Impressions: Martinez, Cotto, Combat, and Sport

Published

11 years ago

June 11, 2014

At 9:15 on the night of June 7, Sergio Martinez entered dressing room #5 at Madison Square Garden with trainer Pablo Sarmiento, cutman Roger Anderson, and physical therapist Raquel Bordons. Cornerman Russ Anber and Nathan Lewkowicz (the son of promoter Sampson Lewkowicz) followed. The room was small and angularly-shaped with brown industrial carpet and cream-colored cinderblock walls. Two doors down the corridor, Miguel Cotto was ensconsed in dressing room #5.

In two-and-a-half hours, Martinez and Cotto would do battle for the middleweight championship of the world. Sergio was the defending champion, but his dressing room was one-third the size of Miguel’s. Other slights had cut deeper.

The fight and all promotional material for it had been styled “Cotto-Martinez” rather than the other way around. “It bothers me,” Sergio admitted, “because it’s disrespectful to the history and traditions of boxing. But Cotto said there would be no fight if his name wasn’t first on the posters. I can imagine that, on June 7, he will ask for rose petals to be thrown at his feet or he won’t walk to the ring.”

More significantly, the finances of the fight were weighted in the challenger’s favor. Cotto and Top Rank (Miguel’s promoter) had retained Puerto Rican television rights off the top. The first $15,000,000 in net revenue after that would be split 55 percent to Cotto and Top Rank, 45 percent to Martinez and his promoters (DiBella Entertainment and Sampson Promotions). Thereafter, the split would increase to 60-40.

To Cotto, that was fair and logical. “Two times in my career – when I fought Pacquiao and when I fought Mayweather – I was the champion but I was the B-side,” Miguel noted. “I understood my position. Sergio Martinez is a great fighter, but boxing is a business. For this fight, I am the one who sells the tickets.”

A fighter’s dressing room is a sheltered world in the hours before a big fight. In Sergio’s case, the mood is constant from bout to bout; relaxed and low-key until the final minutes when smiles evaporate.

Some fighters are intimidated by the atmosphere of a big fight. Martinez thrives on it. He loves the spotlight. His 2012 bout against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr had been more personal for him than this one because of the backroom dealing that led to his championship being temporarily taken from him. But he’d reclaimed the throne in front of a raucous crowd of Chavez partisans. Now he was eager to perform on an even bigger stage.

Referee Mike Griffin came into the dressing room and gave Martinez his pre-fight instructions. Russ Anber wrapped Sergio’s hands. Martinez put on his shoes and trunks and shadow-boxed briefly. Then he pulled a protective latex sleeve up over each knee. “A precaution,” he explained. “Not a necessity.”

A precaution deemed advisable because of the surgery and rehabilitation that Martinez underwent last year.

Pablo Sarmiento gloved Sergio up. Earlier in the evening, New York State Athletic Commission inspector Ernie Morales had initialed Martinez’s handwraps. Now Sue Etkin (the other inspector assigned to Sergio) wrote “Sue” on the tape covering the lace on each glove.

Martinez hit the pads with Sarmiento.

Music played. Out of Control, sung by the group You Aren’t Going to Like This. The same song, again and again.

There was anticipation in Sergio’s eyes. Madison Square Garden . . . The middleweight championship of the world . . . A screaming bloodlust crowd of 21,090 waited. For Muhammad Ali, boxing was a sport. Joe Frazier treated it as combat. In Martinez’s mind, he was preparing for a sporting competition. Two doors down the corridor, Miguel Cotto was preparing for combat.

Like most fighters, Martinez comes from a hard world. He’s a thoughtful intelligent man, sometimes philosophical. Growing up in the slums of Buenos Aires, he didn’t know what “dinner” was. The family didn’t sit down together at an appointed hour. When food came into the home, they ate it.

“When you are very small, a child, you don’t know that you’re poor,” Sergio says, reflecting back on that time. “Even though you’re hungry and cold, if you have the love of your parents, you’re happy with what you have because you’re used to that life and it’s all you know. Then you become an adolescent. You start to realize what you don’t have and begin to think about how to get what you want. You can work hard or you can take the shorter path and turn to crime. If you have good parents, it makes a big difference in deciding which path you take. When you are an adult, you realize fully what you missed as a child. And again, you have a choice. You can feel sorry for yourself or you can feel pride at where you came from and where you’ve gotten to in life. I give thanks to the fact that I grew up poor because it helps me appreciate what I have now.”

