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Behind the Scenes At Pacquiao-Bradley 2: Part One
Shortly after one o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, April 10, Manny Pacquiao concluded a series of satellite interviews that originated in Section 118 of the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The interviews were designed to promote his April 12 fight against Tim Bradley and everything had gone according to plan.
“My advantage is that I’m quicker than him and punch harder than him,” Pacquiao told one interviewer.
When asked about being knocked out by Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny responded, “Sometimes these things happen. That is boxing.”
An interviewer for Sky-TV posed the all-but-obligatory question of whether or not Pacquiao would fight Floyd Mayweather.
“I’m happy for that fight,” Manny said. “If not in boxing, maybe we can play one-on-one in basketball.”
As for his musical talents, Pacquiao acknowledged, “I can sing, but my voice is really not that good. The fans like my singing because of what I’ve done in boxing.”
At one point, Manny noted, “Sportsmanship is very important to me because it is my way of displaying respect to the sport of boxing, to my opponent, and to the fans.”
After the interviews ended, Pacquiao was leaving Section 118 when a voice from across the arena shouted out loud and clear: “Manny, we love you. Manny, we love you. Manny! Manny!”
Pacquiao turned to acknowledge the fan, one of many who follow him wherever he goes. Then his face broke into a broad smile. The man shouting was Tim Bradley.
Manny waved, Tim waved back. In two days, they would try to beat each other senseless in a boxing ring. But for now there was fondness between them.
Welcome to Pacquiao-Bradley 2, featuring two elite fighters who carried themselves with dignity and grace throughout the promotion with no lapse of decorum by either man.
Pacquiao’s saga is well known. In an era of phony championship belts and unremitting hype, he has been a legitimate champion and also a true peoples’ champion. The eleven-month period between December 6, 2008, and November 14, 2009, when he demolished Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, and Miguel Cotto were his peak years in terms of ring performance and adulation.
That was a while ago.
Tim Bradley believes in himself and epitomizes Cus D’Amato’s maxim: “When two fighters meet in the ring, the fighter with the greater will prevails every time unless the opponent’s skills are so superior that the opponent’s will is never tested.”
Most elite athletes are overachievers. Bradley comes as close to getting one hundred percent out of his potential as anyone in boxing. He’s a more sophisticated fighter than many people give him credit for. He’s not just about coming forward, applying pressure, and throwing punches. He has a good boxing brain and knows how to use it. But he isn’t particularly fast, nor does he hit particularly hard. The keys to his success are his physical strength and iron will.
“I’m not the most talented fighter in the division,” Tim acknowledges. “Not at all. There are guys with better skills and better physical gifts than I have. Where I separate myself from other fighters is my determination. I wear the other guy down. That’s what it is; hard work and determination. I work my butt off. I come ready every time. People keep saying that I don’t hit that hard, that I don’t box that well. But I keep winning, don’t I?”
Before each fight, Bradley promises himself that his opponent will remember him for the rest of his life. Marvin Hagler is his favorite fighter. Blue-collar work ethic, shaved head, overshadowed by boxing’s glamour boys.
Pacquiao and Bradley met in the ring for the first time on June 9, 2012. During that bout, Tim suffered strained ligaments in his left foot and a badly swollen right ankle. He was rolled into the post-fight press conference in a wheelchair.
“Both of my feel were hurt in that fight,” he recalls. “And I had a lion in front of me. All I could do was take it round by round. And it wasn’t enough to survive each round. I had to win them.”
Bradley, as the world knows, prevailed on a split-decision. A firestorm of protest followed.
In the aftermath of the bout, Pacquiao was an exemplary sportsman. “I’m a fighter,” Manny said. “My job is to fight in the ring. I don’t judge the fights. This is sport. You’re on the winner’s side sometimes. Sometimes you’re on the loser’s side. If you don’t want to lose, don’t fight.”
But others were less gracious. The beating Bradley took outside the ring was worse than the punishment he took in it.
