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TERENCE CRAWFORD Is BWAA 2014 Fighter of the Year
Cameron Dunkin, the Boxing Writers Association of America’s Manager of the Year in 2007, is a true believer. When he puts his faith in one of his fighters, it’s absolute, and he will preach about his guy’s abilities with all the fervor of a tent-show revivalist. Sometimes that faith is misplaced and he comes away disappointed, but other times his instincts prove totally correct.
Early on in Terence “Bud” Crawford’s professional career, Dunkin admits to frustration in his attempts to sell something that none of the major promoters seemed to want. He was talking up a professional boxer from Nebraska? Hey, everybody knows that state is better known for producing bumper crops of very large linemen for the University of Nebraska football team than for little guys who can hook off the jab.
“Nobody wanted him,” Dunkin, the BWAA’s 2007 Manager of the Year, said of Crawford, the Omaha native whose fight for widespread acknowledgment was more daunting than his almost casual mastery of the opponents he was facing in the ring.
And now?
With three impressive victories in 2014, the 27-year-old Crawford (25-0, 17 KOs) is the winner of the Boxing Writers Association’s Sugar Ray Robinson Award as Fighter of the Year. He will be honored at the BWAA’s 90th annual Awards Ceremony on April 24 at a yet-to-be-determined venue in New York City, an event that will be emceed by Brooklyn Nets announcer David Diamante.
The remainder of the BWAA award winners will be announced Wednesday.
“It’s a surprise to me because that’s something that I never thought I’d be able to accomplish,” Crawford said when informed of his selection, in a close vote over WBO/IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher”Kovalev. “Now that it’s happened, it almost feels like it’s not real.”
Dunkin’s persistent sales pitch finally was heard in the Top Rank organization, which isn’t surprising as several Dunkin-managed fighters (Crawford is co-managed by Brian McIntyre, who also serves as his trainer) have fought, and fought well, under the TR banner. Crawford signed a promotional contract with CEO Bob Arum’s star-making company shortly after he blasted out Derrick Campos in two rounds on July 30, 2011, to run his record to 13-0 with 10 victories inside the distance. But that bout was held at the Softball Country Arena in Denver, still too far off the radar screen to attract much attention.
That changed on March 30, 2013, at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay when Crawford dominated Breidis Prescott in taking a unanimous, 10-round decision, in the process winning 26 of the 30 total rounds on the three judges’ scorecards. He was definitely now on that figurative radar screen, including that monitored by his own promotional company. He was summoned back to Vegas around that time – he can’t recall the exact date – to be interviewed by Top Rank representatives and to pose for photographs, a sure sign that he was moving up from bit player to potential leading man.
“They asked me some questions,” Crawford said. “I said I felt that I had Omaha on my back, and they seemed to like that. I said I was going to take Omaha all the way to the top, and that’s what I did.”
Crawford launched his breakthrough year of 2014 in fine fashion, wresting the WBO 135-pound championship on a unanimous decision over gritty Scotsman Ricky Burns on March 1 in Glasgow, Scotland. That earned him, in a professional sense, a return ticket home – his only previous pro bout in Nebraska was on July 31, 2010, a one-round knockout of Anthony Mora in Grand Island – and he treated his growing legion of Omaha fans with HBO-televised, title-defending routs of 2004 Olympic gold medalist and former unified featherweight champion Yuriokis Gamboa (who was floored four times in losing by ninth-round TKO on June 28) and a wide unanimous decision over wily veteran Ray Beltran on Nov. 29. The thumping of Gamboa was a finalist for the BWAA’s Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier Fight of the Year Award.
Perhaps just as significantly, the Gamboa and Beltran fights drew paid audiences of 10,943 and 11,127 in Omaha’s CenturyLink Arena, with the beatdown of Gamboa, a Miami-based Cuban, the first world title fight to be held in Nebraska’s largest city since heavyweight champ Joe Frazier carved up Ron Stander, the “Bluffs Butcher,” for a fifth-round TKO on May 25, 1972. Like Crawford said, he has Omaha on his back and he’s determined to take it to a lofty perch in boxing it hasn’t been often, if at all.
