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Mayweather Being Unbeaten Isn’t As Meaningful As “Money” Thinks It is

In a recent article in the International Business Times (12/24/14), former six-division title-holder Oscar De La Hoya stated who he’d favor between Floyd Mayweather 47-0 (26) and Philippine sensation Manny Pacquiao 57-5-2 (38). De La Hoya isn’t exactly someone who I’d consider an objective observer, but what gives him credibility over most others is, Oscar fought Mayweather in 2007 and Pacquiao in 2008. At the time when he fought both, Oscar was an empty package and a shot fighter. He lost to both but competed with Mayweather on almost even terms, but not so much so against Pacquiao. This is something that had more to do with styles than it was/is a barometer as to who would win between Floyd and Manny.
In regards to how a confrontation between Mayweather and Pacquiao would unfold, Oscar said, “Mayweather has an edge now over Manny just because of the fact that Pacquiao’s skills have declined because of the numerous intense battles that he had fought.” I think he is pretty much on point with this assertion.
However, De La Hoya also said that, “Even though (I) favor Mayweather to win, (I) believe that the world will remember Pacquiao more than Mayweather…Pacquiao will earn more respect than Mayweather.”
“There is no doubt about that,” De La Hoya continued. “With Manny Pacquiao they are going to say ‘wow, he fought all these guys, fought tough battles and gave us all these fights.’
“Who has the better legacy, Pacquiao or Mayweather?” Oscar said, in closing.
Which is not only a great question, it’s a revealing question and it’s not at all difficult to answer. Pacquiao clearly has the better legacy, and it isn’t so much that he’s won a world title in eight different weight divisions, it’s more based on how he’s never avoided a tough opponent and fought and defeated some legitimate all-time greats while they were at or near the top of their game. The fight not happening between Mayweather and Pacquiao is so far past its due date that even Mayweather’s biggest media defenders and supporters have recently said if Floyd doesn’t fight Pacquiao, that’s what he’ll be most remembered for, not going undefeated.
Since former heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano retired undefeated 49-0 in 1955, some of the greatest of the greats have come along and compiled some of boxing’s most historic and iconic legacies. Fighters the likes of Emile Griffith, Luis Rodriguez, Sonny Liston, Bob Foster, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Carlos Monzon, Roberto Duran, George Foreman, Marvin Hagler, Larry Holmes, Alexis Arguello, Sugar Ray Leonard, Aaron Pryor, Salvador Sanchez, Michael Spinks, Thomas Hearns, Julio Cesar Chavez, Lennox Lewis, Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins. And it’s interesting that if you put all of their careers under a microscope, they have one thing in common….and that’s aside from Marciano, not one of them retired undefeated and nobody even cares about that because it’s meaningless.
Ask yourself this, how many fight aficionados do you know and respect rank Marciano as the greatest heavyweight in history? If you take it a step further, how many do you know who would pick Rocky to beat Liston, who lost four times, Ali, who lost five times, Frazier, who lost four times, Foreman, who lost five times, Holmes, who lost six times or Lewis, who lost twice? Being undefeated really isn’t such a big deal and in Marciano’s defense, perhaps he may have been the greatest. The problem is, the only great fighters who were around during his era were all way past their prime and because of that many dismiss him being undefeated. But what separates him from Mayweather is this– Marciano certainly didn’t avoid anybody who was a threat to beat him like we all know Mayweather has.
If being undefeated means so much in sports, how come most NFL historians don’t consider the 1972 Miami Dolphins (17-0) the greatest team in NFL history? They are the only NFL team in history to finish a season unbeaten and un-tied and win the championship. The 1972 Dolphins have a record no other NFL team can boast, whereas there have been more than a handful of fighters who won a world championship and retired unbeaten. The reason most NFL experts don’t rank the 1972 Dolphins as the greatest NFL team ever, rightly or wrongly, is because they only played two teams during the regular season that finished with a winning record. But that wasn’t their fault, they didn’t make their schedule. However, unlike the NFL or college football, boxers, when they become superstars, can actually pick and choose who they want to fight. In essence, some fighters can make their own schedules.
