Ron Stander Lost To Joe Frazier, Won The Respect of a Region

Published

10 years ago

June 28, 2014

Michael Woods

I called Toddy at 1:30 ET on Friday, and asked her if it was a good time to talk.

“Sure,” she answers, “I’ll put The Butcher on.”

Wait a minute. Before you do, can I ask, Do you always call him The Butcher…or do you call him Ron, or….?

“Usually Ronnie,” says the third wife of Ron Stander, not the lady in that 1972 Sports Illustrated story by the writer who tapped the typewriter from upon a high horse, looking down at the boxer blessed with more in the way of willingness and a super-abundance of cajones than pugilism skills galore, “but sometimes I call him Champ in public…or Butcher.”

He was “The Bomber” before he was christened “The Council Bluffs Butcher,” till someone wised up and thought to themselves that the style of the guy from Council Bluff, just-across-the-river-from-Omaha, was not cut from a similar cloth as The Brown Bomber, but more so of someone accustomed to and not put off by having the blood of another animal on them. Or, for that matter, their own…

While I had Toddy on the line, looking to get more info on the last time a big bout came to Omaha, the last time the pugilism big top rolled into town before TopRank and HBO hauled their caravan topped by the current pride of Omaha Terence Crawford’s lightweight title defense against Yuriorkis Gamboa to this location for a Saturday night set of tussles for the amusement of the citizenry, I asked how long she and The Butcher had been together.

“It’ll be six years in October,” she says, adding that Halloween will be her anniversary.

And, I wonder, is there any irony or symbolism in that date?

“Ron was acting the fool, as usual,” with not a hint of an edge, which told me she loves this “fool” immensely. “He said, on Halloween, ‘Let’s get married today.’ October had had sad days for me before, my daughter had died in October and my previous husband, too. So he wanted something nice.”

I was getting a different picture of the semi-buffoonish persona portrayed by Mark Kram in SI, in the story titled “The Bluffs Butcher Gets Tenderized,” the one which did more than insinuate that Stander was moron for doing what his warrior heart demanded, which was get right in Frazier’s face, and look to land a game-changer of an uppercut, and bring Joe Frazier’s heavyweight title crowns out of the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, to his residence in Iowa.

This Kram did what so many of them did then, and now, from the safety of the sidelines and the insulation which comes from owning a flak-jacket of snark and condescension, and opined that Stander was better off finding a new job. As if so many of those were and are so easy to come by, as if men unlike him were built different, to test themselves on stages where the stakes were as high as they can get, you could lose real, real bad, and die, or be left brain damaged…and where the payoffs were the sort which could leave a guy able to point to his bank book, and smile, because he knew he could live off the interest.

In third round of the bout which unfolded on March 25 of 1972, by the way, Stander let loose an uppercut which, he’d tell me, was almost that game-changer sort.

He’d planned, with a trainer hired special for this gig by the consortium of dealmakers in a crew called the Cornhuskers Boxing Club, to drill on throwing that uppercut, and looking to land it on a Frazier who’d been into the deepest of waters a little more than one year before, March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Graden in New York City.

Frazier had been been pushed and pulled and mashed more than he’d been accustomed to, having piled up a 31-0 record to that point, when he met the fighter he was still calling Clay. There was no mass movement against Frazier at that time when he followed the win over Ali with a defense of his titles against Terry Daniels, a 28-4-1 boxer, in January of 1972, and while there was agitation to get Smokin’ Joe back in against Ali for a rematch, people who knew the fight game knew that a defense against a solid but unspectacular sort, like “The Butcher,” rated as high as No. 9 by one sanctioning body, wouldn’t be dismissed as a larcenous cash grab.

And if there was yapping, to hell with them, because of course it’s infinitely easier to demand a champ glove up in short order against a guy who’d shared a ring in which both men strove for Armageddon of the other.

***

The last remaining member of the Cornhuskers Boxing Club, Tom Lovgren, now 75, was kind enough to offer his recollections of the night Stander, owning a 23-1-1 mark, much of it built up in the two large sized auditoriums in Omaha at the time, the City and the Civic Auditoriums, almost landed that uppercut on swarming Joe.

