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Just Call New Champ Algieri “Hands of Stony Brook”

NEW YORK – In those 1960s Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns, opportunistic gunslinger Clint Eastwood played the role of the Man With No Name. Going into Saturday night’s HBO-televised matchup with WBO junior welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Chris Algieri was the Man With No Nickname.
All that might be about to change after Algieri – who has a bachelor’s degree from Stony Brook University and a master’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology – overcame two first-round knockdowns and a rapidly closing right eye to score a major upset over WBO junior welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov, on a split decision that might be described as beauty in the one eye of the beholder.
“I knew I was winning each round,” said Algieri, 30, who was a world champion kickboxer before trying his hand, and not his feet, as a boxer in 2008, at the relatively advanced age of 24. “At the end, I really wasn’t too nervous about (the decision). I was just waiting to hear `And new …’”
Algieri got a fistful of dollars, a career-high $100,000, for challenging Provodnikov, and he figures to get quite a few dollars more for his next bout, be it a rematch with the dethroned “Siberian Rocky” or an even more lucrative date with Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao, the WBO welterweight champion, who is scheduled to make his next title defense on Nov. 22 in Macau, China. Pacquiao’s promoter, Top Rank founder Bob Arum, has said that if Algieri were to defeat Provodnikov, he would get first dibs on the big-bucks, high-visibility gig with Pac-Man. Of course, words said today do not necessarily translate into signed contracts tomorrow. Still, the idea was intriguing to the well-lumped-up Algieri, who admits he switched from kickboxing to boxing because the paydays for those who succeed at the highest levels are significantly higher.
“It would be a great fight,” Algieri, who has a praying-mantis physique for a junior welter at 5-foot-10 and with a 72-inch reach, said of a possible pairing with Pacquiao. “Manny’s definitely a future Hall of Famer. Stylistically, I think it would be a good matchup. He’s another dangerous guy, but I think my style would match up well with his.”
Someone – a fellow Stony Brook alum, the guy noted — mentioned to Algieri that he probably is the first world boxing champion from Stony Brook (whose proper name is the State University of New York at Stony Brook), an academically prestigious institution on the north shore of Long Island. That distinction alone seemingly lends itself to the conferring of the nickname that Algieri previously has been without.
How does “Hands of Stony Brook” grab you?
Truth be told, Algieri’s hands are that of a relatively soft-punching ring tactician and aren’t nearly as hard as his resolve, which had been called into question by any number of skeptics, including Provodnikov, who wondered if an erudite college graduate and aspiring medical doctor from an affluent outer-ring suburb of New York City (Huntington) could withstand the pressure of a relentless, power-hitting champion who came up the way most elite boxers do, from poor and deprived circumstances. Greatness in the cruelest of sports usually is forged in the crucible of desperation, not in upper-middle-class comfort.
“It’s my competitive nature to want fights like this,” said Algieri, who improved to 20-0, with a modest eight victories inside the distance. “And that’s what kept me in this fight. You know, there were a lot of doubters about how much I really wanted it. Ruslan kept talking about how he would die in the ring, if necessary, and would I be willing to do that? But I think I showed that I belonged in there as well.
“I know I didn’t come from a torn, you know, childhood or upbringing. I came from the suburbs of Long Island. I don’t have to fight. I fight because I want to fight. If you didn’t see passion in those 12 rounds, I don’t know what you were looking at.”
Provodnikov (23-3, 16 KOs), who hails from the decidedly non-affluent town of Berezovo, which is in Siberia, the most frozen part of Russia, figures he didn’t deserve the chilly scorecard tabulations he got from judges Tom Schreck, from New York, and Don Trella, from Connecticut, both of whom saw Algieri as the winner by a 114-112 margin. The dissenting judge, Max DeLuca, who is from California, had Provodnikov running away with it to the tune of 117-109.
What it comes down to, as it always does when a bout ends in a disputed decision, is the perspective of three individuals who can be watching the same thing but seeing something entirely different. Punch statistics furnished by CompuBox are a useful tool, but only to a point; they do not account for how damaging those punches are. Therein lies the difference between amateur boxing, where a jab theoretically counts no more than a knockdown shot, and the pros, where quality often factors more into the equation than quantity.
The raw numbers say that Algieri landed 288 of 993 punches thrown, a 29 percent connect rate, to 205 of 776 (26 percent) for Provodnikov. But the pro-Provodnikov side argued that those two first-round knockdowns by the champion, and visual proof of what had happened, in the form of Algieri’s substantially more-damaged face, should have produced a more favorable outcome.
