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Wonderland

“We’re all mad here.”
When the bell rang to begin the tenth round on June 7 at Madison Square Garden, Miguel Cotto headed out from his corner to meet the middleweight king, who never met him. Sergio Martinez, battered and bloodied, was fighting his corner instead. “Uno mas,” he pleaded. “One more.” But he was not adamant. His chief second was. “No! It’s my responsibility!” he said, and stopped the fight.
Cotto watched from a few yards away, his pulse slowing; his face a detachable mask.
He had made laughing stocks of those pundits who just one year ago couldn’t imagine he’d invade the middleweight division—never mind topple a king. But Cotto isn’t the gloating type. His stoic presentation covers a heart three sizes too big, and he began his reign with kind words and a kiss for Martinez.
When Bob Fitzsimmons’s freckled fists beat the flesh though not the spirit of the acclaimed middleweight king in 1891, Jack “The Nonpareil” Dempsey’s corner did what Martinez’s corner did; they threw the sponge in. Fitzsimmons, like Cotto, was dominant from the start. He too scored a litany of knockdowns, emerged unscathed, and began his reign crouching down beside the vanquished to “whisper kind words of encouragement into his ear.”
Fitzsimmons-Dempsey. Cotto-Martinez. Two fights, one story. Declining middleweight kings deposed by weight-jumping challengers who elevated the humanity of their opponents, themselves, and the sport. It’s the Janus faces we expect to see with every fight, the contradiction that isn’t contradictory: Darwin during (‘Get him before he gets you”), John Bradford after (“There but for the grace of God go I”).
Miguel Cotto is, by my reckoning, the 49th middleweight king to enter a long and turbulent succession stretching back at least to Fitzsimmons himself. Between them are names that bring the boxing historian to bended knee: Hopkins. Hagler. Monzon. Giardello. Robinson. LaMotta. Zale. Walker. Greb. Ketchel. The twentieth century crammed it full of continental Americans—where the average dimensions of males are middleweight before training camp. Size matters. It isn’t a division that easily accommodates the peoples south of the border, and it’s no surprise that so few of them have conquered the division. Cotto has emerged as the first Boricua in history to do so. When he appeared at the post-fight press conference, the color of his shirt was purple. Like royalty.
And yet it all drifted past press row like a summer breeze.
If the sweet science was as rational outside of the ring as it is inside of it, King Cotto would have been trumpeted from the archipelago to Australia. But the sweet science doesn’t make sense. Nearly everyone is confused and many are content to remain confused. And out of this confusion came a perky phrase repeated ad nauseam in word and in print —“Cotto,” it said, “is the first boxer from Puerto Rico to win world titles in four weight classes.”
Variations of this phrase were sprinkled like fairy dust while the true significance of what Cotto accomplished was lost. Lost like Alice in Wonderland. Lost like Malcolm Gordon in NYC. And Fistiana’s fourth estate, which no longer has the inclination to take a good hard look at what passes off as accomplishments these days, is to blame.
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” said Alice.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Cotto won bouts that are counted as championships only in the make-pretend world of modern boxing. The facts (said Lewis Carroll better than I), stand in front of us with arms folded, frowning like a thunderstorm. The facts say Cotto took a vacant light welterweight title by defeating Kelson Pinto in 2004. The most authoritative ratings body at the time was The Ring, and The Ring rated Cotto eighth at the time. Pinto was not even rated. In 2006, Cotto took a vacant welterweight title by defeating Carlos Quintana. Quintana was rated ninth while Cotto himself was not rated in the division because he had never fought in the division —he was handed a belt because he’s Cotto; much like the mayor is handed a stuffed animal at a carnival because he’s the mayor. Four years after that, Cotto took another dubious title by defeating Jr. middleweight Yuri Foreman. That belt traces back to 2002 when one unrated fighter beat another unrated fighter in what was imaginatively called a world championship.
If Cotto is a four-time world champion, then I’m the Cheshire Cat. But it isn’t Cotto’s fault. He was handed a few belts and for all he knew, he was Henry Armstrong. It’s our fault.
