HART WANTS TO HOLD ONTO WHAT’S LEFT OF PHILLY’S ONCE-GREAT BOXING HERITAGE

Published

10 years ago

December 13, 2014

Rising super middleweight prospect Jesse “Hard Work” Hart is looking toward the future, which is obviously the proper thing to do for a talented 26-year-old whose best days presumably are still ahead of him.

But Hart (15-0, 12 KOs), who takes on hard-hitting veteran Samuel Miller (28-9, 25 KOs) in the eight-round co-feature tonight at the 2300 Arena in South Philadelphia (Puerto Rican lightweight Felix Verdejo [15-0, 11 KOs] squares off against Spain’s Karim El Ouazghani [16-5-2, 4 KOs] in the other marquee eight-rounder), couldn’t help but also steal a glimpse at his hometown’s pugilistic past, which seems to again be headed toward a date with the wrecking ball.

At a press conference Thursday at the Stadium Holiday Inn, located across a vast parking lot from where a familiar Philly sports landmark, the Spectrum, used to stand, Hart took his place at the podium and glanced at the first row of seats where sat his father, former middleweight contender Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, 63, who was a staple at one renowned venue that is no longer there (the Spectrum, 12 bouts) and another (the Blue Horizon, 13 bouts) that also could also become nothing more than memory. As a child, Hart often accompanied his by-then-retired dad to fight cards at the Blue Horizon, where, as one of the city’s enduring boxing legends, he routinely was introduced to thunderous applause.

“It doesn’t give you too much of a secure feeling,” Jesse Hart said of increasing likelihood for the razing of the Blue Horizon, which hosted its first fight card on Nov. 3, 1961, when middleweight contender George Benton stopped Chico Corsey in three rounds, and what now looks to be its last, on June 4, 2010, when featherweight Coy Evans scored a six-round unanimous decision over Barbaro Zepeda.

A certificate authorizing demolition of the Blue Horizon has been issued, and if funding issues for its conversion into a hotel aren’t resolved, the historic building, which was constructed as a fashionable private residence in 1865 and converted into a Loyal Order of Moose Lodge in 1912, could soon become history of another sort. It was purchased by current co-owners Vernoca Michael and Carol Ray in 1994, the women going $500,000 into debt in the process. But, despite their receiving a $1 million state grant in 2002, as well as a $1 million low-interest loan from the Delaware River Port Authority, that money amounted to little more than an adhesive bandage placed upon a gaping wound. Michael said it would take another $5 million cash infusion to fully repair the antiquated facility, which proved unavailable, and when the owners reportedly failed to pay taxes on it for several years, it was shuttered by order of City Hall. In August 2011 the Blue Horizon was nearly $60,000 in arrears on its taxes, a figure that likely has substantially increased.

Ray had put the building up for sale for $6.5 million in 2007, with few if any serious inquiries at that price. But in 2011, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett approved $6 million in state tax credits for Mosaic Development Partners to redevelop the property into what was then envisioned as a hotel/arena with a boxing motif. In that initial configuration, the preserved arena still would be used to host boxing events. But, with a projected overall price tag of $18 million for the project, Mosaic partners Leslie Smallwood and Greg Reaves concluded the retention of the arena was not cost-effective and that they would prefer to proceed with a hotel-only plan.

Lines thus have been drawn in the sand, with developers on one side and the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, which seeks to save the Blue Horizon in its full or near-full entirety, on the other.

“We went to a hearing about a month ago and the Preservation Alliance wants to keep the Blue Horizon as it is, as do a lot of people,” said J Russell Peltz, who promoted fight cards at the 1,500-seat venue for many years and is staging, along with Top Rank, Saturday’s show at the 2300 Arena. “But a permit has already been issued to tear it down.

“There’s an offer of $6 million on the table, but the money’s not up yet. Vernoca doesn’t want it demolished until all of the $6 million is up. I don’t want it demolished at all. I think it’s a disgrace that they would even consider tearing down something like that.”

Peltz said that T-shirts advocating the saving of the Blue Horizon will be on sale at Saturday’s nine-bout card.

Hart, who grew up in North Philadelphia, will be fighting within the Philly city limits for only the second time in his professional career, the first being his four-round decision over Steven Tyner on Dec. 8, 2012, in McGonigle Hall, on the Temple University campus, just 2½ blocks from the Blue Horizon’s address at 1314 North Broad Street.

“I think it’s time we bring boxing back to Philadelphia,” he said. “Man, it means everything to me. Nobody knows how excited I am to be fighting here again. I posted all about it on Instagram and on Facebook.”

But while the 1,200-seat 2300 Arena – which was known as Viking Hall when it hosted its first fight card, and has since been known as the ECW Warehouse, the New Alhambra, The Arena and the Asylum Arena – has some history of its own, it can’t rival that of the Blue Horizon or, for that matter, the Spectrum.

Peltz, 68, noted that Cylone Hart’s rousing 10-round draw with another noted Philly banger, Bennie Briscoe, drew 11,000-plus when it was staged at the Spectrum on Nov. 18, 1975, and was named as the second-best fight anywhere in the world that year by Boxing News, behind only a little scrap known as the “Thrilla in Manila.”

“I met Jesse’s father when he was 17 years old,” Peltz recalled. “We never told anybody that he turned pro before he was 18. In my 45 years in the business, Cyclone Hart was the best left-hooker I ever saw in person, with one shot.”

Jesse Hart isn’t exactly the second coming of his father. He considers himself more of a boxer-puncher than a let-’er-rip knockout artist, which was Cyclone’s ring persona, and the son’s best weapon is his overhand right. But Jesse is a chip off the old block in one respect, that being his fondness for a local tradition that is in danger of fading away, one site at a time.

“I wanted to fight in the Spectrum, in the Blue Horizon, like my dad did,” he said, somewhat forlornly. “It was my dream.

“If I had the money, I’d pay whatever it took to keep the Blue Horizon open. When I was a child, my dad used to take me there after he retired. They called him into the ring to take a bow every time we went, and every time the people cheered him like they did when he was still fighting. Gave me chills.”

Philadelphia is a city heavily steeped in history. People come from all parts of the United States and around the world to visit Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was drafted and the U.S. Constitution ratified, and the Liberty Bell. It’s most iconic citizen remains Benjamin Franklin, dead these past 224 years.

But the city many consider to be America’s true capital of boxing – there’s a reason Sylvester Stallone chose to make his greatest fictional character, Rocky Balboa, a Philly guy – hasn’t had as much success commemorating and preserving its fighting past. In addition to the Spectrum and now possibly the Blue Horizon, such boxing landmarks as the Civic Center, the original Arena and the original Alhambra have vanished from the landscape. Another, Joe Frazier’s Gym, 16 blocks up the street from the Blue Horizon, has been converted into a discount furniture store. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places which means the building, which dates back to the 1890s, also has become a battleground for preservationists who would like to see again used as a boxing gym or possibly a museum honoring the memory of Smokin’ Joe, who passed away on Nov. 7, 2011.

Then again, historic boxing places don’t seem to rate as high a priority as do old buildings used for other purposes. Preservationists in Detroit and Miami Beach weren’t able to save the Kronk Gym and the original 5^th Street Gym, respectively. Even Madison Square Garden, the “Mecca of Boxing,” is in its fourth incarnation, three other structures in New York having previously borne the MSG label.

In boxing, as in life, nothing lasts forever.

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Bernard Fernandez

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Published

3 hours ago

May 9, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and 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 Top Rank card in San Diego 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

Published

23 hours ago

May 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Stephen-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 38^th 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

Published

3 days ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-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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