Can Hopkins Do Unto Kovalev What He Did To Pavlik?

Published

10 years ago

October 18, 2014

There is nothing wrong with being a one-trick pony, if that trick is truly unique and so exceptional that other ponies being put on public display can’t hope to duplicate it. If that were the case, people would continue to flock to see the pony do its very special thing, even if they had seen it done before because, well, greatness in a limited sense is still greatness. No one ever complained because the magnificent racehorse, Secretariat, wasn’t required to rear up on his hind legs and dance to calliope music, like a circus animal. The Triple Crown champion’s only requirement was to run very fast and cross the finish line ahead of his pursuers, which he did with astounding regularity.

Oct. 18 marks the six-year anniversary of old warhorse Bernard Hopkins’ thorough thrashing of a frisky colt named Kelly Pavlik. A couple of weeks from now, on Nov. 8 – and at the same venue, Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall – Hopkins, even longer past the age when elite prizefighters, in a manner of speaking, should have been put out to pasture, goes to the post once more against another much-younger opponent, Sergey Kovalev, whose charge-forward, big-banging style has been likened to that of … Kelly Pavlik.

Pavlik, a 5-1 favorite who was exposed as much too limited a thoroughbred by the cagey Hopkins, stands as Exhibit A – OK, maybe more as Exhibit B, C or even D – of the kind of knockout-dependent slugger who made the mistake of believing that the geezer in the other corner was on his last legs, lacking the will or endurance to stay the course. Can the same result be in the offing when Hopkins, who turns 50 on Jan. 15, again steps into the starting gate against a younger, supposedly devastating puncher who, like Pavlik, figures to go off as roughly a 3-1 oddsmaker’s choice?

Spanish philosopher/poet George Santayana once observed that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” which is true enough given certain circumstances. But there is another saying that also has been proven correct time and again, and that is that nothing lasts forever. Maybe not even Bernard Hopkins, whose history of disassembling fighters whose singular trick, even if they are spectacularly good at performing it, may be about to be put to the ultimate test.

As the countdown continues to Hopkins-Kovalev – the HBO-televised showdown is for the further unification of the light heavyweight championship, with B-Hop (55-6-2, 32 KOs) putting his IBF and WBA 175-pound titles on the line against the WBO belt held by the 31-year-old Kovalev (25-0-1, 32 KOs) – the questions that have yet to be answered are simple. Will past form be an indicator of what the immediate future holds, or will there be a variation of the familiar plot? For whatever it’s worth, Hopkins and Kovalev are spicing things up a bit by suggesting that there might even be a bit of role reversal when the opening bell rings, with Hopkins boldly trying for his first win inside the distance since he stopped Oscar De La Hoya in nine rounds on Sept. 18, 2004 – that’s a stretch of 16 bouts, if you include his no-contest pairing with Chad Dawson on Oct. 15, 2011 – while Kovalev, who has won his last nine fights by knockout, and last 13 if you don’t count his two-round technical draw with Grover Young on Aug. 27, 2011, tries to outbox the boxing master.

“That would be eye-opening to a lot of people,” Hopkins said, teasingly, when asked if he might somehow alter the script by putting “Krusher” Kovalev down and out. “I’m in a knockout drought. But I did break a knockdown drought in my last fight (a one-sided points nod over then-WBA champ Beibut Shumenov on April 19).

“If I see an opening, I’m gonna attack. When I go in that ring, I use all my alphabetical skills, from A to Z, and systematically give a boxing lesson. Remember, I get paid the same whether it goes one or 12 rounds. But if a guy looks like he can be had, I’m gonna get him.”

Kovalev, whose boxing skills might actually be underrated because he so seldom has had to call upon any skill other than his ability to batter opponents into unconsciousness or abject submission, isn’t going the Kelly Pavlik route by predicting he will become the first fighter to take out Hopkins before the fight goes to the scorecards.

