtain finally comes down on Season 2 of the long-drawn-out World Boxing Super Series. Two titles will be on the line when Mairis Briedis (26-1, 19 KOs) meets Yuniel Dorticos (24-1, 22 KOs).

Briedis’ lone defeat came at the hands of Oleksandr Usyk in a very competitive fight. Briedis won five rounds on two of the cards and won six rounds on the other. Dorticos’ lone defeat came on enemy turf in Sochi, Russia when he was stopped with eight seconds remaining in a doozy of a fight with Murat Gassiev.

Forget the titles; titles are a dime a dozen. These two guys are plainly the two best cruiserweights on the planet.

“The tickets are flying out the door and we expect to sell out within hours, if not days,” said co-promoter Kalle Sauerland at a pre-fight press conference.

That assertion was made way back on January 22 when the fight, originally targeted for late December of last year, was headed to Riga, Latvia, on March 21. That date didn’t work, nor did the re-scheduled date of May 16, and ultimately Riga didn’t work either.

Whatever tickets were sold, had to be refunded. There will be no fans in attendance when Briedis and Dorticos finally lock horns on Sept. 26 at a TV studio in Munich. The fight will air on DAZN in the U.S.

“Rest makes rust” was an often-heard caution when big gamblers of yesteryear dissected a boxing match. The late, great pricemaker Herb Lambeck reflexively shied away from boxers that had been inactive for a considerable period of time. For him, the Briedis-Dorticos match would likely be a head-scratcher. Both combatants have been inactive since June 15 of last year when they appeared in separate bouts on the same card in Riga, Briedis’s hometown. And they aren’t getting any younger. Briedis is 34 and Dorticos is 35.

The odds got nicked down somewhat when the site shifted from Riga with fans to Munich without, predictably so as Briedis, the first fighter from Latvia to win a world title, has an avid local following.

Briedis, the superior boxer, is a consensus 9/5 favorite. That seems a shade high as he won’t be able to feed off the crowd – there won’t be a crowd – and Dorticos, the Cuban KO Doctor, has a better chance of ending the fight with one punch. It wouldn’t be shocking if the fight followed a similar tack as the recent fight between Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin.

In case you missed it, Whyte was dominating his Russian adversary when things changed in a flash in the fifth round. Out of nowhere, Povetkin, the underdog, unleashed a picture-perfect uppercut that left Whyte flat on his back, unconscious before he hit the canvas. There have been other smashing one-punch knockouts this year – Ryan Garcia’s demolition of Francisco Fonseca comes quickly to mind – and there may be a few more, but it’s hard to visualize anyone topping Povetkin in the voting for Knockout of the Year.

By the way, if he wins it, Povetkin, 41, would be the second-oldest boxer to score the Knockout of the Year. George Foreman was 45 when he knocked out Michael Moorer in 1994. The source is The Ring magazine which has been issuing this award since 1989.

And if you happen to know the youngest fighter to score The Ring Knockout of the Year, then you’re pretty sharp. No, it’s not baby-faced Naoya Inoue, who is older (27) than he looks. The honor goes to the long-forgotten African-American/Filipino southpaw Morris East who was 19 when he knocked out defending WBA 140-pound champion Akinobu Hironaka in 1992.

In a rarity, it didn’t take long for Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte to agree on a rematch. They will meet again on Nov. 21. The venue is undecided, but Eddie Hearn is hopeful that he can pot the fight somewhere outside his backyard “fight camp” with fans in attendance. The first lines on the fight show Whyte the favorite in the vicinity of 13/5. Povetkin-Whyte II will be a nice appetizer for the Errol Spence vs. Danny Garcia match that goes off later that day.

In an unrelated development, Fury-Wilder III is purportedly going to Allegiant Stadium, the new home of the Las Vegas Raiders, in late December. Bob Arum anticipates a crowd of 10,000-15,000 with social distancing protocols in place.

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Meekins vs. Kawoya: File It Under Bizarre

Published

3 days ago

September 15, 2020

Ted Sares

It was August 8, 1988. The location was Resorts International in Atlantic City. The main event featured New Yorker John Wesley Meekins (18-1-2) vs another New Yorker (via Uganda and Denmark) Mohammed Kawoya (11-3).

The rangy and skilled Meekins with a stellar amateur career was a clear favorite over the lesser known Kawoya who had fought only once in the US, losing to Jorge Maysonet on cuts at the Felt Forum. Meekins was expected to move on to a world title fight after dispatching Kawoya.

Meekins enjoyed a successful career between 1984 and 1994, fighting the likes of Davey Montana, Mike Mungin, Harold Brazier, Saoul Mamby, Santos Cardona, Darrin Morris (who won his last 16 fights in a row), and Terence Alli. He would lose to a prime Meldrick Taylor (20-0-1) in 1989 with the IBF World Super Lightweight title at stake.

On June 15, 1990, Meekins beat Santos Cardona over 12 rounds to win the NABF light-welterweight championship, but would lose it to Terence Alli some seven months later. It was downhill after that and he retired in November 1994 with a record of 24-5-2 after being stopped by so-so Darryl Lattimore.

Back to Meekins vs. Kawoya

This one did not go as expected. After being decked in round 2, Kawoya dropped Meekins in the opening seconds of round 3. An exciting fight with multiple knockdowns and furious exchanges was in progress and the fans loved it.