“After the fight,” Tim remembers, “they announced that I was the winner. I was on top of the world, and then the world caved in on me. It should have been the happiest time of my life, and I wound up in the darkest place I’ve ever been in. I thought the fight was close. I thought the decision could have gone either way. You prepare your entire life to get to a certain point; you get there; and then it all gets taken away. I was attacked in the media. People were stopping me on the street, saying things like, ‘You didn’t win that fight; you should give the belt back; you should be ashamed of yourself; you’re not a real champion.’ I got death threats. I turned off my phone. All I did was do my job the best way I could, and It was like I stole something from the world.”
“It was bad,” says Joel Diaz, who has trained Bradley for the fighter’s entire career. “Tim was all right with people criticizing the decision, but the personal attacks really hurt. Tim is a proud man, and it was hard for him to walk tall anywhere.”
In Pacquiao’s next fight, he suffered a one-punch knockout loss at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez. Eleven months later, he rebounded to decision Brandon Rios. Meanwhile, Bradley edged Ruslan Provodnikov in a thriller and outboxed Marquez en route to another split-decision triumph.
That set the stage for an April 12 rematch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Bradley was the reigning champion, but Pacquiao was the engine driving the economics of the fight. The event was labeled “Pacquiao-Bradley 2”, and Manny was guaranteed a $20 million purse ($6 million less than for their initial encounter). Tim was promised $6 million (one million more than the first time around).
Each fighter felt that there was unfinished business between them.
“There is a big question mark on our first fight,” Pacquiao said at a February 6 press conference in New York. “This time, we will answer that question.”
“The whole Pacquiao situation still bothers me,” Bradley added. “So on April 12, I’m going to clean that up.”
Fight week had a strange feel to it. The Pacquiao-Bradley rematch hadn’t taken place earlier because neither HBO nor Top Rank (which promoted both fighters) thought it would sell well. But after Marquez starched Pacquiao and Bradley beat Marquez, the possibility of beating Tim loomed as a more impressive credential for Manny. Also, as part of a deal to secure the fight, Bradley agreed to a two-year extension of his promotional contract, which was due to expire in December 2014.
That said, the promotion was struggling a bit.
Elite fighters have a glow, an aura around them. Pacquiao in his prime was electrifying. But in recent years, the Pacquiao super nova has dimmed.
In the days leading up to Pacquiao-Bradley 2, the narrative was no longer about Manny’s Magical Adventure. The media no longer waited in heightened anticipation for his arrival at publicity events. The fighter himself seemed to have a bit of “Pacquiao fatigue.” Certainly, he was aware of the talk that his career was nearing an end.
Again and again during fight week, Manny told interviewers, “My time in boxing is not yet done. I want to prove that my journey in boxing will continue.”
There was the mandatory appearance by Pacquiao on Jimmy Kimmel Live and all of the ritual hype. But pay-per-view sales were tracking poorly, an estimated 650,000-to-700,000 buys (down from 875,000 for the first Pacquiao-Bradley fight). Ticket sales were respectable, but there wouldn’t be a sell-out.
It was Bradley who generated much of the energy in the media center. Tim is inherently likable with an exuberance for life and a smile that lights up a room when he enters. Insofar as his status as a role model is concerned, he and his wife, Monica, appear to have a loving stable marriage. When Bradley takes his children to school in the morning, it’s not a designed photo op for television cameras. There’s no bimbo girlfriend, no charge of domestic violence, no conspicuous spending. The thought of Tim blowing twenty thousand dollars in a strip club is ludicrous.
Bradley loves challenges. “I’m looking forward to the fight,” he told the media. “It will be fun.”
Reflecting on his football-playing days, Tim opined, “Boxing is more fun than playing quarterback. I like it better where, if someone hits me, I can hit him back.”
Defending the judges’ decision in Pacquiao-Bradley I, Tim told an interviewer, “Everybody has an opinion. That means I have an opinion too. Manny Pacquiao is one of the best fighters ever to lace on a pair of gloves. I’m a big fan of Manny Pacquiao. But I beat him.”
Then the interviewer stated proudly that he was rooting for Pacquiao, and Bradley responded, “If you’re a Pacquiao fan; hey, Manny is a good dude. I respect the person he is and I respect what he has done for the sport. I have no problem with anyone who roots for him.”
That left the trashtalking to Bob Arum, who spent much of the week denouncing the host site and the MGM Grand’s president of entertainment, Richard Sturm.
