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Destiny Played Role Reversal With the Careers of David Reid & Floyd Mayweather Jr.

There is a scene in “Rocky II” in which Rocky Balboa’s crusty old trainer, Mickey, tries to talk the retired heavyweight from Philadelphia out of attempting a comeback in a rematch against champion Apollo Creed. Demonstrating that Rocky’s left eye is too badly damaged for him to consider entering the ring against such a dangerous opponent, which could only end with Creed completing the demolition project he had so advanced in their previous slugfest, Mickey lands a couple of open-hand slaps to the left side of the plucky journeyman’s face.
“If I can do that, what do you think Creed would do to ya?” Mickey asks.
“I don’t know, hurt me bad, I guess,” Rocky mumbles.
“No,” Mickey says. “He’d hurt you permanent.”
By the time the closing credits rolled, of course, Rocky had upset Creed, swinging open the celluloid door for four more sequels in which “The Italian Stallion’s” bad eye never again was a hindrance to his performance, or even mentioned. Boxing’s longest-enduring movie hero will be onscreen again in the near future as “Creed,” the seventh installment in the movie series that not only goes the distance, but keeps extending it, is currently filming in Philly. In this one, Rocky is the trainer of Apollo Creed’s grandson, who hopes to step into his late Pop-Pop’s large shoes.
I can’t help but think of another Philadelphia fighter, 1996 Olympic gold medalist and former WBA super welterweight champion David Reid, whenever that I watch the aforementioned scene. I also think about an unscripted but indisputably accurate quote from still another Philly fighter, former middleweight and light heavyweight Bernard “The Alien” Hopkins, who made this astute observation after Reid had defended his newly won 154-pound title on a tougher-than-expected unanimous decision over Australia’s Kevin Kelly on July 16, 1999, in Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall. Kelly, a 30-1 underdog, kept circling to his right and scoring with overhand rights to Reid’s perpetually drooping left eyelid, which had already been operated on three times in unsuccessful attempts to fix a problem that would plague Reid throughout the remainder of his career, and beyond.
“If I was fighting David Reid next week or next month, what do you think I’m going to go for?” Hopkins asked, saying out loud what was already becoming common knowledge. “I think everybody he fights between now and the time he retires will go for a target that is so, so obvious.
“There’s two things you must have in this game: legs and headlights. You have to see what’s coming, and David Reid has problems seeing.”
But each of us sees what we want to see and hears what we want to see, at least occasionally, which explains in part why avoidable accidents continue to happen. In no sport is capricious misfortune more prevalent than in boxing, which is frequently described as a “hurt business.” Although no one can predict when a blossoming career takes a dramatic and sudden turn for the worse, there sometimes are telltale signs of slippage that those who should know better, if you’ll pardon the expression, turn a blind eye to. One fight, one round or even one punch can bring a prodigious talent suddenly to ruin. Even a seemingly minor injury, one that would not affect individuals in 95 percent of all other occupations, can be devastating if it impairs or restricts a fighter’s field of vision. Inside the ropes, a drooping eyelid can be tantamount to a career-killer.
He’ll hurt you permanent.
March 3 marks the 15th anniversary of the day that Felix Trinidad mortally wounded David Reid’s professional hopes and dreams with a one-sided, title-lifting unanimous decision at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, a brutal beatdown in which the Puerto Rican superstar overcame a third-round knockdown to register four of his own, including three in the 11th round. Although the ventilator to which Reid’s once-towering aspirations were attached continued to function for four more bouts, he was, in effect, fighting with a pirate’s eye patch covering that left orb forever set at half-mast. Thus the young man whom some considered a brighter prospect than Floyd Mayweather Jr. coming out of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics quickly faded from view into a darker, more disturbing world mostly inhabited only by himself.
So here we are, 18½ years after Reid had vaulted to global prominence with a lightning-bolt right hand that put Cuba’s Alfredo Duvergel down and out in the final round of the light middleweight gold-medal bout. Under Olympic rules then in effect, scoring was done by computer, with judges at ringside pressing buttons to register legal punches landed within a specified time frame. Reid was 10 points behind entering that last round, and he was still insurmountably behind, 15-5, when he came in over the top with a parabola that landed with the concussive force of a runaway locomotive.
“We’d been through this plenty of times,” said U.S. Olympic coach Al Mitchell, who, ironically, had developed a father-son relationship with Reid since first working with him as an 11-year-old at a North Philadelphia recreation center, and would serve as his manager-trainer in the pros. “I told Dave, `Just go for the knockout. You can’t go any other way.’”
Said Reid: “I was going for the home run. I was down by 10 points. It’s hard to score 10 points in a round.”
