MICHAEL GRANT KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE WHERE DEONTAY WILDER IS NOW

Published

10 years ago

January 15, 2015

It is human nature, one supposes, to compare the Next Big Thing to a Former Big Thing. Oh, sure, it is a handy and sometimes useful tool to gauge a rising star’s progress against the statistical achievements of a predecessor, or to simply allow ourselves to experience the aesthetic rush that comes with believing that the hot prospect we are watching is capable of doing the same wondrous things that a favorite athlete once did.

But wishing doesn’t make it so, and never has. A lot of New York Yankees fans wanted to believe that Bobby Murcer would be as magnificent a centerfielder as Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, but, alas, he was just Bobby Murcer – a pretty good player in his own right, but no Hall of Famer.

Deontay “The Bronze Bomber” Wilder will enter the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday night for his Showtime-televised shot at WBC heavyweight champion Bermane “B.Ware” Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) shouldering the same sort of pressure that weighed upon Murcer, and many others, like a ton of bricks. With 32 knockouts in 32 professional bouts, the Tuscaloosa, Ala., native’s power with his signature overhand right is legitimate, enough to generate comparisons in some quarters to such renowned sleep-inducers as Mike Tyson, Earnie Shavers and a young George Foreman.

But, at 6-foot-7 and with the impressively lean musculature of an NBA power forward, Wilder is no physical prototype of the squatty Tyson, and his long streak of pastings of second-tier opponents hardly merits a place alongside Phase 1 of Big George just yet. A more reasonable measuring stick might be Shavers, a one-trick pony (the trick admittedly was pretty good) who was like a cleanup hitter who could smack a baseball 500 feet, but struck out a bit too often and was no Gold Glover on defense. For all the electrifying knockouts that Shavers registered, he’s also the same guy who never held a version of the title, had stamina issues and was stopped inside two rounds by both Randall “Tex” Cobb and Brian Yates.

To my way of thinking, the fighter to whom the 29-year-old Wilder should most be likened to at this critical juncture of his evolving career is Michael Grant, another 6-foot-7 Adonis with six-pack abs, a mighty punch and inflated expectations that caused quite a few of his followers to believe he was not only headed to greatness in the here and now, but to a level of immortality that is the destiny of only the best of the best. Don Turner, who trained Grant during his halcyon era when the suits at HBO had all but anointed him as a larger, potentially improved version of Joe Louis or Jack Dempsey, even went so far as to proclaim his fighter as having the capabilities of surpassing every heavyweight who ever laced up a pair of padded gloves.

But then Grant got his dream shot, at WBC champion Lennox Lewis on April 29, 2000, in Madison Square Garden, and the air went out of his balloon as swiftly as a punctured balloon. The pin prick in this instance was supplied by Lewis’ own thunderous right hand, which he employed to drop Grant four times before referee Arthur Mercante Jr. counted him out 2 minutes, 53 seconds into the second round.

Anyone can get caught – Lewis, a 2009 enshrinee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on merit (41-2-1, 32 KOs) – twice got nailed on the chin by underdogs Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman, causing him to crash to the canvas like an imploded building. But when Grant also was starched in one round by fringe contender Jameel McCline in his next fight, on July 21, 2001, in Las Vegas, the hype machine that had previously been turned on at full volume wheezed to a halt.

Grant is now 42, still active with a 48-6 record that includes 36 knockout victories (and five losses the same way), and he can see where parallels might be drawn between Wilder and himself. Although Grant is a city guy (born in Chicago, long-based in the Philadelphia area and now a resident of Atlanta) and Wilder is from the less-urban environs of Tuscaloosa, where college football is king, both have multi-sport backgrounds and the physiques dreams are made of.

One distinct difference: Grant’s failed audition for greatness came against Lennox Lewis, who might have been the finest heavyweight during a very good era for heavyweights; Stiverne, on the other hand, is no Double-L. He would appear to is more like Bobby Murcer, if you’ll pardon the crossover comparison between boxers and baseball players, or maybe to Seth Mitchell, the former Michigan State linebacker who was talked up as the most recent Next Big Thing, until he came thudding back to earth with a KO2 loss to Johnathan Banks. Mitchell beat Banks in a boring sequel, and then got stopped by Chris Arreola (KO1) in 2013. He has all but vanished from the division’s big picture.

“I’ve sparred with Stiverne,” Grant told me last week. “He hung in there. I put some really big shots on him and he took them pretty good. He’s going to be a good, tough test for Wilder. Is he a really powerful test? Probably not on the level of a Lennox Lewis, or a (Wladimir) Klitschko.

