Holyfield Is Retired, Now In Advisor Role To Zhang Zhilei

Published

10 years ago

June 26, 2014

You knew the man was a lover outside the ring, and I’m not being flippant about his relationships and offspring, and you heard him talk about his faith, about being a Christian, and you knew he wasn’t prone to smack talk, or degrading foes, or any of that…so you knew where Evander Holyfield stood, basically, as a human being outside the ring. But you also knew that when you stepped in their with him, or you paid your entry fee to watch him do his thing, especially when he was in his prime, he’d be looking to take your damned head off your shoulder.

Evander said as much on Thursday, at a midtown NYC restaurant, as he was introduced as the new advisor, more mental than technical, to the Chinese heavyweight Zhang Zhilei, who is promoted by Dynasty Boxing and debuts, in a four rounder, on Aug. 8, on ESPN. That card will be co-promoted by Lou DiBella, and unfold in Fallon, Nevada.

You knew I was coming to try and kick your tail, and you knew I’d hug ya afterwards, Evander told the assembled media, who grilled him on his work with Zhang, his recollections of that infamous “Bite Fight” against Mike Tyson on June 28, 1997, and his plans to glove up again himself…or not.

Holyfield sat next to the 6-6, 255 pound Zhilei, who sat next to his pal and interpreter, Curt, as Dynasty head Dino Duva oversaw the gathering, while Dynasty’s Tommy Lane mostly listened as Evander, who turns 52 in October, talked about what he could bring to the table for Zhilei, a 31-year-old hitter trained by Joe Grier and Harold Knight in New Jersey.

They both posed for photos while biting into apples, symbolic of Holyfields’ history of being bitten and their presence in the proverbial Big Apple.

Holyfield told me his career is over, he is done, he will not fight again. “No, no, I’m done.” For real, he insists…Yes, he said the same back in 1994, but, “I was a kid then,” he said, chuckling, and “I’m a senior citizen now.” He will be inducted into the Nevada State Boxing Hall of Fame on Aug. 9, so, he said, he better be retired.

Who knows, maybe he’d lace ’em up and spar a bit with Zhilei, he said, but he’d not be keen to take any licks. By the way, he said he decided to end his ring forays after Alexander Povetkin said he’d fight Holyfield, but then changed his mind. He got close to fighting a Klitschko, but the Ks asked him to beat a few decent foes first, and Holyfield said heck with that. He said so many of todays’ heavies are wild cards, not terribly refined, and who really wants to go through that silliness, he said, maybe getting hit with a goofy punch from a novice type. He thought he had the inside game to bother a Klitschko, he said, but, the implication was clear that he’d done too much to be asked to re-climb a ladder to get another crack.

Evander told TSS that no, he’s not a trainer, you won’t be seeing him working the corner of Zhilei, who will start off in a four rounder, with Duva seeing him being in ten rounder within about twelve months or so. But he will do his best to earn his keep, he said, by trying to impart to the Chinese hitter, who won a silver in the 2008 Olympics, the importance of bringing an intention of destruction into the ring.

Holyfield, who last gloved up in May 2011 against Brian Nielsen, said that he was quite clear on the job when he signed for a bout, that his desire was to separate his foe from his senses. Then, when the final bell rang, it was over. The implication was clear, I thought, that Holyfield thinks the long, tall Chinese boxer needs to get into more a pro style mindset, with power punching being items A and B on the to do list for a pro who wants to go places.

So, Evander, you know a thing or two or ten about being a champion…is Zhilei champion material? “He can be, he could be. Life is about adjustments,” he said, noting that it will be up to the Chinese fighter to fulfill the dream. “We feel he does have the heart, that he has the size, everything that’s necessary. But he got to want to be it. If he want to be it, he will be it.” He has a good jab and a good right hand, Evander said, and he will need to act like the big man he is, and not let the little foes do their thing on him.

Now, back to what I sensed Holy picked up on in Zhilei…I asked Duva to clarify on what I picked up on, and the dealmaker, who has been laying the ground work for this Asian invasion since 2007 or so, acknowledged that if there is one thing he wants Zhilei to master, to hone, is that mindset. And, he told me, he has seen improvement already, since he started training in the US in March. “I see it in his work in the gym, on his face, in his eyes when he’s getting to work,” the promoter said.

Holyfield (44-10-2) said that if he had to choose one thing to hammer home to the newbie, it’s “perseverance.” It’s about doing the same thing over and over, till it becomes routine, he said. His trainers, Georgie Benton and Lou Duva, annoyed him by making him do the same thing over and over…but now he can look back and appreciate the intent. “You get accustomed to redundant things over and over, you become successful,” he said.

Duva told us that he introduced Holyfield to Zhang back when he ran a training camp for Chinese boxers in 2007, and that he hoped they’d have more dealings down the line. “We’re very honored Evander has joined our team,” he said. The Aug. 8 debut, Duva said, will be a massive kick, because the fight will also run on Chinese TV, as well as ESPN. “This is the beginning of a historic career,” he said.

Big Zhang seems nothing but pleasant and humble, patiently taking questions always. He earned high marks from me, when I asked him a favorite line in English, which he’s been working on. “Thank you for your coverage!” Zhilei said, with a grin.

The boxer said that he enjoyed watching Holyfield fights when he was younger, and he very much does comprehend the import of having such boxing royalty involved in his developement.

I must say, I’m happy that Holyfield’s immense and useful reservoir of stubbornness has melted a bit, and has allowed him to consider this next vocational step. I’m also rooting for the Dynasty plan to reach fruition, because I like to see the sport as a whole grow and flourish. Duva said by the end of the year, it is likely Dynasty will do their own singular show, and show off their roster beyond Zhilei.

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Michael Woods

Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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