“I think nothing,” Kovalev said when asked if he thought he’d make short work of Hopkins, as he has of so many recent rivals. “Just go to the ring and do my work, my job, as usual. Is boxing. How many rounds will we fight? When you go to the ring, anything can happen. Like I say, is boxing. Every punch is dangerous, for each of us.

“Really, I would like to show to people my boxing. Is not interesting, quick kills. Is interesting to me what I can do against big master boxer.”

But words are easier to fling around than scoring blows, and the likelihood is that this very intriguing matchup will hew closely to the established strategies that almost everyone expects the combatants to follow. You don’t enter plow horses in the Kentucky Derby, and you don’t ask Secretariat to pull a beer wagon as if he were a Clydesdale.

Prior Hopkins’ impressive unanimous decision over Winky Wright, another defensive genius best known for his penchant for hitting and not getting hit much in return, ESPN2 boxing analyst Teddy Atlas said it is crazy to think a leopard can change its spots on a whim because it suddenly decides it likes stripes better.

“They have styles that obviously work for them,” Atlas said of the mirror images Hopkins and Wright presumably projected. “Those styles call for them to cover up, to counter, to stay out of danger whenever possible, to take what the other guy gives them and not necessarily force the issue. Those are qualities that have made them highly productive. Do they care about changing to make the fight more fan-friendly? I don’t think they do. They’re at a point in their careers where their priorities are pretty much established. They are who they are. Their styles, I think, are an extension of their mentality. If you have a guy who thinks carefully, he’s going to box carefully. If you have a guy who thinks aggressively, he’s going to fight that way.”

Which brings us back to the parallels between what happened in Hopkins-Pavlik and what might happen in Hopkins-Kovalev, unless Hopkins has ceded too much ground to the inevitable ravages of Father Time, and/or Kovalev is a much improved version of Pavlik, whose favoritism the night he got schooled by B-Hop owed largely to the fact he had twice defeated Jermain Taylor, who had twice defeated Hopkins.

Another interesting sidelight to this figurative do-over is the presence of former WBA middleweight champion John David Jackson in Kovalev’s corner as chief second. Jackson, who was stopped in seven rounds by then-IBF middleweight titlist Hopkins on April 19, 1997, is a former assistant trainer of B-Hop who was part of the ageless wonder’s team the night he put so much distance between himself and Pavlik that the Philadelphian won by margins of 119-106, 118-108 and 117-109 on the official scorecards. You’d have to figure that if anyone knows the secret of solving the puzzle that is Hopkins, it would be Jackson. But then JD-Jax knows that some puzzles are forever puzzling.

“Bernard is a smart fighter,” Jackson said before Hopkins’ April 19, 2008, bout with Welsh southpaw Joe Calzaghe, who put enough of the jigsaw pieces together to win a close and somewhat controversial split decision. “He’s taken street smarts and made it work very well. He wears people down physically, and psychologically.”

The guess here is that Pavlik made the mistake of figuring that Hopkins, at 43, was too old and used-up to pose too much of a threat to a hot, young (then 26) and ascending star such as himself. His prefight confidence was such that he boasted he would “do boxing a favor” and “forever free” the world of the drudgery of watching B-Hop make good fighters look bad.

But Hopkins, who uses every tool at his disposal to motivate himself to give maximum effort every time out, was inspired by a pledge he had made to a partially blind, pain-wracked 18-year-old Hopkins fan named Shaun Negler, who died of brain cancer just five days after his hero had dominated Pavlik. Which begs another question: Just what is the emotional string within himself that Hopkins will try to pull against Kovalev, who has refrained from making the sort of derogatory remarks about his aged opponent that Pavlik and others have uttered and then been forced to retract. To this point, he has given Hopkins perhaps too much respect, at least in his public pronouncements.

“He is `Alien,’” a smiling Kovalev said of Hopkins, a reference to the recently adopted nickname Hopkins has assumed in place of the discarded “Executioner.” “He is not 49 like regular man.”