It will take more eye-opening victories like those, but Crawford just might have a chance to someday enter the ring of Omaha’s most cherished sports heroes, along with baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers and three-time first-team All-America basketball player Doug McDermott, who is from Ames, Iowa, but starred for four years at Omaha’s Creighton University.
“I’m looking for a big year again,” Crawford, who plans to move up in weight, said of his plans for 2015, beginning with his April 18 non-title date with Puerto Rican super lightweight Thomas Dulorme (22-1, 14 KOs), the site of which has yet to be announced but very likely will be Omaha. “I’m going to continue taking the biggest and best fights out there. I don’t want to take no step down. I want to prove I’m the best fighter in and around my division, and one of the best in any division. To be great, you got to set your sights on the Pacquiaos and the Mayweathers. Those are the kind of guys you got to fight, and beat.”
Although Crawford has his own style, it is in fact a hodgepodge of moves and strategies he has lifted from any number of great fighters he has admired since the time he took up boxing at the age of seven.
“I used to fall asleep watching tapes of old fights,” he said, citing Shane Mosley, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Felix Trinidad, Marco Antonio Barrera, Julio Cesar Chavez, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ike Quartey as influences. “I’d try to take a little bit from this fighter, a little bit from that fighter.”
Not surprisingly, McIntyre has characterized Crawford as “a throwback fighter, from the ’70s or ’80s, just like Hagler, Hearns, Leonard and Duran. He will fight anyone, and duck nobody.”
Certainly, Beltran came away impressed by Omaha’s latest sporting favorite son. Every time he thought he was beginning to figure Crawford out, the champion would show him a different look.
“I’ve had six losses before him, but in my heart, as a man, I can really say this is the first guy that I feel had really beat me,” he said.
It is that ability to make in-round adjustments – he can go from orthodox to southpaw, and back again, as naturally as most people breathe in and out – that stamps Crawford as someone who could be a regular candidate for future Fighter of the Year awards.
“As a kid, that’s something my coaches always had me working on,” Crawford said. “They wanted me to be flexible, not one-dimensional like a lot of fighters are. We work on multiple things in the gym. Whenever I got something down pat, it was on to something else. And that was good, because I always want to learn. I try to soak up as much as I can.”
For Dunkin, Crawford’s arrival in the ranks of elite fighters is a happy occasion, on several levels. He said that Crawford not only is a tremendous talent, but an unspoiled, enthusiastic kid who is as good a person as he is a fighter.
“Both of them had great years,” he said of Crawford’s edging of Kovalev for the BWAA FOY Award. “Either one would have been a great choice, but I’m so glad my guy got it. I’m so happy for him. He’s worked so hard and never complains about anything. His attitude is always, `Let’s go. Let’s fight.’ You can really move a guy like that. He wants to fight, and he wants to be somebody.
“In a city like Omaha, which doesn’t have pro sports (other than a Triple-A baseball team), you just knew the time and place was ripe for somebody like him. He’s very popular, for all the right reasons. Not only can he really fight, but he’s such a great kid. I thought he would do well, but come on. To do as well as he has this fast … it’s just incredible.”
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
There’s not much happening on the boxing front this month. That’s consistent with the historical pattern.
Fight promoters of yesteryear tended to pull back after the Christmas and New Year holidays on the assumption that fight fans had less discretionary income at their disposal. Weather was a contributing factor. In olden days, more boxing cards were staged outdoors and the most attractive match-ups tended to be summertime events.
There were exceptions, of course. On Jan. 17, 1941, an SRO crowd of 23,180 filled Madison Square Garden to the rafters to witness the welterweight title fight between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. (This was the third Madison Square Garden, situated at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, roughly 17 blocks north of the current Garden which sits atop Pennsylvania Station. The first two arenas to take this name were situated farther south adjacent to Madison Square Park).
This was a rematch. They had fought here in October of the previous year. In a shocker, Zivic won a 15-round decision. The fight was close on the scorecards. Referee Arthur Donovan and one of the judges had it even after 14 rounds, but Zivic had won his rounds more decisively and he punctuated his well-earned triumph by knocking Armstrong face-first to the canvas as the final bell sounded.
