Kovalev In Good Place, But Others Would Marvel at Thawing of Cold War

Published

10 years ago

July 31, 2014

It probably isn’t in any of the history lessons taught in the classrooms of Chelyabinsk, Russia, which is the hometown of WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, or even in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he now resides. Like many American citizens who were born in these United States and never have lived anywhere else, and nationals from other countries who came here in search of a better life, he complains, half-jokingly, about the amount of taxes he has to pay as part of the price for the privilege of being here. But they say you can’t really know where you’re going unless you understand where you came from, and the 31-year-old Kovalev would do well to consider some of his predecessors from the old Soviet Union who arrived on these shores nearly a quarter-century ago hoping to find something that was unavailable to them in Russia and 11 additional republics that then comprised the USSR.

Kovalev (24-0-1, 22 KOs) is a professional world champion and an increasingly well-compensated one at that, and he’ll bank a nice paycheck for Saturday night’s HBO-televised defense against Australia’s Blake Caparello (19-0-1, 6 KOs) at the Revel Resort in Atlantic City, N.J. Should Kovalev, who recently received his green card as a permanent U.S. resident, win as expected, the hard-punching “Krusher from Russia” can expect to have an increasingly higher profile in the U.S. and internationally, not to mention financial compensation that once would been considered unimaginable in Chelyabinsk. A victory over Caparello – and he’s a solid favorite to do so, and probably inside the distance – could vault Kovalev into a unification showdown with 49-year-old legend Bernard Hopkins, the IBF/WBA champ who has called him out publicly.

“I would like to fight any champion in my division,” said Kovalev, a short list that also includes WBC titlist Adonis Stevenson. “If it is Hopkins, it is Hopkins. If it is different guy, it will be different guy.”

Most of the questions directed to Kovalev during a media session last week in New York City were about Hopkins, whom he might or might not fight, and Caparello. But none – and I blame myself for this oversight – referenced Viktor Egorov, Yuri Vaulin and Sergei Artemiev, who helped clear the path that allowed Kovalev to arrive at the position he now enjoys. Nor, for that matter, did anyone bring up Ivan Drago, the fictional Soviet heavyweight who threw down with Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa in 1985’s “Rocky IV,” or then-President Ronald Reagan’s notable depiction of the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire.”

The current nasty business in Ukraine notwithstanding, maybe we really have come a long way, baby. Americans appreciate boxers, regardless of their country of origin, if they are sufficiently entertaining, and the higher the likelihood of someone delivering a spectacular knockout, the more willing U.S. fans are willing to accept them. It is a well of goodwill from which Kovalev draws, as is the case with Gennady Golovkin, the popular WBO/IBO middleweight ruler from Kazakhstan who defended those titles on a third-round stoppage of Australia’s Daniel Geale last weekend in Madison Square Garden.

So where does Kovalev like it better, Russia or Florida?

“In the future, I don’t know,” he said, smiling, of where he might spend his post-boxing life. “Right now, I like being in America. I like Russia, too. Wherever it will be better for my family, I will stay there.”

The world has changed, obviously, since children in the USSR were instructed that all Americans were selfish capitalists and kids in the U.S. were told all Russians and those in their satellite states were commie stooges bent on global domination. There is such a thing as Russian billionaires – one of them, Mikhail Prokhorov, owns the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets – and U.S. companies are thriving in the more open marketplace of Eastern Bloc countries. There is residual spying back and forth, of course, but people who were once on either side of the old philosophical divide no longer fret so much about some politician’s finger twitching on a nuclear launch button.

But ‘twas not always so. Americans of a certain age still remember the Cuban missile crisis, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev banging his shoe on a desk at the United Nations and loudly telling everyone in the U.S. that “We will bury you!” It was easy then to tell the good guys from the bad guys, or so we thought, and every athletic confrontation involving individuals or teams representing the world’s two great superpowers wasn’t merely a sporting event. It was a referendum on the validity of Our Way of Life vs. Theirs.

