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Oscar and Canelo Announce Themselves As Present and Future Leaders in the Fight Game

We fightwriters sometimes err in focusing too much on the business side of things, I think. While we are focusing on the power plays, and rifts and cold wars and thaws and suits and behind the scenes machinations, the majestic acts of the supremely talented and yes, courageous, athletes sometimes get under-reported.
But other times, as, I think, now, we get it right when we’re training our eyes, ears and keyboards on the business side of the red-light district of the sports world. Here in our favorite section of real-estate, we find such a delightful and sometimes infuriating and repugnant batch of characters as we would in any red light district. This melange of the motley and magnificent lends itself to be studied, dissected, discussed more so than is so in any other sporting realm.
That focus on the behind the scenes business, and the characters involved was on my mind during the intimate media luncheon held on the 14th floor of the HBO offices on 42nd St. in NYC, on Tuesday. Specifically, my thoughts were running to not as much the fighter who was there holding court, answering queries from the informed and aggressive media corps present, Canelo Alvarez, but the promoter who’d walked arm in arm with him from Showtime, where he’d been doing his thing for his last five fights, Oscar De La Hoya.
De La Hoya, I told you a few times since he’d exited rehab, and got back in the game which had long been his life, maybe too much so, maybe in a way that distracted him from other matters, of family, of emotional wellness, is not to be underestimated. Don’t assume, I wrote a few times, that because he’s admitted to various indiscretions, that some of the same attributes that served him well as a Hall of Fame fighter, a champion in six weight classes, a fighter who gravitated toward the sternest challenges, and not toward the most exploitable loopholes, that De La Hoya won’t be able to right his personal ship.
It looked to me like he was a proud captain of that vessel, as he sat next to Alvarez (44-1-1, with 31 KOs), the 24-year-old Mexican who is positioning himself as the present and future leader of the sport, after signing a new deal with HBO, terms not disclosed.
Right away, I put it to Oscar, before we got to Alvarez, who will glove up on HBO regular Dec. 6, likely against Joshua Clottey. What does this deal signify? Is it intended as an alert, a strong signal to Bob, to Floyd, to Richard, to Al, whoever…I’m a player, I’m THE player, I’m in the top slot as promoter as I was as a fighter?
The 42-in-February- year-old drew guffaws when he admitted that he decided to never fight again, just that very morning, after he ripped off a shirt, flexed in the mirror, and the mirror told him no mas. He said that the promotional sphere was to be his next chapter, and answered with savvy that people frankly haven’t been giving him credit for having.
“Just like the focus was always at hand when my job was fighting, if I was fighting Fernando Vargas, I wasn’t focusing on my next fight, who I lost or beat prior to that fight, I was focusing on the job at hand. With Canelo, I kept my eye on the ball, on the prize, the job at hand. What the fighter was asking me, what the best move would be for the future of Canelo Alvarez. I wasn’t listening to third parties, I wasn’t paying attention to anything that was going on outside of Canelo. Which made it easier for me to take care of business. I didn’t do it for no other reason but to look out for his best interest.”
Smart take. Do I fully believe the guy? No. He’s a competitor. Beyond that smile, toothy, A-grade on its best day, he can and has and did act in a manner which, I think, can hang with a Bob Arum, or a Don King. He told us that, and surprised many folks, when he sifted offers, and spurned the one from Stephen Espinoza, and took the one from KenHershman. How that plays out, we shall see, in the next few months, and into next year, when more players, the Roc Nations, and the Haymon Boxing’s seek to deepen their imprint on the fight game.
Oscar, smartly planting seeds and watering them, came back to that POV, that he’s there to serve the fighters, get the best deals for them, and nothing else. “Fighters don’t work for me, I work for the fighter,” he said.
Being a good fightwriter, hell, being a good writer in lots of areas, it helps if you can read between the lines. Is it possible that a message is being sent right there, a presentation of compare and contrast, was being thrown out there? Absolutely…pray tell, can you think of anyone who, conversely, people postulate might be working to their own benefit, and not fashioning deals which serve the best long term interests of people who they advise? I bet you can; but savvy Oscar was not going to burst a relationship bubble by going there. Yes, he can indeed get er done in the smoke filled back-rooms, as well as center ring, or so it seems.
Alvarez too got peppered. He will likely be fighting Joshua Clottey, a not untalented but infrequently active boxer, on Dec. 6. The Mexican too was in message mode; Oscar spoke up for him and declared him the current leader and the future driver of the sport, and Canelo concurred. No, he didn’t mean to pick a fight with Floyd Mayweather when he said he would be the man to own those all-important dates for Mexican boxers, Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day. No offense to Floyd, he implied, but bottom line…those dates are mine. We can play chicken if you want, he seemed to say, but I ain’t budging.
A fight with Miguel Cotto in maybe May seems like a nice option, and oh yes, in the not too distant future, a crack at middleweight star Gennady Golovkin is on his to do list, maybe in a year, or two.
Maybe my main takeaway on Alvarez was: he doesn’t see himself as a second fiddle guy. This guy plays lead guitar, he’s got the groupies who buy the PPVs, and he ain’t no warmup act.
Indeed, he did want to separate himself from the pack, give himself room to breathe and grow away from Mayweather, he said. “My goal in boxing is to be number one,” Alvarez said.
Oscar, once again seeming to say it without saying it, as a smart politician does, as it leaves him wiggle room should events warrant, basically said that Canelo is Golden Boy’s number one focus, and no, I don’t think we see Golden Boy doing promoter work for a Mayweather fight in the near future.