Arum was appropriately angry that the hotel-casino was festooned with advertising for the May 3 fight between Floyd Mayweather and Marcos Maidana to the detriment of his own promotion. Introducing Sturm at the final pre-fight press conference on Wednesday, he referenced the executive as “the president of hanging posters and decorations for the wrong fight.”
Then, at the end of the press conference, Arum went further, declaring, “I know the Venetian [which had hosted Pacquiao’s previous fight in Macau] would never make a mistake like this, They would know what fight was scheduled in three or four days, and they wouldn’t have a 12-to-1 fight all over the building that’s going to take place three weeks from Saturday. That’s why one company makes a billion dollars a quarter and the other hustles to pay it’s debt.”
The following day, Arum elaborated on that theme, telling reporters, “There are two companies which are the leadingAmerican companies in gaming, and it’s for a reason. It’s because they’re smarter than these guys and they know what they’re doing. First is the Venetian-Sands company and then there is the Wynn. Pick up a paper and look at where the stock of each company is going. Then tell me who has smarter people. Is it luck? I don’t think so. If one company is making so much more than the other company and doesn’t have financial problems because they borrowed too much money, it’s not luck. It’s because they’re smarter and conduct themselves better. This company really has a serious management problem.”
Thereafter, in various interviews, Arum called Sturm “a horse’s ass . . . totally clueless . . . a moron . . . a brain-dead moron,” and added, “He doesn’t have a fucking clue what the f— he’s doing.”
On Friday, the promoter proclaimed, “They [the MGM Grand] did something that I believe is an absolutely horrendous thing to do. It shows tremendous disrespect for the Filipino people, who are suchnice people. If I were Flipino, I would never patronize an MGM Hotel again.”
Then, as a helpful guide to Filipino high-rollers who might have been offended by the slight, Arum listed all of the MGM Grand properties that they might want to avoid in the future.
Meanwhile, the odds had settled on Pacquiao as a 9-to-5 favorite, down from 4-to-1 in the first Pacquiao-Bradley encounter.
Bradley has never been thought of as a big puncher. His ledger shows a meager twelve knockouts, with only one in the past seven years. Pacquiao, by contrast, has 38 career KOs. But Manny’s record is devoid of stoppages since his 2009 demolition of Miguel Cotto.
That led Bradley to declare, “Manny is still sensational physically, but I don’t think the fire is there anymore. He’s not the same fighter he used to be. He’s still a tremendous fighter. But the killer instinct, the hunger, is gone and it won’t come back again. Manny fights for the money. I have the hunger to win. I just feel that his heart isn’t in it anymore.”
Were Bradley’s comments about Pacquiao no longer having “killer instinct” designed to undermine Manny’s confidence? Or perhaps to goad him into fighting recklessly?
“Neither,” Tim answered. “I’m simpy stating a fact.”
Team Pacquiao didn’t entirely disagree with Bradley’s thought. Trainer Freddie Roach acknowledged, “Recently, Manny has felt it was enough to just win his fights. He didn’t want to hurt his opponent more than he had to. I’ve had a lot of talks with him about that and I’m sure it’s not going to happen again. When Bradley told Manny that he’d lost the killer instinct, frankly, Manny got pissed off. He thought it was disrespectful.”
“Sometimes I’m too nice to my opponent,” Pacquiao added. “I have been happy winning on points because it is winning. But the fans want to see that hunger from me, and I’m always concerned about the fans and their satisfaction. So I’m going to fight this fight to show that I still have that hunger and that killer instinct.”
But there were questions as to whether, intent aside, Pacquiao still had the strength and physical stamina to close the show against an elite opponent.
“To me, it’s not about killer instinct,” Joel Diaz noted. “I don’t think Pacquiao is being compassionate. I don’t think he can finish anymore. Look at what happened when he fought Marquez in their third fight. The judges scored it for Pacquiao, but a lot of people thought Marquez should have won. Everyone knew it was close. And Pacquiao couldn’t come on strong late. Pacquiao is getting older. He’s not the fighter he used to be in the second half of his fights.”
Bradley understands that there are no sure things in boxing. “I may lose this fight,” he said in a teleconference call. “You never know.Things happen in the ring when you least expect it.It only takes one punch to end the night.”
