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Memories of Tyson-McNeeley Still Amaze

You had to have seen it to believe it. Maybe, if you were part of the insanely large, morbidly curious audience that bought into the unprecedented hype of the most fraudulent boxing match of all time, you actually did see it – and still can’t believe it.
By comparison, the recent mismatch that paired the vastly superior Danny Garcia against Rod Salka was almost a re-creation of Ali-Frazier I or III.
Aug. 19 marks the 19th anniversary of the circus-like atmosphere that hung thick in the desert air in the summer of 1995 when Mike Tyson, fighting for the first time in 50 months following his three-year conviction for rape, squared off against a totally fabricated “contender” named Peter McNeeley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was the ultimate verification of the old P.T. Barnum dictum that there’s a sucker born every minute, that there really is a bull market for gullible sorts willing, even eager, to part with sizable sums of their money in exchange for bogus deeds to the Brooklyn Bridge or worthless swamp land in Florida.
Chew on these numbers for a while and you can’t help but shake your head in amazement:
*Because the most optimistic of Showtime Pay-Per-View projections were met, Tyson, who was guaranteed a minimum of $25 million, came away with a then-record $36 million for his night’s work, which lasted all of 89 seconds. That breaks down to a payout of $404,494.38 per second.
*McNeeley, on the other hand, received $540,000 for the privilege of offering himself up as a human sacrifice. Going into the Tyson bout, the 25-year-old known as the “Irish Hurricane” sported a spiffy 36-1 record with 30 wins inside the distance, which gained him a sheen of legitimacy in the form of a No. 7 ranking from the shameless WBA. But McNeeley’s opponents up to that point had lost a staggering 449 fights, and his previous ring appearance, on April 22, 1995, had resulted in a one-round stoppage of Frankie Hines in Hot Springs, Ark. McNeeley reportedly was paid $190 (no, that is not a misprint) for that fight, which came against a career fall-down guy who had lost 10 straight and 39 of 40 before taking on Tyson’s comeback partner, on the way to a final career mark of 17-120-5 with 78 defeats inside the distance.
*Only three of the 37 fighters McNeeley had mixed it up with on the road to Tyson – the immortal trio of Ron Drinkwater, Stanley Wright and J.B. Williamson — had so much as a winning record at the time they threw down with the Medford, Mass., resident.
*The $1,500 ringside seats were filled (among the celebrity attendees: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Michael Jackson, Kevin Costner, Jim Carrey, Luke Perry, Axl Rose, Denzel Washington, Tim Allen, Shaquille O’Neal, Don Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) as part of a sellout crowd of 16,736, which did not include some 1,500 credentialed media members from around the world.
*The fight was televised to 90 countries on six continents. Somehow, Antarctica missed out on the big show.
*Following his final bout, a first-round TKO loss to Mike Bernardo on June 8, 2001, in Cape Town, South Africa, McNeeley retired with a still-impressive 47-7 record that included 36 wins by KO. But one of those defeats, on June 26, 1999, was a first-round blowout by boxing’s favorite fatty, 311-pound Eric “Butterbean” Esch (who would later fight as high as 426½), at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay, on the undercard of a show headlined by Paulie Ayala’s unanimous-decision dethronement of WBA bantamweight champion Johnny Tapia. It is a testament to how far McNeeley had fallen from semi-legitimacy that he went off as an 8-1 underdog to The Bean after having been just a 13-1 longshot against Tyson.
*So much of a running national joke had McNeeley become after the Tyson debacle that, shortly after Peter the Not So Great’s one-round disqualification (brought about when his Damon Runyonesque manager-trainer, Vinny Vecchione, entered the ring and wrapped his arms around his clearly buzzed and twice-floored fighter), he appeared in a commercial for Pizza Hut in which he again was sent crashing to the canvas – by a slice of pizza. As McNeeley lay on his back, his vision fuzzy in accordance with the script, Vecchione stands over him waving some of that stuffed-crust cheese and pepperoni pie in his face and asking, “Hey, McNeeley, how many slices am I holding?”
