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Floyd Mayweather, Showtime, and the Nevada State Athletic Commission
Les Moonves has a domestic violence problem. As president and CEO of CBS Corporation, he oversees a vast media empire that includes, among other properties, CBS and Showtime.
CBS is one of the networks that televises National Football League games. The burgeoning NFL domestic violence scandal isn’t adversely affecting ratings right now. But there might come a time when corporate advertisers move away from the NFL. That would be bad for CBS.
Meanwhile, Showtime finds itself joined at the hip with Floyd Mayweather by virtue of a six-fight contract. Mayweather has been criminally convicted on three separate occasions for being physically abusive to women. In 2012, he served 63 days in jail for one of these offenses. The Nevada State Athletic Commission didn’t suspend Mayweather’s license to box after any of the convictions, and the sentencing judge delayed the start of Mayweather’s jail term so he could fight Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas on May 5, 2012.
Let’s put that in perspective. Suppose Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson had been convicted of battery domestic violence and sentenced to prison last year. And suppose the sentencing judge had deferred the sentence so Wilson could play against the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl before going to jail. And suppose NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had let Wilson play. That’s the equivalent of what happened with Mayweather in Nevada.
This week, the Mayweather, Showtime, and Nevada State Athletic Commission pathologies collided.
Showtime prides itself on its All Access series that the Showtime website describes as follows: “This documentary series from Emmy-Award-winning Showtime Sports provides viewers with an intimate portrait of some of the most compelling personalities in sports. All Access will take you inside the personal lives of the fighters and behind the scenes of the provocative and often edgy world of boxing with unrestricted access, as only Showtime can.”
As part of the pre-event promotion for the September 13, 2014, pay-per-view fight between Mayweather and Marcos Maidana, Showtime aired a three-part All Access documentary. During the second episode, Sharif Rahman (an amateur boxer and one of former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman’s sons) was shown taking a vicious beating at the hands of Donovan Cameron in a sparring session at the Mayweather Boxing Club. Sharif’s older brother, Hasim Rahman Jr, then challenged Cameron to get into the ring with him. The All Access documentary showed members of the gym placing bets on the action, while the two men fought for 31 consecutive minutes until Cameron could no longer continue. Mayweather cheered enthusiastically during the battle and said on camera, “The dog house; the rules are you fight till whoever quits. Guys fight to the death. It’s not right, but it’s dog house rules.”
In the same episode of All Access, Mayweather was shown at home, watching as several women rolled joints and smoked marijuana. At one point, he instructed a third party to go to the store and buy more rolling paper because they had run out of paper.
Thereafter, Nevada State Athletic Commission chairman Francisco Aguilar told ESPN.com, “I watched the episodes when they were sent to me by another commissioner. Our main concern is the health and safety of the fighters, and not just on fight night but also in sparring and in training. We want to get a clarification about what happened on All Access. There were situations in sparring sessions that we need to talk about. One thing is to talk about making sure you have two equally paired fighters and that you’re not putting one fighter in danger. The other is the round that went 31 minutes. There is also the marijuana situation in there, and some commissioners are upset about it.”
On September 18, the Nevada State Athletic Commission instructed Mayweather to appear at its September 23 meeting to answer questions regarding the content of the All Access episode. He was not required to take an oath before testifying. That created a loophole through which, were he so inclined, he could testify falsely without exposure to prosecution for perjury.
Mayweather told the commission on September 23 that, contrary to what was represented on All Access, there had been three or four breaks during the 31-minute round and that the marijuana shown in the documentary wasn’t real marijuana but a prop used to engender interest in his lifestyle and help sell pay-per-view buys.
It’s hard to believe that Showtime would stage events like that for inclusion in a documentary. The network is part of a media empire that includes CBS, perhaps the world’s most respected name in news coverage.
Mayweather had an “executive producer” credit for All Access, but his reputation isn’t on the line. The other three executive producers were Ross Greenburg, Jody Heaps, and Jason Bowers. Bowers was also credited as the series director. The prevailing view among industry insiders is that these men have too much integrity to stage scenes in the manner testified to by Mayweather.
Moreover, multiple sources at Showtime have told this writer that Mayweather’s testimony before the Nevada State Athletic Commission was false.
“As you can imagine, it’s a sensitive time right now,” one of these sources said. “People here are angry. The marijuana was real. There was no break in the 31-minute fight. Floyd flat out lied to the commission.”
To date, Showtime executives have declined to comment publicly on Mayweather’s testimony. But this is an instance where “no comment” is an inadequate response. The network owes its subscribers and the viewing public a clarification. Either the All Access scenes were genuine or they were not. That means it’s incumbent upon Showtime management to call in key production personnel, ask them precisely what happened, and review all relevant video evidence. Then Showtime should either (1) apologize publicly for deliberately misleading its subscribers and the general public or (2) state publicly that, upon review, it has confirmed that the All Access presentation of events was accurate.
Meanwhile, the Nevada State Athletic Commission should also follow up on the matter. At a minimum, this would involve (1) requiring Mayweather and the appropriate Showtime personnel to testify under oath, and (2) requesting that subpoenas be issued for all relevant video content.
NSAC executive director Bob Bennett is a former FBI agent. He knows how to investigate something of this nature. And because Bennett is a former FBI agent, the commission will look pretty silly if it comes to light later on that its members were lied to and did nothing about it.
It’s one thing if the Nevada State Athletic Commission accommodates Mayweather by allowing him to fight Miguel Cotto after he has pled guilty to battery domestic violence but not yet served his sentence. That’s a choice, however unfortunate, that the NSAC made freely and knowingly. It’s a very different matter if Mayweather has disrespected the commission and made a mockery of its proceedings by lying to the commissioners.
The credibility of both the Nevada State Athletic Commission and Showtime is at stake. If Mayweather told the truth at the September 23 hearing, then heads should roll at Showtime. And if it was Mayweather who lied, it’s time for the NSAC to say, “Enough is enough!” That would include re-examining Mayweather’s license as a boxer and also the issue of whether Mayweather Promotions is fit to be licensed as a promoter in Nevada.
One assumes that Nevada governor Brian Sandoval (who bears ultimate responsibility for the commission and its actions) will be watching. So will Les Moonves. Either Showtime has deliberately deceived its subscribers and the general public or the five commissioners of the Nevada State Athletic Commission have been played for fools.
Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His next book (Thomas Hauser on Boxing) will be published in October by the University of Arkansas Press.
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Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.
The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.
What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.
In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.
Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.
The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.
In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.
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Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.
Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.
When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.
This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.
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The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)
The Fights
There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.
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In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.
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I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.
On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool
In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.
This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.
The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.
The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.
Semi-wind-up
A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.
Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.
The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.
Other Bouts of Note
In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.
In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.
A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.
In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.
Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.
A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.
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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney
IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.
Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.
Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.
Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.
The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.
Semi-wind-up
Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).
A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.
Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).
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