And good, tough tests are not the same as all-or-nothing final exams.

“Andrew Golota and Lou Savarese (both of whom Grant defeated), they were good fighters,” Grant continued. “I was very comfortable developing my skills against fighters like that. But when I fought Lennox for the championship, that was moving up to a whole different level. You fight somebody like that, there is a different kind of pressure put on you. I wasn’t ready for it. I admit it.

“So many people thought I not only could win, but would win. They were telling me I was going to be a guest on `Oprah,’ that the City of Philadelphia was going to hold a parade for me. There was talk that Versace wanted me to be a celebrity endorser. That’s enormous pressure, man. I never had to deal with anything like that before. Looking back, I probably did allow it to get to me a little bit.

“Being on the big stage, or at least a bigger stage, might affect Deontay. Maybe it won’t; like I said, Stiverne is no Lennox Lewis. But if and when he steps up to the plate to fight Klitschko, it’s going to weigh heavy on him because Klitschko is on another level, like Lewis was when I fought him. I know Deontay is a big puncher and all that, but I can’t see him lasting more than a few rounds against Klitschko.”

Perhaps Wilder will continue to ratchet up the excitement level starting to cling to him like lint on Velcro if he makes the 36-year-old Stiverne knockout victim No. 33. Or he could get starched himself, which would promptly drop him into the lower category where guys like Shavers and Grant reside – and maybe even further down than that, to the discount bin of crushed dreams where more obvious pretenders like Mitchell and Faruq Saleem have been assigned. And if you don’t remember Saleem, he’s the big (6-7, 257 pounds ) heavyweight from Newark, N.J., whom the late Butch Lewis steered to a 38-0 victory with 32 knockouts, against a lineup of opponents more odious than the ones Wilder has dispatched so emphatically. The 34-year-old Saleem was stopped in four rounds by someone named Shawn McLean on Sept. 23, 2009, and immediately called a halt to his phantom ring career.

“If he were a welterweight or a middleweight, I’d be real concerned right now,” Lewis said in 2009, before Saleem got his come-uppance from McLean. “But come on now. We’re talking about the bleeping heavyweight division. Every bleeper-bleeper whose name anybody recognizes is older than 34, damn near. And nobody’s a killer. There ain’t no bleeping killer nowhere. I mean, who’s the killer?”

Well, there’s Klitschko, a legitimate assassin inside the ropes. But “Dr. Steelhammer” is 38 and has to be winding down sometime, given the more ravaging effects the aging process can do to someone’s body than a few quick ’n’ easy rounds against the no-chance challengers he’s been handling with almost ridiculous ease.

Which brings us back to Stiverne-Wilder, which is what passes for a major heavyweight bout in these diminished times. The winner will be held up as the last semi-legitimate threat to Klitschko’s dominance, but the guess here is that that man will chart a course as far away from the Ukrainian as possible until he joins his older brother Vitali in the safe arms of retirement. If the captain of the Titanic had it to do all over again, you’d have to figure he would go slower and keep a keener eye out for icebergs. Stiverne is the last horse in promoter Don King’s thinned-out stable capable of a reasonably brisk trot, and Wilder’s manager/adviser Al Haymon is as adverse to risk as was Mayberry deputy Barney Fife.

Still, a reasonable degree of hype – one way or the other – can be justified, if only because fight fans desperately want something more from boxing’s big men than the same-old, same-old. Even a younger version of Michael Grant, the one who was exposed against Lewis, would look enticing in the present heavyweight lineup.

Asked who would win if the 29-year-old Grant could somehow be paired with Wilder, ESPN2 boxing analyst Teddy Atlas – who, it should be noted, trained Grant for a time – went with his former pupil.

“Grant was more athletic,” Atlas said. “He could do more things. He had a better left hand. There’s only one thing Wilder does reallywell, and that’s to punch like hell with the right hand. It’s really all he does.

“The most important difference between Grant and Wilder, though, is that Grant was around – unfortunately for him – when a guy named Lennox Lewis was around. Lewis was a truly dominant heavyweight. Deontay Wilder comes along when there’s nobody around, other than Klitschko. Wilder has an option, an alternative, to avoid Klitschko. He can fight Stiverne. Change them around and if Michael Grant had Stiverne to fight instead of Lewis at the same stage of his career, he very well might have been heavyweight champion of the world. But Lewis was there, Grant wasn’t ready for him and that was that.”

Despite his misgivings about Wilder, however, Atlas is picking him to dethrone Stiverne, and with an exclamation point.