If being undefeated is the be all end all, why are the Florida State Seminoles (13-0) ranked third in the country going into their semifinal playoff Rose Bowl game against #2 Oregon (12-1) on New Year’s day? Think about it, Florida State is unbeaten in their last 29 games and hasn’t lost since 11/24/12. They’re the defending national champions and their quarterback has never lost as a starter. Yet they’re ranked behind #1 Alabama (12-1) and # 2 Oregon (12-1) because the members of the championship committee believe the Seminoles played a soft schedule……and had too many close calls where they almost lost to Notre Dame (7-5), Miami (6-7), and Boston College (7-6). But is that Florida States’ fault? Their schedule was made three or four months in advance. They couldn’t pick or chose who they wanted to play.
The point is, regardless of the sport, you are who you fought or played. Had Alabama or Oregon played FSU’s schedule, the thought of the committee is they probably would’ve gone undefeated too like Florida State. Had the 1978 Steelers played the same schedule as the 1972 Dolphins, most NFL historians believe they also would’ve gone undefeated. Had Sonny Liston or Muhammad Ali fought all 49 of Marciano’s opponents on the night Rocky fought them, the odds are overwhelming that Sonny and Muhammad would have also gone 49-0.
If Emile Griffith, Luis Rodriguez, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns fought every opponent Mayweather did on the night he fought them, they’d have reached 47-0 too. But on the flip side, had Mayweather fought every opponent that Griffith, Rodriguez, Leonard and Hearns did on the night they fought them, Floyd most likely would’ve lost more times than the before-mentioned did. And he would’ve come out of it a much better fighter than he is today, undefeated.
Every all-time great listed above had a career rival who they fought, and in many cases more than once. Floyd Mayweather can’t say that. He’s only fought two rematches in his career, and that was because his victories over Jose Luis Castillo and Marcos Maidana were seen as controversial in some circles after their first meeting. And that’s what hyped the rematch. It wasn’t as if the boxing world was on edge waiting for Mayweather-Castillo or Mayweather-Maidana to happen.
Floyd has been a professional boxer since 1996, he was blessed with a hall-of-fame skill set that he cultivated and nurtured into a remarkable career. Boxing fans have deemed Manny Pacquiao as his most worthy challenger and that’s the only fight they care about regarding his participation. Many understand that Mayweather briefly retired to avoid fighting Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams when they were at their peak as well as possessing a fighting style that would’ve troubled him. Also, both Margarito and Williams lobbied to fight Floyd, but once he retired they willingly fought each other. Well, that’s water under the bridge now. All that’s left is for Mayweather to fight Pacquiao, and finally, after almost 19 years as a pro, give the fans what they really want.
Mayweather can run his record to 60-0 and retire, it won’t matter. If he doesn’t face Pacquiao before he hangs up his gloves, that is what he’ll be most remembered for. And not fighting Pacquiao will be his everlasting legacy. And it is getting to the point now to where those in his inner circle have admitted that to some in the media, such as ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
If Floyd Mayweather doesn’t fight Manny Pacquiao, his name may still one day be lumped with the above icons, but it will be indisputable that his legacy will be the most hollow of the group. And for that reason, Mayweather is I think closer to clashing with the declining Pacquiao because he has to, not because he wants to.
Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com
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With Valentine’s Day on the Horizon, let’s Exhume ex-Boxer ‘Machine Gun’ McGurn

Feb. 14, which this year falls on a Friday, is Valentine’s Day, more formally St. Valentine’s Day. It’s a day identified with romance, but for students of organized crime, it summons up an image of a different sort. On Valentine’s Day in 1929, at a warehouse in the Lincoln Park district of Chicago, seven men were lined up against a wall and murdered in cold blood by four intruders with machine guns and shotguns. The infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was the most sensational news story during the Prohibition Era when many of America’s cities, most notably Chicago, were roiled by deadly turf wars between rival bootlegging factions.