And on the subject of Mayweather, Canelo gave his longest answer to any query when I asked him if he didn’t think he needed to beat the man, to be the man. Does he want to get another crack at Floyd, and beat him, so he can physically usurp him from his throne? “No,” he said, as GBP VP Eric Gomez translated. “That’s not important.” Floyd avoids risk to such a degree, and fights hard maybe ten percent of a round, that his fights are too boring, Canelo said. No need to engage in such a dreary waltz, he said.
Oscar again sent a signal, lol, which he says he didn’t send, when speaking about his ex pal Richard Schaefer. They had been in mediation talks, and it was progressing, the ex fighter said. “But we hit a wall,” he said. “We were making progress and then hit a wall.” Lawsuit against Schaefer is still in play. Message: I finish my fights…
Later, I gave Oscar another in to make a loud stamping sound. Does it look to him like Haymon Boxing is readying to become another sort of entity, one that will be in direct competition with Golden Boy, and the Roc Nations, and such. Oh, Oscar did a bit of Alpha Promoter Male posturing when he said he didn’t see Roc Nation as an entity to threaten a Golden Boy, as music is their thing, and boxing hasn’t been. No, the Cali-based dealmaker said, he isn’t thinking about what shape the Haymon squad may take in 2015, he’s just focused on making the most compelling bouts now. Again, it was the smart politician answer. Fully truthful? Impossible to say, but the one Hillary Clinton would have given…
After the peppering session, Oscar seemed jazzed. “I liked that,” he said, grinning widely, pointing at me, indicating that he liked parrying some solid launches. Message: he’s all in, this is not a job for him, he’s in his element. He said he’s readying a re-launch of his personal brand, and will be firming up many charitable endeavors moving forward.
My last read of the whole deal, Canelo to HBO, and him and Oscar at HBO: if he continues to work towards having the fights fans want get made, then I’m in step with Oscar. That’s what I want, I’m a fan first, who happens to write about this addictive sphere we all adore and loathe.
Your thoughts, my informed and passionate friends. Talk to me…
Follow Woods on Twitter. https://twitter.com/Woodsy1069
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: San Diego Smoke

Years ago, I worked at a newsstand in the Beverly Hills area. It was a 24-hour a day version and the people that dropped by were very colorful and unique.
One elderly woman Eva, who bordered on homeless but pridefully wore lipstick, would stop by the newsstand weekly to purchase a pack of menthol cigarettes. On one occasion, she asked if I had ever been to San Diego?
I answered “yes, many times.”
She countered “you need to watch out for San Diego Smoke.”
This Saturday, Top Rank brings its brand of prizefighting to San Diego or what could be called San Diego Smoke. Leading the fight card is Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs) defending the WBO super feather title against undefeated Filipino Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) at Pechanga Arena. ESPN will televise.
This is Navarrete’s fourth defense of the super feather title.
The last time Navarrete stepped in the boxing ring he needed six rounds to dismantle the very capable Oscar Valdez in their rematch. One thing about Mexico City’s Navarrete is he always brings “the smoke.”
Also, on the same card is Fontana, California’s Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) vying for the interim IBF lightweight title against Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-1, 12 KOs) on the co-main event.
Abdullaev has only fought once before in the USA and was handily defeated by Devin Haney back in 2019. But that was six years ago and since then he has knocked off various contenders.
Muratalla is a slick fighting lightweight who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy now in Moreno Valley, Calif. It’s a virtual boot camp with many of the top fighters on the West Coast available to spar on a daily basis. If you need someone bigger or smaller, stronger or faster someone can match those needs.
When you have that kind of preparation available, it’s tough to beat. Still, you have to fight the fight. You never know what can happen inside the prize ring.
Another fighter to watch is Perla Bazaldua, 19, a young and very talented female fighter out of the Los Angeles area. She is trained by Manny Robles who is building a small army of top female fighters.
Bazaldua (1-0, 1 KO) meets Mona Ward (0-1) in a super flyweight match on the preliminary portion of the Top Rank card. Top Rank does not sign many female fighters so you know that they believe in her talent.
Others on the San Diego fight card include Giovani Santillan, Andres Cortes, Albert Gonzalez, Sebastian Gonzalez and others.
They all will bring a lot of smoke to San Diego.
Probox TV
A strong card led by Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (26-2, 18 KOs) facing Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0, 6 KOs) in a super welterweight clash between southpaws takes place on Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. PROBOX TV will stream the fight card.
Ardreal has rocketed up the standings and now faces veteran Lubin whose only losses came against world titlists Sebastian Fundora and Jermell Charlo. It’s a great match to decide who deserves a world title fight next.
Another juicy match pits Argentina’s Nazarena Romero (14-0-2) against Mexico’s Mayelli Flores (12-1-1) in a female super bantamweight contest.
Nottingham, England
Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KOs) defends the IBO super featherweight title against Leigh Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) in Wood’s hometown on Saturday at Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, England. DAZN will stream the Queensberry Promotions card.
Ireland’s Cacace seems to have the odds against him. But he is no stranger to dancing in the enemy’s lair or on foreign territory. He formerly defeated Josh Warrington in London and Joe Cordina in Riyadh in IBO title defenses.
Lampley at Wild Card
Boxing telecaster Jim Lampley will be signing his new book It Happened! at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 2 p.m. Lampley has been a large part of many of the greatest boxing events in the past 40 years. He and Freddie Roach will be at the signing.
Fights to Watch (All times Pacific Time)
Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Anthony Cacace (23-1) vs Leigh Wood (28-3).
Sat. PROBOX.tv 3 p.m. Erickson Lubin (26-2) vs Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0).
Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1) vs Charly Suarez (18-0); Raymond Muratalla (22-0) vs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1).
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.
It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”
Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”
But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”
Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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