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Brener Zwikel’s Latest Challenge is More Than Buster Douglas-Sized Longshot
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 10th 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 125th 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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Boxing Odds and Ends: The Heavyweight Merry-Go-Round
There were few surprises when co-promoters Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren and their benefactor HE Turki Alalshikh held a press conference in London this past Monday to unveil the undercard for the Beterbiev-Bivol show at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on June 1. Most of the match-ups had already been leaked.
For die-hard boxing fans, Beterbiev-Bivol is such an enticing fight that it really doesn’t need an attractive undercard. Two undefeated light heavyweights will meet with all four relevant belts on the line in a contest where the oddsmakers straddled the fence. It’s a genuine “pick-‘em” fight based on the only barometer that matters, the prevailing odds.
But Beterbiev-Bivol has been noosed to a splendid undercard, a striking contrast to Saturday’s Haney-Garcia $69.99 (U.S.) pay-per-view in Brooklyn, an event where the undercard, in the words of pseudonymous boxing writer Chris Williams, is an absolute dumpster fire.
The two heavyweight fights that will bleed into Beterbiev-Bivol, Hrgovic vs. Dubois and Wilder vs. Zhang, would have been stand-alone main events before the incursion of Saudi money.
Hrgovic-Dubois
Filip Hrgovic (17-0, 13 KOs) and Daniel Dubois (20-2, 19 KOs) fought on the same card in Riyadh this past December. Hrgovic, the Croatian, was fed a softie in the form of Australia’s Mark De Mori who he dismissed in the opening round. Dubois, a Londoner, rebounded from his loss to Oleksandr Usyk with a 10th-round stoppage of corpulent Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller.
There’s an outside chance that Hrgovic vs. Dubois may be sanctioned by the IBF for the world heavyweight title.
The May 18 showdown between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury has a rematch clause. The IBF is next in line in the rotation system for a unified heavyweight champion and the organization has made it plain that the winner of Usyk-Fury must fulfill his IBF mandatory before an intervening bout.
The best guess is that the Usyk-Fury winner will relinquish the IBF belt. If so, Hrgovic and Dubois may fight for the vacant title although a more likely scenario is that the organization will keep the title vacant so that the winner can fight Anthony Joshua.
Wilder-Zhang
The match between Deontay Wilder (43-3-1, 42 KOs) and Zhilei Zhang (26-2-1, 21 KOs) is a true crossroads fight as both Wilder, 38, and Zhang, who turns 41 in May, are nearing the end of the road and the loser (unless it’s a close and entertaining fight) will be relegated to the rank of a has-been. In fact, Wilder has hinted that this may be his final rodeo.
Both are coming off a loss to Joseph Parker.
Wilder last fought on the card that included Hrgovic and Dubois and was roundly out-pointed by a man he was expected to beat. It’s a quick turnaround for Zhang who opposed Parker on March 8 and lost a majority decision.
Other Fights
Either of two other fights may steal the show on the June 1 event.
Raymond Ford (15-0-1, 8 KOs) meets Nick Ball (19-0-1, 11 KOs) in a 12-round featherweight contest. New Jersey’s Ford will be defending the WBA world title he won with a come-from-behind, 12th-round stoppage of Otabek Kholmatov in an early contender for Fight of the Year. Liverpool’s “Wrecking” Ball, a relentless five-foot-two sparkplug, had to settle for a draw in his title fight with Rey Vargas despite winning the late rounds and scoring two knockdowns.
Hamzah Sheeraz (19-0, 15 KOs) meets fellow unbeaten Austin “Ammo” Williams (16-0, 11 KOs) in a 12-round middleweight match. East London’s Sheeraz, the son of a former professional cricket player, is unknown in the U.S. although he trained for his recent fights at the Ten Goose Boxing Gym in California. Riding a skein of 13 straight knockouts, he has a date with WBO title-holder Janibek Alimkhanuly if he can get over this hurdle.
The Forgotten Heavyweight
“Unbeaten for seven years, the man nobody wants to fight,” intoned ring announcer Michael Buffer by way of introduction. Buffer was referencing Michael Hunter who stood across the ring from his opponent Artem Suslenkov.
This scene played out this past Saturday in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It was Hunter’s second fight in three weeks. On March 23, he scored a fifth-round stoppage of a 46-year-old meatball at a show in Zapopan, Mexico.
The second-generation “Bounty Hunter,” whose only defeat prior to last weekend came in a 12-rounder with Oleksandr Usyk, has been spinning his wheels since TKOing the otherwise undefeated Martin Bakole on the road in London in 2018. Two fights against hapless opponents on low-budget cards in Mexico and a couple of one-round bouts for the Las Vegas Hustle, an entry in the fledgling and largely invisible Professional Combat League, are the sum total of his activity, aside from sparring, in the last two-and-a-half years.
Hunter’s chances of getting another big-money fight took a tumble in Tashkent where he lost a unanimous decision in a dull affair to the unexceptional Suslenkov who was appearing in his first 10-round fight. The scores of the judges were not announced.