It shouldn’t surprise us that a former boxer was one of the alleged perpetrators. During the Prohibition years, bootleggers were well-represented among the ranks of boxing promoters and managers. Philadelphia’s Max “Boo Boo” Hoff reportedly had the largest boxing stable in the country. In New York, Owney Madden was purportedly the brains behind the consortium that controlled future heavyweight champion Primo Carnera.
That brings us to Jack McGurn, but first a little context. Prohibition was the law of the land from 1920, when the Volstead Act took effect, until 1933 when the ill-conceived law was repealed. Prohibition did not fetter America’s thirst for alcoholic beverages but arguably encouraged it. Confirmed beer drinkers didn’t stop drinking beer because it was illegal. Restaurateurs at high-end establishments didn’t stop selling cognac and brandy; they just did it more discreetly. Speakeasies became fashionable.
Big money awaited entrepreneurs willing to risk arrest by flouting the law, either by opening distilleries and breweries or importing alcohol with Canada the leading supplier.
In Chicago and environs, circa 1929, two of the kingpins of the bootlegging trade were “Scarface” Al Capone and George “Bugs” Moran. They were bitter rivals. The warehouse at which the seven men were assassinated housed some of Moran’s delivery trucks. The victims were members of his gang.
Al Capone wasn’t directly involved. On Feb. 14, he was in Florida where, among other things, he was finalizing arrangements to host a bevy of A-list sportswriters at his lavish Miami Beach estate; the scribes were coming to town to cover the heavyweight title eliminator between Jack Sharkey and Young Stribling. But the hired guns, who stormed into Moran’s warehouse at 10:30 on a snowy Valentine’s Day morning, were presumed to be working for Capone and the one henchman whose name stood out among the usual suspects was Jack McGurn. He had purportedly saved Capone’s life on two occasions by intercepting would-be assassins out to kill his boss and shooting them dead. Of all his underlings, Capone was said to be especially fond of McGurn.

Machine Gun Jack McGurn
It had long been the custom of Jewish and Italian boxers to adopt Irish-sounding ring names. McGurn was born Vincenzo Gibaldi in 1902 in the Sicilian seaside city of Licata and lived in Brooklyn before moving with his widowed mother to Chicago. He had his first documented prizefight in 1921. The bout was held on a naval training ship, the U.S.S. Commodore. Prizefighting was then illegal in the Windy City, a residue of the malodorous 1900 fight between Terry McGovern and Joe Gans, but the ship was docked outside the Chicago city limits.
McGurn would have five more documented fights, the last against Bud Christiano on a strong card in Aurora, Illinois. Their six-round bout was the semi-windup. The main go was a 10-round contest between bantamweights Bud Taylor, the Terre Haute Terror, and Memphis Pal Moore, both of whom are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
By law, these were no-decision fights with wagers resting on the opinion of one or more ringside reporters. McGurn really had no business in the same ring with Christiano, an 84-fight veteran who had won two of three from future world lightweight title-holder Jimmy Goodrich. He took the worst of it, but was still standing at the final bell. And that was that. After only six pro fights, he hung up his gloves to pursue other endeavors and, in time, when his name appeared in the newspapers, it invariably appeared as Machine Gun Jack McGurn, the reference to the newfangled Thompson Machine Gun, colloquially the Tommy Gun, a tool with which McGurn was said to be very proficient.
The police found McGurn holed up in a Chicago hotel where he was staying with his girlfriend, Louise Rolfe, a 22-year-old “professional model and cabaret entertainer” with a 5-year-old daughter from a previous relationship being raised by her mother.
Louise testified that on the day of the massacre, they were in bed until noon. She said that she and McGurn had seldom left the room during their 13-day stay, having their food brought up from the hotel’s kitchen.