The suddenness of his victory, so fraught with drama, was so … so … Rocky. Reid leaped in exultation, tears of joy forming at the corner of his eyes, and shortly after the he mounted the victory stand and the national anthem played, he was introduced to none other than the great Muhammad Ali.
“He told me, `You’re a bad boy,’” Reid said at the time, beaming a wide smile.
Just like that, the ghetto kid who had grown up with nothing appeared to be on the verge of having everything. Big-time promoters lined up to make lucrative offers, which in one instance included a veiled promise that his image would soon appear on boxes for Wheaties, the “Breakfast of Champions.”
“David is a national hero,” said Top Rank CEO Bob Arum, whose company initially seemed the favorite to land the man of the moment. Toward that end, Arum brought along one of his big guns, Oscar De La Hoya, to a meeting with Reid in New York a few days after Reid toppled Duvergel. De La Hoya had won the only American gold medal in boxing at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and the carrot dangling at the end of the Top Rank stick was the possibility of a megabucks Oscar-Reid match somewhere down the road.
“It’s going to happen,” De La Hoya told reporters after he had met and posed for photos with Reid. “I really believe that Bob Arum can see the big picture. I see the big picture, too. David Reid and I will fight someday. The only gold medalist from ’92 vs. the only gold medalist from ’96. Man, wouldn’t that be something? It won’t happen soon, but it will happen.”
Perhaps it would have, had Reid, then 22, gone with Top Rank. He instead chose to accept a larger deal from a newly formed promotional company, America Presents, that included a $1.5 million signing bonus and a reported $14.4 million over the five-year life of the contract.
America Presents president Dan Goossen predicted that Reid would make “at least $50 million” in the first five years of his pro career, which began on March 21, 1997, with an HBO-televised four-round, unanimous decision over Sam Calderon at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Now dubbed “The American Dream,” Reid was, most agreed, on the fast track to superstardom, even if his left eyelid was already beginning its slow descent into the danger zone.
Top Rank’s consolation prize for missing out on Reid, however, turned out to be better than gold. Floyd Mayweather Jr., the bronze medalist in the featherweight division, had dropped a disputed 10-9 decision to reigning world amateur champion Serafim Todorov of Bulgaria in the semifinals, an outcome so odious that USA Boxing officials filed a formal protest to have it overturned (it wasn’t). And in the Olympics, gold always trumps bronze insofar as initial attractiveness to the pros is concerned.
“Mayweather got the shaft. I still can’t believe they screwed him like they did,” fumed U.S. coach Al Mitchell, who had deemed the Grand Rapids, Mich., native as the “best defensive fighter” on the American squad.
In retrospect, you have to wonder how things would have turned out for Reid and for Mayweather had Floyd won the gold he probably deserved and Reid not landed the thunderous shot some called the luckiest of lucky punches, and thus had to settle for the silver. In all likelihood, the vastly talented Mayweather would have gone on to the same incredible professional career he has achieved in posting a 47-0 record with 26 knockouts. At last look, he had a net worth of $280 million, which figures to be considerably boosted after his May 2 welterweight unification showdown with Manny Pacquiao, which could gross him upwards of $120 million. He is a surefire first-ballot inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and, to hear him tell it, the best fighter ever to lace up a pair of padded gloves.
Reid’s high profile as an Olympic gold medalist no doubt contributed to his fighting for a world title in just his 12th pro outing, in which he outpointed WBA super welterweight champ Laurent Boudouani on March 4, 1989, in Boardwalk Hall. To all outward appearances, this was the same ebullient, chatty Reid as always as he yapped throughout the bout to a Frenchman who probably didn’t understand a world he was saying.
“I think it’s my confidence coming out,” Reid said of his in-fight verbosity. “Sometimes it’s good to talk trash. It shows I’m having fun doing what I do.”
But although not the first to follow what proved to be a familiar script, Boudouani added details to the plan as to how to fight Reid as he, too, kept stepping to his right to try to find a fuzzy or blind spot in the celebrated Olympic star’s questionable field of vision. The steady stream of wide rights that found the mark wiped the grin off Reid’s face soon enough, and convinced Mitchell that his guy’s coming-out party would include its share of popped balloons and limp streamers.
There also was continuing friction between Reid and Hopkins, who had appeared in separate bouts of an “HBO Boxing After Dark” show at the Taj Mahal on Jan. 31, 1998. Asked a few days beforehand if Reid might soon be ready to fight him, Hopkins, then the IBF middleweight champion and an America Presents stablemate of Reid’s, had offered his opinion that the 24-year-old was “on Similac” and needed to “get on whole milk” before he should even consider stepping up to fight him.
