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MACKLIN: “I’m The Only Person Who’s Been (Screwed)!”
Boxing fans and even media who should, arguably, know better, do not properly acknowledge the ripple effect of damage when a fight card goes down the drain.The May 24 HBO card, which was to feature a heavyweight showdown between contender Bryant Jennings,* the smart boxer from Philly, against up and down Mike Perez, the Cuban product who fought to his potential against Magomed Abdusalamov before coming back down to earth against Carlos Takam, was cancelled because Perez hurt his shoulder.
That left the other fighters sad, and then scrambling.
It wasn’t just the main eventers, of course. A co-feature, pitting middleweight ex titlist DanielGeale, an Aussie, against UK-Brit Matthew Macklin, a former title challenger looking to get over the proverbial hump, swirled down the drain. Geale might actually come out of this in a better place, financially anyway, if he’s able to pivot to a hoedown with Gennady Golovkin. But Macklin is still left without a partner, though advisor Anthony Catanazaro has been hustling on the phone, with promoter Lou DiBella, to get a replacement date so Macklin’s months long effort to get into fighting trim doesn’t go for naught.
Macklin helped make it more clear for me how disappointing it is, and how financially draining it can be, when such circumstances arise, and curveballs get thrown at everyone. He told me he found it beyond curious the timing and circumstances of the scratched card.
Perez is promoted by K2, and K2 promotes Golovkin, who is looking for a foe for a July date, after Julio Cesar Chavez turned down an invite. The Perez pullout opened the door for Geale to slide in to the Golovkin date, Macklin noted, and that timing stood out to him as, well, shady looking. I told Macklin that I thought it difficult to enact such a conspiracy, with so many moving parts and parties.
“It would not be difficult to do, and keep everyone happy,” Macklin told me. He said that if everyone gets promised another lucrative gig, that could, in theory, keep them happy and spur them to keep their mouths shut. “Yes, I’m the only person in this that’s been effed! This sucks for a fighter. Train all those weeks and come away with not a dime!”
Macklin (age 32; 30-5 record, with 20 KOs; won last bout, UD10, vs. Lamar Russ) owns a gym in Spain, where he spends some of his time, along with NYC. “Not just come away without a dime, but I am down $10,000 in training expenses..plus what about time, energy, emotion?”
We both agreed that in a more perfect world, boxers would be part of a union, which would have a contingency laid out so fighters were at least partially compensated for labor performed and expenses put forth in training for their bouts which get cancelled. What, they didn’t train their tails off, and work for all those weeks? You think they just show up on fight night, and that’s what they get a purse for?
“I know, but we’re in the dark ages with boxing,” Macklin said.
MMA too…these fightsports are more in need than any other sport for a solid collective involving the fighters, to be able to bargain as a unit. That would help coalate needs and desires and they’d have an entity which looks out for them as a unified body, rather than have it be an “every man for himself” freelance situation, which is the way those in power, in fight sports, and in this era where the “corporations are people, my friend” mentality is the norm.
“Of course,” Macklin said in agreement, when we discussed the us vs. them milieu which exists here, which pits humble worker against humble worker, in a fight for wages which not only don’t rise year over year, but actually diminish, versus skyrocketing cost of living upticks.
“I hired sparring partners, I booked flights, and bought food,” Macklin continued. “My trainer, Jamie Moore, flies from the UK, to Marbella, Spain, where my gym is, and back every weekend.”Fingers crossed that something better comes out of this for Macklin, and here’s hoping that this issue gets looked and at and attended to moving forward.
*=I asked Jennings’ promoter Gary Shaw where the Jennings-Perez fights stands, or if Jennings would chart another course. “If the (medical report on Perez’ shoulder) are OK we want to reset it to July or the first week in August at the latest,” Shaw told me.
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Oleksandr Usyk is the TSS 2024 Fighter of the Year
Six years ago, Oleksandr Usyk was named the Sugar Ray Robinson 2018 Fighter of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America. Usyk, who went 3-0 in 2018, boosting his record to 16-0, was accorded this honor for becoming the first fully unified cruiserweight champion in the four-belt era.