“I don’t think Deontay Wilder is all that great,” Atlas opined. “But he’s got that big right hand and he’s in a situation where he’s fighting Stiverne – who’s a good puncher, too – and is also a guy that’s been knocked out once in his career. Stiverne likes to counterpunch and he needs you at a certain distance to be effective. Because Wilder is tall and long and can bang with the right hand, I think the style matchup is horrible for Stiverne.

“I look for Wilder to keep Stiverne on the outside and catch him before Stiverne ever gets close enough to catch Wilder. I think Wilder will knock him out in one or two rounds.”

For his part, Wilder – the pressure on him now might be even a bit heavier, given the fact that his beloved Alabama Crimson Tide was upset by the underdog Ohio State Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff semifinals – doesn’t like to be compared to anyone, be it Grant, Tyson, Shavers, the young Foreman or whomever.

“I don’t like people to compare me to anybody, even if it’s the greatest fighter in the world,” Wilder said. “It don’t do me no justice to say I have a style like this guy or that guy. That ain’t doing me no good. What Michael Grant done, that was his legacy, his journey. My name is Deontay Leshun Wilder. Nice to meet you.

“I don’t care what Michael Grant done. I’m on a totally different path. I’m making my own legacy.”

Not that I’m sure it went down this way, but I’d guess that Bobby Murcer probably said more or less the same thing the first time someone attempted to link him to DiMaggio or The Mick. The gaps between contention and championship and legendary status are wide, and getting wider, and fans keep trying to fill in those gaps by building up the Next Big Thing as something bigger than it might actually be.

NOTE FROM FERNANDEZ: My original story contained an error and I wish to apologize for that. Mistakes such as this are far beneath the standard I have set for myself, and which I would like to believe TSS readers have come to expect of me. I offer no excuses, but perhaps an explanation is in order. The night before I wrote, a relative had a seizure and I spent a good chunk of that evening in a hospital emergency room. I should have been better-rested, more-prepared and more-diligent when I sat down to do the piece, instead of trusting my memory, which proved to be a mistake. I will regard the matter as a flash knockdown, from which I will get up and resume punching. One more thing: I think I speak for all TSS contributors when I say it is an honor and a privilege to put my (usually) best effort on the site for inspection for such knowledgable and discerning boxing people such as yourselves. If I have let you down in this instance, rest assured I will do my utmost to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

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Bernard Fernandez

The Challenge of Playing Muhammad Ali

Published

7 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Thomas Hauser

There have been countless dramatizations of Muhammad Ali’s life and more will follow in the years ahead. The most heavily marketed of these so far have been the 1977 movie titled The Greatest starring Ali himself and the 2001 biopic Ali starring Will Smith.

The Greatest was fictionalized. Its saving grace apart from Ali’s presence on screen was the song “The Greatest Love of All” which was written for the film and later popularized by Whitney Houston. Beyond that, the movie was mediocre. “Of all our sports heroes,” Frank Deford wrote, “Ali needs least to be sanitized. But The Greatest is just a big vapid valentine. It took a dive.”

The 2001 film was equally bland but without the saving grace of Ali on camera. “I hated that film,” Spike Lee said. “It wasn’t Ali.” Jerry Izenberg was in accord, complaining, “Will Smith playing Ali was an impersonation, not a performance.”

The latest entry in the Ali registry is a play running this week off-Broadway at the AMT Theater (354 West 45th Street) in Manhattan.

The One: The Life of Muhammad Ali was written by David Serero, who has produced and directed the show in addition to playing the role of Angelo Dundee in the three-man drama. Serero, age 43, was born in Paris, is of Moroccan-French-Jewish heritage, and has excelled professionally as an opera singer (baritone) and actor (stage and screen).

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The play is flawed. There are glaring factual inaccuracies in the script that add nothing to the dramatic arc and detract from its credibility.

On the plus side; Zack Bazile (pictured) is exceptionally good as Ali. And Serero (wearing his director’s hat) brings the most out of him.

Growing up, Bazile (now 28) excelled in multiple sports. In 2018, while attending Ohio State, he won the NCAA Long Jump Championship and was named Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year. He also dabbled in boxing, competed in two amateur fights in 2022, and won both by knockout. He began acting three years ago.

Serero received roughly one thousand resumes when he published notices for a casting call in search of an actor to play Ali. One-hundred-twenty respondents were invited to audition.

“I had people who looked like Ali and were accomplished actors,” Serero recalls. “But when they were in the room, I didn’t feel Ali in front of me. You have to remember; we’re dealing with someone who really existed and there’s video of him, so it’s not like asking someone to play George Washington.”