Taken severally, Sergio’s features aren’t classically handsome. But they fit together well and his smile further binds them together. Fashion designers love to hang clothes on him. He has a strong physical presence and carries himself with grace. Every now and then, a hard look creeps into his eyes, as though he is remembering the hardships of his youth or the demands of his trade. But he’s unfailingly gracious. Women and men are drawn to him.

Boxing was Martinez’s route to a better life. “I was a good student,” he says. “But my family didn’t have the money to continue my education. Without my physical gifts, I don’t think I would have found my way out of poverty. But I believe that everyone has a path if they choose to follow it. Everyone has a talent that’s special.”

Martinez turned pro in 1997 and fought in obscurity for much of his ring career. On June 21, 2003, on what he calls “the most important day of my life,” he took a beating but won a twelve-round decision over Richard Williams in Manchester, England, to claim the unheralded IBO 154-pound title.

“It was a very hard fight for me,” Sergio recalls, “because I was not experienced at that time. But I won.”

One week later, Martinez had a tattoo of a dragon imprinted on the outside of his left arm from shoulder to elbow. In January 2013, he added the word “resistencia” (resistance) on the inside of his right forearm and “victoria” (victory) on the inside of his left forearm.

“The life I have chosen revolves around those two words,” Sergio says, explaining the latter two tattoos. “When I was preparing to fight Chavez [in September 2012], they were constantly in my head. Then I signed to fight Martin Murray. I wasn’t motivated and I thought the tattoos would help motivate me. There will be no more tattoos. I don’t like tattoos. I never wanted tattoos. I hate tattoos. It is a contradiction, I know. I cannot explain it except to say, in two brief moments in time, I thought it was important to have these tattoos on my body.”

Martinez ascended to stardom on April 17, 2010, when he decisioned Kelly Pavlik to claim the WBC and WBO middleweight crowns. Seven months later, in his first title defense, he scored a dramatic one-punch knockout of Paul Williams. Victories over Sergiy Dzinziruk, Darren Barker, Matthew Macklin, Julio Cesar Chavez, and Martin Murray followed.

“The very poor identify with boxing,” Sergio observes. “They look at boxers and relate to the economic conditions that we came from and to our struggle. They admire the courage we have to fight to get to the next level. The very wealthy look at boxers as two animals trying to kill each other for their entertainment. They don’t identify on a human level with the fighters. Many of them – I truly believe this – want to see me fail in the end, lose all my money, and go back to nothing. It’s like a game for them. And sadly, most boxers who go from very poor to very rich go back quickly to being poor again.”

Cotto-Martinez harkened back to a time when New York was the capitol of the sports world. Earlier in the day, California Chrome’s pursuit of racing’s Triple Crown had drawn a crowd of 102,000 to the Belmont Stakes. On fight night, Madison Square Garden was rocking.

Cotto was bidding to become the first Puerto Rican to win titles in four weight divisions. This would be his ninth fight in the big Garden arena and the first for Martinez. Three thousand fans had attended the Friday weigh-in. It would have been more, but the doors to The Theater at MSG were closed an hour before the fighters stepped on the scales.

Stripped of the hype, Cotto-Martinez was an entertaining match-up between two compelling personalities who have served boxing well. Each man carries himself with dignity. And while Martinez was a 2-to-1 favorite, the outcome of the fight was very much in doubt.

The case for a Martinez victory began with the belief that Cotton wasn’t “Cotto” anymore. Miguel had lost two fights in a row (to Floyd Mayweather and Austin Trout) before blowing out journeyman Delvin Rodriguez last October. Prior to those fights, he’d been brutalized by Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao and looked ordinary in victories over Yuri Foreman, Ricardo Mayorga, and (in a rematch) Margarito.

Trout was thought to have given Martinez a roadmap for beating Cotto. Like Sergio, Austin is a tall southpaw. Twelve months earlier, he’d outpointed Miguel 119-109, 117-111, 117-111. Asked at a June 4 sitdown with reporters about the parallels between Trout and Martinez, Cotto responded, “I fought Trout in 2012. Now it is 2014. I never saw that fight after that night, and I have no plans to see it again.”

That seemed like a bad case of denial. Moreover, for the first time in a long time, Martinez would be entering the ring with a height (three inches) and weight (four pounds) advantage over his opponent.

“I like to watch my opponents,” Martinez says. “I like studying them a lot. More than what they do, it’s how they think. I want to know what my opponent is thinking. Once I’ve seen them, I can figure them out; the ideas they have, their plan, their strategy.”

