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COMMISSIONER’S CORNER: Talking Judges For Canelo-Lara, Toledo’s Majesty, More

This Saturday is an all-important Jr. Middleweight showdown in Las Vegas between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Erislandy Lara. There has been so much talk about this fight going to a decision and that Alvarez—being promoter Golden Boy’s top attraction—will win if this fight goes to the scorecards. I don’t buy it.
Sure, many of the worst decisions in boxing history—or in the the 40 years, anyway—have taken place in Sin City. Well, when you have more title fights than anywhere else, you are bound to have the most controversial endings…and scores…and judges who differ.
Let’s try to understand—and believe—that judges don’t see every round exactly the same. Especially close rounds. Especially competitive rounds. Especially two-sided rounds. At the end of a competitive, closely-contested round, two of the three judges will score the round in favor of “Fighter A.” The other judge will score it for “Fighter B.” In a close fight, just one of those rounds, coupled with an even round, can mean a swing the other way in the official tabulation.
Judges can be found in two categories: Competent and Honest. Some judges are highly-competent. Some are not. Most are honest. Some are not. In my years as head of the New York State Athletic Commission, I licensed and worked with some highly-competent officials, among them Julie Lederman, Steve Weisfeld, Don Ackerman, Billy Costello, Ron McNair and Melvina Lathan. It was a no-brainer for me to hand them the bigger, more lucrative and visible fights. There were also judges whose work almost scared me. I always felt they guessed at close rounds. Their body of work usually had them constantly on the short end of a split decision. To them, I never assigned highly-visible fights and important fights. In other matches, I always teamed them with two of my “A” judges, knowing at least two of them will get the score correct. Of course, if they were THAT bad, I retired their judging license.
While I did find competence, incompetence and honesty, the one thing I never found was dishonesty in any official—be it a judge or a referee. Had I uncovered such a dishonest official, I would have publically excoriated him/her.
On Saturday night, fight fans don’t have to worry about who Bob Bennett, the new Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, has assigned to work the Canelo Alvarez-Erislandy Lara fight. They are all well-known veterans with sterling resumes. The referee is Robert Byrd. The judges are Jerry Roth (Nevada), Dave Moretti (Nevada) and Levi Martinez (New Mexico). As far as Bob Bennett is concerned, no Nevada official will dare do anything except follow the rules. Mr. Bennett is a retired former Special Prosecutor for the FBI.
So, on Saturday, sit back and enjoy the fight card (if you have elected to buy the PPV showing). If Alvarez-Lara goes the distance, know that the decision—even though it may not be one you agree with, is an honest one.
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OVER/UNDER: Golden Boy’s Oscar de la Hoya said he believes the Alvarez-Lara PPV telecast will surpass 1 million. What’s the betting line here? I say 750,000. Will it go over that number or fall short of that number? I say it falls short. This is a fight which belongs of free TV.
AROUND THE RING: You know him as the color analyst on the fights seen on the NBC Sports Network, the man alongside veteran blow-by-blow announcer Kenny Rice. His name is BJ Flores, and he is a Top 10-rated professional cruiserweight who lives in Arizona. Flores’ has been fighting as a pro since 2003. In November, 2010, Flores took a 24-0 record to Australia, where he faced Danny Green for the IBO Cruiserweight Title. After 12 rounds, Green was awarded a unanimous decision. Following that fight, Flores fought twice in 2011 and twice more in 2012, winning all four fights. Then, concentrating on his announcing career, Flores was inactive in 2013. Always in the gym, even when on the road, Flores returned to action last May 10, stopping Adam Collins in the first round on the undercard to Bermane Stiverne’s KO 6 of Cris Arreola at USC’s Galen Center. He returned to action a little over one month later, winning an eight-round decision against Anthony Smith in Las Vegas. His fight was part of a card which featured some of the best young fighters in the world, including light heavyweight Marcus Browne, welterweight Errol Spence and heavyweight Gerald Washington. There is now talk of Flores taking his 30-1-1 record and challenging 42-year-old WBA Cruiserweight Champion Guillermo Jones. GJ vs BJ…Former light heavyweight champ Eddie Mustafa Muhammad is recovering nicely from back surgery and is up and around his home and gym in Las Vegas…Danny Jacobs is training hard in