You won’t find this fight listed on boxrec. As Jake Donovan notes, the popular website will not recognize a fight conducted under the auspices of a rogue commission. (Another fight you won’t find on boxrec for the same reason is Nico Ali Walsh’s 6-round split decision over the 9-2-1 Frenchman, Noel Lafargue, in the African nation of Guinea on Dec. 16, 2023. You can find it on YouTube, but according to boxrec, boxing’s official record-keeper, it never happened.)
Anderson-Merhy Redux
The only thing missing from this past Saturday’s match in Corpus Christi, Texas, between Jared Anderson and Ryad Merhy was the ghost of Robert Valsberg.
Valsberg, aka Roger Vaisburg, was the French referee who disqualified Ingemar Johansson for not trying in his match with LA’s Ed Sanders in the finals of the heavyweight competition at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Valsberg tossed Johansson out of the ring after two rounds and Johansson was denied the silver medal. The Swede redeemed himself after turning pro, needless to say, when he demolished Floyd Patterson in the first of their three meetings.
Merhy was credited with throwing only 144 punches, landing 34, over the course of the 10 rounds. Those dismal figures yet struck many onlookers as too high. (This reporter has always insisted that the widely-quoted CompuBox numbers should be considered approximations.)
Whatever the true number, it was a disgraceful performance by Merhy who actually showed himself to have very fast hands on the few occasions when he did throw a punch. With apologies to Delfine Persoon, a spunky lightweight, U.S. boxing promoters should think twice before inviting another Belgian boxer to our shores.
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Anderson Cruises by Vapid Merhy and Ajagba edges Vianello in Texas
Jared Anderson returned to the ring tonight on a Top Rank card in Corpus Christi, Texas. Touted as the next big thing in the heavyweight division, Anderson (17-0, 15 KOs) hardly broke a sweat while cruising past Ryad Merhy in a bout with very little action, much to the disgruntlement of the crowd which started booing as early as the second round. The fault was all Merhy as he was reluctant to let his hands go. Somehow, he won a round on the scorecard of judge David Sutherland who likely fell asleep for a round for which he could be forgiven.
Merhy, born in the Ivory Coast but a resident of Brussels, Belgium, was 32-2 (26 KOs) heading in after fighting most of his career as a cruiserweight. He gave up six inches in height to Anderson who was content to peck away when it became obvious to him that little would be coming back his way.
Anderson may face a more daunting adversary on Monday when he has a court date in Romulus, Michigan, to answer charges related to an incident in February where he drove his Dodge Challenger at a high rate speed, baiting the police into a merry chase. (Weirdly, Anderson entered the ring tonight wearing the sort of helmet that one associates with a race car driver.)
Co-Feature
In the co-feature, a battle between six-foot-six former Olympians, Italy’s Guido Vianello started and finished strong, but Efe Ajagba had the best of it in the middle rounds and prevailed on a split decision. Two of the judges favored Ajagba by 96-94 scores with the dissenter favoring the Italian from Rome by the same margin.
Vianello had the best round of the fight. He staggered Ajagba with a combination in round two. At the end of the round, a befuddled Ajagba returned to the wrong corner and it appeared that an upset was brewing. But the Nigerian, who trains in Las Vegas under Kay Koroma, got back into the fight with a more varied offensive attack and better head movement. In winning, he improved his ledger to 20-1 (14). Vianello, who sparred extensively with Daniel Dubois in London in preparation for this fight, declined to 12-2-1 in what was likely his final outing under the Top Rank banner.
Other Bouts of Note
In the opening bout on the main ESPN platform, 35-year-old super featherweight Robson Conceicao, a gold medalist for Brazil in the 2016 Rio Olympics, stepped down in class after fighting Emanuel Navarrete tooth-and-nail to a draw in his previous bout and scored a seventh-round stoppage of Jose Ivan Guardado who was a cooked goose after slumping to the canvas after taking a wicked shot to the liver. Guardado made it to his feet, but the end was imminent and the referee waived it off at the 2:27 mark.
Conceicao improved to 18-1 (9 KOs). It was the U.S. debut for Guardado (15-2-1), a boxer from Ensenada, Mexico who had done most of his fighting up the road in Tijuana.
Ruben Villa, the pride of Salinas, California, improved to 22-1 (7) and moved one step closer to a match with WBC featherweight champion Rey Vargas with a unanimous 10-round decision over Tijuana’s Cristian Cruz (22-7-1). The judges had it 97-93 and 98-92 twice.
Cruz, the son of former IBF world featherweight title-holder Cristobal Cruz, was better than his record. He entered the bout on a 21-1-1 run after losing five of his first seven pro fights.
Cleveland southpaw Abdullah Mason, who turned 20 earlier this month, continued his fast ascent up the lightweight ladder with a fourth-round stoppage of Ronal Ron.
