Hoping, Still Hoping, Mayweather Sees The Light

Published

10 years ago

September 11, 2014

Photo Credit: Esther Lin/SHOWTIME

We are all a work in progress, and by no means, I have found, does age equal wisdom.

I found myself thinking this when I heard what Floyd Mayweather said Tuesday when asked at a media event what he thought bout the Ray Rice situation. For those in a boxing bubble, Rice is the NFL player who was busted for assault, after he knocked out his then fiancee, now wife, Janay Palmer on Feb. 15 in New Jersey.

Rice was arrested and indicted for third-degree assault, after he and Palmer were both arrested at Revel Casino in Atlantic City. Thanks to the tabloid website TMZ, the story spread, and public outrage grew, as 99.9% were horrified to see the running back dragging the unconscious woman out of the elevator. A similar percentage of people were mightily surprised when Palmer and Rice were married on March 28.

He got off with a wrist slap, as his team the Ravens suspended him for the first two games of this season. The charges were dropped as Rice pled not guilty to assaulting the lady, and he has been attending a program to attend to such violent behavior. But the matter didn’t melt away into the morass of misbehavior featured regularly on TMZ. Luckily, that organization kept on working the story, and secured video, which spoke louder than our imaginations and reports from authorities and self serving statements from the billionaire boys club that is the NFL did. The video showed the couple in the elevator, Palmer walking towards Rice, and Rice delivering a left hook which knocked her out.

His fiancee. Knocked her out.

The other shoe dropped, and hit NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who not incidentally was paid $44 million dollars last year for his presumed competence and wisdom and wise stewardship, on his Guccis. Public and press scorn was ubiquitous when the smoking gun video came out; the NFL backpedaled, and tried to act contrite. Rice has been suspended indefinitely And I think Roger “Go To Hell” Goodell should be fired, definitely.

This brings us back to our shared addiction, the fight game. As you can imagine, such incidences of domestic violence, which might seem unfathomable to many of us, who can’t even imagine striking a “loved” one, let alone going there, are not a rarity among boxers. Not a surprise, I suppose, as the sport attracts an element which tends to commit such acts more than people who grew up in an atmosphere and in a place of privilege and guidance which made that behavior less likely to come to fruition.

The sport, like football, is an exercise in contained and basically structured violence, wherein the aim of many of the participants is to render the opposition insensible. Thus, we can’t all act with such naivete as to think that sometimes there could be blurring of the lines, instances where the activity and behavior which is condoned and rewarded on the field or in the ring bleeds into the off field existence. We never excuse, it goes without saying, we but of course don’t condone, but we should be able to see that nothing occurs outside of a wider context. But no one, it seems, in their right mind, would be giving Rice anything resembling a free pass. Which is why Floyd Mayweathers’ statements on Tuesday, when he was asked about the Rice situation, are galling.

Hey, we get it. We don’t live in a context free space. We get that our system can’t grind to a halt because someone effs up.The show, the money flow, must go on. The more “important” you are, most often, the more your space in the show will be held for you, even if you eff up, because ability to generate revenue is correlated with worth and importance in our system. Rice, who signed a five year contract for $35 million in 2012, is important to the Ravens. As Floyd Mayweather is important to boxing. He makes a minimum of $33 million or so per fight in his six-fight deal he signed with Showtime. The economic impact of his fights and his presence isn’t negligible and thus, he is treated accordingly. His status as a revenue-churner didn’t keep the man from being convicted of assault, though, back in 2012, stemming from a horrific incident involving the women who birthed three of his children. He was sentenced to three months and served 8 weeks of that in a Nevada facility from June to August 2012.

My hope for Mayweather, me as a person who himself seeks out positive role models to look toward to aid in my own quest to act in a “correct” and decent way, and as representative for the sport which I hold dear, has long been that I hope he sees the light.

For himself, for his family, the kids, for the sport, everything…

Bragging about gambling, and the contract, and the cars, all that stuff, I don’t care for it, because those are messages contrary to what I believe are the things that really, truly matter. But you don’t come here to read me moralize, and, further, that doesn’t mean that I am not sometimes entertained by his posturing.