This year, Usyk, a former Olympic gold medalist, unified the heavyweight division, becoming a unified champion twice over. On the men’s side, only two other boxers, Terence Crawford (light welterweight and welterweight) and Naoya Inoue (bantamweight and super bantamweight) have accomplished this feat.
Usyk overcame the six-foot-nine goliath Tyson Fury in May to unify the title. He then repeated his triumph seven months later with three of the four alphabet straps at stake. Both matches were staged at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fury was undefeated before Usyk caught up with him.
In the first meeting, Usyk was behind on the cards after seven frames. Fury won rounds 5-7 on all three scorecards. It appeared that the Gypsy King was wearing him down and that Usyk might not make it to the finish. But in round nine, the tide turned dramatically in his favor. In the waning moments of the round, Usyk battered Fury with 14 unanswered punches. Out on his feet, the Gypsy King was saved by the bell.
In the end the verdict was split, but there was a strong sentiment that the right guy won.
The same could be said of the rematch, a fight with fewer pregnant moments. All three judges had Usyk winning eight rounds. Yes, there were some who thought that Fury should have been given the nod but they were in a distinct minority.
Usyk’s record now stands at 23-0 (14). Per boxrec, the Ukrainian southpaw ended his amateur career on a 47-fight winning streak. He hasn’t lost in 15 years, not since losing a narrow decision to Russian veteran Egor Mekhontsev at an international tournament in Milan in September of 2009.
Oleksandr Usyk, notes Paulie Malignaggi, is that rare fighter who is effective moving backwards or forwards. He is, says Malignaggi, “not only the best heavyweight of the modern era, but perhaps the best of many…..At the very least, he could compete with any heavyweight in history.”
Some would disagree, but that’s a discussion for another day. In 2024, Oleksandr Usyk was the obvious pick for the Fighter of the Year.
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A No-Brainer: Turki Alalshikh is the TSS 2024 Promoter of the Year
Years from now, it’s hard to say how Turki Alalshikh will be remembered.
Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some see him as a poacher, a man who snatched away big fights that would have otherwise landed in places like Las Vegas, New York, and London, and planted them in a place with no prizefighting tradition whatsoever merely for the purpose of “sportswashing.” If that be the case, Alalshikh’s superiors, the royal family, will turn off the spigot once it is determined that this public relations campaign is no longer needed, at which time the sport will presumably recede into the doldrums from whence it came.
Be that as it may, there is no doubt that boxing is in much better shape today than it was just a few years ago and that Alalshikh, operating under the rubric of Riyadh Season, is the reason why.
One of the most persistent cavils lobbied against professional boxing is that the best match-ups never get made or else languish on the backburner beyond their “sell-by” date, cheating the fans who don’t get to see the match when both competitors are at their peak. This is a consequence of the balkanization of the sport with each promoter running his fiefdom in his own self-interest without regard to the long-term health of the sport.
With his hefty budget, Alalshikh had the carrot to compel rival promoters to put down their swords and put their most valuable properties in risky fights and he seized the opportunity. All of the sport’s top promoters – Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn (pictured below), Bob Arum, Oscar De La Hoya, Tom Brown, Ben Shalom, and others – have done business with His Excellency.
The two most significant fights of 2024 were the first and second meetings between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury. The first encounter was historic, begetting the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era. Both fights were staged in Saudi Arabia as part of Riyadh Season, the months-long sports and entertainment festival instrumental in westernizing the region.
The Oct. 12 fight in Riyadh between undefeated light heavyweights Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol produced another unified champion. This wasn’t a great fight, but a fight good enough to command a sequel. (Beterviev, going the distance for the first time in his pro career, won a majority decision.) The do-over, buttressed by an outstanding undercard, will come to fruition on Feb. 22 in Riyadh.