This was a huge upset.
Armstrong had a rocky beginning to his pro career, but he came on like gangbusters after trainer/manager Eddie Mead acquired his contract with backing from Broadway and Hollywood star Al Jolson. Heading into his first match with Zivic – the nineteenth defense of the title he won from Barney Ross – Hammerin’ Henry had suffered only one defeat in his previous 60 fights, that coming in his second meeting with Lou Ambers, a controversial decision.
Shirley Povich, the nationally-known sports columnist for the Washington Post, conducted an informal survey of boxing insiders and found only person who gave Zivic a chance. The dissident was Chris Dundee (then far more well-known than his younger brother Angelo). “Zivic knows all the tricks,” said Dundee. “He’ll butt Armstrong with his head, gouge him with his thumbs and hit him just as low as Armstrong [who had five points deducted for low blows in his bout with Ambers].”
Indeed, Pittsburgh’s Ferdinand “Fritzie” Zivic, the youngest and best of five fighting sons of a Croatian immigrant steelworker (Fritzie’s two oldest brothers represented the U.S. at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics) would attract a cult following because of his facility for bending the rules. It would be said that no one was more adept at using his thumbs to blind an opponent or using the laces of his gloves as an anti-coagulant, undoing the work of a fighter’s cut man.
Although it was generally understood that at age 28 his best days were behind him, Henry Armstrong was chalked the favorite in the rematch (albeit a very short favorite) a tribute to his body of work. Although he had mastered Armstrong in their first encounter, most boxing insiders considered Fritzie little more than a high-class journeyman and he hadn’t looked sharp in his most recent fight, a 10-round non-title affair with lightweight champion Lew Jenkins who had the best of it in the eyes of most observers although the match was declared a draw.
The Jan. 17 rematch was a one-sided affair. Veteran New York Times scribe James P. Dawson gave Armstrong only two rounds before referee Donovan pulled the plug at the 52-second mark of the twelfth round. Armstrong, boxing’s great perpetual motion machine, a world title-holder in three weight classes, repaired to his dressing room bleeding from his nose and his mouth and with both eyes swollen nearly shut. But his effort could not have been more courageous.
At the conclusion of the 10th frame, Donovan went to Armstrong’s corner and said something to the effect, “you will have to show me something, Henry, or I will have to stop it.” What followed was Armstrong’s best round.
“[Armstrong] pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in twenty-five years of attendance at these ring battles,” wrote Dawson. But Armstrong, who had been stopped only once previously, that coming in his pro debut, had punched himself out and had nothing left.
Armstrong retired after this fight, siting his worsening eyesight, but he returned in the summer of the following year, soldiering on for 46 more fights, winning 37 to finish 149-21-10. During this run, he was reacquainted with Fritzie Zivic. Their third encounter was fought in San Francisco before a near-capacity crowd of 8,000 at the Civic Auditorium and Armstrong got his revenge, setting the pace and working the body effectively to win a 10-round decision. By then the welterweight title had passed into the hands of Freddie Cochran.
Hammerin’ Henry (aka Homicide Hank) Armstrong was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. Fritzie Zivic followed him into the Hall three years later.
Active from 1931 to 1949, Zivic lost 65 of his 231 fights – the most of anyone in the Hall of Fame, a dubious distinction – but there was yet little controversy when he was named to the Canastota shrine because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had fought a tougher schedule. Aside from Armstrong and Jenkins, he had four fights with Jake LaMotta, four with Kid Azteca, three with Charley Burley, two with Sugar Ray Robinson, two with Beau Jack, and singles with the likes of Billy Conn, Lou Ambers, and Bob Montgomery. Of the aforementioned, only Azteca, in their final meeting in Mexico City, and Sugar Ray, in their second encounter, were able to win inside the distance.
By the way, it has been written that no event of any kind at any of the four Madison Square Gardens ever drew a larger crowd than the crowd that turned out on Jan. 17, 1941, to see the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. Needless to say, prizefighting was big in those days.