Easton, PA for his August 9 fight for the vacant WBA Middleweight Title against Australia’s Jarrod “Left Jab” Fletcher. Jacobs’ main sparring partner for the bout, which will take place at the Barclay’s Center, is hard-hitting Brooklyn middleweight Curtis Stevens. For the past few weeks, Jacobs has been having training sessions behind closed doors. No visitors or media. Except one: Larry Holmes. Why only the former heavyweight champ? “He owns the town,” Jacobs says with a laugh…Speaking of training, both Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Geale have been looking tremendous in their respective training camps as they head towards their July 26 showdown at Madison Square Garden. A heavyweight matchup on the GGG-Geale undercard is one the boxing world has its eyes on. The fight is between Bryant Jennings and Mike Perez. The two unbeatens will face each other over 12 rounds. Jennings who is 18-0, is coming off an impressive 10th round stoppage of previously unbeaten Artur Spilka in January. Also that month, Perez, who is 20-0, was just two months off his brutal victory over Magomed Abdusalamov, labored his way to a majority decision over Carlos Takam. Reports say both fighters are in prime condition, but a source in the Perez camp says he frequently goes into trance-like lapses during sparring sessions, as if his head is somewhere else, something he never did before in his previous 20 fights. Ya’ gotta’ just wonder which Perez will show up on the night of the fight…Bob Arum has offered Chris Algieri $1 million to face Manny Pacquiao this Fall in Macau, China. Our Radam calls it an early Thanksgiving Turkey for Pacquiao. Hmm. In reality, it could be an early Christmas present for Algieri.
STILL DREAMING: He was once among the most feared punchers in the sport. He was also a world champion. He is Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy, the former super middleweight champ. He took his world title and a 22-0–1 record into a bout against Joe Calzaghe in 2006 and dropped a one-sided decision to the future Hall-of-Famer. Over the next four years he went 4-3, losing to Jermain Taylor, Roy Jones and clubfighter Dhafir Smith. Following the loss to Smith, Lacy hung up the gloves. As we well know, boxing retirements are usually temporary. Lacy’s lasted three years. He returned with a third-round knockout win last November over Martin Verdin. Now, Lacy has moved to light heavyweight and says he is better than ever and seeks a shot at one of the light heavyweight titles. On Thursday night in Miami, he faced Cuban transplant Umberto Savigne, who is 12-1. Although I was afraid for Jeff Lacy, feeling he has taken too much punishment for his 37 years, Savigne, while hard-hitting (he has nine stoppages in his 12 wins), was dropped and almost beaten by Dhafir Smith, the same Dhafir Smith who thoroughly outboxed Lacy in 2010. Should Lacy have won, perhaps landing one of his vaunted hooks on the questionable chin of Savigne, he’d have been looking for a big name next. Instead, there will be pressure to exit the sport. He was smashed by Savigne (TKO2).
CALLING OUT THE OPPOSITION: Unbeaten female fighter Shelly “Shallito’s Way” Vincent has called out Heather Hardy. Both are unbeaten and both are attracting lots of media attention. Hardy, 11-0, is out of New York, while Vincent is from two-and-a-half hours North, from Groton, CT. Hardy fights in her hometown, while Vincent, 12-0, has found a home at the Foxwoods Casino. Last week, after winning a decision at Foxwoods, Vincent was a guest on my SiriusXM show. She held nothing back as she called out Hardy.
“I’ll fight her in Foxwoods, I’ll fight her in New York,” said Hardy. “But I know she’ll never leave the New York area to fight. Me, I don’t care. I just want a ring and Hardy in it.” Asked if she’d be worried about the “hometown decision,” Hardy said, “not at all.” The she added, “That’s because the judges won’t be needed. All we’ll need is a ref to count over her horizontal body!”
We’re waiting for an answer from Hardy.
While Vincent tempered her remarks about Hardy, heavyweight contender Tyson Fury held nothing back about both Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder, while a guest on my show. “Wladimir is a —-y,” said Fury. He fights nobodies and then grabs them and holds them. He is the world clinching champion! I will knock him out, because I have no fear of him. As for Deontay Wilder, it looks to the public like he can punch. But who is he hitting? Stiffs! Bums! Nobodies! He’s also a —-y. I will knock him out easier than I will knock out Klitschko.”
When told of Fury’s remarks, Wilder said, “He gets tapped and he goes down. I am going to more than tap him. I am going to knock him out cold. He talks big, but if a contract to fight me ever gets put in front of him, he will cry like a b—h not to sign it. He is 99% mouth, 1% fighter.”
