Brener Zwikel’s Latest Challenge is More Than Buster Douglas-Sized Longshot

Published

10 years ago

October 28, 2014

Steve Brener, president of the California-based Brener Zwikel & Associates public-relations firm, had to chuckle at the analogy forwarded by a sports writer acquaintance of long standing. It was part of his job to create public interest in a seeming mismatch between heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and a 42-1 longshot named Buster Douglas. But Douglas shocked the world on Feb. 11, 1990, knocking out the supposedly invincible Tyson in the 10^th round in what is widely considered to be the biggest upset in boxing history, maybe the biggest upset in all of sports.

“Sometimes there are surprises,” said Brener, whose firm’s business is about 40 percent boxing-related, with Showtime and MGM/Mirage Resorts among its major clients. “Anybody has a chance to defy the odds. Every football Sunday (in the NFL), with the parity that’s out there, you have a fighting man’s chance to do something that nobody expects.”

But even Buster Douglas’ impossible dream would have seemed a reasonable bet when compared against the latest challenge presented to Brener Zwikel, which involves a new client whose chances of gaining the desired prize would seem to be Powerball lottery-long. But somebody eventually holds the winning ticket after all his or her numbered ping-pong balls come up, and the reality is that you can’t win if you don’t at least attempt to play.

So here, cast in the no-chance role of Buster Douglas to the millionth power, is your Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, ranked No. 23 in the latest Associated Press and Coaches polls, but in reality much further down than that when it comes to gaining serious consideration for the four-team College Football Playoff, the first time there will be an actual tournament to determine a national champion in what is now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).

As was previously the case, teams that are not members of the so-called five “power conferences” – that would be the Southeastern, Big Ten, Pac-10, Atlantic Coast and Big 12 – are holding nearly all the best cards in a high-stakes poker game, with even the best-positioned member of a less-influential conference (Marshall is in Conference USA) trying to bluff its way into winning the most lucrative pot with a skimpy hand. One of the factors that will be taken into consideration by the 12-member selection committee is strength of schedule, and despite the fact that Marshall is beating up on the teams it has played, including this past weekend’s 35-16 drubbing of Florida Atlantic, the Thundering Herd ranks just 125^th among 128 FBS teams in SOS, ahead of only Georgia Southern, Texas State and Buffalo. Marshall could and probably will lay total waste to its remaining four regular-season opponents – that would be Southern Mississippi, Rice, Alabama-Birmingham and Western Kentucky (combined record: 14-16) – and the likelihood is that it wouldn’t budge the needle even a little insofar as gaining one of the four playoff berths.

But nobody can say that Conference USA, which initiated the contact with Brener Zwikel, isn’t making its very strongest case to have one of its representatives crash a party that almost certainly will consist solely of invitees from the blue-blooded prestige leagues.

“It’s a PR firm that does great work and we thought we really had a great story from a conference standpoint,” Courtney Morrison-Archer, a CUSA associate commissioner, said of the decision to bring in Brener Zwikel. “We’re excited to keep focusing on the great things around the (Marshall) program.”

Brener, whose company is perhaps best known for boxing (it has been a part of nine of the top 11 pay-per-view fights of all time) but which has also drawn assignments for such high-visibility sports concerns as the Super Bowl, soccer’s World Cup, thoroughbred racing’s Breeders’ Cup and various pro golf tour stops, isn’t afraid to get in there and make his pitch, regardless of the circumstances. BZA’s motto says it all: “We don’t wait for things to happen … We make them happen.”

“I wanted to be on the same page with the Marshall SIDs (sports information directors),” Brener said. “I certainly didn’t want to step on their toes, and I don’t think that’s the case. What we’re going to do is to reach out nationally to promote the Marshall football program and to educate folks about Marshall and what they’re doing this year. Bottom line, when those 12 individuals (on the selection committee) get in the room to decide the (final) rankings, we’re going to know we did all we could to provide them with any information about Marshall that can help them make their decision. There really isn’t any more to it than that.”