As long as there is a profit to be made from continued humiliation, why not offer up another piece of your dignity on the altar of financial expediency?
“My first reaction was, uh, kind of negative,” McNeeley at the time said of the endorsement deal that he at first was hesitant to accept. “You wonder how the public is going to perceive you. But then I thought about it a while and decided, what the heck. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?”
Actually, there is. The biggest headlines McNeeley, now 45, has generated in recent years stem from his occasional brushes with the law. His Tyson windfall vanished and by now a victim of the sort of alcohol-related problems that had taken a toll on his father, former heavyweight title challenger Tom McNeeley, Peter in November 1995 was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon (his fists) following an altercation with a Boston bar patron and, in June 2006, with serving as the driver of the getaway car in a drug-store stickup that gained his armed passenger, Robert Perry, $180 in cash and a shoplifted fanny pack.
All of which leads to a still-perplexing question. If McNeeley was indeed the hapless oaf that he was depicted as then and now, how could his matchup with Tyson possibly have commanded such widespread interest? In a sport where false prophets appear with some regularity, particularly in the heavyweight division – think Primo Carnera, Duane Bobick, Michael Grant and, for now at least, we’re keeping an eye on you, Deontay Wilder – McNeeley stands alone as the falsest of the false.
The answer, of course, is that McNeeley was merely there to be used and promptly disposed of, a prop necessary to again fan the flames of fixation attendant to Tyson’s return to the ring after an extended period. A presumably rusted Iron Mike needed somebody to beat up, and his handlers were justifiably hesitant to put him in with a truly dangerous rival. Thus was the door opened for McNeeley, with his artificially inflated record against crushed tomato cans and the good fortune of being the offspring of his kind-of-prominent dad, who was 23-0 when he squared off against heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson on Dec. 4, 1961, in Toronto. That the elder McNeeley, who was 74 when he passed away in 2011, had officially gone down 11 times in a four-round TKO loss only added to whatever mystique his son brought to the equation. Could Peter last longer against Tyson than Tom had against Patterson?
“The stories about the fight said I went down nine or 10 times,” Tom McNeeley said long after his courageous but hopeless bid to unseat Patterson. “The writers were being nice to me. I have the film. It was more like 12 or 13.”
Few writers were willing to give Peter McNeeley anywhere near as much benefit of the doubt as their predecessors had accorded his pop. This was to be a ritualistic execution inside the ropes. How could it be anything else? Everyone had to know how it would end, probably including Vecchione, who had turned down decent-paying bouts for McNeeley with, among others, Tommy Morrison, Andrew Golota, Joe Hipp and King Ipitan in the hope that a really big bonanza might be had by waiting. Then along came Don King, Tyson’s hyperbolic promoter, extending that golden lottery ticket.
The only one apparently not in on the scheme was McNeeley himself, who figured all those knockouts, even if they had come against nobodies, had to mean he had at least a chance to shock the world.
“I have good stats,” McNeeley reasoned when an army of media critics rose up to denounce him as unworthy. “I deserve this shot.”
His second-generation family status notwithstanding, McNeeley benefited greatly from the legerdemain of Vecchione, a cigar-chomping, old-school type who had packaged his fighter as better – very much better– than his actual accomplishments might have suggested. After the Tyson fight was scheduled, Vecchione regaled listeners with tales of McNeeley’s bottomless well of untapped potential.
“It took about 25 seconds for me to know that he had tremendous punching power and a killer instinct,” Vecchione said, rhapsodizing about his first glimpse at the then-20-year-old McNeeley. “This was a mean, vicious kid in the ring. He was the best heavyweight prospect I’d ever seen. Literally nobody believed me, but I knew from all the knowledge I had from Sam Silverman (who had been Vecchione’s boxing guru) I could do something with this kid.”
Whether Vecchione was spinning a tall tale or actually believed what he was dishing out, the media, many of whom have a fondness for cartoonish characters, ate it up. And when you added Vecchione to a promotional venture that also included that master of malaprops, King, there at least was a likelihood that the press conferences would be more entertaining than the fight.