And Ali was Ali. That’s a hard act to follow.

Bazile is a near-perfect fit. At 6-feet-2-inches tall, 195 pounds, he conveys Ali’s physicality. His body is sculpted in the manner of the young Ali. He moves like an athlete because he is an athlete. His face resembles Ali’s and his expressions are very much on the mark in the way he transmits emotion to the audience. He uses his voice the way Ali did. He moves his eyes the way Ali did. He has THE LOOK.

Zack was born the year that Ali lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, so he has no first-hand memory of the young Ali who set the world ablaze. “But as an actor,” he says, “I’m representing Ali. That’s a responsibility I take very seriously. Everyone has an essence about them. I had to find the right balance – not too over the top – and capture that.”

Sitting in the audience watching Bazile, I felt at times as though it was Ali onstage in front of me. Zack has the pre-exile Ali down perfectly. The magic dissipates a bit as the stage Ali grows older. Bazile still has to add the weight of aging to his craft. But I couldn’t help but think, “Muhammad would have loved watching Zack play him.”

****

Twenty-four hours after the premiere of The One, David Serero left the stage for a night to shine brightly in a real boxing ring., The occasion was the tenth fight card that Larry Goldberg has promoted at Sony Hall in New York, a run that began with Goldberg’s first pro show ever on October 13, 2022.

Most of the fights on the six-bout card played out as expected. But two were tougher for the favorites than anticipated. Jacob Riley Solis was held to a draw by Daniel Jefferson. And Andy Dominguez was knocked down hard by Angel Meza in round three before rallying to claim a one-point split-decision triumph.

Serero sang the national anthem between the second and third fights and stilled the crowd with a virtuoso performance. Fans at sports events are usually restless during the singing of the anthem. This time, the crowd was captivated. Serero turned a flat ritual into an inspirational moment. People were turning to each other and saying “Wow!”

****

The unexpected happened in Tijuana last Saturday night when 25-to-1 underdog Bruno Surace climbed off the canvas after a second-round knockdown to score a shocking, one-punch, sixth-round stoppage of Jaime Munguia. There has been a lot of commentary since then about what happened that night. The best explanation I’ve heard came from a fan named John who wrote, “The fight was not over in the second round although Munguia thought it was because, if he caught him once, he would naturally catch him again. Plus he looked at this little four KO guy [Surace had scored 4 knockouts in 27 fights] the way all the fans did, like he had no punch. That is what a fan can afford to do. But a fighter should know better. The ref reminds you, ‘Protect yourself at all times.’ Somebody forgot that.”

photo (c) David Serero

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 16, 2024

Arne K. Lang

L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

If asked to name a prominent boxing trainer who operates out of a gym in Los Angeles, the name Freddie Roach would jump immediately to mind. Best known for his work with Manny Pacquaio, Roach has been named the Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America a record seven times.

A mere seven miles from Roach’s iconic Wild Card Gym is the gym that Rudy Hernandez now calls home. Situated in the Little Tokyo neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles, the L.A. Boxing Gym – a relatively new addition to the SoCal boxing landscape — is as nondescript as its name. From the outside, one would not guess that two reigning world champions, Junto Nakatani and Anthony Olascuaga, were forged there.

As Freddie Roach will be forever linked with Manny Pacquiao, so will Rudy Hernandez be linked with Nakatani. The Japanese boxer was only 15 years old when his parents packed him off to the United States to be tutored by Hernandez. With Hernandez in his corner, the lanky southpaw won titles at 112 and 115 and currently holds the WBO bantamweight (118) belt. In his last start, he knocked out his Thai opponent, a 77-fight veteran who had never been stopped, advancing his record to 29-0 (22 KOs).

Nakatani’s name now appears on several pound-for-pound lists. A match with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue is brewing. When that match comes to fruition, it will be the grandest domestic showdown in Japanese boxing history.

“Junto Nakatani is the greatest fighter I’ve ever trained. It’s easy to work with him because even when he came to me at age 15, his focus was only on boxing. It was to be a champion one day and nothing interfered with that dream,” Hernandez told sports journalist Manouk Akopyan writing for Boxing Scene.

Akin to Nakatani, Rudy Hernandez built Anthony Olascuaga from scratch. The LA native was rucked out of obscurity in April of 2023 when Jonathan Gonzalez contracted pneumonia and was forced to withdraw from his date in Tokyo with lineal light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji. Olascuaga, with only five pro fights under his belt, filled the breach on 10 days’ notice and although he lost (TKO by 9), he earned kudos for his gritty performance against the man recognized as the best fighter in his weight class.