But as Pacquiao-Bradley 2 approached, Tim was confident, saying, “I’m a more mature fighter now than I was two years ago. I’m better at getting in and out on guys and controlling the distance between us, which I showed in the Marquez fight. I’m a better fighter now than I was the first time Pacquiao and I fought. And Manny can’t say that.”
“This is the first time I’ve fought the same guy twice,” Bradley continued. “And I think it’s an advantage for me. The first time we fought, I didn’t know how much intensity Manny brought to the ring. Omigod! He throws so many feints and closes the distance so fast and punches from all angles. He always keeps you guessing when he’s going to come in and out. Now I know what to expect. I was able to make adjustments in the first fight, and Manny had problems with me when I was moving. I’m excited; I’m happy. On Saturday night, I’ll get to show what I can do on the biggest stage possible. I know there are people who say I can’t hurt him. If Manny feels that way, let him come in reckless and see what happens.”
And there was another factor to consider. In his first fight against Pacquiao, Bradley had done something stupid. For the only time in his career, he’d entered the ring without socks because he’d once heard Mike Tyson say that going sockless helped him grip the canvas and increase the leverage on his punches. Bradley had trained sockless in the gym for that fight. But the canvas in the ring on fight night was different from the gym canvas. And the demands on fight night are different from the demands of sparring. In the early going against Pacquiao, Tim had suffered ligament damage in his left foot and sprained his right ankle.
“With two good feet, I’ll be able to move quicker this time and set down harder on my punches,” Bradley promised. “With two good feet, I can adjust my footwork to deal with whatever Pacquiao brings to the table. Pain-free is another dimension, and I’ll be pain-free this time.”
Indeed, the main concern in Bradley’s camp was that the judges might overcompensate for the perceived injustice of the scoring in Pacquiao-Bradley I and, fearing ridicule, have a default setting on close rounds in favor of Manny.
“We know the judges will have a lot of weight on their backs,” Joel Diaz noted. “The stage was set for Tim to lose the first fight, and it didn’t happen. Now the stage is set for Tim to lose again. If the fight goes the distance and it’s close, the judges will give it to Pacquiao. All I ask is for the judges to be fair. If Tim wins, give him the win. If Pacquiao wins, give him the win.”
Meanwhile, as the clock to fight night ticked down, it seemed as though Bradley had more enthusiasm for the battle than Pacquiao did.
“I got something to prove,” Tim declared. “I got something to prove to the media; I got something to prove to the fans; I got something to prove to everyone who says I didn’t win the first fight. This fight is redemption for me. I feel deep in my heart that I won the first fight and I didn’t get any credit. I’m going to beat Manny Pacquiao again. And this time, I want the credit for it.”
Team Pacquiao, of course, had a different view.
“Bradley is a very good fighter,” trainer Freddie Roach said. “He’s tough and resilient. He takes good shots.He has a good chin. He has determination and a lot of heart. When you hit him, he fights back.”
“But I don’t think Bradley has all the abilities that Manny has,” Roach continued. “He’s not as fast. He doesn’t punch as hard. When Manny is on his toes and uses his footspeed, he closes the distance better than any fighter in the world. Once you put Bradley on the ropes, his chin goes up in the air, he opens up, and he punches wild. When that happens, Manny can beat him down the middle. Once the scores have been announced and you’ve lost a fight, there’s nothing you can do about it except say, ‘We’ll get him next time.’ I think Manny beat this guy once, and I think he’ll beat him again.”
Pacquiao agreed with his mentor.
“I am impressed with what Bradley has done since our fight,” Manny acknowledged. “His style is hard to explain. He is not easy to beat. But I am still faster than Bradley and I still punch harder than Bradley. He says that he wants to see my killer instinct, so he will see it.”
Part Two of “Behind the Scenes at Pacquiao-Bradley 2” takes readers into Tim Bradley’s dressing room in the dramatic hours before and after the fight. It will be posted on The Sweet Science tomorrow.
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Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO
Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO
LAS VEGAS-Shades of Henry Armstrong and Baby Arizmendi. If you don’t know those names, look them up.
Floyd Schofield battled his way past Mexico’s super tough Rene Tellez Giron who walked through every blow the Texan could fire but lost by decision on Saturday.