In the frenzied lead-up to Tyson-McNeeley, King, Vecchione and the “Irish Hurricane” played their parts to perfection. Tyson said less than the other principals, in no small part because he wasn’t around much until fight night. But he did offer these chilling words to a small group of writers a few days before the opening bell, saying, with no hint of bemusement, that “I’m going to kill Peter McNeeley, God willing.”
King, at the final press conference two days before the bout, launched into another stream-of-consciousness delivery that touched on, among others, General George Armstrong Custer, John Quincy Adams and Robin Hood. Boxing’s Theater of the Absurd never seemed quite so ridiculous.
“A lot of people have fought opponents with lesser records, but few have fought lesser opponents with greater skill,” King harrumphed in referring to the D-list of pugs McNeeley had vanquished.
Of what paying customers could expect, King noted that “This is no longer a fight, it’s a happening. It’s so big, even I don’t know how big it is. But it’s huge. There hasn’t been anything like it in the history of mankind. You got 1.3 billion people in China who are going to be watching this fight. You got 900 million in India, and I don’t know how many in Russia. Everybody wants to see the great Mike Tyson back in action. They want to see if he’s as good as he ever was, or better.”
Vecchione chimed in with his opinion that “(McNeeley) has a hell of a chance against Tyson. Think about it: Within 30 seconds, somebody’s probably going to be down. If I were Mike Tyson, I wouldn’t have taken this fight the first time out – and who knows more about picking opponents than I do?”
Clearly enjoying his 15 minutes of fame, McNeeley uttered the words that would prove to be the most memorable of his career: “ I’m Peter McNeeley, from Medford, Mass, and I’m here to kick Mike Tyson’s ass.”
At least McNeeley wasn’t the only one who thought that he would do just that. A Las Vegas woman, a medium or spiritualist or some such delver into the occult, said she did not know anything about boxing, but the stars or the tea leaves had informed her that Tyson would go down in four rounds. The media dutifully took note, for amusement purposes only.
But hardly anyone else was buying into the premise that McNeeley would or could hang with a 29-year-old Tyson even if his skills had atrophied during his incarceration. Among the most vocal of skeptics was Rock Newman, manager of Riddick Bowe, who told the press corps he once had considered inviting McNeeley to serve as a sparring partner for his fighter after he had finished getting tuned up by Tyson.
“I was kicking around the idea a little bit,” Newman recalled. “I thought it might be kind of a fun thing, that it might create a stir. But I’m not even going to extend an invitation. McNeeley is so incredibly horrible. I mean, just awful. This guy is so bad, he even makes Frans Botha look good by comparison. There is no way he could give Bowe any kind of decent work in the gym.”
All that remains was for the inevitable ending to be recorded for historical purposes. To his credit, McNeeley did exactly what Vecchione had said he would do. He went right at Tyson, and somebody did go down within the first 30 seconds. It was, of course, McNeeley, who was decked by an overhand right after just seven elapsed seconds. But McNeeley beat the count, and momentarily succeeded in bull-rushing Tyson to the ropes, throwing wide, loaded-up haymakers in the hope of getting lucky.
Didn’t happen. A second knockdown quickly followed as Tyson connected with a pair of left hooks, neither of which landed flush, and a ripping overhand right, which did. Again, McNeeley arose, on spaghetti legs, causing referee Mills Lane to lean forward, ready to stop it as soon as Tyson nailed him again. But Vecchione removed that decision from Lane, entering the ring and offering himself as a human towel-toss. The joke of a fight went into the books as a disqualification, and thus was provided its expected punch line.
“It’s not an outrage,” King said of the unsatisfying conclusion. “The people might be disappointed that the manager jumped into the ring, but they can’t say they didn’t get their money’s worth. We had quite a spectacle this evening. No one can say Peter McNeeley didn’t come to fight. We saw a terrific altercation for the time that it lasted.”