Lovgren, then living in Ohio, was tasked with finding foes for Stander, who debuted as a pro after showing good form as an amateur, in August 1969. Lovgren, though, got a shock of news when docs told he had multiple sclerosis, so keen to make meaningful moves after that piano fell on his head, he loaded up the wife and four kids, and moved to Omaha, to get closer to the action, to make the most of his 25% interest in the Club, which also featured Stander and manager Dick Noland getting 20%, and another money-man, a finance guy named of Don Moran, owning 20%, with a bunch of smaller players holding 5% stakes.

Back then, Yank Durham was handling most of Fraziers’ business, and after Daniels, he thought it wise to get another defense going against a less-than-Godzilla level foe. Durham, Lovgren says, reached out to the Stander crew. Mutual interest was there, but a mutually beneficial financial package wasn’t.

“The first contract had Frazier making all the money,” Lovgren says. “We eventually got to a sixth contract, and the arrangement was OK.”

A Madison Square Garden wasn’t going to pony up for a Frazier-Stander fight, and an ABC wasn’t going to put up significant enough dough to satisfy Durham and Frazier…but based on Standers’ history as a draw in Omaha, they knew they could pack around 10,000 people into the joint, and a shrewd dude who loved making inventive deals named Eddie Einhorn brought his skills to the table. Einhorn, who eventually rose to head up CBS Sports, peddled the fight via his syndication company, TVS Television Network. He improved his leverage by packaging the fight along with the second NBA vs. ABA All-Star game, which took place on May 25, 1972, at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Now, there would be enough money, for certain, to satisfy all the parties, and cement the biggest fight promotion in Omaha since forever.

So, now the question was, would Stander, not being ever so fond of the grunt work needed to get the body and mind in prime shape for a 15 round obstacle course of blood and sweat, get into proper condition to give himself even a modest chance at winning?

The Club decided to bring in a guy named Johnny Dunn, who’d impressed them when he’d handled another guy who scrapped in Omaha, to work with Stander, in Boston, away from the pull of the adoring masses in Council Bluffs. Lovgren went along, watched the fridge and Stander’s visits to it, and made sure he didn’t hit the snooze button on the alarm clock when it was time for AM road work.

“But this is my lot in life,” Stander tells me, on Friday afternoon, the day before he will visit the arena to cheer on Omaha’s Crawford. “Two weeks before the fight, in Boston I was sparring Mighty Joe Young, from Brooklyn, and he tapped my nose, and broke my nose. You can’t stop the fight or postpone it, you get one chance at a chance of a lifetime.”

The show but of course had to go on. Stander mostly enjoyed the buildup, and found Frazier to be a decent sort. He got stung by wiseguy media, like the guy with the Boston paper who chatted with him for 30 minutes, and then did a column based on a stupid joke Stander made in the last 30 seconds of the interview. It was like when he was chatting with Kram, of SI, and made a goofball crack about Fraziers’ power, and he pretended to hit the deck, using a hotel room bed as the canvas, and Kram wrote that Stander was twitching on the bed, showing him how Frazier was going to knock him out. “Kram was a jerk,” Stander says. “I tried to be cute but…I was facetious, on the bed, acting the fool.”

Yes, while we are at it, let us give the man the proper forum to stand up for himself and say that for the record, he wasn’t miming what he thought would be his imminent landing place come fight night. He saw himself as a guy with a chance, maybe a 10-to-1 underdog, but for certain, no version of a laydown patsy seeking only to make his fall look plausible. No, Stander has faced off with a lightning storm wearing tinfoil cap before, against then 12-1 Earnie Shavers, a couple years before, so he knew Fraziers’ power would be of a lesser grade than that. “Shavers, he hit you with a jab and it felt like being hit with a nightstick,” he says.