Amateur star Vasyl Lomachenko has been given a hero’s welcome to Wonderland. Rightfully hyped for his superb athleticism and skills, he is wrongfully hyped for winning “a world championship” not two weeks ago. Neither he nor his opponent were ranked in the top-ten by the Transnational Rankings Board, and neither have anything resembling a claim on anything resembling a championship no matter what they did on June 21. “If it was so, it might be,” said Lewis Carroll better than me, “and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t.” Then again, we’re in the land of make-pretend, where facts are flakes of dandruff brushed off Versace suits.
Lomachenko did not earn but was granted an “international title shot” in his first professional fight and a “world title shot” in his second professional fight. (Grinning from ear to ear is an inconvenient detail that we are invited to ignore; it says Lomachenko was paid for six five-round bouts before his Vegas debut and was thus and therefore a professional with a 6-0 record before either of those “title” fights).
Promoter Bob Arum told the Boxing Channel that the fast track was all “part of the deal” in signing Lomachenko. Isn’t that a peach? Lomachenko wanted to become a champion immediately, Arum wanted to sign him, so Arum made it happen. The only check on their ambitions was Orlando Salido, a dead-eyed spoiler who stymied Lomachenko’s first attempt at a faux title. To get him right back on track, they clicked their heels and there appeared Gary Russell, Jr., a bright-eyed tenderfoot absurdly rated number-one by Arum’s glad-handing friends in the belt business.
“I don’t think—“
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.
Lomachenko’s victory over Russell was followed by another perky chorus repeated ad nauseam in word and in print. Lomachenko, it said, “tied the record for fewest fights to a world title.” This was, in turn, puffed-up by a minute-and-a-half of research that uncovered long-retired Saensak Muanysurin, who won a faux title in his third professional fight in 1975. Another two minutes’ research would have uncovered the sorry origin of that sorry title: Muanysurin won it from Perico Fernandez who fought Lion Furuyama for it though neither were rated in the top-ten by The Ring. Not a one of them ever conquered the division. Neither has Lomachenko. Nohow! They brandish decorations and are solemnly declared “champions” by mad parties that profit from the term, while we the press fret about deadlines and smile at it all like white rabbits.
We had good reason to smile Saturday night when HBO cameras zeroed in on a 69-year-old-man shadowboxing from his seat. It was Ron “The Bluffs Butcher” Stander, who long ago tried to knock off the head of Joe Frazier in a bid for the one and only heavyweight throne. I was smiling too, until the commentators had to go and make something that isn’t something that is. “After an absence of 42 years,” they said without a great deal of thought, “championship boxing returns to Omaha, Nebraska.” No it didn’t. Terence Crawford isn’t “the lightweight champion” —not yet. That there’s a reality check; it doesn’t diminish the fact that he conjured up a young Ezzard Charles in a Fight of the Year candidate to overcome a nerve-racking challenge in Yuriorkis Gamboa. (By the bye, Gamboa was touted as “an Olympic gold medalist, a dominant amateur, an undefeated professional, with belts in multiple weight classes.” Can you guess which accolade was first declared by dodos?)
They all crowded round, panting, and asking “But who has won?”
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it stood for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence.
At last the Dodo said “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”
“So far, I don’t know what it means to be the champion,” Lomachenko said in a moment of accidental clarity. It should be said in chorus with sixty-eight other so-called champions in a sport that has become as fatuous as Lewis Carroll’s Caucus-race.
It need not be. If we’d only poke our heads out of the rabbit-hole, we’d realize the madness underfoot and at least examine our role in it.
Wouldn’t we?
After all, children know that not everyone can win, and that if too many do, it diminishes the prize and the point. Children know that good sense trumps nonsense even when nonsense is common, and that dodos shouldn’t speak.
The graphic design is the work of Jason A. McMann of Plymouth, MA. Special thanks to boxing historians Alister Scott Ottesen, who kindly provided The Ring ratings used in this essay and Sergei Yurchenko (http://senya13.blogspot.com/) for his insights regarding early middleweight championship history.
Springs Toledo is a founding member of the Transnational Rankings Board and the author of the newly-released book, The Gods of War (Tora, 2014, $25). Contact him at scalinatella@hotmail.com for signed or inscribed copies.
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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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