“Power punches win fights,” said Provodnikov’s chief second, the esteemed Freddie Roach, winner of six Trainer of the Year awards from the Boxing Writers Association of America. “(Algieri) outjabbed us, yes. But power punches? It was a thousand to one. We landed the most (effective) shots and that’s why I thought we deserved (to win) the fight.”
Provodnikov, who also earned a career-high purse ($750,000), had hoped that an impressive victory, which he had guaranteed, would vault him into boxing’s exclusive seven-figure club and further cement his burgeoning reputation as an action hero in the mold of a late, great pair of Hall of Famers, Arturo Gatti and Matthew Saad Muhammad. He said he hadn’t come to Brooklyn to enter a track meet or participate in a dance-hall recital.
“I haven’t seen the (replay) to make a judgment on the way it went, but to me it felt like he was running all night and just jabbing,” said Provodnikov. “You can see the way I look and the way he looks. To me, I don’t see how you can win a fight just running all night.
“I start falling asleep when the guy is just running all night. I’m catching him and he’s just running and running. If I started boxing him, you guys (the media) would be falling asleep. I took the fight to him and I made it exciting. I was the only one who made this fight exciting. HBO (commentators) gave, like, nine more rounds to me. One of the judges gave six or seven more rounds to me. The local judges gave it the other way. On top of that, (Algieri’s) eye was closed. It’s dangerous to fight like that. He could have gotten killed. If my eye was like that, they would have stopped the fight in the round that my eye started closing. I think it’s not fair.”
Whether the grumpy Provodnikov truly believes he was the victim of a stickup by pencil, or just perturbed not to have engaged in the sort of toe-to-toe slugfest that more suits his Gattiesque proclivities, only he can say for sure. But there isn’t much doubt he is disdainful of stick-and-move types who won’t engage him in the center of the ring, strength on strength, will against will.
“I said before (Algieri’s) style was not the best style for me,” he complained. “Runners are not my style. He just ran and touched me, just jabbed and touched me. This is the worst style for me. I like guys who are in front of me and fighting me.”
Fortunately for Provodnikov, HBO subscribers and ticket-purchasers like fighters who, as his promoter, Art Pelullo, noted, are “TV-friendly and fan-friendly. Ruslan fights like that all the time. He gets good ratings. I’m sure he’ll get good ratings for this fight. Right now (the HBO suits) are already talking about November or December, so he’ll be back on the network at the end of the year.”
Provodnikov is unquestionably fan-friendly, increasingly so in the United States, but, somewhat interestingly, he was not the rooting choice of the 6,218 spectators who were in the house and much more vocally supportive of Algieri, despite the fact that the Barclays Center is close to Brighton Beach, which is located in the southern portion of Brooklyn and is known for its high population of Russian-speaking immigrants. Every time Provodnikov backers started to chant “Ruslan! Ruslan! Ruslan!,” they were drowned out by louder chants of “Algieri! Algieri! Algieri!” or “USA! USA! USA!” Maybe that old Cold-War thing hasn’t thawed as much as had been supposed.
“I really heard it when I came out,” Algieri said of the support he received. “I heard it when they actually booed Ruslan a little bit, which I’m not happy about. But it did show my numbers were here. Then again, I had said that prior to the fight. People were asking me what the crowd was going to be like. I said it was going to be a pro-Algieri crowd.
“This is how I pictured me winning a world title – having it in New York and fighting like this. But I didn’t picture my face like this.”
No matter what side of the scoring fence anyone falls onto, Algieri deserves credit for displaying a brand of courage real fighters are sometimes asked to reveal. His right eye began to swell in the first round, after he was dropped by that Provodnikov left hook that clearly hurt him, and by fight’s end the hematoma was so massive that the eye was completely closed. It called to mind similar damage done to Carmen Basilio in his 1958 rematch with Sugar Ray Robinson and to Bobby Czyz in his 1987 bout with “Prince” Charles Williams. He did not deserve the shouted declarations of cowardice in Russian that some of Providnokov’s backers directed at him as he scratched back from the deep hole of that 10-7 first round.
In the other HBO-televised bout, which also served as something of a coming-out party, WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade (21-0, 14 KOs) completely dominated British challenger Brian Rose (25-2-1, 7 KOs) en route to defending his title on a seventh-round stoppage.
“I’m the best in the world,” Andrade, a southpaw from Providence, R.I., who represented the U.S. at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, said after he did as he pleased against the willing but out-of-his-league Rose. “I was just taking my time. I knew my power was affecting him. I took Round 5 off to see openings. Round 6 I picked it up and in Round 7 he had to go.”