Also, refer back to what I said about us not expecting too much, us expecting the fighters to act as assassins in the ring, and angels outside of it. So, in light of my hopes for Mayweather, who turns 38 in February, I was, yes, disappointed in his statements on the Rice deal. If you missed them, here’s what went down. Reporter Tim Smith, during a media scrum, asked Mayweather what he thought about “the news of the day,” the Rice situation. The boxer took a gulp of water, and swam to the deep end. “You know, I wish him nothing but the best,” said, and then cracked a joke about “that Warren Buffet coke” as an aide handed him a soda.

“When all is said and done, I wish something positive out of it…I’m not here to say anything negative about him, things happen, you live and you learn, no one is perfect.”

OK, nothing insensible there, even if my first reaction is that maybe most peoples’ first reaction is sympathy not for the striker, but in fact, the person who was struck.

Next, he talked about how he thought the Raven should have “stuck to their word,” and their initial two-game suspension. To be fair, Smith asked him to comment on that aspect of the Rice deal, so if you thought it strange that he so quickly veered toward that element of the story, rather than the bigger picture issue, there is a reason he took that route, the money route.

He made sense when after ESPN’s Dan Rafael asked for clarity, if the Raven should stick with the two game ban, as opposed to cutting Rice, Floyd said he tries to be a better person every day. He said he did see the video,and Rafael served him up a softball which he could have hit out of the park, could have shown that he’s on the right track to being that better person. He could have answered in a way to show people that the past misdeeds are history, that there will be no more accusations or such, Rafael termed the video “kind of disturbing.”

Floyd paused, as I prayed for him to do the right thing. He…didn’t.

“I think it’s a lot of worse things that go on in other peoples’ households also,” he said. “We just don’t get to see them,” said Rafael. Floyd stammered and said, “it’s just not caught on video….I wish Ray Rice nothing but the best.”

OK, that answer is disturbing, more than kind of. It is neither here nor there that horrid stuff occurs in other peoples’ households. This could be a matter where Floyd is hanging out with a brand of people where such behavior is commonplace. And while kayoing your fiancee isn’t the most heinous of crimes, I feel sad for the person who is immune to the seriousness of the act, and apparently dismisses the assault because of the prevalence of similar actions in others’ residences. A minute plus in, and Mayweather still didn’t mention Palmer, and continued to stick up for Rice, the assaulter.

He showed most sympathy, over all, for the footballer, and focused on the lost income. He then did say that he thinks the loss of vocation is hurtful to Rice, and his wife, so he did in fact refer to the victim.

Rafael asked if he thought he’d be kicked out of boxing because of his “situation.”

Mayweather was again handed the ball, and, many if not most would argue, fumbled it. He referred back to his insistent explanation that he was mistakenly found guilty, because the woman he assaulted, Josie Harris, wasn’t bruised or cut. He tried to compare and contrast, noting that Chris Brown and OJ Simpson’s and Ochocinco victims both showed the effects of being struck. “You guys have yet to see any pictures of a battered woman, a woman who claims she was kicked and beat,” he said, presumably referring to Harris. “I just live my life, try to stay positive, try to become a better person each and every day.”

Me too. Part of that, a large part of that, is trying to be patient, to help see all sides of a story or situation. So, I have to ponder, what if Floyd was wrongly convicted? My answer to my self query is, the man has a lengthy record of domestic assault situations. Where there’s smoke…Also, you might recall, last May, a Yahoo story referenced a police report from the Mayweather-Harris fight in which the writer, Martin Rogers, saw a statement from Floyd’s then 11 year old son, who told cops that he “saw my dad hitting and kicking mom.”

Hey, do police tell the truth all the time? Nobody does. But do you see the plausibility in there being a fabricated written statement from an 11 year old boy? We’re talking a JFK assassination level of sinister plotting if that were the case. It reminds me of athletes hit with allegations of PED usage who counter by saying, “I never tested positive.” Er, OK, would you not rather say that you unequivocally never used PEDs, rather than rely on the weasely lawyer response? Would Floyd not rather say ‘I never hit or kicked that woman’ rather than saying that the absence of evidence is evidence of innocence?