In explaining his intervention, Vecchione said that “I remember Jimmy Garcia and Gerald McClellan,” a reference to one fighter who died as a result of injuries sustained in a bout (Garcia) and another who was rendered blind and brain-damaged (McClellan) in another scrap that went horribly wrong. “The important thing is that this kid’s 26 years old. He’s going to continue to fight. He gave you 100 percent effort. If I made a judgment and have to live with that judgment, so be it. As far as I’m concerned, I did the right thing by my fighter.”
McNeeley did continue to fight, against more of the soft touches he had gone against earlier. Only now, those touches weren’t quite so plump and cushiony. In his first post-Tyson bout, on Oct. 27, 1995, McNeeley took on Mike Sam for something called the U.S. Boxing Federation title, in Boston’s FleetCenter. And although he knocked out Sam in two rounds, he did so against a 37-year-old guy who had fought just once in the previous 10 years, that outing resulting in a second-round TKO loss. The beatdowns by that slice of pizza and Butterbean were to follow.
Vecchione fared better, at least temporarily, as he was voted Manager of the Year for 1995 by the Boxing Writers Association of America for his improbable feat of taking the limited likes of Peter McNeeley to a 36-1 record and a mid-six-figure jackpot against Tyson. But there would be no more pieces of pugilistic coal like McNeeley for Vecchione to transform into cubic zirconia; he was 64 when he died of a heart attack on July 2, 2009. Like McNeeley, ”Double-V” would prove to be something of a one-hit wonder.
Yet the true takeaway of Tyson-McNeely has little or nothing to do with McNeely and Vecchione. They were bit players on a stage dedicated to a larger purpose. In retrospect, the quickie destruction of McNeeley marked the beginning of the end of the Mike Tyson that fight fans once regarded with a sense of wonderment. Some will insist the swinging of the pendulum in the opposite direction actually began on Feb. 11, 1990, with his stunning, 10th-round knockout loss to Buster Douglas in Tokyo, and there is some validity to that. But the Douglas who fought Tyson, even if it was a diminished Tyson, would have beaten a lot of good heavyweights that day. Before or after, Buster was never nearly as sharp or well-conditioned as he was in turning in his career-best performance.
What the fight with McNeely demonstrated was that the public still had an insatiable curiosity about Tyson, who might have been described as an odd mixture of O.J. Simpson, Nelson Mandela, Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. Depending on one’s viewpoint, he was a high-profile criminal defendant, a political prisoner, a subject of outlandish tabloid rumors or the world’s most recognizable boxer returning after a long and enforced exile. Love him or hate him, it was still impossible to ignore him. And yet …
The fact that Tyson’s handlers felt obliged to put him in with a gimme opponent like McNeeley in his much-anticipated comeback bout now stands as evidence that there were hints, which would become increasingly obvious, that the former “baddest man on the planet” was a fast-emptying vessel. What started with McNeeley would morph into defeats at the hands of Evander Holyfield (twice) and Lennox Lewis, which weren’t upsets, and then into shocking losses to Danny Williams and, finally, Kevin McBride, who at best rate as small sniffs ahead of McNeely on the smell-o-meter.
Then-WBO heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, doing commentary for German television for Tyson-Julius Francis on Jan. 29, 2005, saw enough in those 89 seconds five-plus years earlier to convince him that the beast that Michael Gerard Tyson had been was no more and probably never could be again.
“He still has a lot of power,” Klitschko said in assessing what remained of Tyson. “But I saw a lot of his earlier fights, and he’s not at all as sharp as he once was. It’s pretty obvious Tyson is looking for easy money against easy opponents.”
For both Tyson and McNeely, the old saying did indeed hold true: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.
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The Hauser Report: Keyshawn Davis at Madison Square Garden

The Hauser Report: Keyshawn Davis at Madison Square Garden
Bob Arum promoted his first fight card – Muhammad Ali vs. George Chuvalo – in Toronto on March 29, 1966. Top Rank was formed soon after and is arguably the greatest promotional company in the history of boxing.