Not unexpectedly, Andrade spent his time at the microphone at the postfight press conference to call out Floyd Mayweather Jr., Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto.
“I couldn’t keep him off me,” said Rose. “He’s better than I thought he would be. He may be one of the best out there in the game today.”
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Adelaida Ruiz and Fernando Vargas Jr Score KO Wins at Pechanga

Adelaida Ruiz and Fernando Vargas Jr Score KO Wins at Pechanga
TEMECULA, Ca.-After a long period of fighting out of the country, Adelaida Ruiz returned to Southern California and with her came hundreds of her ardent followers as she won by knockout over Mexico’s Maria Cecilia Roman on Friday.
Ruiz (14-0-1, 8 KOs) looked sharp and stepped in with a disciplined attack against Roman (17-8) who fought behind a peek-a-boo style throughout the fight. Ruiz fired away at openings with a measured attack in front of several thousand fans at Pechanga Arena on the MarvNation Promotions card.
Midway through the eight-round match Ruiz increased the tempo of the attack with blistering combinations to the body and head. During one of the combinations Ruiz connected with a left hook to Roman’s temple and down she went.
Roman beat the count, but Ruiz never slowed her attack and each round her blows seemed to increase with power, the impact of the punches resonating in the arena. The interim WBC super flyweight titlist, whose title was not at stake, seemed determined to win by knockout.
In the eighth and final round Ruiz staggered Roman with another left hook to the temple and that only sparked more punches from the Southern California fighter. She unloaded her bullet chambers and the referee decided to stop the action at 1:19 of the eighth round.
Other Bouts
Fernando Vargas Jr. (9-0) won the super middleweight contest by knockout when Heber Rondon (20-5) was unable to continue due to a shoulder injury at the end of the second round. Fans were displeased but it was not up to the fans.
Vargas showed patience against the veteran southpaw Rondon who showed some tricks in his bag. But after some exchanges in the second round it was a surprise to everyone in the arena when the referee signaled the fight was over at the end of the second round.
Undefeated Jonathan Lopez (11-0, 7 KOs) of Florida remained unblemished with a unanimous decision win over Mexico’s Eduardo Baez (21-5-2, 7 KOs) in a 10-round featherweight fight.
San Bernardino’s Lawrence King (13-1,11 KOs) faced veteran Mexican fighter Marco Reyes (37-10) and was able to use his speed and southpaw stance to win almost every round. But he had to work for it.
Reyes was able to avoid most of King’s attacks but in the sixth round after absorbing some heavy blows the Mexican fighter was unable to continue and the fight was stopped at the end of the sixth round for a knockout win by King.
In a super welterweight fight, Mario Ramos (11-0, 9 KOs) wore down Jesus Cruz (6-3) for three rounds with his left-handed assault and then lowered the boom with a non-stop barrage of lefts and rights. After nearly two-dozen nearly unanswered blows the referee stopped the battering at 2:09 of the fourth round.
Orlando Salgado (3-2) slugged it out with Squire Redfern (0-1) to win a super welterweight fight by decision after four back and forth rounds. Salgado connected with the bigger blows but never could stop Redfern from rallying round after round. All three judges scored in favor of Salgado.
A heavyweight battle saw Mike Diorio (1-5-1) win his first pro fight in out-punching debuting heavyweight Ian Morgan (0-1) after four rounds. Both fighters tired a bit but Diorio had a better idea of how to score and won by decision.
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Book Review
Reviews of Two Atypical Boxing Books: A ‘Thumbs Up’ and a ‘Thumbs Down’

Reviews of Two Atypical Boxing Books: A ‘Thumbs Up’ and a ‘Thumbs Down’
Jack Johnson sheared the world heavyweight title from Tommy Burns in 1908 and lost it to Jess Willard in 1915. Between these two poles he had nine ring engagements, none of which commanded much attention with one glaring exception. His 1910 fight in Reno with former title-holder James J. Jeffries stands as arguably the most sociologically significant sporting event in U.S. history.
Toby Smith, who wrote extensively about Johnny Tapia while working as a sports reporter for the Albuquerque Journal, exhumes one of these forgotten fights in his meticulously researched 2020 book “Crazy Fourth” (University of New Mexico Press), sub-titled “How Jack Johnson Kept His Heavyweight Title and Put Las Vegas, New Mexico on the Map.” With 30 chapters spread across 172 pages of text and 10 pages of illustrations, it’s an enjoyable read.
