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SERGEY KOVALEV Is TSS FIGHTER of the YEAR
Utter domination, it was, from the singing of the National Anthem onward.
Yep, he “Krushed” it, did 31-year-old Sergey Kovalev, nailing down the win as TSS Fighter of the Year when he overwhelmingly, completely, most thoroughly handled the living legend that is Bernard Hopkins on November 8, 2014 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
It was a bout that saw experts split about 50-50 on who’d have their hand raised in a classic Legend vs. Upstart clash which screened on HBO, and it will be, arguably, the most enduring takeaway from the year in boxing when one is looking back at this 12 month span and assessing the pros, the cons and the accomplishments during that time-span.
Kovalev had a quarter of my vote when he clanged a right hand of the noggin of the man who has forgotten more fistic wizardry than the masses of campaigners today have learned, and sent the no-longer-ageless wonder to the mat. Notice was served then, and then cemented over the remainder of the 12 round light heavyweight consolidation bash that the Russian-born fighter who’d had to cold-call promoters from coast to coast to secure himself a backer who would take a flyer on him, that Sergey Kovalev was king of the division.
The man dislodged from the throne acknowledged as much after he’d had the brutal truth that a younger, stronger pugilist had his number on this late fall evening tattoed into his temple, chin and torso. Hopkins, a bottomless well of pride not prone to conceding any damned thing easily, gave it up for Kovalev, who who branded a brand of pugilist on this night.
TSS reached out to the now California-based boxer, who seeks to continue his momentum surge in his next outing, on March 14, against ex champion Jean Pascal, and informed him he is our 2014 Fighter of the Year. “Thank you for choosing me, and believing in me,” Kovalev said. “Happy New Year and I wish you good reporting in 2015!”
In case you don’t know, the fighter is a good egg; he’s been knee-deep in diaper duty since son Aleksander was born right before the Hopkins changing-of-the-guard effort, and all of us who cover him are genuinely happy for the fighter, whose dimples betray a soft side which is utterly absent when he does his thing in ring. Thus, it makes me, personally, pleased to bestow the fighter with this honor, after consulting with the TSS staff and our publisher. Indeed, when the victor who receives the spoils also happens to be a good soul, there is something that much more right in this world.
Promoter Kathy Duva, of Main Events, who listened when manager Egis Klimas told her he was working with a future champion and could use a hand-up from a promotional entity, was also pumped when told that TSS was tapping Kovalev as FOY.
“Awesome,” enthused the New Jersey based dealmaker. “Of course he deserves it! And I will be happy to tell you why. During 2014 Sergey displayed all of the qualities that should distinguish the Fighter of the Year. First of all, he consistently pursued the best opposition. Think about it. During 2014 Sergey agreed to fight Adonis Stevenson (although Stevenson ultimately pulled out), Bernard Hopkins and now Jean Pascal. After Sergey, they are the three top fighters in the division. Sergey not only defeated all of his opponents, he dominated them, losing a total of one round in three fights. That round was lost when Blake Caparello stepped on his foot to score a cheap knock down. You saw what happened to Blake in the second round! And to cap it off, Sergey outboxed a legendary boxer in Bernard Hopkins. As I have said to everyone who is willing to listen, is not just that Sergey defeated a great world champion who half the media expected to win, winning two more titles in the process, it was the way that Sergey did it–displaying levels to his game that he had not shown us before.”
To be sure, the choice didn’t come without considerable debate and thought. Our man Kelsey McCarson weighs in with some light dissent, and food for thought on others who merited the top slot. “By far the most important award in boxing given every year by those who do such things is Fighter of the Year,” says McCarson, who himself had a helluva year in his realm, as he raised over $10,000 for the medical expenses of a Texas boy battling cancer, little Corbin Glasscock, when he engaged in a sparring match with contender Jermell Charlo last month. “This year’s candidates include light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev, lightweight Terence Crawford, welterweight Manny Pacquiao, middleweight Andy Lee and flyweight Roman Gonzalez. While I can make a pretty decent case for every one of those guys (in fact, I voted for Kovalev in Bleacher Report’s year-end awards because we were asked to do so before all fighters had their 2014 fights in the books), the truth of the matter is that no one really stands out head and shoulders above the rest. The field is a close, competitive bunch of excellent fighters who all had fine years. To that end, Japan’s Naoya Inoue should also be considered for the honor. This Japanese junior flyweight is a monster puncher with superb skills. He’s fast, exciting and perhaps the future of boxing in Japan and maybe even the entire world. Inoue, age 21, won the WBC junior flyweight title against Adrian Hernandez in just his sixth professional fight. He defended it versus Samartlek Kokietgym, then jumped up two weight classes to knock out the best junior bantamweight in the world, Omar Narvaez, for that division’s WBO belt to close out the year, on Tuesday. All three wins for Inoue came by knockout, and he stands above his peers as a young up-and-comer who both says he wants to fight the very best and actually does so. “
Well reasoned, Kelsey, and for that reason, we’re naming Inoue as first runner up in the category of TSS Fighter of the Year.
Kovalev manager Klimas seemed content with our choice of his guy over Inoue as FOY. “I am very glad you are voting for Sergey as a Fighter of the Year and I strongly believe he deserved it, as it was good year for him,” Klimas said. “Especially since he showed on November 8th that he is not just a puncher, but also that he knows how to box, destroying each round the legendary Bernard Hopkins!”
Congrats Sergey, and thank you for your service to your craft, and for providing us with so much entertainment value this boxing season.
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Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.
The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.
What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.
In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.
Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.
The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.
In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.
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Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.
Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.
When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.
This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.
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The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)
The Fights
There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.
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In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.
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I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.
On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.
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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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool
In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.
This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.
The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.
The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.
Semi-wind-up
A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.
Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.
The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.
Other Bouts of Note
In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.
In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.
A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.
In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.
Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.
A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.
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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney
IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.
Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.
Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.
Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.
The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.
Semi-wind-up
Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).
A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.
Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).
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