Top Rank has promoted more than two thousand fight cards and seven hundred world championship bouts. It has been on the cutting edge of new technologies and was the first major player in boxing to understand and exploit the power of the Hispanic market in the United States.
But Top Rank has been struggling lately. Its roster of elite fighters has gotten smaller. Its lucrative exclusive contract with ESPN expires this summer and won’t be renewed. The company is exploring other options, but so is every other promoter in boxing not tied exclusively to DAZN.
Meanwhile, Arum is doing his best to develop what he hopes will be a new generation of stars. One of these fighters – Keyshawn Davis – was on display before a sold-out crowd of 4,979 at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre on Valentine’s Day.
Davis is 25 years old and came into the fight with a 12-and-0 (8 KOs) record. His opponent, 36-year-old Denys Berinchyk (19-0, 9 KOs), was the reigning WBO lightweight champion by virtue of an upset split-decision victory over Emanuel Navarrete last June. Berinchyk had the belt, but the spotlight was on Davis (a 2020 Olympic silver medalist and 6-to-1 betting favorite).
Throughout fight week, Davis had the carriage of a fighter who is undefeated in the professional ranks and knew that the odds were stacked in his favor. He reveled in acting the bully at the final pre-fight press conference where he repeatedly interrupted Berinchyk before getting up from his chair and looming over the Ukrainian. That was followed by an incident at the weigh-in when Keyshawn put his hands on Denys and, as the fighters turned to face the media, stepped into Berinchyk’s space. That earned a shove and tempers flared.
It’s easy for a fighter to act out like that when he’s facing a 6-to-1 underdog. It’s unlikely that Keyshawn would have behaved in the same manner had he been readying to fight – say – Gervonta Davis.
When fight night came, it was just a matter of time until Berinchyk was knocked out. There was no way he could deal with Keyshawn’s speed and power. One guy was fighting in slow motion and the other on fast-forward.
Davis dropped Berinchyk with a body shot in round three and ended matters in round four with a brutal hook to the liver that left Denis gasping for air on the canvas.
Keyshawn has speed, skills, and power. Time will tell if he has a chin and heart.
Davis-Berinchyk highlighted a basic truth about boxing and other sports. Some athletes are simply more physically gifted than others.
LeBron James has a wonderful work ethic. But there are many basketball players who work as hard as LeBron and know the nuances of the game just as well. His physical gifts separate him from the pack. Ditto for Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Judge, and every other elite athlete.
Jack Nicklaus wasn’t just a talented golfer. At age thirteen, Nicklaus ran a 100-yard dash in eleven seconds flat and was the starting quarterback, punter, and placekicker on his junior high school football team. As a high school basketball player, he averaged eighteen points a game on a team that went to the fourth round of the Ohio state championship tournament. That same year, he made twenty-six free throws in a row and was named “all-league” and “honorable mention all-state.” To round out his resume, he played catcher on the school baseball team.
Davis has exceptional physical gifts. The phrase “physically gifted” also applies to 20-year-old Abdullah Mason (16-0, 14 KOs) who dismantled Manuel Jaimes at the Hulu Theater on Friday night. Mason is a legitimate prospect. Like Davis, he has speed, skills, and power. Five months ago, Jaimes went the distance against Rolly Romero. Mason knocked him down four times on the way to a fourth-round stoppage.
Other thoughts on Friday night’s fights at Madison Square Garden include:
Juanma Lopez De Jesus (who represented Puerto Rico at the 2024 Olympics and is the son of former WBO champion Juan Manuel Lopez) made his pro debut at 114 pounds against Bryan Santiago. Santiago was a typical opponent for a prospect making his pro-debut. Lopez knocked him out at 59-seconds of round one with the first solid punch he landed. After the fight, Santiago literally didn’t know what hit him. For the record, it was an uppercut.
Rohan Polanco turned in a dominant performance, stopping Juan Carlos Torres in two rounds. Keon Davis (Keyshawn’s brother) knocked out an overmatched Ira Johnson, also in the second stanza.