After Hopkins had stopped former world champion Simon Brown in six rounds and Reid had scored an eight-round unanimous decision over Robert Frazier, Reid, no longer smiling, vented his anger toward his fellow Philadelphian.
“Simon Brown is a bum,” Reid said. “Bernard beat up a bum. Every second of that fight, I could beat (Hopkins). He makes too many mistakes. It looks like when he swings, he closes his eyes and he’s scared. The man’s got no heart. He can’t fight. They say he’s the best middleweight, but, to me, he can’t fight.
“He said I was a little baby. This little baby would beat the drawers off him.”
A few days later, Hopkins tried to defuse the situation, at least a little.
“You want to know how I feel about David Reid?” he asked. “I think he’s a great-looking prospect, a future world champion. He has speed and power and he can go as far as he wants to in this game. David Reid is the future, but I am the present. This is my time; his time is coming. When I said he was a baby, all I meant is that he’s young and has to grow up in this sport a little. I didn’t mean nothing derogatory. It was all meant in good fun. If he took it wrong, what can I say?”
The “great-looking prospect” did win a world title, and defended it twice with points nods over Kelly and Keith Mullings before his management team decided it was time to roll the dice and put Reid in with an unbeaten and highly bankable fighter, Felix Trinidad, who was moving up from welterweight.
Prior to the welterweight unification matchup of Trinidad and De La Hoya, Goossen, in a bold mood, took out print ads that had Reid basically calling out both men.
“It had one of those surgeon general warnings: `Gaining weight will be hazardous to your health,’” Goossen said of the layout, in which a menacing Reid was flanked by smaller images of Trinidad and De La Hoya.
Were Goossen and Mitchell that confident that Reid – with just 14 pro bouts – was ready for an experienced champion like Trinidad, who at the time was 36-0 with 30 KOs? Or were they just going for a major financial score for their guy while the going was good? Reid was to receive a career-high $3 million for testing himself against Trinidad, a quantum leap up from his previous high of $450,000?
“In a year or two, if Dave does what I think he can, he’ll be ready for delivery to the (International Boxing) Hall of Fame,” Mitchell predicted. “He could walk away from this game at 30 financially secure for life and with no regrets. He’ll have fought everybody and done everything he possibly could.”
But Mitchell said something else before Reid defended his title against Trinidad, something more troubling, a tale of a 44-year-old grandmother from Philadelphia who had just lost the seventh member of her family – all under the age of 20 – to street violence. It was another reminder of the netherworld with which he and Reid were more than familiar.
“So many sad stories,” Mitchell said. “The same thing happens over and over, and you keep asking yourself why. I don’t know how to end crime and poverty and desperation. I wish I had that answer.”
Reid had his moments against Trinidad, the foremost of which was when he floored “Tito” with an overhand right in the third round, the kind of punch that had put away Duvergel. But Trinidad, who had been dropped six times previously as a pro but always come back to win, beat the count. And what followed for Team Reid was not pretty. Reid was all but gone in the 11th round, floored three times, with a grotesquely swollen right eye matching his constantly drooping left eyelid. But Reid attempted to fight back just enough that he was granted a chance to finish on his feet, which he did.
“As a man, as a fighter, the referee saw I could continue,” said Reid, both eyes nearly hammered shut, with the cut above his right eye requiring 10 stitches to close. “I wasn’t going to quit.”
The quitting came four fights later, when Reid was stopped in nine rounds by a moonlighting St. Louis cop named Sam Hill on Nov. 11, 2001, in that noted boxing hotbed of Elizabeth, Ind. The HBO cameras weren’t there to record the moment for posterity, Reid’s star power having dimmed to the point of darkness following his thrashing by Trinidad.
Spanish philosopher/poet George Santayana once wrote that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Reid, a cousin of noted Philadelphia fighters Jimmy Young and Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts, was 26 when Trinidad basically ended his career, an outcome very much like what had happened to Meldrick Taylor, another Philly Olympic gold medalist (in Los Angeles in 1984) and world champion who had his prime beaten out of him in a super lightweight unification bout with Julio Cesar Chavez in 1990. Reid would never fight De La Hoya, or Hopkins, or his Olympic teammate, Fernando Vargas. Nor would he receive anywhere close to the $14.4 million his contract with America Presents reportedly was worth over five years, and certainly not the $50 million that Goossen had once so optimistically predicted. As it turned out, America Presents also was kayoed, the money man behind Goossen, Mat Tinley, cut off from funds for his cash-losing operation by the executors of his late billionaire uncle Bill Daniels’ estate.