Brener makes it sound so simple, but his job and those of his top lieutenants – including BZA vice president Toby Zwikel and account executive John Beyrooty, his point man on many big-time boxing events – is all about the details, and there are quite a few of them that go into the overall fabric of a vast and complicated mosaic.

“Especially on a pay-per-view event, it’s a major undertaking,” Brener said of the task of making a big fight seem even bigger during the run-up stage to the opening bell. “It starts with the announcement tour, then you have the satellite tours, the weekly camp notes … just spreading the word and keeping the fight at the top of people’s minds. You want to maximize the awareness and the visibility of your event.”

Comparatively speaking, that wasn’t quite as difficult some years ago when Brener’s company was hyping PPV shows that were headlined by Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, superstars whose names were instantly recognizable to every fight fan and even non-fans. Sadly, that isn’t the case anymore.

“We’re not having as many major fights as we did in the past, during the Tyson/Holyfield era,” Brener acknowledged. “The heavyweights and the middleweights were getting a lot of attention then. Unfortunately, the heavyweight division has been overseas for several years now, so it’s lost a bit of its shine here in the States. That’s just how it goes sometimes.”

Brener, an inductee into the World Boxing Hall of Fame, didn’t start out in boxing. He was the 24-year-old publicity director of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the youngest person in Major League Baseball history ever to hold a team’s top PR position, and after 18 years there he moved on to horse racing at Hollywood Park, where he was the track’s vice president of marketing and public relations.

He founded Brener Zwikel in 1988 and, fortuitously, was asked by Top Rank honcho Bob Arum to facilitate media coverage of the great Sugar Ray Leonard toward the end of Leonard’s career. That association lasted four fights, including Leonard’s rematch with Tommy Hearns and the rubber match in his three-bout series with Roberto Duran.

Brener’s work with Leonard evolved into a long-standing relationship with Showtime that now has spanned 23 years, as well as a continuing deal with MGM/Mirage Resorts. But when you do something very well and for a very long time, a lot of interested parties will come knocking at your door – including CUSA, which wants more people to take note of a Marshall program that possibly could hang tough with the biggest of the big boys, if only given the opportunity. The idea is that, by banging the drum for the Thundering Herd, a bigger spotlight will be reflected onto the other members of the 14-team league.

It’s not a totally unreasonable premise. Marshall might be known for the worst tragedy ever in college football, the Nov. 14, 1970, airplane crash that claimed the lives of all 75 passengers aboard Southern Airlines Flight 932, including 37 players, an event depicted in the 2006 film, “We Are Marshall”), but hope often springs from the ashes of despair. The Thundering Herd was awful for a long time, with the worst record of any major college program from 1964 to ’83, including one stretch in which it went 0-26-1, but from 1984 to 2005 posted 21 consecutive winning seasons. Marshall – which was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — won the 1992 and 1996 national championships in Division 1-AA (now the Football Championship Subdivision), and in recent years it has produced such NFL players as quarterbacks Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich, running back Ahmad Bradshaw, safety Chris Crocker, defensive end Vinny Curry and, most notably, wide receiver Randy Moss.

The Thundering Herd’s current star is quarterback Rakeem Cato, who has shattered most of the passing records set by Pennington and Leftwich, and probably would be a Heisman Trophy candidate if he were posting the same numbers at, say, Alabama, Notre Dame or Florida State. He also is the primary reason why Marshall is 8-0, one of only three FBS teams (along with No. 1 Mississippi State and No. 2 Florida State), which is a nice thing to know if only it weren’t for that strength-of-schedule thing and the fact that CUSA’s other 13 members are a collective 0-21 against teams from the so-called power five conferences.

If the College Football Playoff were as inclusive as, say, the FCS version – 16 teams make the postseason field in what used to be 1-AA, as well as in Division II and Division III – Marshall might have a shot at getting its chance to play David amidst all the Goliaths. But even Rakeem Cato doesn’t wield that powerful a slingshot, and neither does Steve Brener.

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Bernard Fernandez

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

Published

2 days ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10^th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11^th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

5 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

5 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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