Forget about veiled suggestions that Kovalev will try to match Hopkins subtle trick for subtle trick, slick move for slick move. He is 18-plus years younger, he packs much the heavier artillery, he is the future (you can bet that the brass at HBO are hoping so) while Hopkin is a glorious relic of the past, his golden era relentlessly dipping toward its sunset. It will be up to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Russian to go to a place that Kelly Pavlik was unable to reach, or even approach, a destination other relative one-trick ponies such as Felix Trinidad and Antonio Tarver thought they had a map to when they agreed to enter the labyrinth of pitfalls where B-Hop awaits.

Hopkins doesn’t expect Kovalev to “show people my boxing”; he no doubt is anticipating that the WBO champ will mostly try to make history becoming the first fighter to knock him out, or at least to beat him bloody, and he is relying on his own past performance charts to demonstrate that no one-trick pony can successfully hang with so varied and adaptable a trickster such as he.

“Kelly Pavlik is the perfect opponent for me because he comes forward, he comes to fight and he wants to knock me out,” Hopkins said prior to that particular date with destiny. “But he’s going to find it difficult, and it’s going to change the fight. I guarantee, it’s going to change the fight. Tito (Trinidad) tried to walk me down. Tito had one bullet in the chamber and that was a left hook. If Kelly Pavlik thinks he’s going to beat Bernard Hopkins because he has a big right hand, he’s a damn fool.

“You’ve got an offensive guy and you’ve got a defensive guy. That’s the perfect match. You’ve got a guy that comes forward and you’ve got a guy that specializes in guys coming forward so he can let them punch, so he can counterpunch. That’s my game. This will be a fight where the Mack truck is coming, and can Bernard Hopkins crash the Mack truck? I say I will flatten the tires, the Mack truck will slow up and then it will conk out.”

But if Hopkins’ expectation of the outcome against Pavlik was indeed fulfilled, remember what else he has said as the sands in his professional hourglass began to very slowly empty. He was “only” 43 when he was asked before the Pavlik fight if he expected to continue to fighting until, oh, 48.

“No,” he insisted. “Reflexes are very important. To be able to move from left to right at the drop of a dime is very important. The first thing that goes on a fighter is his knees, then his reflexes. At 48 years old, I’ll be a sitting duck and I’ll be embarrassing my long list of achievements and my legacy.”

No fighter can have it both ways, even against a fairly predictable one-trick pony. Even if Kovalev has but one trick, it is a mighty good one and besides, he’ll be double-teaming Hopkins with that unseen but very real ally, the thief of reflexes. Father Time eventually calls on all fighters who stay too long at the fair, but to date Hopkins hasn’t answered the insistent knocking at his door. Maybe he really is impervious to the natural laws of diminishing returns.

Regardless of how this fight ends, though, there is a strong possibility that the winner is apt to be named Fighter of the Year because, well, just because. Kovalev will be the sport’s hottest growth property if he wins emphatically against a living legend, and a victorious Hopkins would continue to be its forever-blooming evergreen, with a chance to add a companion FOY award to the one he captured for 2001 when he dominated the great Felix Trinidad. He knew what he was getting into when he agreed to swap shots with Kovalev, and he did so eagerly.

“I was supposed to be done 15 years ago,” he said. “Fifteen from 49 leaves you what, 37? Thirty-four? OK, I never passed math.

“When this fight’s over and I’ve given another loss to an undefeated fighter … man, I love fighting guys with undefeated records. I love it when that fighter no longer can be called a virgin. He’s been had. I have a history of taking guys 0’s away.”

The guess here is that among those with an especially strong interest in the outcome will be Kelly Pavlik, who was never quite the same after his date with Hopkins, and who might or might not be coming out of retirement at some point. When you have been there and haven’t done that, there is always the nagging question of what you might have done differently, as well as wonder who the guy might be that comes along and does what you weren’t able to when it counted most.

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Bernard Fernandez

Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

5 hours ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

2 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

Published

2 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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