Mason (13-0, 11 KOs) put Ron on the canvas in the opening round with a short left hook. He scored a second knockdown with a shot to the liver. A flurry of punches, a diverse array, forced the stoppage at the 1:02 mark of round four. A 25-year-old SoCal-based Venezuelan, the spunky but out-gunned Ron declined to 14-6.
Charly Suarez, a 35-year-old former Olympian from the Philippines, ranked #5 at junior lightweight by the IBF, advanced to 17-0 (9) with a unanimous 8-round decision over SoCal’s Louie Coria (5-7).
This was a tactical fight. In the final round, Coria, subbing for 19-0 Henry Lebron, caught the Filipino off-balance and knocked him into the ropes which held him up. It was scored a knockdown, but came too little, too late for Coria who lost by scores of 76-75 and 77-74 twice.
Suarez, whose signature win was a 12th-round stoppage of the previously undefeated Aussie Paul Fleming in Sydney, may be headed to a rematch with Robson Conceicao. They fought as amateurs in 2016 in Kazakhstan and Suarez lost a narrow 6-round decision.
Photo credit: Mikey Willams / Top Rank via Getty Images
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Ellie Scotney and Rhiannon Dixon Win World Title Fights in Manchester
England’s Ellie Scotney started slowly against the long reach of France’s Segolene Lefebvre but used rough tactics and a full-steam ahead approach to unify the super bantamweight division by unanimous decision on Saturday.
“There’s a lot more I didn’t show,” said an excited Scotney (pictured on the left).
IBF titlist Scotney (9-0) added the WBO title by nullifying Lefebvre’s (18-1) reach and dominating the inside with a two-fisted attack in front of an excited crowd in Manchester, England.
For the first two rounds Lefebvre used her long reach and smooth fluid attack to keep Scotney at the end of her punches. Then the fight turned when the British fighter bulled her way inside with body shots and forced the French fighter into the ropes.
Aggressiveness by Scotney turned the fight in her favor. But Lefebvre remained active and countered with overhand rights throughout the match.
Body shots by Scotney continued to pummel the French champion’s abdomen but she remained steadfast in her counter-attacks. Combinations landed for Lefebvre and a counter overhand right scored to keep her in the contest in the fifth round.
Scotney increased the intensity of her attack in the sixth and seventh rounds. In perhaps her best round Scotney was almost perfect in scoring while not getting hit with anything from the French fighter.
Maybe the success of the previous round caused Scotney to pause. It allowed Lefebvre to rally behind some solid shots in a slow round and gave the French fighter an opening. Maybe.
The British fighter opened up more savagely after taking two Lefevbre rights to open the ninth. Scotney attacked with bruising more emphatic blows despite getting hit. Though both fired blows Scotney’s were more powerful.
Both champions opened-up the 10th and final round with punches flying. Once again Scotney’s blows had more power behind them though the French fighter scored too, and though her face looked less bruised than Scotney’s the pure force of Scotney’s attacks was more impressive.
All three judges saw Scotney the winner 97-93, 96-94 and a ridiculous 99-91. The London-based fighter now has the IBF and WBO super bantamweight titles.
Promoter Eddie Hearn said a possible showdown with WBC titlist Erika Cruz looms large possibly in the summer.
“Great performance. Great punch output,” said Hearn of Scotney’s performance.
Dixon Wins WBO Title
British southpaw Rhiannon Dixon (10-0) out-fought Argentina’s Karen Carabajal (22-2) over 10 rounds and won a very competitive unanimous decision to win the vacant WBO lightweight title. It was one of the titles vacated by Katie Taylor who is now the undisputed super lightweight world champion.
An aggressive Dixon dominated the first three rounds including a knockdown in the third round with a perfect left-hand counter that dropped Carabajal. The Argentine got up and rallied in the round.
Carabajal, whose only loss was against Katie Taylor, slowly began figuring out Dixon’s attacks and each round got more competitive. The Argentine fighter used counter rights to find a hole in Dixon’s defense to probably win the round in the sixth.
The final three rounds saw both fighters engage evenly with Carabajal scoring on counters and Dixon attacking the body successfully.
After 10 rounds all three judges saw it in Dixon’s favor 98-91, 97-92, 96-93 who now wields the WBO lightweight world title.
“It’s difficult to find words,” said Dixon after winning the title.
–Hometown Fighter Wins
Manchester’s Zelfa Barrett (31-2, 17 KOs) battled back and forth with Jordan Gill (28-3-1, 9 KO-s) and finally ended the super featherweight fight with two knockdowns via lefts to the body in the 10th round of a scheduled 12-round match for a regional title.
The smooth moving Barrett found the busier Gill more complex than expected and for the first nine rounds was fighting a 50/50 fight against the fellow British fighter from the small town of Chatteris north of London.
In the 10th round after multiple shots on the body of Gill, a left hook to the ribs collapsed the Chatteris fighter to the floor. He willed himself up and soon after was floored again but this time by a left to the solar plexus. Again he continued but was belted around until the referee stopped the onslaught by Barrett at 2:44 of the 10th.
“A tough, tough fighter,” said Barrett about Gill. “I had to work hard.”
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