Watching Cotto, Sergio had seen Pacquiao and Mayweather beat Miguel with speed and Margarito beat him with power.

“Cotto does not have the same power at this weight that he had at 147,” Martinez opined. “I am the power-puncher of the two of us. When I start to find my rhythm, my timing, and the right distance, the fight will be over.”

Team Cotto, of course, held to a contrary view.

Cotto would be the most intelligent and technically-skilled opponent that Martinez had faced. Freddie Roach (Miguel’s trainer) was confident that edge would enable his fighter to exploit the flaws in Sergio’s style.

“Martinez is a great athlete,” Roach said. “I wouldn’t call him a great boxer. If you keep yourself in a good position, most of the time you’ll control the fight. Sergio’s footwork is reckless. He’s all over the place. Miguel can take advantage of that. And I think Miguel can beat Martinez down the middle. Sergio’s defense is not all that good, if you exchange with him, let your hands go, he’s very hittable. Chavez didn’t do that until the last round, and you saw what happened when he did. I think Cotto’s boxing ability will be too much for Martinez to handle.”

On the issue of size and power, Cotto declared, “It’s not about gaining the weight. It’s about not having to lose the weight. For the first time in my career, I’m not concerned about making weight. I can eat to be strong.”

“We moved up the weight a little bit and put on more muscle,” Roach added. “I think Miguel will be stronger on the inside and much more physical on the inside than Martínez is. We’re going to push him around with no problem. On the inside we’re the bigger stronger fighter. Sergio is in over his head on this one.”

But the biggest issue surrounding Cotto-Martinez was Sergio’s physical condition. Some people thought that Cotto was shot. Virtually everyone believed that Martinez was fragile.

Forty-three months had passed since Sergio’s demolition of Paul Williams. Subsequent to that, he had looked vulnerable. More than most fighters, Martinez fights with his legs. But in recent fights, his legs have betrayed him.

After decisioning Martin Murray on April 27, 2013, Martinez underwent major knee surgery.

“The recuperation was very painful,” Sergio acknowledged in a May 20 teleconference call. “I was on crutches for nine months and it is very hard to come back from that. But this is the road that I chose and I enjoy the achievement of coming back from something like this. Right now, I am just the same as when there were no knee problems. I have overcome all obstacles.”

That thought was echoed by Raquel Bordons, who said in the dressing room an hour before the fight, “Sergio’s condtion is more than I could have hoped for. He is very, very good now.”

But at this stage of Martinez’s career, injuries during a fight seem as likely as not. Was he fully repaired after the surgery, or was he a 39-year-old athlete with sub-standard body parts?

Tom Gerbasi framed the issue when he wrote, “It’s almost as if Martinez making it to the ring is the equivalent of New York Knicks captain Willis Reed limping out of the tunnel for Game Seven of the NBA Finals against the LA Lakers on May 8, 1970, to inspire his team and get them off to the start they needed to win the game and the title. It’s got that feel, that buzz, that for one more night, a great champion can be great. Saturday night is Sergio Martinez’s Game Seven. But this is no basketball game. Martinez can’t hit two baskets, go back to the bench, and leave his teammates to finish the work like Reed did. This is a fight, twelve rounds with the best fighter Martinez has ever been in with. Thirty-six minutes of wear and tear, physical and mental warfare.”

“Who do you like in the fight?” boxing maven Pete Susens was asked.

“Whichever guy has one last big fight left in him,” Susens answered.

During the build-up to Cotto-Martinez, Sergio had told the media, “It has been my dream for a long time to fight in the big room at Madison Square Garden.”

On fight night, that dream turned into a nightmare.

The heavily pro-Cotto crowd was chanting “Cotto, Cotto” even before the bell to start round one rang. It didn’t have to wait long for satisfaction. One minute into the first stanza, Cotto staggered Martinez with a left hook up top. A barrage of punches put Sergio face down on the canvas. He rose on unsteady legs and, a minute later, was decked again by a right hand. Once more, he struggled to his feet. Almost immediately, a body shot put him down for the third time.

That left Martinez with quite a hole to climb out of on the judges’ scorecards. And worse, he was now a debilitated fighter.

“The first punch that hurt me, after that, I never recovered,” Sergio said in his dressing room after the fight. “I wasn’t the same after that. I couldn’t do anything. My mind was disconnected from my body. My mind told me to do something, and my body wouldn’t do it.”