Into this maelstrom of intrigue and mistrust came Egorov, Vaulin and Artemiev, who might be described as pioneers who wanted some of the same things that Kovalev and Golovkin now have, without having to shoulder the heavy burden of being seen as symbols of an omnipresent Red Peril. Do you recall maybe the most poignant line in the HBO-produced documentary, “Klitschko,” which shone a spotlight on Ukrainian brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, heavyweight champions who held the division in a vise-like grip? Vitali, reminiscing about his first trip to the U.S. as part of a Soviet youth kickboxing team, spoke with wonder of the seemingly endless options to be found in an American supermarket.

“There were so many kinds of cheeses!” said the now-retired Vitali, or words to that effect. In Ukraine, he continued, “We have one kind of cheese. We call it … cheese.”

Repressive and totalitarian societies offer few if any choices for so many things Americans have long taken for granted, not the least of which are freedom of movement and of commerce. In the environment in which Egorov, Vaulin and Artemiev were raised, you took what you were given or allowed to have. A lot of us in this country are familiar with tales of repressed peoples behind the Iron Curtain standing in long lines to receive items as basic as a roll of toilet paper, and Russian kids all but selling their souls to procure black-market jeans or rock ’n’ roll albums featuring American and British musicians.

Then the Berlin Wall was torn down, East and West Germany reunited, the cash-strapped Russkies all but throwing up their hands in surrender when The Gipper floated the notion of the U.S. developing a futuristic “Star Wars” missile defense system. The arms race basically was called off because we were too far ahead and too well-financed to be caught by the panting Soviet bear.

Now? Well, a lot of Americans fret, and rightfully so, about our $17.6 trillion debt, our sieve-like southern border, the polarization of our political process and any number of other issues of paramount national importance. But to others – including boxers from Eastern Bloc nations we once were so wary of – this is still the land of opportunity, and the place where dreams are made.

Even though the Soviet Union officially was dissolved on Dec. 26, 1991, remember the climate that still existed when a pair of Russians, Egorov, a middleweight, and Artemiev, a lightweight, and a Latvian, Vaulin, a heavyweight, were brought to this country in 1990 by New York-based entrepreneur Lou Falcigno, to test the choppy waters of professional boxing.

What they found, perhaps not unexpectedly, were audiences more prepared to cast them as stereotypical villains than as hopeful but wary voyagers making their way toward an impending new reality. Such was the case Oct. 2, 1990, on a chilly night in Philadelphia, when the three Soviets appeared on the same card at one of America’s most iconic boxing clubs, the Blue Horizon. A capacity crowd of 1,500-plus, second-largest ever to jam into the old building to that point, came in no small part to vent its collective anger at the trio. And why not? It had been only five years since the lines of demarcation had been so starkly drawn in 1985’s “Rocky IV,” which pitted fictional Philly heavyweight Rocky Balboa against the seemingly invincible and remorseless Russian destroyer, Ivan Drago, who had beaten Apollo Creed to death in the ring with his gloved fists.

Vaulin and Artemiev won their bouts, the former on a split decision and the latter on a fifth-round stoppage, but Egorov was a TKO victim in the fourth round, an outcome that met with shouted approval from the vast majority of spectators.

Tommy Gallagher, the New York guy who trained all three Soviets, said Vaulin, in particular, was shaken by the hostile reception he received in Philly and other U.S. venues in which he sought to ply his trade. “He wants so much to be liked that when he heard that `USA! USA!’ stuff, he feels like a villain,” Gallagher said. “He has to be able to learn how to deal with that b.s., to block it out of his mind.”

With so much elapsed time from which to assess the impact of the players in Falcigno’s bold experiment, it is clear that Artemiev enjoyed the most success of the three men who fought in Philadelphia that night. He is also the most tragic figure, but the maybe the most inspiring one, standing as proof that maybe human beings are not so different after all.

Artemiev, a husband and father of an infant son, was paid $10,000 for his March 21, 1993, bout at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J., against Carl Griffith, with the vacant USBA 135-pound title on the line. Had he won – and he was favored to do so – the likelihood is that Artemiev would have moved on to a matchup with WBC lightweight champion Miguel Angel Gonzalez three months later. But Artemiev was stopped in the 10^th round, absorbing so much punishment that he was rushed to a local hospital where he underwent a 4½-hour operation to alleviate the pressure of a brain bleed. He never fought again.