Louise held tight to her story and the police never did have sufficient evidence to charge the ex-boxer in connection with the crime. However, whenever the authorities were frustrated in sending a perp to prison, they had other weapons at their disposal to get their pound of flesh.
In the case of Scarface Al Capone, it was the 1913 law that authorized a federal income tax. The feds had enough circumstantial evidence to show that Al hadn’t been paying his fair share of taxes and succeeded in removing him from society. (After serving almost eight years in federal prisons, mostly Alcatraz, Capone returned to civilian life a sick man and passed away in Florida at age 48.)
In the case of Machine Gun Jack McGurn and his paramour, later his wife, the wedge was the Mann Act of 1910.
The Mann Act, most famously used to waylay heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, was aimed at brothel-keepers and immigrant flesh peddlers but was worded in such a way that it could be applied when there was no commerce involved. It prohibited the interstate transportation of “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” (The law remains on the books but has been watered-down to decriminalize sexual activity between consenting adults.)
The feds spent thousands of hours digging up evidence to show that the couple had violated the Mann Act. They eventually got hotel receipts showing that they had registered as Mr. and Mrs. under assumed names at hotels in Florida and Mississippi during a motor trip down south. Jack was sentenced to two years in Leavenworth and Louise to four months in the county jail, but their convictions were later overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court.
What comes around, goes around, goes the saying, and it figured that Machine Gun Jack McGurn would die a violent death. The ex-boxer met his maker at 1 a.m. on Feb. 15, 1936, at a second-floor bowling alley in Chicago where he was fatally shot by two gunmen who opened fire as his back was turned. There were at least 20 people present said the story in the Chicago Tribune, but “the wall of silence, traditional among the gangsters and the people who know them, was erected high and tight.”
Was McGurn’s murder retaliation for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre? The answer appears to be a resounding “yes.” Had the deed happened before the stroke of midnight, it would have happened on a St. Valentine’s Day, the seventh anniversary of the infamous event.
The police found a crumpled comic Valentine’s card next to McGurn’s body. On the front of the card were the figures of a man and a woman in their underwear. The verse inside read:
You’ve lost your job, You’ve lost your dough;
Your jewels and cars and handsome houses;
But things could still be worse you know
At least you haven’t lost your trousers.
Was this card intentionally left there by the assassins? We don’t know, but the view from here (pardon the wisecrack) is that if one were to receive a card on Valentine’s Day bearing this poem, perhaps it would be best not to leave the house.
Postscript #1: Jack McGurn’s wife, the former Louise Rolfe, routinely referenced in the press as his blonde alibi, continued to have her name pop up in the news after he died. In February of 1940, police found a gun used in a burglary in a drawer in her apartment. In 1943, she was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct after police found her in the company of a 25-year-old Army deserter.
Postscript #2:
Al Capone refused to pose for photographs, but made an exception for his friend Jack Sharkey, the future heavyweight champion. Sharkey is pictured on the right next to Capone in this 1929 photo.
****
The Mob Museum, officially the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, opened 13 years ago on Feb. 14, 2012 in an old three-story building in downtown Las Vegas that was originally a federal courthouse. So, each Valentine’s Day is a special occasion at the Mob Museum, an anniversary celebrated with special events, free admission for Nevada residents, and steep discounts for tourists. (On other days of the year, a single admission during peak hours is $34.95, but there are always discounts available on-line.)
A permanent display is a reconstructed portion of the wall where the seven victims were murdered. The garage where the killings happened was demolished in 1967, but before it was torn down a collector rescued many of the bricks, some with blood-stained bullet holes, which the Mob Museum acquired. Other artifacts on display this Friday will be the two Tommy Guns used in the assault, a one-day loan from the Berrian County Sheriff’s Department in Michigan which recovered the weapons from the home of a bank robber.