Counting down to fight night, Lovgren admitted to Dunn that he was worried about Standers’ chances. He knew they’d make money, probably gross $250,000 with a full auditorium…but could Stander go the distance, go 15, if need be? There’d be no need for that, fightgame lifer Dunn told him.

“It’s not going 15,” Dunn said. “Frazier gets hits with uppercuts. If Ronnie can nail him with a great one, the fight will be over. And Ronnie, he’s got one of the greatest chins around, but he will get cut up. He’s not going to get kayoed, but he could be cut so bad, between maybe round eight or ten, they’ll have to stop it.”

Nearing fight night, Stander had been doing the road work and sticking to a diet to where he’d be weighing around 215 for the weigh in.

Zach Clayton, a friend of Frazier who’d been installed when Frazier agreed to let team Stander pick the judges…as if they’d be needed…if he could pick the ref, stood watch as Stander got a massive hail of cheers as he was announced at 218 pounds. Frazier was 217 ½, with a record of 28-0. Nebraskans and Iowans with those Midwest manners gave him a nice ovation, and then the world heavyweight championship bout was underway.

***

Stander heard the ref say that the three knockdown rule was being waved, and then they got to cracking. Stander in round one landed a right hook right away, and he stood tall and didn’t willingly give an inch of ground. Kram called the strategy suicidal, basically, but Stander was what he was. No, not Nureyev, not an ounce of dancer in him. But did he do a little jig in his head when his left hook to the body made Frazier do a hiccup step? The Butcher saw the slip, and pressed, and Omaha lost a lung, propelling their man to get on it.

“If it were in an alley, I’d be the favorite,” Stander had told people pre-fight, and heck with that, using the standard Queensberry rules, he won himself the first.

Frazier heard it from the corner after the first, and came out with more steam popping from his ears, his engines gunning for the Stander torso. Yet Stander chugged forward, while eating a larger volume of hooks. The Philly swarmer stood flat footed, winging with both hands, adding jabs and right uppercuts to the mix.

“Wild uppercut, he swung that one from Council Bluffs, Iowa,” the blow by blow man Wes Carter said to a Stander miss midway through the second.

Lovgren still sees that launch, plays it in his head, wonders what if the placement was better.

“In the second, Ronnie’s uppercut just missed,” he says. “I was two inches from becoming a millionaire.”

Stander ended the second in Fraziers’ face, Joe’s back to the ropes, his mind comprehending that he’d have to summon some A grade stuff to get the W here, that ‘B’ wouldn’t suffice.

In the third, the 27-year-old Stander came out strong, but he ate a left, and his nose was cut, on the bridge. It was music to Fraziers’ eye…..The Philly boxer bobbed, weaved, ripped those hooks, danced a bit, giddy with the way it was now playing out. Frazier used every allowance, getting space with his left forearm and elbow. A right uppercut snapped Standers’ head back, but he kept trying to advance. A right cross landed clean on Frazier, and then a bit later, a left hook sent Joe back a step. But a left uppercut in answer jellied Standers’ legs some. Yet, he fired back to end the round.

In the fourth, Standers’ offense, and stubborn courage, had the fans retaining optimism. Stander found a home for a right cross, but was Frazier just getting some rest? A cut over Standers’ right eye emerged, and the Iowan started clinching more, as blood obscured his vision. Stander went to his corner, intent on continuing, letting it play out how however fate demanded. But a doctor, a man named Jack Lewis, who still lives in Omaha, pulled the plug. The blood had become a blindfold, made it so The Butcher was guessing where Frazier was, and getting confirmation back in the forms of hooks to the right side of his head, and uppercuts lifting up his chin.

Stander calls himself a fool, plays the role of the goofball jester, jokes that with his luck, he’d be lucky enough to score a Floyd Mayweather-type payday, and the next day get felled by lightning. But Stander isn’t one. To label him one does a disservice to the man, and to the ferocious pride which fuels a soul when lessers would cave in to severe circumstance and neurologic trauma. Yes, proud, for sure, maybe tipping towards a level which can be seen as excessive to laymen. He still, 42 years later, wants to have it be known why that fight ended.