It appears someone spoke some sense to “Money,” told him his comments weren’t playing well, or, who knows, maybe he had his own pangs of conscience. But the next day, he was on his bike. “If I offended anyone, I apologize,” he said to a gaggle of reporters after the Wednesday presser at MGM. “I apologize to the NFL,” he said, noting he wasn’t perfect. “I am only human. Domestic violence is something I don’t condone.”

OK, I guess we take what we can get. I would to have liked to hear a more in-depth, more thoughtful apology, paired with some additional insight into the whole mess. But I think it would be hard to pull off, because Mayweather has to feel a kinship with Rice, in that both have been punished for something everybody finds appalling. We can only hope that, as always, some good comes of this sad soap opera. We hope that some eyes get opened, and some people somewhere get the message and cut the crap. Violence against loved ones, of any gender, is nothing but wrong. No excuse. Don’t talk provocation, or lack of video, or lack of evidence in the form of bruises. Just cut it out, abusers, get yourself some professional help, and do the right thing. And if we don’t speak up, all of us, who cover him, who work for him, who televise him, that’s on us. To be silent is to silently condone, is it not?

END NOTE: I reached out to Showtime, and asked for an official comment regarding Mayweather, his Rice comments, their association with him, and their stance as a corporation on the fighter in relation to his legal history. I await a response and will add it to this story when I receive it. I think it is important we hear that, because I’d like some clarity on how MY SPORT deals with this subject. I like to think we do the right thing more often than given credit for, and I think, to this point, we have all not given enough thought and attention to the negative history the sports’ biggest star has in the arena of using physical force against past and present significant others. All of us can can “try to become a better person each and every day,” like Mayweather said on Tuesday, but he is the standard bearer of the sport and people, rightly or maybe wrongly, look up to him…it is incumbent upon him to finally get it, and do it. I continue to hope he sees that light, and his behavior reflects that going forward.

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Michael Woods

Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

13 mins ago

December 18, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Steven-Navarro-is-the-TSS-2024-Prospect-of-the-Year

“I get ‘Bam’ vibes when I watch this kid,” said ESPN ringside commentator Tim Bradley during the opening round of Steven Navarro’s most recent match. Bradley was referencing WBC super flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, a precociously brilliant technician whose name now appears on most pound-for-pound lists.

There are some common threads between Steven Navarro, the latest fighter to adopt the nickname “Kid Dynamite,” and Bam Rodriguez. Both are southpaws currently competing in the junior bantamweight division. But, of course, Bradley was alluding to something more when he made the comparison. And Navarro’s showing bore witness that Bradley was on to something.

It was the fifth pro fight for Navarro who was matched against a Puerto Rican with a 7-1 ledger. He ended the contest in the second frame, scoring three knockdowns, each the result of a different combination of punches, forcing the referee to stop it. It was the fourth win inside the distance for the 20-year-old phenom.

Isaias Estevan “Steven” Navarro turned pro after coming up short in last December’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana. The #1 seed in the 57 kg (featherweight) division, he was upset in the finals, losing a controversial split decision. Heading in, Navarro had won 13 national tournaments beginning at age 12.

A graduate of LA’s historic Fairfax High School, Steven made his pro debut this past April on a Matchroom Promotions card at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and then inked a long-term deal with Top Rank. He comes from a boxing family. His father Refugio had 10 pro fights and three of Refugio’s cousins were boxers, most notably Jose Navarro who represented the USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a four-time world title challenger as a super flyweight. Jose was managed by Oscar De La Hoya for much of his pro career.

Nowadays, the line between a prospect and a rising contender has been blurred. Three years ago, in an effort to make matters less muddled, we operationally defined a prospect thusly: “A boxer with no more than a dozen fights, none yet of the 10-round variety.” To our way of thinking, a prospect by nature is still in the preliminary-bout phase of his career.

We may loosen these parameters in the future. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of talented female boxers who, like their Japanese male counterparts in the smallest weight classes, are often pushed into title fights when, from a historical perspective, they are just getting started.

But for the time being, we will adhere to our operational definition. And within the window that we have created, Steven Navarro stood out. In his first year as a pro, “Kid Dynamite” left us yearning to see more of him.

Honorable mention: Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior (5-0, 5 KOs)

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The Challenge of Playing Muhammad Ali

Published

9 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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