For the record, there is also a mob museum, called the Gangster Museum of America, in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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More ‘Dances’ in Store for Derek Chisora after out-working Otto Wallin in Manchester

Tonight’s fight at Co-op Live Arena in Manchester between Derek Chisora and Otto Wallin bore the tagline “Last Dance.” The reference was to Chisora who at age 41 was on the cusp of his last hurrah. However, when the IBF went and certified the match as an eliminator, that changed the equation and, truth be told, Chisora would have likely soldiered on regardless of the outcome.
The UK boxing fans have embraced Chisora, an honest workman, never an elite fighter, but always a tough out. They certainly hope to see him in action again and they will get their wish. Tonight, he made more fans with a hard-earned, unanimous decision over 34-year-old Swedish southpaw Otto Wallin who went to post a small favorite.
Chisora came out fast, pressuring the Swede while keeping his hands busy. He was comfortably ahead after five rounds, but was seemingly ripe for a comedown after cuts developed above and below his right eye. Fortunately for him, he had the prominent Canadian cutman Russ Amber in his corner.
Chisora scored two knockdowns before the fight was finished. The first came in round nine when Chisora caught Wallin with a punch that landed high on his temple. In a delayed reaction, Wallin went flying backward, landing on his butt. Wallin recovered nicely and had his best round in the next frame.
Wallin appeared to be winning the final round when Chisora put the explanation point on his performance just as the final bell was about to ring, catching the Swede off-balance with a cuffing right hand that sent him to the floor once again. If not for that knockdown, there would have been some controversy when the scores were read. The tallies were 117-109, 116-110, and 114-112, the latter of which was too generous to Wallin (27-3).
“I love the sport and I love the fans,” said Derek Chisora (36-13, 23 KOs), addressing the audience in his post-fight interview. His next bout will likely come against the winner of the match between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker happening later this month in Saudi Arabia.
Semi-wind-up
Stoke-on-Kent middleweight Nathan Heaney disappointed his large contingent of rooters when he was upset by French invader Sofiane Khati. The 35-year-old Heaney, who was 18-1-1 heading in, started well and was slightly ahead after six frames when things turned sour.
Both landed hard punches simultaneously in round seven, but the Frenchman’s punch was more damaging, knocking out Heaney’s mouthpiece and putting him on the canvas. When he arose, Khati, a 6/1 underdog, charged after him and forced the referee to intrude, saving Heaney from more punishment. The official time was 1:08 of round seven. It was the sixth win in the last seven tries for Khati (18-5, 7 KOs) who, akin to Chisora, is enjoying a late-career resurgence.
Other Bouts of Note
Lancashire junior welterweight Jack Rafferty was an 18/1 favorite over Morecambe ditch digger Reece MacMillan and won as expected. MacMillan’s corner tossed in the towel at the 1:08 mark of round seven. Rafferty’s record now stands at 25-0 (16 KOs), giving him the longest current unbeaten run of any British boxer. It was the second loss in 19 starts for MacMillan.
In a lackluster performance, Zach Parker, now competing as a light heavyweight, improved his record to 26-1 (19) with a 10-round decision over France’s Mickael Diallo (21-2-2) who took the bout on five days’ notice after Parker’s original opponent Willy Hutchinson suffered a bad shoulder injury in sparring and had to withdraw. The scores were 98-92, 98-93, and 97-94.
Parker’s lone defeat came in a domestic showdown with John Ryder, a match in which he could not continue after four rounds because of a broken hand. The prize for Ryder was a date with Canelo Alvarez. Mickael Diallo has another fight booked in four weeks in Long Beach, California.
Also
Featherweight Zak Miller scored the biggest win of his career, capturing a pair of regional trinkets with a 12-round majority decision over Masood Abdulah. The judges had it 115-113, 115-114, and 114-114.