A brutal beatdown followed. Cotto punished Martinez almost at will to the head and body. Everything that Miguel landed seemed to hurt. Sergio’s only hope was that Cotto would fade in the late rounds as had happened in several recent outings. But with each passing round, it became more unlikely that Martinez would have anything left if and when that eventuality occurred. As the fight wore on, the question was not who would win, but how much punishment Martinez could take. Sergio wasn’t just being outpointed. He was getting beaten up. All he had left was his heart.

After nine rounds, Pablo Sarmiento stopped the carnage. In the dressing room after the fight, the trainer recounted, “I told him, ‘Sergio, champion, you mean more to me than I mean to myself. I am stopping it now.’ Sergio pleaded with me, ‘One more round.’ I told him no, and he accepted that.”

If Cotto-Martinez was Miguel’s finest hour, it was also Sarmiento’s.

As Pablo spoke, Martinez sat on a folding cushioned chair with Raquel Bordons beside him. His face was bruised and swollen. There was a cut on his right eyelid and an ugly gash on top of his head. The right side of his body, where Cotto’s left hook had landed again and again, ached. Fortunately, a post-fight trip to Bellevue Hospital for a precautionary MRI revealed nothing more serious than a broken nose.

As for Sergio’s future, two thing that he has said in the past are instructive.

Prior to fighting Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, Martinez declared, “I always look ahead. That’s what works for me; to look toward my goals and never look away from them.” Then, in a light moment shortly before fighting Cotto, Sergio acknowledged, “I am thirty-nine, and people think that I’m an old man. For boxing, maybe I am.”

Put those thoughts together and retirement after a long and honorable career is a sound option. Meanwhile, Cotto-Martinez stands as a reminder that, for each thrilling victory in boxing, there’s a heartbreaking defeat.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book (Reflections: Conversations, Essays, and Other Writings) was published by the University of Arkansas Press.

Post Views: 1,900

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

Greg Haugen (1960-2025) was Tougher than the Toughest Tijuana Taxi Driver

Published

22 hours ago

February 24, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Greg-Haugen-1960-2025-was-Tougher-then-the-Toughest-Tijuana-Taxi-Driver

Many years ago, this reporter overhead ring announcer Chuck Hull gushing over a young boxer who was fairly new to the professional game. “This kid,” he said, referencing Greg Haugen, “is another Gene Fullmer.”

Hull, who would be inducted posthumously into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, was very familiar with Fullmer, a boxer he greatly admired. The ring announcer had worked two of Fullmer’s title fights, Gene’s 15-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson in March of 1961 and his 10^th-round stoppage of Benny “Kid” Paret later that year.

There was a stylistic similarity between Haugen and Fullmer, but the comparison went beyond that. When the cognoscenti in New York got their first look at Gene Fullmer, they dismissed him as just another good club fighter. It was preposterous to think that one day he would defeat the great Sugar Ray Robinson, and never mind that Sugar Ray’s best days were behind him. (Fullmer and Robinson fought three times. The middle fight was a 15-round draw. Robinson won the first encounter with a vicious one-punch knockout.)

Likewise, even after recording three consecutive upsets in 10-rounders at the Showboat in Las Vegas, Greg Haugen was considered nothing more than a good club fighter. He had a wealth of grit, one could see, but in the eyes of the so-called experts, he was too one-dimensional. It was far-fetched to think that one day he would defeat an opponent as slick as Hector Camacho, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Greg Haugen, who passed away last Saturday (Feb. 22) at age 64 in a Seattle-area hospice after a three-year battle with renal cancer, entered the pro ranks after winning Tough Man competitions in Alaska. A native of Auburn, Washington, his first documented fight was in Anchorage. Each of his first five fights was slated for 10 rounds.

Those three upsets were forged against Freddie Roach, Chris Calvin, and Charlie “White Lightning” Brown. Two more fights at the Showboat would follow preceding a date with IBF 135-pound champion Jimmy Paul at the Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion. A protégé of Emanuel Steward, Paul was a product of Detroit’s fabled Kronk Gym.

Haugen was one of the first boxers to cultivate a cult following on ESPN. This owed partly to his attractive young wife and their two daughters, adorable little girls, who appeared on camera a lot as they cheered him on from their ringside seats. That marriage was crumbling when Haugen caught up with Jimmy Paul, but Greg overcame the distraction and captured the title with a hard-earned, 15-round majority decision. According to an Associated Press report, Haugen supplemented his $50,000 purse by getting a $2,000 advance and betting on himself at 4/1 odds.