Vito Mielnicki Jr. and Connor Coyle fought to a spirited draw although, in the eyes of this observer, the edge belonged to Mielnicki. And Xander Zayas turned in a solid performance in scoring a ninth-round stoppage over Slawa Spomer. Referee Charlie Fitch might have stepped in a bit too quickly. But Fitch is a good referee. Spomer was getting hit more than he should have been. And according to CompuBox, Slawa had been outlanded 257 to 39.
Top Rank hopes to keep Zayas and Mielnicki on track until there’s a vacant 154-pound belt that they can fight for or a weak champion that one of them can beat.
Two of the favorites on the February 14 card disappointed.
Jared Anderson had been touted as America’s best heavyweight until his deficiencies were exposed and he was knocked down three times en route to a fifth-round stoppage by Martin Bakole on the Crawford-Madrimov undercard in Los Angeles last August. Marios Kollias (born in Greece and now fighting out of Sweden) is a big, strong, very slow fighter with rudimentary skills. Kollias had two fights last year. In one of them, he lost to a Danish fighter named Kem Ljungquist. In the other, he beat a guy named Tamaz Izoria (who has 15 losses in 20 fights and has been knocked out 11 times).
The Jared Anderson who savagely demolished Jerry Forrest at Madison Square Garden two years ago would have made short work of Kollias. But that version of Anderson hasn’t been seen lately. Jared came in for the Kollias fight at a career-high 258 pounds. And he fought like a man who has doubts about whether he wants to continue fighting professionally.
Anderson-Kollias had the feel of a slow sparring session. Kollias’s trunks kept sliding below his protective cup, necessitating repeated stoppages so referee David Fields could adjust them. The only fire Jared showed came near the end of the tenth and final round when he flagrantly fouled Marios by throwing him over his hip to the canvas. Fields should have deducted two points for the unprovoked infraction but let the matter slide. Properly incentivized, Kollias landed his best punches of the night just before the final bell. The scorecards read 99-91, 99-91, 98-92 in Anderson’s favor.
Anderson-Kollias was a dreary fight. Nico Ali Walsh vs. Juan Carlos Guerra was a sad one.
Nico is Muhammad Ali’s grandson and fights in the neighborhood of 157 pounds. He turned pro in 2021 and, after knocking out five of six carefully chosen opponents, went the distance in his next six outings (including one “no contest”). When he entered the ring on Friday night, his record stood at 10-and-1.
Without the “Ali” name, Nico would still be an exceptionally nice young man and a college graduate with myriad talents. People are impressed by him and for good reason. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good fighter.
The buzz that attended the start of Nico’s ring career is gone. He hasn’t improved noticeably as a fighter and doesn’t have the physical gifts necessary to take him beyond the club-fight level.
Guerra was a fungible opponent. The assumption was that Nico would outbox him. Juan Carlos threw wide looping punches throughout the fight and was an inartful aggressor. But inartful aggression is better than no aggression at all.
Nico got hit too much by a guy who – fortunately for Nico – was short on power. He fought tentatively, seldom initiated the action, didn’t counterpunch effectively, and failed to dissuade Guerra from coming forward.
In the final round, trailing badly by any objective measure, Nico didn’t try to pick up the pace.
Four of the rounds clearly belonged to Guerra. The other two were up for grabs. Judges Waleska Roldan and Georgi Gergov scored the bout 58-56 for Guerra.
In a shocker, Ken Ezzo’s scorecard read 58-56 in Nico’s favor.
Most fights aren’t hard to score. A judge has to pay attention, know what he (or she) is watching, and be honest. Ezzo’s scorecard was a disgrace.
It’s still possible that, by virtue of his family name, Nico can be maneuvered to a nice payday on a Riyadh Season card in Saudi Arabia. But he’s getting hit in the head too much. So I’ll repeat what I wrote after watching him fight several years ago:
“Whenever Nico fights, my heart will be in his gloves. But I’d rather that he not fight again. Muhammad Ali sacrificed so much at the altar of boxing – more than enough to obviate the need for sacrifices by any member of his family in the years to come.”