But the story, in its own way, has an upbeat ending. Artemiev, who was described by Gallagher as a person of “so much character” and “a real pleasure to work with,” never went back to St. Petersburg, Russia. He continues to live in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, N.Y., where his positive outlook remains a shining beacon of hope to everyone, regardless of nationality or political ideology.

“I’m alive and I have a son,” Artemiev told writer Robert Mladinich in 2006. “I used to cry about my damage, and that I not fight again. Sometimes I get angry. I’m not rich. But I’m alive, thinking and hoping, and I believe in God. As long as I have life, I have something to live for.”

Kovalev, by comparison, has had it easy. He is not accustomed to being booed in the U.S.; the Cold War thawed years ago, and he is the sort of turn-out-the-lights puncher for whom American fight fans have an affinity, regardless of where they come from, maybe because there are so few home-grown blasters to command their affection. It will be interesting to see how the audience is divided if and when the “Krusher” meets up with “The Alien,” Hopkins, who is 100 percent made in the USA but hasn’t scored a knockout in 10 years.

Until then, Kovalev has the peace of mind knowing that he can purchase all the designer jeans he wants and can load up his fridge with any cheese that suits his taste. Some would call that progress.

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Bernard Fernandez

The Challenge of Playing Muhammad Ali

Published

6 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Thomas Hauser

There have been countless dramatizations of Muhammad Ali’s life and more will follow in the years ahead. The most heavily marketed of these so far have been the 1977 movie titled The Greatest starring Ali himself and the 2001 biopic Ali starring Will Smith.

The Greatest was fictionalized. Its saving grace apart from Ali’s presence on screen was the song “The Greatest Love of All” which was written for the film and later popularized by Whitney Houston. Beyond that, the movie was mediocre. “Of all our sports heroes,” Frank Deford wrote, “Ali needs least to be sanitized. But The Greatest is just a big vapid valentine. It took a dive.”

The 2001 film was equally bland but without the saving grace of Ali on camera. “I hated that film,” Spike Lee said. “It wasn’t Ali.” Jerry Izenberg was in accord, complaining, “Will Smith playing Ali was an impersonation, not a performance.”

The latest entry in the Ali registry is a play running this week off-Broadway at the AMT Theater (354 West 45th Street) in Manhattan.

The One: The Life of Muhammad Ali was written by David Serero, who has produced and directed the show in addition to playing the role of Angelo Dundee in the three-man drama. Serero, age 43, was born in Paris, is of Moroccan-French-Jewish heritage, and has excelled professionally as an opera singer (baritone) and actor (stage and screen).

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The play is flawed. There are glaring factual inaccuracies in the script that add nothing to the dramatic arc and detract from its credibility.

On the plus side; Zack Bazile (pictured) is exceptionally good as Ali. And Serero (wearing his director’s hat) brings the most out of him.

Growing up, Bazile (now 28) excelled in multiple sports. In 2018, while attending Ohio State, he won the NCAA Long Jump Championship and was named Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year. He also dabbled in boxing, competed in two amateur fights in 2022, and won both by knockout. He began acting three years ago.

Serero received roughly one thousand resumes when he published notices for a casting call in search of an actor to play Ali. One-hundred-twenty respondents were invited to audition.

“I had people who looked like Ali and were accomplished actors,” Serero recalls. “But when they were in the room, I didn’t feel Ali in front of me. You have to remember; we’re dealing with someone who really existed and there’s video of him, so it’s not like asking someone to play George Washington.”

And Ali was Ali. That’s a hard act to follow.

Bazile is a near-perfect fit. At 6-feet-2-inches tall, 195 pounds, he conveys Ali’s physicality. His body is sculpted in the manner of the young Ali. He moves like an athlete because he is an athlete. His face resembles Ali’s and his expressions are very much on the mark in the way he transmits emotion to the audience. He uses his voice the way Ali did. He moves his eyes the way Ali did. He has THE LOOK.

Zack was born the year that Ali lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, so he has no first-hand memory of the young Ali who set the world ablaze. “But as an actor,” he says, “I’m representing Ali. That’s a responsibility I take very seriously. Everyone has an essence about them. I had to find the right balance – not too over the top – and capture that.”