The July 4, 1912 fight wherein Jack Johnson defended his heavyweight title against Fireman Jim Flynn, was dreadful. For the nine rounds that it lasted, writes Smith, Johnson and Flynn resembled prize buffoons rather than prizefighters.
Johnson, who out-weighed Flynn by 20 pounds, toyed with the Fireman whenever the two weren’t locked in a clinch. The foul-filled fight ended when a police captain decided that he had seen enough and bounded into the ring followed by a phalanx of his lieutenants. “Las Vegas ‘Battle’ Worst in History of American Ring” read the headline in the next day’s Chicago Inter Ocean, an important newspaper.
The fight itself is of less interest to author Smith than the context. How odd that a world heavyweight title fight would be anchored in Las Vegas, New Mexico (roughly 700 miles from the other Las Vegas), a railroad town that in 1912 was home to about nine thousand people. The titles of two of the chapters, “Birth of a Debacle” (chapter 1) and “A Misbegotten Mess” (chapter 27) capture the gist.
Designed to boost the economy and give the city lasting prestige, the promotion was a colossal dud. Fewer than four thousand people attended the fight in an 18,000-seat makeshift wooden arena erected in the north end of town. The would-be grand spectacle was doomed when the Governor sought to have the fight banned by the legislature, giving the impression the fight would never come off, and it didn’t help that Johnson and Flynn had fought once before, clashing five years earlier in San Francisco. Johnson dominated that encounter before knocking Flynn out in the eleventh round.
“Crazy Fourth” reminded this reporter of two other books.
“White Hopes and Other Tigers,” by the great John Lardner, originally published by Lippincott in 1950, includes Lardner’s wonderfully droll New Yorker essay on the 1923 fight between Jack Dempsey and Tommy Gibbons in Shelby, Montana, an ill-conceived promotion that virtually bankrupted the entire community. In the same vein, although more straightforward, is Bruce J. Evensen’s “When Dempsey Fought Tunney: Hokum, Heroes, and Storytelling in the Jazz Age.”
Johnson-Flynn II was suffused with hokum. Energetic press agent H.W. Lanigan cranked out dozens of puff pieces under multiple bylines for out-of-town papers in a futile attempt to build the event into a must-see attraction. His chief assistant Tommy Cannon, the ring announcer, had an interesting, if dubious, distinction. Cannon claimed to have copyrighted the term “squared circle.”
I found one little error in the book. The Ed Smith that refereed the Johnson-Flynn rematch and the Ed Smith that refereed the famously brutal 1910 fight between Battling Nelson and Ad Wolgast, were two different guys. (It pains me to note this, as I know another author who made the same mistake and I see him every morning when I look in the bathroom mirror.) But this is nitpicking. One doesn’t have to be a serious student of boxing history to enjoy “Crazy Fourth.”
Knock Out! The True Story of Emile Griffith by Reinhard Kleist
Let me digress before I even get started. Whenever I am in a library in the city where I reside, I wander over to the “GV” aisle and take a gander at the boxing offerings. If, perchance, there is a book there that I haven’t yet read, I reflexively snatch it up and take it home.
When I got home and riffed through the pages of this particular book, I was surprised to find that it was a comic book of sorts, one that I would classify as a graphic non-fiction novel.
Emile Griffith, as is now common knowledge, was gay, or at least bisexual. Reinhard Kleist, a longtime resident of Berlin, Germany, was drawn to him because of this facet of his being. Kleist makes this plain in the introduction: “Despite [Berlin] being one of the most tolerant cities in the world, I have suffered homophobic insults and threats while walking hand in hand down the street with my boyfriend.”
Born in the Virgin Islands, Emile Griffith came to New York City at age 17 and found work in the garment district as a shipping clerk for a company that manufactured women’s hats. The factory’s owner, Howard Albert, a former amateur boxer, saw something in Griffith that suggested to him that he had the makings of a top-notch boxer and he became his co-manager along with trainer Gil Glancy. Kleist informs us that in addition to being “one of the greatest boxers ever seen in the ring,” Griffith was an incredible hat-designer.
Griffith, who died at age 75 in 2013, is best remembered for his rubber match with Benny Paret, a fight at Madison Square Garden that was nationally televised on ABC. Paret left the ring in a coma and died 10 days later without regaining consciousness. At the weigh-in, Paret, a Cuban, had insulted Griffith with the Spanish slur comparable to “faggot.”