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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Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
In his fifth title defense, lineal cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) successfully defended his belt with a brutal fourth-round stoppage of former sparring partner David Nyika. The bout was contested in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia where Opetaia won the IBF title in 2022 with a hard-earned decision over Maris Briedis with Nyika on the undercard. Both fighters reside in the general area although Nyika, a former Olympic bronze medalist, hails from New Zealand.
The six-foot-six Nyika, who was undefeated in 10 pro fights with nine KOs, wasn’t afraid to mix it up with Opetaia although had never fought beyond five rounds and took the fight on three weeks’ notice when obscure German campaigner Huseyin Cinkara suffered an ankle injury in training and had to pull out. He wobbled Opetaia in the second round in a fight that was an entertaining slugfest for as long as it lasted.
In round four, the champion but Nyika on the canvas with his patented right uppercut and then finished matters moments later with a combination climaxed with an explosive left hand. Nyika was unconscious before he hit the mat.
Opetaia’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants Opetaia to unify the title and then pursue a match with Oleksandr Usyk. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, holds the WBA and WBO versions of the title and is expected to be Opetaia’s next opponent. The WBC diadem is in the hands of grizzled Badou Jack.
Other Fights of Note
Brisbane heavyweight Justis Huni (12-0, 7 KOs) wacked out overmatched South African import Shaun Potgieter (10-2), ending the contest at the 33-second mark of the second round. The 25-year-old, six-foot-four Huni turned pro in 2020 after losing a 3-round decision to two-time Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov. There’s talk of matching him with England’s 20-year-old sensation Moses Itauma which would be a delicious pairing.
Eddie Hearn’s newest signee Teremoana Junior won his match even quicker, needing less than a minute to dismiss Osasu Otobo, a German heavyweight of Nigerian descent.
The six-foot-six Teremoana, who akin to Huni hails from Brisbane and turned pro after losing to the formidable Jalolov, has won all six of his pro fights by knockout while answering the bell for only eight rounds. He has an interesting lineage; his father is from the Cook Islands.
Rising 20-year-old Max “Money” McIntyre, a six-foot-three super middleweight, scored three knockdowns en route to a sixth-round stoppage of Abdulselam Saman, advancing his record to 7-0 (6 KOs). As one can surmise, McIntyre is a big fan of Floyd Mayweather.
The Opetaia-Nyika fight card aired on DAZN pay-per-view (39.99) in the Antipodes and just plain DAZN elsewhere.
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R.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
Paul Bamba, a cruiserweight, passed away at age 35 on Dec. 27 six days after defeating Rogelio Medina before a few hundred fans on a boxing card at a performing arts center in Carteret, New Jersey. No cause of death has been forthcoming, leading to rampant speculation. Was it suicide, or perhaps a brain injury, and if the latter was it triggered by a pre-existing condition?
Fuel for the latter comes in the form of a letter that surfaced after his death. Dated July 25, 2023, it was written by Dr. Alina Sharinn, a board-certified neurologist licensed in New York and Florida.
“Mr. Bamba has suffered a concussion and an episode of traumatic diplopia within the past year and now presents with increasing headaches. His MRI of the brain revealed white matter changes in both frontal lobes,” wrote Bamba’s doctor.
Her recommendation was that he stop boxing temporarily while also avoiding any other activity at which he was at risk of head trauma.
Dr. Sherinn’s letter was written three months after Bamba was defeated by Chris Avila in a 4-round contest in New Orleans. He lost all four rounds on all three scorecards, reducing his record to 5-3.
Bamba took a break from boxing after fighting Avila. Eight months would elapse before he returned to the ring. His next four fights were in Santa Marta, Colombia, against opponents who were collectively 4-23 at the time that he fought them. The most experienced of the quartet, Victor Coronado, was 38 years old.
He won all four inside the distance and ten more knockouts would follow, the last against Medina in a bout sanctioned by the World Boxing Association for the WBA Gold title. As widely reported, the stoppage, his 14th, broke Mike Tyson’s record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year. That would have been a nice feather in his cap if only it were true.