It was a severe test and perfect matchmaking for Schofield who yearns for the big bouts against the lightweight giants roaming the world.
Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs) remains undefeated and won the war over thick-necked Mexican Tellez Giron (20-4, 13 KOs) who has never been knocked out and proved to be immune to big punches.
In the opening rounds, the Texas fighter came out firing rapid combinations from the southpaw and orthodox stances. Meanwhile the shorter Tellez Giron studied and fired back an occasional counter for two rounds.
Tellez Giron had seen enough and took his stand in the third stanza. Both unleashed blazing bombs with Schofield turning his back to the Mexican. At that moment referee Tom Taylor could have waved the fight over.
You never turn your back.
The fight resumed and Schofield was damaged. He tried to open up with even more deadly fire but was rebuked by the strong chin of Tellez Giron who fired back in the mad frenzy.
For the remainder of the fight Schofield tried every trick in his arsenal to inflict damage on the thick-necked Mexican. He could not be wobbled. In the 11th round both opened up with serious swing-from-the-heels combinations and suddenly Schofield was looking up. He beat the count easily and the two remained slugging it out.
“He hit me with a good shot,” Schofield said of the knockdown. “I just had to get up. I’m not going to quit.”
In the final round Schofield moved around looking for the proper moment to engage. The Mexican looked like a cat ready to pounce and the two fired furious blows. Neither was hit with the big bombs in the last seconds.
There was Tellez Giron standing defiantly like Baby Arizmendi must have stood in those five ferocious meetings against the incomparable Henry Armstrong. Three of their wars took place in Los Angeles, two at the Olympic Auditorium in the late 1930s as the U.S. was emerging from the Great Depression.
In this fight, Schofield took the win by unanimous decision by scores 118-109 twice and 116-111. It was well-deserved.
“I tried to bang it out,” said Schofield. “Today I learned you can’t always get the knockout.”
Fundora
IBF flyweight titlist Gabriela Fundora needed seven rounds to figure out the darting style of Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz before firing a laser left cross down the middle to end the battle and become the undisputed flyweight world champion.
Fundora now holds all four titles including the WBO, WBA and WBC titles that Alaniz brought in the ring.
Fundora knocked down Alaniz midway through the seventh round. She complained it was due to a tangle of the legs. Several seconds later Fundora blasted the Argentine to the floor again with a single left blast. This time there was no doubt. Her corner wisely waved a white towel to stop the fight at 1:40 of the seventh round.
No one argued the stoppage.
Other Bouts
Bektemir Melikuziev (15-1, 10 KOs) didn’t make weight in a title bout but managed to out-fight David Stevens (14-2, 10 KOs) in a super middleweight fight held at 12 rounds.
Melikuziev used his movement and southpaw stance to keep Pennsylvania’s Stevens from being able to connect with combinations. But Stevens did show he could handle “The Bully’s” punching power over the 12-round fight.
After 12 rounds one judge favored Stevens 116-112, while two others saw Melikuziev the winner by split decision 118-110 and 117-111.
Super middleweight WBA titlist Darius Fulghum (13-0, 11 KOs) pummeled his way to a technical knockout win over southpaw veteran Chris Pearson (17-5-1, 12 KOs) who attempted the rope-a-dope strategy to no avail.
Fulghum floored Pearson in the first round with a four-punch combination and after that just belted Pearson who covered up and fired an occasional blow. Referee Mike Perez stopped the fight at 1:02 of the third round when Pearson did not fire back after a blazing combination.
Young welterweight prospect Joel Iriarte (5-0, 5 KOs) blasted away at the three-inch shorter Xavier Madrid (5-6, 2 KOs) who hung tough for as long as possible. At 2:50 of the first round a one-two delivered Madrid to the floor and referee Thomas Taylor called off the beating.
Iriarte, from Bakersfield, Calif., could not miss with left uppercuts and short rights as New Mexico’s Madrid absorbed every blow but would not quit. It was just too much firepower from Iriarte that forced the stoppage.
Photos credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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Results and Recaps from Turning Stone where O’Shaquie Foster Nipped Robson Conceicao
Top Rank was at the Turning Stone casino-resort in Verona, New York, tonight with an 8-bout card topped by a rematch between Robson Conceicao and O’Shaquie Foster with the victor retaining or recapturing his IBF world junior lightweight title. When the smoke cleared, the operative word was “recapturing” as Foster became a two-time title-holder, avenging his controversial setback to the Brazilian in Newark on July 6.