Haugen lost the title and suffered his first defeat in his first title defense, a 15-rounder with Vinny Pazienza before a rabid pro-Pazienza crowd in Providence, Rhode Island. The “Pazmanian Devil” won five of the last six rounds on all three scorecards to win a unanimous decision, but ended the battle with his face all marked-up. “Many ringside observers, including the majority of out-of-town press, had Haugen the winner,” wrote Boston Globe boxing columnist Ron Borges.

They fought twice more. Haugen recaptured the belt with a wide 15-round decision in the rematch in Atlantic City and Pazienza emerged victorious in the rubber match, winning a 10-round decision. It was a great rivalry. Aggregating the scorecards after 40 bruising rounds, Haugen nipped it 1141-1136.

Between his second and third meetings with Pazienza, Haugen was outclassed by defensive wizard Pernell Whitaker on Whitaker’s turf in Virginia, but Greg’s days as a world title-holder were not over yet.

On Feb. 23, 1991, fighting at 140 pounds, his more natural weight, Haugen became the first man to defeat Hector Camacho, scoring a split decision over the 38-0 Bronx Puerto Rican who was defending his WBO belt. The match at Caesars Palace would have ended in a draw if not for the fact that referee Carlos Padilla docked Camacho a point for refusing to touch gloves at the start of the final round.

For Haugen, a noted spoiler, it was the biggest upset of his career. In the sports books around town, Camacho was as high as a 10-1 favorite.

The rematch in Reno followed a similar tack; it was a very close fight, but Camacho won a split decision and Haugen’s third world title reign, like his first, ended in his first defense.

Haugen returned to Reno the next year where he ended the career of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, stopping the former lightweight title-holder and future Hall of Famer in the seventh frame. And then, after defeating two fourth-rate opponents, he was thrust into the fight for which he is best remembered.

Greg Haugen vs. Julio Cesar Chavez at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium wasn’t a great fight, but it was a great spectacle. The announced attendance, 132,247, broke the record set in 1926 when 120,557 jammed Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial Stadium for the first meeting between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney.

Those that were there will never forget it. Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr recalled that there were little fires up in the far reaches of the mammoth stadium where people were cooking the food they had brought. “I remember thinking that this was more of a mass celebration than just a sporting event,” reminisced Lennon Jr who compared the event to Woodstock in a conversation with Bernard Fernandez for a story that ran on these pages.

Haugen goosed the gate by saying that Chavez had built his record, reportedly 84-0, on the backs of “Tijuana taxi drivers that my mom could whip.” Chavez took it personally and, to the great jubilation of the great multitude, he punished the American before taking him out in the fifth round.

Other boxers since then, lacking Haugen’s originality, have also demeaned their opponent’s conglomeration of former opponents as a bunch of Tijuana taxi drivers. The term seems to have supplanted “tomato cans” as a term of derision. So, Greg Haugen’s legacy extends beyond what he accomplished in the ring. He left an acorn in the storehouse of American slang.

After being manhandled by Julio Cesar Chavez, Haugen sheepishly said, “They must have been very tough taxi drivers.” He would have 15 more fights before leaving the sport in 1999 with a record of 39-10-2 with 19 KOs. In retirement, he trained a few boxers but couldn’t keep at it after suffering nerve damage in his left arm working the pads with a heavyweight.

There were undoubtedly some very tough guys in the ranks of Tijuana taxi drivers, but in a conventional boxing match, Greg Haugen would have likely whipped them all. He was nowhere as great as the stupefyingly sappy post-mortem tribute that ran in a small Washington paper, but he was tough as nails.

Greg Haugen is survived by four children – two daughters and two sons — and five grandchildren. Speaking to Kevin Iole, his daughter Cassandra Haugen said, “He was a good man with a huge heart. He came from nowhere and made himself into a champion, but he was always a kind-hearted man and just the best Dad.”

We here at TSS send our condolences to his loved ones. May he rest in peace.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 470

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Nakatani, Japan’s Other Superstar, Blows Away Cuellar in the Third Frame

Published

1 day ago

February 24, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Nakatani-Japan's-Other-Superstar-Blows-Away-Cuellar-in-the-Third-Frame

WBO world bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani continued his steady advance toward a mega-fight with countryman Naoya Inoue at Ariake Arena in Tokyo tonight with a third-round stoppage of David Cuellar.