“Frazier didn’t beat me,” Stander says. “The doctor stopped it. I was ready to go on more. I would have the whole night. Man, I would have gone outside to fight. I asked Joe, he didn’t want to. I was ready to rumble.”

He jokes..I think he’s joking, he could be more than a bit serious, I don’t think it’s my place to really ascertain the pride level…that he softened Frazier up, so that George Foreman, watching from ringside in Omaha, could demolish Smokin’ Joe.

We talk some more about that shot, about how timing is everything, and he cracks another one, about how Foreman did quite well for himself, sold that grill line for a boatload. “If I sold the grill line, I’d get hit by lightning right after,” he cracks.

On a whim, I reached out to Foreman, who is now back in the boxing business, doing fight promotions with all those sons named George. George, you think Stander helped your cause against Frazier, when you met him in Frazier’s next contest, in January 1973?

“He really did!” Foreman says. “I got to thank him for it,” he says, and delivers a booming Foreman chuckle.

***

It sounds like things are OK for Stander today. That wife, that Darlene who busted his chops mercilessly in the Kram piece, they split up not long after, and he doesn’t hold any grudge against her. No, the insults in the story, how he never got himself properly trained for fights, that doesn’t rankle Stander. He even tips his cap to the ex, for that famous line of hers, “You don’t enter a Volkswagen at Indy unless you know a helluva shortcut.” Nope, that line, those smackdowns weren’t the last straw, he says. The camel’s back was already split near in half…

The 69-year-old will be present to watch this big hullabaloo, and he’s hoping HBO will come through with some prize seats so he can see if that kid Crawford (23-0 with 16 KOs; age 26), the one nicknamed “Bud,” about as far from fearsome as “The Butcher” you can get, can handle a 23-1 Cuban cutie with an experience edge. The return to these parts can be attributed to 82-year-old promoter Bob Arum who’d been in the boxing years just six years when the Frazier-Stander scrap went down. He told Crawford that he’d endeavor to make it happen that he’d defend his WBO title in front of his people on Omaha, and this wasn’t a placation of ego, or anything. No, in this day and age when checks from TV suits has made real-deal grass-roots promoting a rarity, putting 10,000 paying customers into an arena is more than just lunch money. Arum isn’t a sort of Warren Buffet of boxing because he does such things on a whim.

Lovgren, too, will attend, he tells me. He scored tix in the third row. Now, will this promotion rival the night Omaha scored the heavyweight championship of the world, back when that meant more than a little something, back when our sport didn’t have to defend itself from accusations of imminent demise?

“It’s a different era,” says the 75-year-old who continued to promote shows in Omaha after the big night, many involving Stander. “HBO will be here. Is it better, or worse, or some of both? Here, there will never be a draw like Stander. Now, the 135 pound champ is from Omaha, and there is pride in that… We had a world champion in Nebraska, in Perry “Kid” Graves, who won the welterweight title in 1914. But with HBO, Stander would have made a lot more money. Now, are we romanticizing it? Could be.

“So, I’m the last guy alive from the Club, and I remember the fight like it was yesterday.”

Ah, but that yesterday was so different than today…or was it, is it?

“It is different,” Lovgren says. “You have Top Rank here, big money people involved. I had more dreams than money, and Top Rank has more money than dreams.” Lovgren pauses, mind drifting back to when he was in his 30s, still thinking that there would likely be a few more shots at the big score on grand stages, more turns to be taken shooting the dice, and a good probability that the fates would one of those times smile, and give you a great roll.

Well, I’m guessing Stander gets hooked up with prime tix, being that a camera crew went to his house and did some shooting. Stander is gracious about the card, and Crawford, noting that the event is a buzzworthy atrraction, but yes, it does lack that certain something, not being a heavyweight tiff. He moved to near Omaha, Ralston is the name of the town, around 1988, and simply loves the caliber of the people there. Him and the missus, who raves about how the fight game people have embraced her, will go to amateur and club shows, and donate some funds from autograph signings to help run those programs. She too has nothing but love for Bud, who is her Facebook friend, and who deserves all points of light from the spotlights trained on him in his moment of possible glory.