Born in Puerto Rico, Paul Bamba was a former U.S. Marine who spent time in Iraq as an infantry machine gunner. In interviews on social media platforms, he is well-spoken and introspective without a trace of the boastfulness that many prizefighters exhibit when talking to an outsider. Interviewed in a corridor of the arena after stopping Medina, he was almost apologetic, acknowledging that he still had a lot to learn.
His life story is inspirational.
His early years were spent in foster homes. He was homeless for a time after returning to civilian life. Speaking with Boxing Scene’s Lucas Ketelle, Bamba said, “I didn’t have any direction after leaving the Marine corps. I hit rock bottom, couldn’t afford a place to stay…I was renting a mattress that was shoved behind someone’s sofa.”
He turned his life around when he ventured into the Morris Park Boxing Gym in the Bronx where he learned the rudiments of boxing under the tutelage of former WBA welterweight champion Aaron “Superman” Davis. “I love boxing,” he would say. “The confidence it gives you permeates into other aspects of your life.”
Bamba’s newfound confidence allowed him to carve out a successful career as a personal trainer. His most famous client was the Grammy Award winning R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo who signed Bamba to his new sports management company late in the boxer’s Knockout skein. Bamba was with Ne-Yo in Atlanta when he passed away. Ne-Yo broke the news on his Instagram platform.
Paul Bamba had been pursuing a fight with Jake Paul. Winning the WBA Gold belt opened up other potentially lucrative options. In theory, the holder of the belt is one step removed from a world title fight. Next comes an eliminator and, if he wins that one, a true title fight attached to a hefty purse will follow…in theory.
Rogelio “Porky” Medina, who brought a 42-10 record, had competed against some top-shelf guys, e.g., Zurdo Ramirez, Badou Jack, James DeGale, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant; going the distance with DeGale and Plant. However, only two of his 42 wins had come in fights outside Mexico, at age 36 he was over the hill, and his best work had come as a super middleweight.
Thirteen months ago, Medina carried 168 ½ pounds for a match in New Zealand in which he was knocked out in the first round. He came in more than 30 pounds heavier, specifically 202 ¼, for his match with Paul Bamba. In between, he knocked out a 54-year-old man in Guadalajara to infuse his ledger with a little brighter sheen.
Why did the WBA see fit to sanction the Bamba-Medina match as a title fight? That’s a rhetorical question. And for the record, the record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year wasn’t previously held by Mike Tyson. LaMar Clark, a heavyweight from Cedar City, Utah, scored 29 consecutive knockouts in 1958 after opening the year by winning a 6-round decision. (If you are inclined to believe that all or most of those knockouts were legitimate, then perhaps I can interest you in buying the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Clark was being primped for a fight with a good purse which came when he was dispatched to Louisville to fight a fellow who was fairly new to the professional boxing scene, a former U.S. Olympian then known as Cassius Clay who knocked him out in the second round in what proved to be Clark’s final fight.
Paul Bamba was a much better fighter than LaMar Clark, of that I am quite certain. However, if Paul Bamba had gone on to meet one of the world’s elite cruiserweights, a similar outcome would have undoubtedly ensued.
One can summon up the Bamba-Medina fight on the internet although the video isn’t great – it was obviously filmed on a smart phone – and pieces of it are missing. Bamba was winning with his higher workrate when Medina took his unexpected leave, but one doesn’t have to be a boxing savant to see that Paul’s hand and foot speed were slow and that there were big holes in his defense.
This isn’t meant to be a knock on the decedent. Being able to box even four rounds at a fast clip and still be fresh is one of the most underrated achievements in all of human endurance sports. Bamba’s life story is indeed inspirational. When he talked about the importance of “giving back,” he was sincere. In an early interview, he mentioned having helped out at a Harlem food pantry.
Paul Bamba had to die to become well-known within the fight fraternity, let alone in the larger society. One hopes that his death will inspire the sport’s regulators to be more vigilant in assaying a boxer’s medical history and, if somehow his untimely death leads to the dissolution of the fetid World Boxing Association, his legacy would be even greater.
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