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LATE RESULTS: Jr. Middleweightveteran Alfonso Gomez kept his career alive with a decision against Ed Paredes in Las Vegas. Fighting in the main event on FoxSports1, Gomez kept Paredes off-balance all-night long and coasted to a comfortable unanimous 10-round decision. The cards were 99-92, 98-92 and 96-93. Gomez was so impressive and so full of fight, that despite being dropped in the fourth and sixth rounds, he stormed back in both of those rounds to pull a 10-10 round in one of them and lose the other only by a 10-9 score on the card of judge Dave Moretti. Gomez is now 24-6-2 (14), while Paredes dropped to 35-4-1 (23)…On the undercard, 2012 U.S. Olympian Joseph Diaz Jr. went to 11-0 (7), taking a 10-round unanimous verdict over tough Ramiro Robles. Diaz’ victory upped the Olympic Teams’ overall record to 90-0.
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HOOKED ON THIS BOOK: Author Springs Toledo is brilliant. Change that. He is an absolute genius. He is Rembrandt with the written word. In “The Gods of War,” a collection of his boxing essays, Toledo begins by tying together the ends of “fifteen degrees of separation and no less than 10 International Boxing Hall of Famers connecting (Harry) Greb’s fist to my face.” That’s right. Toledo sparred with a man who fought a man who fought a man…who fought the legendary Harry Greb. Right away, you feel his love for boxing. From one of my closest friends, Alexis Arguello, to Henry Armstrong, Sugar Ray Robinson, Harry Greb, Ezzard Charles, Roberto Duran, Charley Burley, Rocky Marciano and more, Toledo will make you smile. He’ll make you laugh. He may even make you shed a tear, as I did, when I read his essay about Arguello. There are also four short, wonderful essays on the vastly-talented and just-as misunderstood Charles “Sonny” Liston entitled, “The Liston Chronicles.” Toledo even has a list of the top 30 fighters of the Modern Era. I call it the “Toledo Thirty.” Published by Tora Book Publishing, this book belongs in your den or study, prominently displayed in your “Favorites” section. Bert Sugar once told me, “At its best, there is nothing like boxing journalism.” Springs Toledo’s “The Gods of War” is indeed boxing journalism at its very best. FYI—Springs Toledo will be a guest on my SiriusXM show next Monday at 7:15pm (ET). If you have SiriusXM, check out his interview on channel 92.
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Pound-for-Pound: You’ve got under Sunday at 11:59 pm to get your PxP list of current fighters to me, so we can finally have our own official listing. If you’re holding off and waiting until you see the result of Alvarez-Lara, I understand, but with so many of you turning in your ballots already, even a super-impressive showing by either one will affect this first listing. Next month’s, perhaps, but not this one. So, if you haven’t done so yet, send me your list of the top 10 fighters in the world. All I need are the Top 10. Other vote-getters who do not make the Top 10 will be given mention.
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Ebanie Bridges Poised to Defend Her Title and Boost Her Brand in SanFran This Weekend

Ebanie Bridges opposes late sub Miyo Yoshida on the undercard of Saturday’s Matchroom card in San Francisco featuring the WBC lightweight title fight between Regis Prograis and Devin Haney. It’s doubtful that Bridges vs. Yoshida will steal the show (Prograis vs Haney is a compelling match-up), but it’s a stone-cold lock that Bridges vs. Yoshida will steal the weigh-in. It goes at 1 pm Friday at the Chase Center and is open to the public.
This is all Bridges’ doing. She can fight more than a little, as Damon Runyon would have phrased it, but is best known for turning up at weigh-ins in lingerie so sexy that Matchroom honcho Eddie Hearn averts his eyes to keep from blushing. Others can’t keep their eyes off the 37-year-old, well-endowed Australian and on Friday the paparazzi will crash the scene to capture images that will be all over the internet within hours.
This doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. Former opponent Shannon Courtenay, who saddled Bridges (9-1, 4 KOs) with her only defeat, chastised her for selling their fight for the wrong reasons and disrespecting the sport. Her most recent opponent, Shannon O’Connell, called her a skank and other terms of derision unfit for a family newspaper.
Bridges stopped her in the eighth round in what is her most gratifying win to date. “She made it personal,” says Ebanie. “It felt good to make her eat her words.”
Bridges, who set a withering pace, was making the first defense of the IBF bantamweight title she won with a comprehensive 10-round decision over Argentina’s long-reigning Maria Cecilia Roman. Shannon O’Connell, a fellow Aussie, entered that bout on an 8-fight winning streak that included hard-earned decisions over Australian standouts Taylah Robertson and Cherneka Johnson.