After two nondescript rounds, the 27-year-old, five-foot-eight southpaw stepped on the gas and scored two knockdowns before Canadian referee Michael Griffin waived it off. The first knockdown was the result of combination of body punches. As soon as Cuellar got to his feet, Nakatani was all over him. Another combination, this time upstairs, knocked Cuellar on his rump. Looking very discouraged, he made a half-hearted attempt to beat the count and almost made it, not that it would have mattered as he was a cooked goose. The official time was 3:04 of round three.

Nakatani (30-0, 23 KOs) was making his third title defense. He trains in LA with TSS 2024 Trainer of the Year Rudy Hernandez. It was the first pro loss for Cuellar (28-1) who hails from the Mexican city of Queretaro and was making his first start outside his native country.

Nakatani has indicated an interest in unifying the belt which potentially portends three more domestic fights as all four pieces of the 118-pound title are currently in the hands of Japanese boxers. “Bam” Rodriguez and former pound-for-pound star “Chocolatito” Gonzalez sit a division below him and may also be in his future, but the big money is in a showdown with Inoue, the undisputed 122-pound champion. That match-up, when it transpires, will be the first all-Japanese fight to arouse the interest of casual boxing fans around the world.

Other Bouts of Note

Super bantamweight Tenshin Nasukawa took a massive step up in class and was successful, scoring a unanimous 10-round decision over Jason Moloney. The scores were 98-92 and 97-93 twice.

The 26-year-old southpaw has made great gains since his embarrassing loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr on New Year’s Eve of 2018. In that match, the baby-faced Nasukawa failed to survive the opening round and left the ring crying. Heading in to that match, framed as a 3-round exhibition, Tenshin was reportedly 46-0 as a kickboxer and rated in some quarters as the best kickboxer of all time.

After only five pro fights compressed into 30 rounds, the WBA saw fit to rank Nasukawa at #2. He could have embarrassed the organization (check that; the WBA has no shame) by getting his butt kicked by Moloney, a former world title-holder, but Nasakawa (6-0, 2 KOs) rose to the occasion and scored his best win to date. A 34-year-old Aussie, Moloney declined to 27-4.

The 12-round contest between bantamweights Seiya Tsutsumi and Daigo Higa was a spirited contest that ended in a draw. The scores were 114-114 across the board.

The 29-year-old Tsutsumi (12-0-3) was making the first defense of the WBA title he won with a 12-round decision over Takuma Inoue (Naoya’s brother). Higa, also 29 and now 21-3-2, was a former WBC flyweight titlist.

Tsutsumi had an uphill battle after suffering a bad gash on his forehead from an accidental clash of heads in the fourth round. The hill got steeper after Higa put him on the canvas with a left hook in round nine. But Tsutsumi responded with a knockdown of his own in that same round and finished strong, seemingly doing enough to retain his title.

This was their second meeting. Their first encounter in October of 2020, a 10-rounder on a club show at historic Korakuen Hall, also ended in a draw.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 350

Share The Sweet Science experience!

The Hauser Report — Riyadh Season and Sony Hall: Very Big and Very Small

Published

2 days ago

February 23, 2025

Thomas Hauser

The-Hauser-Report-Riyadh-Season-and-Sony-Hall-Very-Big-and-Very-Small

Larry Goldberg promoted his eleventh club fight card at Sony Hall in New York on February 20, continuing the Boxing Insider series that began in October 2022.

Goldberg is well thought of in boxing circles. Matchmaker Eric Bottjer notes, “Here are some words that I have not heard in connection with Larry: ‘Scam artist . . . Liar . . . Untrustworthy.’ He has a good reputation. That doesn’t equate to success on its own. But it’s good when you’re sitting down with people who might want to work with you.”

That said; the life of a small promoter is hard. Goldberg’s February 20 show is a case in point.

Six fights had been scheduled. But last-minute, chaos reigned. The New York State Athletic Commission refused to clear one fighter because of a troubling MRI. Another fighter pulled out because his father thought that his B-side opponent (who had a (6-17-3 record with 6 KOs by) was “the wrong style.” Then the mother of a third fighter tried to hold Goldberg up for an increase in her son’s purse from $1,200 to $2,000 and the fight disappeared when Larry balked at her demand.

That left three fights. And guess what? It was a surprisingly entertaining card. The fights were more competitive that most club fights. And all six fighters came to win.