Heading in, Miller was 15-1 but had defeated only one opponent with a winning record. It was the first pro loss for Abdulah (11-1), an Afghanistan-born Londoner.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 313: The Misadventures of Canelo and Jake Paul (and More)

Avila Perspective, Chap. 313: The Misadventures of Canelo and Jake Paul (and More)
Boxing news has taken a weird arc.
For the past 20 years or so, social media has replaced newspapers, radio and television as a source for boxing news.
And one thing is certain:
You cannot truly rely on many social media accounts to be accurate. Unless they are connected to actual reputable journalists. There are not that many.
Claims of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Jake Paul reaching an agreement to fight each other this year were rampant on social media sites. No contracts had been signed between the two parties, but several social media accounts claimed the fight was happening. One claimed: “it was official.”
It is not happening as of Friday Feb. 7. 10 a.m. Pacific Time.
A statement by Most Valuable Promotions was sent Friday Feb. 7, to various boxing publications that emphasized the Canelo-Paul fight is not official.
“MVP was deep in negotiations for a blockbuster fight between Jake Paul and Canelo Alvarez on Cinco de Mayo weekend in Las Vegas…This situation is a reminder not to believe everything you read.”
The past few days numerous social media accounts were posting erroneously that Paul and Canelo Alvarez were fighting on a certain date and place. It was jumped on by other social media accounts like Piranhas and gobbled up and spit out as actual verified news.
Fake news is happening more and more. I hate that term but it’s becoming more common.
Many accounts on social media sites are not trained journalists. They don’t understand that being the first to spit out news is not as important as being accurate.
Also, there is no such thing as using the term “according to sources” without naming the source. Who made the claim?
Third, verification of a fight comes from the promoters. They are the most reliable methods of verifying a pending fight. It’s their job. Don’t rely on a fighter, a trainer or somebody’s friend. Call the promoter involved and they will verify.
Otherwise, it’s just rumor and exaggeration.
There are social media accounts with trained journalists. Find out which social media accounts are connected to actual news media sources and established by trained journalists. A real journalist verifies a story before it is published.
R.I.P. Michael Katz
Recently, a highly respected journalist, Michael Katz, passed away. He wrote for various newspapers including the New York Times and for various boxing web sites such as Maxboxing.com and a few others.
Katz covered prize fights beginning in 1968 with the heavyweight fight between Floyd Patterson and Jimmy Ellis. Read the full story in www.TheSweetscience.com by Arne Lang.
I first came across Katz probably in 1994 when I began covering boxing events as a writer for the L.A .Times. During media press conferences Katz was one of the more prominent writers and very outspoken.
The New York-bred Katz could tell you stories about certain eras in boxing. I happened to overhear one or two while sitting around a dinner buffet in the media rooms in Las Vegas. He always had interesting things to say.
Boxing writers come in waves during each era. Today this new era of boxing writers has dwindled to almost nothing. Writing has been overtaken by boxing videographers. The problem is during an actual fight, videographers cannot record the fight itself. The media companies sponsoring the fight cards don’t allow it. So, after a fight is completed, very few descriptions of a fight exist. Only interviews.
Written journalism is shrinking due to the lack of newspapers, magazines and periodicals. The only sure way to know what happened is by seeing the fight on tape. You won’t see many stories on a bulletin board at a boxing gym because there are fewer boxing writers today. The written history of a championship fight has shrunk to almost nothing.
Katz was one of the superb writers from the 1960s to the 2000s. It’s a shrinking base that gets smaller every day. It’s a dying breed but there are still some remaining.
Fights in SoCal
All Star Boxing returns with two female fights on the card on Saturday Feb. 8, at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.
Stephanie Simon (1-0) and Archana Sharma (3-2) are scheduled to headline the boxing card in a super lightweight main event. Others on the boxing event include Ricardo De La Torre, Bryan Albarran and Jose Mancilla to name a few.
Doors open at 6 p.m. No one under 14 will be admitted. For more information call (323) 816-6200.
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 10:30 a.m. Derek Chisora (35-13) vs Otto Wallin (27-2).
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