So, although Bridges vs O’Connell was contested in Leeds, England, it was something of the culmination of an Australian round-robin tournament, and it would be Ebanie Bridges that emerged as the Queen Bee.
Bridges has a platform on Only Fans. Known for its “adult” content, the web site is also a place where B-list celebrities go to monetize their fan base by promising a closer look into their personal lives. For attractive female celebs, that usually means displaying more skin that can be found in generic publicity photos, but well short of hard-core. Current Only Fans performers include recording artist Cardi B, actress Denise Richards, the former spouse of Charlie Sheen, actress Drea de Matteo, best known for portraying Adriana on “The Sopranos,” former “Baywatch” sex symbol Carmen Electra, boxer Mikaela Mayer, and former Miss USA Shanna Moakler who shares a daughter with Oscar de la Hoya.
Women that profit from cheesecake, to use an old word for racy photos, aren’t known for having the brightest bulbs between their ears but Bridges, despite embracing her nickname, the Blonde Bomber, doesn’t fit the stereotype. She’s no bimbo.
Ms. Bridges has two college degrees, an undergraduate degree in math and a master’s in secondary education. In her spare time, she finds solace in playing the piano and in drawing, a skill that she inherited from her father, a painter and commercial artist.
In her drawings, she is partial to British soccer coaches and athletes, in particular boxers. Some of her photos are embedded in her smart phone. These, I can attest, are very good. There was no mistaking her drawing of Sugar Ray Robinson. It ranked right up there with Stanley Weston whose illustrations adorned the covers of 57 issues of The Ring magazine.
Bridges is her own best publicist. It’s an attribute she shares with UFC superstar Conor McGregor.
It comes as no surprise to learn that they are well-acquainted. Bridges and McGregor sat together at the first fight between Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron. She is a spokesperson for the latest product that McGregor is pushing, Forged Irish Stout, a brand of beer that debuted at the Black Forge Inn, the Dublin pub that McGregor owns.
“I love Conor,” she says, “he’s lovely,” a rather odd adjective to apply to a man who once attacked a bus with a metal barricade at a UFC media event in Brooklyn, injuring three people.
“He’s great for my brand,” says Bridges of McGregor, “and I’m great for his brand.”
Like it or not, this is the new world order. This reporter is old enough to remember when colleges and universities had football teams. Now they have football franchises, which isn’t quite the same. A franchise requires a well-oiled marketing department to enhance the value of the brand.
Bridges got her first crack at a world title (the WBA version held by Shannon Courtenay) after only five pro fights against opponents who were collectively 12-25-5. Her opponent on Saturday, Miyo Yoshida, sports a 16-4 record and is coming off a loss.
This is fodder for critics of female boxing but, make no mistake, Bridges would be a tough out for any female bantamweight in the world and she has paid her dues. She had 30 amateur fights after previously training in karate, kickboxing, and Muay Thai. (In fairness to Matchroom’s matchmaker, he salvaged Saturday’s date for her, securing Yoshida after three previous opponents fell out.)
Looking ahead to 2024, Bridges envisions fighting England’s Nina Hughes, the WBA belt-holder, and then Denmark’s Dina Thorslund who owns the other two meaningful pieces of the bantamweight title. A match with Thorslund (currently 20-0, 8 KOs) with all four belts on the line would be a blockbuster and, by then, should it transpire, the Blonde Bombshell would undoubtedly be one of the most well-known boxers in the world.
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A Paean to the Great Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon Who Passed Away 50 Years Ago This Week

“Of all his assignments,” said the renowned sportswriter Dave Anderson, “[Jimmy] Cannon appeared to enjoy boxing the most.”
Cannon would have sheepishly concurred. He dated his infatuation with boxing to 1919 when he stood outside a saloon listening to a man with a megaphone relay bulletins from the Dempsey-Willard fight in faraway Toledo. His father followed boxing as did all the Irishmen in his neighborhood. For him, an interest in the sport of boxing, he once wrote, was like a family heirloom. But it became a love-hate relationship. It was Jimmy Cannon, after all, who coined the phrase “boxing is the red light district of sports.”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Jimmy Cannon’s death. He passed away at age 63 on Dec. 5, 1973, in his room at the residential hotel in mid-Manhattan where he made his home. In the realm of American sportswriters, there has never been a voice quite like him. He was “the hardest-boiled of the hard-drinking, hard-boiled school of sports writing,” wrote Darrell Simmons of the Atlanta Journal. One finds a glint of this in his summary of Sonny Liston’s first-round demolition of Albert Westphal in 1961: “Sonny Liston hit Albert Westphal like he was a cop.”