Sitting in the audience watching Bazile, I felt at times as though it was Ali onstage in front of me. Zack has the pre-exile Ali down perfectly. The magic dissipates a bit as the stage Ali grows older. Bazile still has to add the weight of aging to his craft. But I couldn’t help but think, “Muhammad would have loved watching Zack play him.”

****

Twenty-four hours after the premiere of The One, David Serero left the stage for a night to shine brightly in a real boxing ring., The occasion was the tenth fight card that Larry Goldberg has promoted at Sony Hall in New York, a run that began with Goldberg’s first pro show ever on October 13, 2022.

Most of the fights on the six-bout card played out as expected. But two were tougher for the favorites than anticipated. Jacob Riley Solis was held to a draw by Daniel Jefferson. And Andy Dominguez was knocked down hard by Angel Meza in round three before rallying to claim a one-point split-decision triumph.

Serero sang the national anthem between the second and third fights and stilled the crowd with a virtuoso performance. Fans at sports events are usually restless during the singing of the anthem. This time, the crowd was captivated. Serero turned a flat ritual into an inspirational moment. People were turning to each other and saying “Wow!”

****

The unexpected happened in Tijuana last Saturday night when 25-to-1 underdog Bruno Surace climbed off the canvas after a second-round knockdown to score a shocking, one-punch, sixth-round stoppage of Jaime Munguia. There has been a lot of commentary since then about what happened that night. The best explanation I’ve heard came from a fan named John who wrote, “The fight was not over in the second round although Munguia thought it was because, if he caught him once, he would naturally catch him again. Plus he looked at this little four KO guy [Surace had scored 4 knockouts in 27 fights] the way all the fans did, like he had no punch. That is what a fan can afford to do. But a fighter should know better. The ref reminds you, ‘Protect yourself at all times.’ Somebody forgot that.”

photo (c) David Serero

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://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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L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 16, 2024

Arne K. Lang

L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

If asked to name a prominent boxing trainer who operates out of a gym in Los Angeles, the name Freddie Roach would jump immediately to mind. Best known for his work with Manny Pacquaio, Roach has been named the Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America a record seven times.

A mere seven miles from Roach’s iconic Wild Card Gym is the gym that Rudy Hernandez now calls home. Situated in the Little Tokyo neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles, the L.A. Boxing Gym – a relatively new addition to the SoCal boxing landscape — is as nondescript as its name. From the outside, one would not guess that two reigning world champions, Junto Nakatani and Anthony Olascuaga, were forged there.

As Freddie Roach will be forever linked with Manny Pacquiao, so will Rudy Hernandez be linked with Nakatani. The Japanese boxer was only 15 years old when his parents packed him off to the United States to be tutored by Hernandez. With Hernandez in his corner, the lanky southpaw won titles at 112 and 115 and currently holds the WBO bantamweight (118) belt. In his last start, he knocked out his Thai opponent, a 77-fight veteran who had never been stopped, advancing his record to 29-0 (22 KOs).

Nakatani’s name now appears on several pound-for-pound lists. A match with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue is brewing. When that match comes to fruition, it will be the grandest domestic showdown in Japanese boxing history.

“Junto Nakatani is the greatest fighter I’ve ever trained. It’s easy to work with him because even when he came to me at age 15, his focus was only on boxing. It was to be a champion one day and nothing interfered with that dream,” Hernandez told sports journalist Manouk Akopyan writing for Boxing Scene.

Akin to Nakatani, Rudy Hernandez built Anthony Olascuaga from scratch. The LA native was rucked out of obscurity in April of 2023 when Jonathan Gonzalez contracted pneumonia and was forced to withdraw from his date in Tokyo with lineal light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji. Olascuaga, with only five pro fights under his belt, filled the breach on 10 days’ notice and although he lost (TKO by 9), he earned kudos for his gritty performance against the man recognized as the best fighter in his weight class.

Two fights later, back in Tokyo, Olascuaga copped the WBO world flyweight title with a third-round stoppage of Riku Kano. His first defense came in October, again in Japan, and Olascuaga retained his belt with a first-round stoppage of the aforementioned Gonzalez. (This bout was originally ruled a no-contest as it ended after Gonzalez suffered a cut from an accidental clash of heads. But the referee ruled that Gonzalez was fit to continue before the Puerto Rican said “no mas,” alleging his vision was impaired, and the WBO upheld a protest from the Olascuaga camp and changed the result to a TKO. Regardless, Rudy Hernandez’s fighter would have kept his title.)