The fight – including its prelude and aftermath (Griffith suffered nightmares about it for the rest of his life) – is the focal point of several previous works about Emile Griffith; biographies, a prize-winning documentary, and even an opera that was recently performed at The Met, the crème de la crème of America’s grand opera houses. The fatal fight factors large here too.
During a 17-year career that began in 1958, Emile Griffith went to post 112 times, answering the bell for 1122 rounds, and won titles in three weight classes: 147, 154, and 160. At one point, he had a 17-2 record in world title fights (at a time when there were only two relevant sanctioning bodies) before losing his last five to finish 17-7. No boxer in history boxed more rounds in true title fights.
Griffith, who finished his career with a record of 85-24-2 with 23 KOs and 1 no-contest, entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. There is absolutely no question that he belongs there, but to rank him among the greatest of all time is perhaps a bit of a stretch. Regardless, I take umbrage with the sub-title. The “true story” of Emile Griffith cannot be capsulated in a book with such a narrow scope. Moreover, it is misclassified; it ought not have been shelved with other boxing books but in some other section of the library as this is less a story about a prizefighter than about a man who is forced to wear a mask, so to speak, as he navigates his way through a thorny, heteronormative society.
Graphic novels are a growing segment of the publishing industry. The genre is not my cup of tea, but to each his own.
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Bazinyan Overcomes Adversity; Skirts by Macias in Montreal

Camille Estephan, one of two prominent boxing promoters operating in Quebec, was back at his customary playpen tonight, The Montreal Casino, with an 8-bout card that aired in the U.S. on ESPN+. The featured bout pit Erik Bazinyan against Mexican globetrotter Jose de Jesus Macias in a super middleweight bout with two regional titles at stake. Bazinyan entered the contest undefeated (29-0, 21 KOs) and ranked #2 at 168 by the WBC, WBA, and WBO.
A member of the National Team of Armenia before moving with his parents to Quebec at age 16, Bazinyan figured to be too physical for Matias. He had launched his career as a light heavyweight whereas Matias had fought extensively as a welterweight. However, the battle-tested Macias (28-12-4) was no pushover. Indeed, he had the best round of the fight. It came in Round 7 when he hurt Bazinyan with a barrage of punches that left the Armenian on shaky legs. But Bazinyan weathered the storm and fought the spunky Macias on better-than-even terms in the homestretch to win a unanimous decision.
The judges were predisposed toward the “A side” and submitted cards of 98-92, 97-93, 97-93.
In his previous bout, Bazinyan was hard-pressed to turn away Alantez Fox. Tonight’s performance confirmed the suspicion that he isn’t as good as his record or his rating. He would be the underdog if matched against stablemate Christian Mbilli.
Co-Feature
In what stands as arguably the finest performance in his 14-year pro career, Calgary junior welterweight Steve Claggett dismantled Puerto Rico’s Alberto Machado, a former world title-holder at 130 pounds. Claggett had Machado on the canvas twice before the referee waived the fight off at the 2:29 mark of round three, the stoppage coming moments after the white towel of surrender was tossed from Machado’ corner. It was the sixth straight win inside the distance for the resurgent Claggett (35-7-2, 25 KOs) who was favored in the 3/1 range.
Claggett scored his first knockdown late in round two with a chopping left hook. The second knockdown came from a two-punch combo — a short right uppercut to the jaw that followed a hard left hook to the body. Machado, whose promoter of record is Miguel Cotto, falls to 23-4.
Claggett, who won an NABF belt, would welcome a fight with Rolly Romero. A more likely scenario finds him locking horns with undefeated Arnold Barboza, a Top Rank fighter.
Also…
Quebec southpaw Thomas Chabot remained undefeated with a harder-than expected and somewhat controversial 8-round split decision over 20-year-old Mexico City import Luis Bolanos. At the conclusion, Chabot, who improved to 9-0 (7), was more marked-up than his scrappy opponent who declined to 4-3-1. This was an entertaining fight between two high-volume punchers.
In a middleweight affair slated for six, Alexandre Gaumont improved to 8-0 (6 KOs) with a second round TKO over hapless Piotr Bis. The official time was 3:00.
A 37-year-old Pole making his North American debut, Bis (6-3-1) was on the canvas six times in all during the six minutes of action. There were two genuine knockdowns, the result of short uppercuts, two dubious knockdowns, a slip, and a push.
As an amateur, Gaumont reportedly knocked out half of his 24 opponents. This sloppy fight with Bis wasn’t of the sort from which Gaumont can gain anything useful, but he is a bright prospect who bears watching.
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