Two fights later, back in Tokyo, Olascuaga copped the WBO world flyweight title with a third-round stoppage of Riku Kano. His first defense came in October, again in Japan, and Olascuaga retained his belt with a first-round stoppage of the aforementioned Gonzalez. (This bout was originally ruled a no-contest as it ended after Gonzalez suffered a cut from an accidental clash of heads. But the referee ruled that Gonzalez was fit to continue before the Puerto Rican said “no mas,” alleging his vision was impaired, and the WBO upheld a protest from the Olascuaga camp and changed the result to a TKO. Regardless, Rudy Hernandez’s fighter would have kept his title.)

Hernandez, 62, is the brother of the late Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez. A two-time world title-holder at 130 pounds who fought the likes of Azumah Nelson, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr., Chicanito passed away in 2011, a cancer victim at age 45.

Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez was one of the most popular fighters in the Hispanic communities of Southern California. Rudy Hernandez, a late bloomer of sorts – at least in terms of public recognition — has kept his brother’s flame alive with own achievements. He is a worthy honoree for the 2024 Trainer of the Year.

Note: This is the first in our series of annual awards. The others will arrive sporadically over the next two weeks.

Photo credit: Steve Kim

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A Shocker in Tijuana: Bruno Surace KOs Jaime Munguia !!

Published

4 days ago

December 15, 2024

Arne K. Lang

A-Shocker-in-Tijuana-Bruno-Sarace-KOs-Jaime-Munguia

It was a chilly night in Tijuana when Jaime Munguia entered the ring for his homecoming fight with Bruno Surace. The main event of a Zanfer/Top Rank co-promotion, Munguia vs. Surace was staged in the city’s 30,000-seat soccer stadium a stone’s throw from the U.S. border in the San Diego metroplex.

Surace, a Frenchman, brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but a quick glance at his record showed that he had scant chance of holding his own with the house fighter. Only four of Surace’s 25 wins had come by stoppage and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records. Munguia was making the first start in the city of his birth since February 2022. Surace had never fought outside Europe.

But hold the phone!

After losing every round heading into the sixth, Surace scored the Upset of the Year, ending the contest with a one-punch knockout.

It looked like a short and easy night for Munguia when he knocked Surace down with a left hook in the second stanza. From that point on, the Frenchman fought off his back foot, often with back to the ropes, throwing punches only in spurts. Munguia worked the body well and was seemingly on the way to wearing him down when he was struck by lightning in the form of an overhand right.

Down went Munguia, landing on his back. He struggled to get to his feet, but the referee waived it off a nano-second before reaching “10.” The official time was 2:36 of round six.

Munguia, who was 44-1 heading in with 35 KOs, was as high as a 35/1 favorite. In his only defeat, he had gone the distance with Canelo Alvarez. This was the biggest upset by a French fighter since Rene Jacquot outpointed Donald Curry in 1989 and Jacquot had the advantage of fighting in his homeland.

Co-Main

Mexico City’s Alan Picasso, ranked #1 by the WBC at 122 pounds, scored a third-round stoppage of last-minute sub Yehison Cuello in a scheduled 10-rounder contested at featherweight. Picaso (31-0-1, 17 KOs) is a solid technician. He ended the bout with a left to the rib cage, a punch that weaved around Cuello’s elbow and didn’t appear to be especially hard. The referee stopped his count at “nine” and waived the fight off.

A 29-year-old Colombian who reportedly had been training in Tijuana, the overmatched Cuello slumped to 13-3-1.

Other Bouts of Note

In a ho-hum affair, junior middleweight Jorge Garcia advanced to 32-4 (26) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Uzbekistan’s Kudratillo Abudukakhorov (20-4). The judges had it 97-92 and 99-90 twice. There were no knockdowns, but Garcia had a point deducted in round eight for low blows.

Garcia displayed none of the power that he showed in his most recent fight three months ago in Arizona and when he knocked out his German opponent in 46 seconds. Abudukakhorov, who has competed mostly as a welterweight, came in at 158 1/4 pounds and didn’t look in the best of shape. The Uzbek was purportedly 170-10 as an amateur (4-5 per boxrec).

Super bantamweight Sebastian Hernandez improved to 18-0 (17 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of Argentine import Sergio Martin (14-5). The end came at the 2:39 mark of round seven when Martin’s corner threw in the towel. Earlier in the round, Martin lost his mouthpiece and had a point deducted for holding.

Hernandez wasn’t all that impressive considering the high expectations born of his high knockout ratio, but appeared to have injured his right hand during the sixth round.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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