Crawford could well get a boxing lesson from a guy who can box a masterpiece in his sleep, but yes, sometimes fights in a somnombulant state, or tonight he could stake build his Wikipedia page to the equal of Stander. Stander, though, is one of those guys who will go to his grave secure in the knowledge he’s no one-hit wonder, as far as legacy goes. He used to do bodyguard work for bold-face names, like Liza Minnelli, the Stones, the Eagles. He’s thanked by Don, Glen, Joe and the boys on their “Hotel Californa” album, which I dare say will still be decent seller long after people forget who the hell Miley Cyrus was. That era, and Stander’s era, the case can be made that they were special, as compared to know, because…well, maybe just to us who were alive then, and there is always that tendency to look backward through the rose-colored binoculars. Or, maybe it pays to poke yourself, and note that yes, we do have that global warming gloom hanging over head…but in ’72, the kiddies had to worry that the Soviets would wake them up with a hailstorm of nukes. Shall we call it a tie?

Stander seems to wrestle just a bit with how to treat the issue of those jackpots that didn’t pay out..he does come back to the issue of timing a few times, noting that while the back-white angle was used some in the build-up to his fight with Frazier, the same marketing angle helped build the pot not that many years later for a Larry Holmes-Gerry Cooney fight so that both men made $10 million apiece.

“Frazier got $750,000, I got $100,00,” Stander says of his single best stab at the mega-bigtime. “I needed a little bit of luck,” he says, and it goes without saying that the luck was in the trunk of the Volkswagen that night.

He is mildly philosophical, noting that Frazier was a good cat, and they shared that trait of being workmanlike, not caring for the frills-style, the Ali methods of movement and such. “Nothing fancy, get the job done,” he says, which he did to the tune of a 38-21-3 mark, doing his last violent waltz in 1982. Toddy is working on a book on Stander’s rich and varied life, and that should be available in about a year, he reports.

***

As for Omaha, I should note for the record that I think there is a perception that this is a one horse town, and the horse is a nag with a limp. They do have marquee stuff going on here, the College World Series was just here, and Stander says, impressing me with his successful insertion of a current pop culture reference, “Bruno Mars was just here.”

“But I am looking forward to the fight,” he says. “Gamboa is a good fighter, he might surprise us.”

Stander did, back in ’72; pre-fight, they were saying round one, maybe two, no later than three for Frazier. But the surprise was contained to how well he did in a losing effort; that uppcercut didn’t make Lovgren a millionaire, and Stander had to take regular guy jobs to make the ends meet in the decades to follow. But you won’t see me going all Kram on the guy. That’s because I know Terence Crawford will be a fortunate soul if in 42 years, he is still strolling about the region, and getting the same love from the salt of the earthers as The Butcher does.

Omaha isn’t the Big Apple, it isn’t blessed with such an evocative tag. You make it there, you may well be tempted to jump ship, see if you can do the same in a bigger market. Yeah, the big stage for the Crawford-Gamboa fight will be set up in a city which is the 42^nd largest in the nation. Not long ago, a national magazine ranked Omaha the third best city to live in; but I dare say, because it doesn’t have the same number of bells, whistles and collective ego of many of the other 41 cities of a larger stature, it is a damned fine place to come kind of close to shocking the world, and almost putting a dousing on Smokin Joe. I think it’s OK for Stander today, I do think he’s OK with that uppercut not landing, and still, 42 years later, possessing more dreams than money.

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Michael Woods

Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-Paul and ‘Boots’ Ennis

Published

15 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Luis A. Cortes III

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Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured with his friend and training partner Joey Dawejko).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way. So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

—

Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.” What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

Published

3 days ago

November 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era. Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

—

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

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Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

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The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

Published

5 days ago

November 17, 2024

Thomas Hauser

The-Hauser-Report-Some-Thoughts-on-Mike-Tyson-v-Jake-Paul

Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

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

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