This was a somewhat better fight than their initial encounter and once again the verdict was split. Foster prevailed by 115-113 on two of the cards with the dissenting judge favoring Conceicao by the same margin. Conceicao seemingly had the edge after nine frames, but Foster, a 4/1 favorite, landed the harder shots in the championship rounds.
It was the thirteenth victory in the last 14 starts for Foster who fights out of Houston. A two-time Olympian and 2016 gold medalist, the 36-year-old Conceicao is 19-3-1 overall and 1-3-1 in world title fights.
Semi-wind-up
SoCal lightweight Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) made a big jump in public esteem and moved one step closer to a world title fight with a second-round blast-out of Jose Antonio Perez who was on the canvas twice but on his feet when the fight was stopped at the 1:24 mark of round two. Muratalla, a product of Robert Garcia’s boxing academy, is ranked #2 by the WBC and WBO. A Tijuana native, Perez (25-6) earned this assignment with an upset of former Olympian and former 130-pound world titlist Jojo Diaz,
Other Bouts
Syracuse junior welterweight Bryce Mills, a high-pressure fighter with a strong local following, stopped scrawny Mike O’Han Jr whose trainer Mark DeLuca pulled him out after five one-sided rounds. Mills improved to 17-1 (6 KOs). It was another rough day at the office for Massachusetts house painting contractor O’’Han (19-4) who had the misfortune of meeting Abdullah Mason in his previous bout.
In a junior lightweight fight that didn’t heat up until late in the final round, Albany’s Abraham Nova (23-3-1) and Tijuana native Humberto Galindo (14-3-3) fought to a 10-round draw. It was another close-but-no- cigar for the likeable Nova who at least stemmed a two-fight losing streak. The judges had it 97-93 (Galindo), 96-94 (Nova) and 95-95.
Twenty-one-year-old Long Island middleweight Jahi Tucker advanced to 13-1-1 (6 KOs) with an eighth-round stoppage of Stockton’s teak-tough but outclassed Quilisto Madera (14-6). Madera was on a short leash after five rounds, but almost took it to the final bell with the referee intervening with barely a minute remaining in the contest. Madera was on his feet when the match was halted. Earlier in the round, Tucker had a point deducted for hitting on the break.
Danbury, Connecticut heavyweight Ali Feliz, one of two fighting sons of journeyman heavyweight Fernely Feliz, improved to 4-0 (3) with a second-round stoppage of beefy Rashad Coulter (5-5). Feliz had Coulter pinned against the ropes and was flailing away when the bout was halted at the 1:34 mark. The 42-year-old Coulter, a competitor in all manner of combat sports, hadn’t previously been stopped when competing as a boxer.
Featherweight Yan Santana dominated and stopped Mexico’s Eduardo Baez who was rescued by referee Charlie Fitch at the 1:57 mark of round four. It was the 12th knockout in 13 starts for Santana, a 24-year-old Dominican father of three A former world title challenger, Mexicali’s Baez declines to 23-7-2 but has lost six of his last eight.
In his most impressive showing to date, Damian Knyba, a six-foot-seven Pole, knocked out paunchy Richard Lartey at the 2:10 mark of round three. A right-left combination knocked Lartey into dreamland, but it was the right did the damage and this was of the nature of a one-punch knockout. Referee Ricky Gonzalez waived the fight off without starting a count.
Knyba, 28, improved to 14-0 (8 KOs). A native of Ghana coming off his career-best win, a fourth-round stoppage of Polish veteran Andrzej Wawrzyk, Lartey declined to 16-7 with his sixth loss inside the distance.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More
Those lightweights.
Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.
Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.
Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.
Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.
“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.
Even in Las Vegas.
Verona, New York
Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.
Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.
“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.
Foster disagrees.
“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.
Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).
Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.
“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.
Muratalla likes challenges too.
“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.
Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship
WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.
Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.
But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.
“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.
In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.
Bad choice for Mucino.
Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.
Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.
Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.
Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.
“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.
It should be exciting.
Fights to Watch
Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).
Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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