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.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Oscar Duarte KOs Miguel Madueno in a Battle of Mexicans at Anaheim

Oscar Duarte KOs Miguel Madueno in a Battle of Mexicans at Anaheim
No surprise. It was a Mexican beat down.
Oscar Duarte emerged victorious over fellow Mexican slugger Miguel Madueno by knockout to become a regional WBA super lightweight titlist on Saturday.
“Miguel (Madueno) is a gentleman and a warrior,” said Duarte. “He is a tough fighter but it was our night tonight.”
Chihuahua, Mexico’s Duarte (29-2-1, 23 KOs) started slowly but brutally stopped Sinaloa, Mexico’s Madueno who had never been knocked out before. The crowd at Honda Center in Anaheim roared its approval.
Not even new world titlist Keyshawn Davis was able to stop Madueno last July.
The taller Madueno opened up the first two rounds behind a stiff jab and some movement around the stalking style of Duarte. Though both Mexican fighters connected, it was Madueno who opened up stronger.
Then came the body shots.
“I knew he was going to move around when he felt my punches,” said Duarte.
The muscular Duarte had built a career as an inside fighter specializing in body shots. In the third round the light brown haired Duarte finally targeted the body and immediately saw results. Madueno had to change tactics.
Duarte had lost to Ryan Garcia by knockout 14 months ago in Texas. But since that loss he became the first to defeat Jojo Diaz by knockout and then last November beat down Uzbekistan’s Botirzhon Akhmedov. He was scheduled to fight Regis Prograis but an injury to the former world champion forced Madueno to step in as a replacement.
No matter.
Duarte began revving up the steamroller from the third round on with a pounding assault to the body and head that would not allow Madueno to dig in. A left hook to the chin by Duarte wobbled the Sinaloa fighter who had fought many times under the Thompson Boxing flag. The now departed Ken Thompson must have been proud at Madueno’s valiant performance.
It just wasn’t enough.
Madueno had success bouncing overhand rights on Duarte’s head but it was not enough. He battled through brutal exchanges and kept battling but the muscle-bound Duarte could not be halted.
In the fifth round Madueno tried to return to the long jabs and though he had early success, Duarte unleashed a three-punch combination to stop the nonsense. They both battled in a corner and Madueno emerged with blood streaming down his left eye. The referee ruled the cut was due to a blow.
“I felt his punches and I knew he was coming down,” Duarte said.
Duarte sensed the kill and opened up the sixth round with a bludgeoning six-punch volley. Madueno countered with a clean left hook. It was not a good exchange and it looked bad for the Sinaloan.
In the seventh round, Duarte looked like a Rhino that had just sharpened his horn and charged forward with bloodlust. The Chihuahua Mexican seemed determined to end the fight and connected with a right that staggered Madueno. Duarte followed up quickly with 17 more big blows to the body and head. Referee Thomas Taylor stepped in with a veering Madueno against the ropes and stopped the fight at 2:09 of the seventh round.
Duarte became the first man ever to defeat Madueno by knockout.
Now holding a regional WBA title, he is poised to fight for a world title.
“I’ll fight any champion. Let’s do it right now,” Duarte said.
Other Bouts
Houston’s Darius Fulgham (14-0, 12 KOs) proved too much for Detroit’s Winfred Harris Jr. (22-3-2) in overwhelming the clinching fighter and forcing a stoppage in the fourth round of their super middleweight bout. Fulgham was in control in every round that included a knockdown in the third round. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the beating.
Light flyweight Ricardo Sandoval (26-2, 18 KOs) soundly defeated the speedy Saleto Henderson (10-2, 7 KOs) by unanimous decision after 10 rounds. Both fighters showed off great chins but the taller Sandoval out-punched Henderson. Two judges scored it 100-90 for Sandoval and a third judge had it 98-92.