In his best columns, Jimmy Cannon was less a sportswriter than an urban poet. Here’s what he wrote about Archie Moore in 1955 after Moore trounced Bobo Olson to set up a match with Rocky Marciano: “Someone should write a song about Archie Moore who in the Polo Grounds knocked out Bobo Olson in three rounds…It should be a song that comes out of the backrooms of sloughed saloons on night-drowned streets in morning-worried parts of bad towns. The guy who writes this one must be a piano player who can be dignified when he picks a quarter out of the marsh of a sawdust floor.”
Prior to fighting in Madison Square Garden the previous year – his first appearance in that iconic boxing arena – Moore had roamed the globe in search of fights in a career that began in the Great Depression. Cannon was partial to boxers like Archie Moore, great ring artisans who toiled in obscurity, fighting for small purses –“moving-around money” in Cannon’s words — until the establishment could no longer ignore them.
Jimmy Cannon was born in Lower Manhattan. He left high school after one year to become a copy boy for the New York Daily News. In 1936, at age 26, the News sent him to cover the biggest news story of the day, the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping trial. While there he met Damon Runyon who would become a lifelong friend. At Runyon’s suggestion, he applied for a job as a sportswriter at the New York American, a Hearst paper, and was hired.
During World War II, he was a war correspondent in Europe embedded in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. When he returned from the war, he joined the New York Post and then, in 1959, the Journal-American which made him America’s highest-paid sportswriter at a purported salary of $1000 a week. His articles were syndicated and appeared in dozens of papers.
Cannon was very close to Joe Louis. He was the only reporter that Louis allowed in his hotel room on the morning of the Brown Bomber’s rematch with Max Schmeling. Louis, he wrote, “was a credit to his race, the human race.” It was his most-frequently-quoted line.
In an early story, Cannon named Sam Langford the best pound-for-pound fighter of all time. Later he joined with his colleagues on Press Row in naming Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest of the greats. As for the fellow who anointed himself “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali, Cannon profoundly disliked him. He persisted in calling him Cassius Clay long after Ali had adopted his Muslim name.
It troubled Cannon that Ali was afforded an opportunity to fight for the title after only 19 pro fights. Ali’s poetry, he thought, was infantile. He abhorred Ali’s political views. And, truth be told, he didn’t like Ali because certain segments of society adored him. Cannon didn’t like non-conformists – hippies and anti-war protesters and such. When queried about his boyhood in Greenwich Village, he was quick to note that he lived there “when it was a decent neighborhood, before it became freaky.”
Cannon’s animus toward Ali spilled over into his opinion of Ali’s foil, the bombastic sportscaster Howard Cosell. “If Howard Cosell were a sport,” he wrote,” it would be roller derby.”
Cannon frequently filled his column with a series of one-liners published under the heading “Nobody Asked Me, But…” His wonderfully acerbic put-down of Cosell appeared in one of these columns. But one can’t read these columns today without cringing at some of his ruminations. He once wrote, “Any man is in trouble if he falls in love with a woman he can’t knock down with one punch.” If a newspaperman wrote those words today, he would be out of a job so fast it would make his head spin.
Similarly, his famous line about Joe Louis being a credit to the human race no longer resonates in the way that it once did. There is in its benevolence an air of racial prejudice.
Jimmy Cannon was a lifelong bachelor but in his younger days before he quit drinking cold turkey in 1948, he was quite the ladies man, often seen promenading showgirls around town. Like his pal Damon Runyon, he was a night owl. As the years passed, however, he became somewhat reclusive. The world passed him by when rock n’ roll came in, pushing aside the Tin Pan Alley crooners and torch singers that had kept him company at his favorite late-night haunts.
Cannon’s end days were tough. He suffered a stroke in 1971 as he was packing to go to the Kentucky Derby and spent most of his waking hours in his last two-plus years in a wheelchair. Fortunately, he could afford to hire a full-time attendant. In 2002, he was posthumously elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category.
Jimmy Cannon once said that he resented it when someone told him that his stuff was too good to be in a newspaper. It was demeaning to newspapers and he never wanted to be anything but a newspaperman. He didn’t always bring his “A” game and some of his stuff wouldn’t hold up well, but the man could write like blazes and the sportswriting profession lost a giant when he drew his last breath.
