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

Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

19 minutes ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

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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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

14 hours ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

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It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.

Will it be her last flyweight defense?

Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.

Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.

The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.

Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.

Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.

In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.

Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.

Perez Beats Conwell.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.

It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.

Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.

Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.

Other Bouts

Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.

It was very close.

Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.

Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.

One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.

Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.

Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.

Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

1 day ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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