Turki Alalshikh didn’t do away with pay-per-view fights, but he made them more affordable. The price tag for Usyk-Fury II in the U.S. market was $39.99. By contrast, the last PBC promotion, the Canelo vs. Berlanga fight on Amazon Prime Video, carried a tag of $89.95 for non-Prime subscribers.
Almost half the U.S. population resides in the Eastern Time Zone. For them, the main event of a Riyadh show goes in the mid- to late-afternoon. This is a great blessing to fight fans disrespected by promoters whose cards don’t end until after midnight, and that goes double for fight fans in the U.K. who can now watch more fights at a more reasonable hour instead of being forced to rouse themselves before dawn to catch an alluring match anchored in the United States.
In November, it was announced that Alalshikh had purchased The Ring magazine. The self-styled “Bible of Boxing” was previously owned by a company controlled by Oscar De La Hoya who acquired the venerable magazine in 2007.
With the news came Alalshikh’s assertion that the print edition of the magazine would be restored and that the publication “would be fully independent.”
That remains to be seen. One is reminded that Alalshikh revoked the press credential of Oliver Brown for the Joshua-Dubois fight on Sept. 21 at London’s iconic Wembley Stadium because of comments Brown made in the Daily Telegraph that cast a harsh light on the Saudi regime.
There were two national anthems that night, “God Save the King” sharing the bill, as it were, with the Saudi national anthem. Considering the venue and the all-British pairing, that rubbed many Brits the wrong way.
The Ring magazine will always be identified with Nat Fleischer who ran the magazine from its inception in 1922 until his death in 1972 at age 84. It was written of Fleischer that he was the closest thing to a czar that the sport of boxing ever had. Turki Alalshikh now inherits that mantle.
It’s never a good thing when one man wields too much power. We don’t know how history will judge Turki Alalshikh, but naming him the TSS Promoter of the Year was a no-brainer.
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The Ortiz-Bohachuk Thriller has been named the TSS 2024 Fight of The Year
The Aug. 10 match in Las Vegas between Knockout artists Vergil Ortiz Jr and Serhii Bohachuk seemingly had scant chance of lasting the 12-round distance. Ortiz, the pride of Grand Prairie, Texas, was undefeated in 21 fights with 20 KOs. Bohachuk, the LA-based Ukrainian, brought a 24-1 record with 23 knockouts.
In a surprise, the fight went the full 12. And it was a doozy.
The first round, conventionally a feeling-out round, was anything but. “From the opening bell, [they] clobbered each other like those circus piledriver hammer displays,” wrote TSS ringside reporter David A. Avila.
In this opening frame, Bohachuk, the underdog in the betting, put Ortiz on the canvas with a counter left hook. Of the nature of a flash knockdown, it was initially ruled a slip by referee Harvey Dock. With the benefit of instant replay, the Nevada State Athletic Commission overruled Dock and after four rounds had elapsed, the round was retroactively scored 10-8.
Bohachuk had Ortiz on the canvas again in round eight, put there by another left hook. Ortiz was up in a jiff, but there was no arguing it was a legitimate knockdown and it was plain that Ortiz now trailed on the scorecards.
Aware of the situation, the Texan, a protégé of the noted trainer Robert Garcia, dug deep to sweep the last four rounds. But these rounds were fused with drama. “Every time it seemed the Ukrainian was about to fall,” wrote Avila, “Bohachuk would connect with one of those long right crosses.”
In the end, Ortiz eked out a majority decision. The scores were 114-112 x2 and 113-113.
Citing the constant adjustments and incredible recuperative powers of both contestants, CBS sports combat journalist Brian Campbell called the fight an instant classic. He might have also mentioned the unflagging vigor exhibited by both. According to CompuBox, Ortiz and Bohachuk threw 1579 punches combined, landing 490, numbers that were significantly higher than the early favorite for Fight of the Year, the March 2 rip-snorter at Verona, New York between featherweights Raymond Ford and Otabek Kholmatov (a win for Ford who pulled the fight out of the fire in the final minute).
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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