Jason Castanon (1-1, 1 KO) vs. Stephen Barbee (0-2, 1 KO by) was the first bout of the evening. Neither man was particularly skilled. But they fought hard and both men had a chance to win. Castanon emerged on the long end of a 39-37, 39-37, 38-38 majority decision.

Koby Khalil Williams (4-0, 3 KOs) vs. Nicholas Isaac (5-0, 4 KOs) was next up.

Williams’s four wins had come against opponents who now have a total of 4 wins in 48 fights. Isaac’s record had been fashioned against opponents who are 9-and-49 with 24 KOs by. The bout was a significant step up for both men. The result was a spirited, six-round action fight with Isaac prevailing on all three judges’ scorecards.

Finally, Avious Griffin (16-0, 15 KOs) squared off against Jose Luis Sanchez (14-4-1, 4 KOs, 1 KO by). Griffin has built his record by fighting opponents with limited skills. Sanchez fit that profile. Both men threw non-stop punches. But Griffin’s were faster, straighter, more accurate, and harder. Sanchez was dropped three times in the early rounds (by a left hook, an overhand right, and a right uppercut). In round five, Griffin appeared to tire a bit. And Sanchez was still there. At that point, the fight devolved into an “I’ll punch you and then you punch me” affair, and it seemed possible that Avious would crumble. But he didn’t. Jose Luis had a lot of heart. He just wasn’t good enough. Griffin regrouped and ended matters on an eight-round stoppage with Sanchez still on his feet.

Avious Griffin

Watching the fights, my mind went back to a conversation I had with Ray Arcel when I began writing about boxing four decades ago.

Arcel (a Hall of Fame legend who trained scores of world champions during his years in the sweet science) told me, “Too many people don’t take pride in what they do. They do just enough to get by, maybe to hold onto their jobs, and that’s all. A fighter can’t be like that.” And Arcel went on to reminisce about a time when four-round preliminary fighters on their way to the gym would look back over their shoulder and see kids following them on the street, offering to carry their gym bag. A fighter would come home and neighborhood children would be sitting on the stoop, looking at him and saying, “Wow, he’s a fighter.”

There used to be glory at the club fight level. Being a good club fighter was an end in itself. Now, for the most part, club fights are regarded as stepping stones for prospects who face off against woefully overmatched opponents. On February 20, Larry Goldberg gave boxing fans three good club fights.

****

Two nights later, on February 22, the latest Riyadh Season fight card took place in Saudi Arabia. Seven fights of note were on the card, leading the promotion to proclaim that it was “the greatest fight card in the history of boxing.”

It wasn’t. And that was true even before Daniel Dubois and Floyd Schofield pulled out of scheduled title fights due to illness.

You don’t put “the greatest fight card ever” in a 6,000-seat arena (Venue Riyadh Season) when the 25,000-seat Kingdom Arena is next door. Moreover, fight cards are judged in large measure by the main event. And the main event here wasn’t a megafight on the order of Leonard-Hearns I or a half-dozen Muhammad Ali encounters.

That said; it was an exceptionally good card. Credit to Turki Alalshikh for putting it together. Thumbnail sketches of the fights that mattered most (in the order that they occurred) follow.

Callum Smith broke Joshua Buatsi down with a brutal body attack in the middle rounds. Both fighters were hurt as the fight went on. But Buatsi was hurt more and more often. It was a very good fight with Smith prevailing on a 119-110 (which was way out of line), 116-112, 115-113 decision.

Zhilel Zhang vs. Agit Kabayel was an entertaining slugfest with both men evincing a conspicuous lack of upper-body and head movement. After a cautious first round, Kabayel attacked. Zhang, who is 41 years old and has never been in particularly good shape, started fading in round three. Kabayel got sloppy in round four and was dropped by a straight left hand. But Agit went back on the offensive and stopped Zhang with body shots in the fifth stanza.

Vergil Ortiz Jr. vs. Israil Madrimov was a fight that boxing purists were looking forward to. Ortiz is a puncher and wanted to engage. Madrimov didn’t. Israil kept skittering around the ring and Virgil couldn’t figure him out. Then the Energizer Bunny wore down and there were some heated exchanges. That was the fight Virgil (who began scoring big to the body) wanted. Ortiz won a 117-111, 115-113, 115-113 decision.