An aroused Meekins then went after the Ugandan with a vengeance and set up one of the most bizarre endings that few boxing fans have ever heard about, much less witnessed, as he again dropped Kawoya this time with a fast left hook. He then went for the kill. Referee Paul Venti sensed it and moved in—perhaps prematurely– as Meekins unleashed what he hoped would be a fight-ending volley of hard shots.

As soon as Venti stepped in to stop the fight, Kawoya landed a right that dropped Meekins and had him crawling on the canvas and holding on to the ropes devoid of his senses for at least ten seconds. The punch was thrown at the exact moment that Venti ended matters and Venti didn’t realize what had occurred.

While Kawoya thought he has scored a clean KO and celebrated wildly, the fact was that Venti had ended the fight a fraction of a second before and his decision would stand.

The fans not only enjoyed a great fight, they witnessed something truly memorable—something that had to be seen to be believed; namely, a winner struggling to get up and a loser celebrating what he thought was a knockout.

Kawoya pulled out of the rematch because of a throat infection and Saoul Mamby took his place as a late sub. The Ugandan never fought again, while Meekins never got the title shot that a more impressive effort might have gotten him.

Ted Sares can be reached at tedsares@roadrunner.com or on Facebook and welcomes comments.

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Price and Programming Lineup for Sept. 26 Charlo Twins PPV Doubleheader

Published

5 days ago

September 13, 2020

The Sweet Science

Price-and-Programming-Lineup-for-Sept-26-Charlo-Twins-PPV-Doubleheader

PRESS RELEASE — SHOWTIME Sports has announced the price and programming lineup for the first-of-its-kind pay-per-view doubleheader on Saturday, September 26, featuring two stacked fight cards each headlined by one of the world champion Charlo twins in an event presented by Premier Boxing Champions. THE SHOWTIME PPV event, CHARLO DOUBLEHEADER, is available for purchase at a suggested retail price (SRP) of $74.95 and includes six compelling fights, five of which are world championship bouts.

THE EVENT

The first card of the SHOWTIME PPV telecast will be headlined by undefeated WBC Middleweight World Champion Jermall Charlo defending his title against Sergiy Derevyanchenko. WBA Super Bantamweight Champion Brandon Figueroa will defend his title against Damien Vázquez in the co-featured bout, while WBO Bantamweight World Champion John Riel Casimero faces off against Duke Micah in the pay-per-view opener. Following the main event and a 30-minute intermission, the second three-fight card headlined by WBC Super Welterweight World Champion Jermell Charlo facing unified 154-pound World Champion Jeison Rosario will begin. Luis Nery will battle Aaron Alameda for the vacant WBC Super Bantamweight World Championship in the co-feature, while former unified champion Danny Román faces former champion Juan Carlos Payano in a WBC Super Bantamweight title eliminator bout to open the second three-fight card of the pay-per-view.

TELECAST TEAM

The announce team for the SHOWTIME PPV telecast is comprised of the most experienced and decorated boxing team on television. Veteran sportscaster Brian Custer is the host. Versatile combat sports voice Mauro Ranallo handles blow-by-blow action alongside Hall of Fame analyst Al Bernstein and four-time world champion Abner Mares. Two Hall of Famers round out the telecast team: boxing historian Steve Farhood as unofficial scorer, and world-renowned ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr.

THE JOURNEY: CHARLO DOUBLEHEADER and DIGITAL PROGRAMMING LINEUP

In the leadup to the unprecedented two-event pay-per-view, SHOWTIME Sports will produce and premiere THE JOURNEY: CHARLO DOUBLEHEADER, a 30-minute show that chronicles the unique story of Jermall and Jermell, twins born one minute apart in Houston, Texas, as they rise through the ranks and put themselves in position to become global boxing stars. Voiced by SHOWTIME boxing host Brian Custer, THE JOURNEY: CHARLO DOUBLEHEADER features rarely seen footage and gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at their most pivotal career moments, motivations, and life outside of the ring.

THE JOURNEY will premiere on SHOWTIME on Sunday, September 13 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT and will be available for free on the SHOWTIME Sports YouTube channel and all SHOWTIME On Demand platforms.

SHOWTIME Sports will also release new episodes, of the original, digital franchiseRING RESUME which examines the career progressions of boxing’s top stars, available on the SHOWTIME Sports YouTube channel. Beginning Monday, September 21, the SHOWTIME Boxing Snapchat page will focus on high-energy fight and training camp highlights featuring the Charlos. In addition, the Snapchat page will feature the Charlos’ RING RESUMES and THE JOURNEY to expand reach to young audiences with short-form, fast-paced storytelling. Plus, Brendan Schaub and Kenny Florian will preview the keys to the fights on BELOW THE BELT BREAKDOWN, available on the BELOW THE BELT YouTube channel.

MORNING KOMBAT INTERMISSION

Combat sports aficionados Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell will host a 30-minute intermission show after the conclusion of the Charlo vs. Derevyanchenko main event and the start of the second three-fight card. The duo, hosts of the popular live combat sports talk show and podcast MORNING KOMBAT, will also host live streams of the main events press conference and official weigh-in in addition to providing in-depth coverage on MORNING KOMBAT throughout the week. The official weigh-in and main events press conference will stream live on the SHOWTIME Sports YouTube channel and SHOWTIME Boxing Facebook page.

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