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Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.
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Ryan “KingRy” Garcia Returns With a Bang; KOs Oscar Duarte

It was a different Ryan “KingRy” Garcia the world saw in defeating Mexico’s rugged Oscar Duarte, but it was that same deadly left hook counter that got the job done by knockout on Saturday.
Only the quick survive.
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) used a variety of stances before luring knockout artist Duarte (26-1-1, 21 KOs) into his favorite punch before a sold-out crowd at Toyota Arena in Houston, Texas. That punch should be patented in gold.
It was somewhat advertised as knockout artist versus matinee idol, but those who know the sport knew that Garcia was a real puncher. But could he rebound from his loss earlier this year?
The answer was yes.
Garcia used a variety of styles beginning with a jab at a prescribed distance via his new trainer Derrick James. It allowed both Garcia and Duarte to gain footing and knock the cobwebs out of their reflexes. Garcia’s jab scored most of the early points during the first three rounds. He also snapped off some left hooks and rights.
“He was a strong fighter, took a strong punch,” said Garcia. “I hit him with some hard punches and he kept coming.”
Duarte, an ultra-pale Mexican from Durango, was cautious, knowing full well how many Garcia foes had underestimated the power behind his blows.
Slowly the muscular Mexican fighter began closing in with body shots and soon both fighters were locked in an inside battle. Garcia used a tucked-in shoulder style while Duarte pounded the body, back of the head and in the back causing the referee to warn for the illegal punches twice.
Still, Duarte had finally managed to punch Garcia with multiple shots for several rounds.
Around the sixth round Garcia was advised by his new trainer to begin jabbing and moving. It forced Duarte out of his rhythm as he was unable to punch without planting his feet. Suddenly, the momentum had reversed again and Duarte looked less dangerous.
“I had to slow his momentum down. That softened him up,” said Garcia about using that change in style to change Duarte’s pressure attack. “Shout out to Derrick James.”
Boos began cascading from the crowd but Garcia was on a roll and had definitely regained the advantage. A quick five-punch combination rocked Duarte though not all landed. The danger made the Mexican pause.
In the eighth round Duarte knew he had to take back the momentum and charged even harder. In one lickety-split second a near invisible counter left hook connected on Duarte’s temple and he stumbled like a drunken soldier on liberty in Honolulu. Garcia quickly followed up with rights and uppercuts as Duarte had a look of terror as his legs failed to maintain stability. Down he went for the count.
Duarte was counted out by referee James Green at 2:51 of the eighth round as Garcia watched from the other side of the ring.
“I started opening up my legs a little bit to open up the shot,” explained Garcia. “When I hurt somebody that hard, I just keep cracking them. I hurt him with a counter left hook.”
The weapon of champions.
Garcia’s victory returns him back to the forefront as one of boxing’s biggest gate attractions. A list of potential foes is his to dissect and choose.
“I’m just ready to continue to my ascent to be a champion at 140,” Garcia said.
It was a tranquil end after such a tumultuous last three days.
Other Bouts
Floyd Schofield (16-0, 12 KOs) blitzed Mexico’s Ricardo “Not Finito” Lopez (17-8-3) with a four knockdown blowout that left fans mesmerized and pleased with the fighter from Austin, Texas.
Schofield immediately shot out quick jabs and then a lightning four-punch combination that delivered Lopez to the canvas wondering what had happened. He got up. Then Scholfield moved in with a jab and crisp left hook and down went Lopez like a dunked basketball bouncing.
At this point it seemed the fight might stop. But it proceeded and Schofield unleashed another quick combo that sent Lopez down though he did try to punch back. It was getting monotonous. Lopez got up and then was met with another rapid fire five- or six-punch combination. Lopez was down for the fourth time and the referee stopped the devastation.
“I appreciate him risking his life,” said Schofield of his victim.
In a middleweight clash Shane Mosley Jr. (21-4, 12 KOs) out-worked Joshua Conley (17-6-1, 11 KOs) for five rounds before stopping the San Bernardino fighter at 1:51 of the sixth round. It was Mosley’s second consecutive knockout and fourth straight win.
Mosley continues to improve in every fight and again moves up the middleweight rankings.
Super middleweight prospect Darius Fulghum (9-0, 9 KOs) of Houston remained undefeated and kept his knockout string intact with a second round pounding and stoppage over Pachino Hill (8-5-1) in 56 seconds of that round.
Photo credit: Golden Boy Promotions
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