Reid’s delivery to the IBHOF was canceled, as were his prospects of financial security for life. But Mitchell was right about one thing: “The American Dream” did indeed retire by the time he was 30. Broke and prone to bouts with depression and far-ranging mood swings, he now spends most of his time in his modest two-bedroom apartment in Marquette, Mich. He no longer has much, if anything, to do with the sport that made him an important figure on the world stage.
As always, the wheel goes round and round in boxing. And, as always, where it stops, nobody knows.
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Chris Eubank Jr Outlasts Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Feudal bragging rights belong to Chris Eubank Jr. who out-lasted Conor Benn to
emerge victorious by unanimous decision in a non-title middleweight match held in
London on Saturday.
Fighting for their family heritage Eubank (35-3, 26 KOs) and Benn (23-1, 14 KOs)
continued the battle between families started 35 years ago by their fathers at Tottenham
Hotspur Stadium.
More than 65,000 fans attended.
Though Eubank Jr. had a weight and height advantage and a record of smashing his
way to victory via knockout, he had problems hurting the quicker and more agile Benn.
And though Benn had the advantage of moving up two weight divisions and forcing
Eubank to fight under a catch weight, the move did not weaken him much.
Instead, British fans and boxing fans across the world saw the two family rivals pummel
each other for all 12 rounds. Neither was able to gain separation.
Eubank looked physically bigger and used a ramming left jab to connect early in the
fight. Benn immediately showed off his speed advantage and surprised many with his
ability to absorb a big blow.Chris Eubank Jr Outlasts Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Benn scrambled around with his quickness and agility and scored often with bigcounters.
It took him a few rounds to stop overextending himself while delivering power shots.
In the third round Benn staggered Eubank with a left hook but was unable to follow up
against the dangerous middleweight who roared back with flurries of blows.
Eubank was methodic in his approach always moving forward, always using his weight
advantage via the shoulder to force Benn backward. The smaller Benn rocketed
overhand rights and was partly successful but not enough to force Eubank to retreat.
In the seventh round a right uppercut snapped Benn’s head violently but he was
undeterred from firing back. Benn’s chin stood firm despite Eubank’s vaunted power and
size advantage.
“I didn’t know he had that in him,” Eubank said.
Benn opened strong in the eighth round with furious blows. And though he connected
he was unable to seriously hurt Eubank. And despite being drained by the weight loss,
the middleweight fighter remained strong all 12 rounds.
There were surprises from both fighters.
Benn was effective targeting the body. Perhaps if he had worked the body earlier he
would have found a better result.
With only two rounds remaining Eubank snapped off a right uppercut again and followed
up with body shots. In the final stanza Eubank pressed forward and exchanged with the
smaller Benn until the final bell. He simply out-landed the fighter and impressed all three
judges who scored it 116-112 for Eubank.
Eubank admitted he expected a knockout win but was satisfied with the victory.
“I under-estimated him,” Eubank said.
Benn was upset by the loss but recognized the reasons.
“He worked harder toward the end,” said Benn.
McKenna Wins
In his first test in the elite level Aaron McKenna (20-0, 10 KOs) showed his ability to fight
inside or out in soundly defeating former world champion Liam Smith (33-5-1, 20 KOs)
by unanimous decision to win a regional WBA middleweight title.
Smith has made a career out of upsetting young upstarts but discovered the Irish fighter
more than capable of mixing it up with the veteran. It was a rough fight throughout the
12 rounds but McKenna showed off his abilities to fight as a southpaw or right-hander
with nary a hiccup.
McKenna had trained in Southern California early in his career and since that time he’s
accrued a variety of ways to fight. He was smooth and relentless in using his longer
arms and agility against Smith on the outside or in close.
In the 12 th round, McKenna landed a perfectly timed left hook to the ribs and down went
Smith. The former champion got up and attempted to knock out the tall
Irish fighter but could not.
All three judges scored in favor of McKenna 119-108, 117-109, 118-108.
Other Bouts
Anthony Yarde (27-3) defeated Lyndon Arthur (24-3) by unanimous decision after 12 rounds. in a light heavyweight match. It was the third time they met. Yarde won the last two fights.
Chris Billam-Smith (21-2) defeated Brandon Glanton (20-3) by decision. It was his first
fight since losing the WBO cruiserweight world title to Gilberto Ramirez last November.
Viddal Riley (13-0) out-worked Cheavon Clarke (10-2) in a 12-round back-and-forth-contest to win a unanimous decision.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.
This is huge in British boxing.
Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
This is about family pride.
The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.
Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.
Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.
Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.
Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.
Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.
This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.
Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.
“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”
Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.
“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.
Eubank smiles.
“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.
Supporting Bout
Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.
“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.
McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.
It’s youth versus experience.
“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.
Monster in L.A.
Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.
It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.
Pomona Fights
Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.
Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.
Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).
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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”
It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.
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