Ricardo Sandoval
An entertaining welterweight clash saw Chicago’s Kenneth Sims Jr. (22-2-1, 8 KOs) outpoint San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda (21-8, 9 KOs) but in the latter part of the match both slugged it out. The fans were pleased by the action. All three judges favored Sims 99-91 twice and 98-92, but Castaneda proved he was not overmatched.
Bakersfield’s Joel Iriarte (6-0, 6 KOs) had no problems against Darel Harris (19-24-2) who he stopped at 1:21 of the second round in a welterweight clash.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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Arnold Barboza Edges Past Jack Catterall in Manchester

In a battle between elite counter-punchers Southern California’s Arnold Barboza Jr. slightly out-worked Jack Catterall in England to win a razor-close split decision and become the interim WBO super lightweight titlist on Saturday.
“It was a chess match,” said Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing.
Barboza (32-0, 11 KOs) managed to overcome a hostile British crowd to defeat hometown favorite Catterall (30-2, 13 KOs) in a battle between defensive masters at the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester.
It was a match made for boxing purists who love the art of feints and counter-punches that are a major part of orthodox fighter Barboza and the southpaw Catterall. It was a fight that harkened back to the battle between Sugar Ray Leonard and Wilfredo Benitez in 1979.
Feints and more feints.
Neither fighter looked to give up ground from the first round until the last. Each was cognizant of the other’s ability to counter-strike.
Catterall benefited early from the hometown crowd. With few blows fired and even fewer blows landing, the crowd’s roars for the local fighter might have registered with the judges. Though neither fighter connected more than a dozen punches in any round, the crowd was more pleased with “El Gato” Catterall’s efforts.
No round was clear-cut.
Barboza began to increase his tempo around the third round. Though the fighter from El Monte, California never loaded up on his punches, he was more ready to risk receive incoming blows from Catterall. And they did come.
Perhaps it was Barboza’s steadier use of the jab to the chest and head that made the difference. And when the Californian opened-up with combinations, Catterall was ready with jolting lefts. If not for Barboza’s chin he might have hit the deck from the blows.
In the seventh round Barboza found the target for repeated right hand leads. One after another connected. And when it looked like he might overrun the British fighter, things turned around as Catterall connected below the belt. When Barboza complained to the referee, Catterall delivered three head blows at the end of the round. The referee ruled the blow was low, but still, the follow-up blows did land.
It was anyone’s fight.
From the ninth round on Barboza took the lead as the aggressor while Catterall maintained his counter-punching mode. Though neither fighter could gain separation, Barboza was slightly busier and that may have proved the difference in the final four rounds.
Catterall connected with the heavier punches throughout the fight. But he just never opened-up with combinations and settled for counters. And though he connected often with single blows, combinations were rarely fired by the Manchester fighter. But he was always in the fight.
No knockdowns were scored and after 12 rounds one judge saw Catterall the winner 115-113, but two others gave Barboza the win by 115-113 to become the number one contender for the WBO super lightweight title.
“Since I was little I just wanted respect,” said Barboza. “I got my respect today.”
Catterall was gracious in defeat.
“It was a tricky fight,” Catterall said. “I thought I just did enough.”
Barboza said he does not care who he fights next.
“Anybody can get it,” he said.
Other Bouts
Super featherweight Reece “The Bomber” Bellotti (20-5,15 KOs) belted Michael Gomez Jr. throughout 10 rounds with body shots. Twice he floored Gomez with shots to the liver until the fight was stopped at the end of the ninth round by technical knockout.
In another super featherweight clash James Dickens (35-5, 14 KOs) repeatedly out-maneuvered Zelfa Barrett (31-3, 17 KOs) to win by unanimous decision after 10 rounds.
Welterweight Pat McCormack (7-0, 6 KOs) blasted out veteran Robbie Davies Jr. (24-6) with three knockdowns in six rounds. The fight was stopped at the end of the sixth round in a scheduled 10-round fight.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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