Hernandez, 62, is the brother of the late Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez. A two-time world title-holder at 130 pounds who fought the likes of Azumah Nelson, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr., Chicanito passed away in 2011, a cancer victim at age 45.

Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez was one of the most popular fighters in the Hispanic communities of Southern California. Rudy Hernandez, a late bloomer of sorts – at least in terms of public recognition — has kept his brother’s flame alive with own achievements. He is a worthy honoree for the 2024 Trainer of the Year.

Note: This is the first in our series of annual awards. The others will arrive sporadically over the next two weeks.

Photo credit: Steve Kim

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A Shocker in Tijuana: Bruno Surace KOs Jaime Munguia !!

Published

4 days ago

December 15, 2024

Arne K. Lang

A-Shocker-in-Tijuana-Bruno-Sarace-KOs-Jaime-Munguia

It was a chilly night in Tijuana when Jaime Munguia entered the ring for his homecoming fight with Bruno Surace. The main event of a Zanfer/Top Rank co-promotion, Munguia vs. Surace was staged in the city’s 30,000-seat soccer stadium a stone’s throw from the U.S. border in the San Diego metroplex.

Surace, a Frenchman, brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but a quick glance at his record showed that he had scant chance of holding his own with the house fighter. Only four of Surace’s 25 wins had come by stoppage and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records. Munguia was making the first start in the city of his birth since February 2022. Surace had never fought outside Europe.

But hold the phone!

After losing every round heading into the sixth, Surace scored the Upset of the Year, ending the contest with a one-punch knockout.

It looked like a short and easy night for Munguia when he knocked Surace down with a left hook in the second stanza. From that point on, the Frenchman fought off his back foot, often with back to the ropes, throwing punches only in spurts. Munguia worked the body well and was seemingly on the way to wearing him down when he was struck by lightning in the form of an overhand right.

Down went Munguia, landing on his back. He struggled to get to his feet, but the referee waived it off a nano-second before reaching “10.” The official time was 2:36 of round six.

Munguia, who was 44-1 heading in with 35 KOs, was as high as a 35/1 favorite. In his only defeat, he had gone the distance with Canelo Alvarez. This was the biggest upset by a French fighter since Rene Jacquot outpointed Donald Curry in 1989 and Jacquot had the advantage of fighting in his homeland.

Co-Main

Mexico City’s Alan Picasso, ranked #1 by the WBC at 122 pounds, scored a third-round stoppage of last-minute sub Yehison Cuello in a scheduled 10-rounder contested at featherweight. Picaso (31-0-1, 17 KOs) is a solid technician. He ended the bout with a left to the rib cage, a punch that weaved around Cuello’s elbow and didn’t appear to be especially hard. The referee stopped his count at “nine” and waived the fight off.

A 29-year-old Colombian who reportedly had been training in Tijuana, the overmatched Cuello slumped to 13-3-1.

Other Bouts of Note

In a ho-hum affair, junior middleweight Jorge Garcia advanced to 32-4 (26) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Uzbekistan’s Kudratillo Abudukakhorov (20-4). The judges had it 97-92 and 99-90 twice. There were no knockdowns, but Garcia had a point deducted in round eight for low blows.

Garcia displayed none of the power that he showed in his most recent fight three months ago in Arizona and when he knocked out his German opponent in 46 seconds. Abudukakhorov, who has competed mostly as a welterweight, came in at 158 1/4 pounds and didn’t look in the best of shape. The Uzbek was purportedly 170-10 as an amateur (4-5 per boxrec).

Super bantamweight Sebastian Hernandez improved to 18-0 (17 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of Argentine import Sergio Martin (14-5). The end came at the 2:39 mark of round seven when Martin’s corner threw in the towel. Earlier in the round, Martin lost his mouthpiece and had a point deducted for holding.

Hernandez wasn’t all that impressive considering the high expectations born of his high knockout ratio, but appeared to have injured his right hand during the sixth round.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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