Carlos Adames vs. Hamzah Sheeraz for Adames’s WBC 160-pound belt had particular significance. Sheeraz (a 5-to-2 betting favorite) is a favorite of Turki Alalshikh who had big plans for him. The belief was that Hamzah would beat Carlos and continue to increase his profile. Meanwhile, Canelo Alvarez’s four-fight deal with Riyadh Season will begin with fights against William Scull and Terence Crawford this year. Then, the thinking went, Canelo would fight the winner of Chris Eubank Jr vs. Conor Benn on Cinco de Mayo Weekend 2026 followed by a fight against Sheeraz on next year’s Mexican Independence Day Weekend.

Adames-Sheeraz was a step-up fight for Sherraz. And he fell short of expectations.

After a cautious first round, Adames began stalking. He couldn’t get past Sheeraz’s jab. Hamzah dictated the distance between them with his jab and footwork. But Sheeraz seemed intimidated and threw few punches of consequence. It was a slow fight. Carlos didn’t silence the crowd. But Hamzah did. The judges ruled the fight a split-decision draw, which meant that Adames retained his title.

Shakur Stevenson vs. Josh Padley was not a good fight. Floyd Scholfield (an 8-to-1 underdog) fell out as Stevenson’s opponent for medical reasons during fight week. Padley, a 30-to-1 underdog. took his place. The typical Shakur Stevenson opponent is slow without much of a punch. Padley is slow without much of a punch. Prior to being called in as a late replacement earlier in the week, he had been on the job installing solar panels. Shakur stopped him in the ninth round.

Then the heavyweights returned to center stage – Joseph Parker vs. Martin Bakole. Parker had been slated to challenge Daniel Dubois for Dubois’ alphabet-soup “championship” belt. But two days before the fight, Dubois pulled out after contracting a viral infection.

Large amounts of money can do wondrous things. When Larry Goldberg lost three fighters during fight week, he was left with a three-bout card. When Dubois was scratched, Turki Alalshikh simply opened his checkbook and brought in Bakole.

Martin was in Africa when he got the call and arrived in Riyadh at 2:00 AM on the day of the fight. Most of us have trouble keeping our eyes open after a trans-continental fight. Bakole had to fight Parker. Moreover, Martin weighed in at a massive 315 pounds, which clearly indicated that he wasn’t in shape (unless one considers round a shape).

Round one saw Parker biding his time while Bakole plodded slowly forward. Two minutes into the second stanza, Joseph landed a glancing right hand off the top of Martin’s head. Bakole went down. He got up. And his corner stopped the fight.

That wasn’t what fans were hoping for. But then they were treated to an exceptionally good fight.

Artur Beterbiev was an 11-to-10 favorite over Dmitry Bivol in a rematch of their October 2024 title-unification bout which Beterbiev won on a close majority-decision. This time, as before, the momentum swung back and forth. But this fight was more intensely contested than their first encounter.

Beterbiev came out hard. He couldn’t reach Bivol, who was circling away and outjabbing him. But Artur was relentless. He started landing and, by the middle rounds, was outpunching and outboxing Dmitry. Then Beterbiev (who at age forty is six years older than Bivol) tired a bit and Dmitry regained control of the contest. Both men were in good condition. Fighting desperately at the end, Artur finished stronger. But this time, the majority decision was in Bivol’s favor.

“What was different?” Dmitry was asked after the fight.

“Just me,” BivoI answered. “I was better.”

****

And a note from the past . . .

In 2004, Tom Gerbasi (who was writing for Maxboxing.com at the time) went to the PAL Gym in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, to record a video interview with Bernard Hopkins while Bernard was training to fight Oscar De La Hoya.

“Hopkins wanted to do the interview while he was getting his hands wrapped,” Gerbasi recalls. “But there was a problem. My camera guy wasn’t there. Hopkins is telling me, ‘Look! I gotta do this now because I have to get my workout in.’ So I interviewed him for twenty minutes while Bouie Fisher was wrapping his hands without my camera guy there. Then Hopkins sparred and went through the rest of his workout. He’s done for the day and getting ready to leave the gym. And finally, my camera guy shows up. He’s very apologetic. He tells us he’s late because he was pulled over by the police and handcuffed because of a bunch of unpaid traffic tickets, which I assume were moving violations. Bernard says, ‘Show me your wrists.’ So my guy shows Bernard his wrists. There were marks from the handcuffs all over them. And Bernard tells us, ‘Okay. Set up the camera.” I did the interview all over again and wound up writing a four-part piece, ten thousand words.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://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.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 910

Share The Sweet Science experience!