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RACHEL’S REVIEW of Premier Boxing Champions on NBC

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A Review: Premier Boxing Champions

On the evening of Saturday, March 7th, those sitting in front of the television were treated to something that hasn’t happened in decades: boxing in primetime on network television.

The Overview

Al Haymon, a manager/advisor in the sport of boxing, bought airtime on NBC to showcase fighters in what has been titled Premier Boxing Champions (PBC). Together, Haymon and NBC put together a slick production featuring celebrity commentators, a big social media campaign and plenty of advertising to help build up the fights. In the main event, we saw Keith Thurman handily win over Robert Guerrero, and the undercard featured Adrien Broner easily taking a decision over John Molina Jr.

What This Could Mean for Boxing

As a real boxing fan, as opposed to a fair weather fan, I have a lot to say about this event. I’m familiar with all there is to love about boxing, and unfortunately all there is to despise. But after sleeping on it, and several long discussions with my husband, I’ve come away a little excited for one of the many possible futures for boxing.

At first glance, this event seems a little odd. What businessperson buys airtime to showcase an event on network television? Essentially, Haymon is paying NBC to air boxing, and this only makes sense if Haymon is some gazillionaire with money burning a hole in his pocket. But Haymon is a businessman, so making a profit is front and center. When you buy airtime, you’re taking the burden off of the network to go out and find sponsors. So we have to ask: Is this venture sustainable?

But that thinking is short-term. We have to think long-term. What possibly could be Haymon’s angle here?

Well, there are several angles, and for the sake of brevity I’m just going to focus on the most promising (believe me there’s an angle here that results in the PBC as a sanctioning body…please, just no).

So, let’s say that the first year of PBC on NBC is a success. Quality fights combined with a slick production bring in a slew of new fans to the sport. Now, these new fans aren’t willing to pay an extra dime for premier cable packages or PPVs. They’re satisfied with what they get on NBC. Sponsors start knocking on NBC’s door–they have products to sell and have taken notice that there’s an audience to sell to, and because of the slick production that’s kept to a PG rating they’re not scared to buy ad space.

So where do fighters want to fight? On a premier channel, where they’ll fight in front of the boxing fans that are tried and true, but a small group? Or on network television in front of the masses and the true fans? Obviously, you go where the people are, and that’s on network television. It doesn’t take too much for me to see a big move away from HBO and Showtime to network television.

Essentially, what will happen over time is that PBC on NBC becomes king of the hill so to speak, and everything else peters out until all we’re left with is PBC. At this point, PBC is now the equivalent of the NFL, MLB, NHL, etc. and Al Haymon is the commissioner.

This is kind of what I’ve always wanted. Imagine it: one champion in each weight class, the fights that need to happen actually happen, one set of rules for all. It’s blissful.

The key to this is the first year of PBC being a success. What does that look like? It looks like new fans, and a lot of them. The influx of new fans here has to be substantial.

What Worked and What Didn’t

So, what worked last night and what can NBC and company improve upon?

The production was slick. It felt big–like a real sporting event. We had familiar faces for our commentating team: Al Michaels and Marv Albert, both talented sports broadcasters, albeit a little rusty when it comes to boxing. We also had members of the boxing community on the commentating team: Sugar Ray Leonard, Laila Ali and BJ Flores all lended authenticity to the event. The quality of what we saw on our screens was great; we weren’t dealing with dropped feeds or losing high definition. NBC also went all out with the sound: Hans Zimmer was hired to try and give this event a feeling of importance and expectation (you shouldn’t really notice the soundtrack at these types of events, but hey, maybe the first time we heard the score for the NFL on FOX it was abrasive too).

They spared no expense in setting up the venue. Remember the Friday Night Fights where we could barely hear Teddy Atlas and Joe Tessitore because the ring itself was rocking and banging under the weight of the fighters? None of that on Saturday night. The ring was great, the lighting was great and all the extras (ring-walk ramps, Al Michaels’ desk, screens) were of good quality.

The time of the event. Boxing has tortured us tried and true fans for years, forcing hardworking Americans to stay up much later than necessary. Guess what boxing? Your fan base isn’t teens and twenty-somethings without jobs. NBC began their broadcast at 7:30 central time. When the event was over, I actually stayed up longer chatting about what happened instead of hurriedly brushing my teeth and falling into bed. You want people talking about your event.

The main event was a good fight. Sure, after seeing the sleep-inducing match that was Broner vs. Molina, the main event seemed like the greatest fight ever. But after sleeping on it, I think we can all agree it was a fun fight that Thurman easily won. (Please disregard this tweet from me last night: GREAT FIGHT! To my credit, I originally had three exclamation points on that, and scaled it back to just one.) New fans got to see two fighters who were active most of the rounds, a knockdown, and by the end, Guerrero found a way to get inside and give us some fun action. Oh, and let’s not forget: THE HEMOTOMA.

Choosing to forgo the ring card girls was a good choice as well. There’s no way you’re bringing in the masses while reducing four women to a few body parts. Out of all the major sports, boxing is the worst when it comes to objectifying women.

Last night there were no belts. This plays into the scenario above, where PBC becomes the equivalent of the NFL, MLB or NHL. Either PBC is going to become another sanctioning body with a belt to sell, or they become the only game in town. That’s the only choices given the fact that they refused to showcase the WBA belt Saturday night.

There was a lot to fix in this production too.

Marv Albert was clearly very rusty. He had trouble seeing the specifics of the action. What I mean by that is this: He could see that there were punches, but he couldn’t see what kind of punches they were (jab, uppercut, hook, who cares!?) and if they were even landing. I could never call a fight–there’s no way I could keep up with the speed of the action. But this is Marv Albert’s job, so he definitely needs to spend some time watching fights and calling them, preferably on his own time and not on mine.

NBC might want to take their commentating team to some local shows for practice. If I were them I would get in some real time for my commentating team, and even try out different combinations. Maybe Laila Ali needs to be part of the play-by-play team. Maybe Al Michaels should also join that play-by-play team and we lose Marv Albert. Maybe Sugar Ray Leonard is the guy you can pull in when you want and ask some questions, but he’s not there the whole time. Maybe you actually put a mic on Steve Farhood because he has more knowledge of boxing as a commentator than all five of the other people combined. Just some ideas. And can you imagine the stellar marketing move it would be to have Laila Ali as one the main commentators? Granted, she would need to be good at it, but if she could pull it off–wow.

If you’re going to have former boxing champions as commentators you should probably spend some time at the beginning of the broadcast teaching your new fan base who they are. Unless I’m talking to someone in their sixties, no one I talk to knows any names in boxing except Ali, Tyson, Foreman, Holyfield and Mayweather. I’m not even exaggerating.

The ring walks came across as odd. I didn’t mind that the fighters were alone. I get why NBC wanted this–they needed to exercise control, and I think we can all agree that ring walks have gotten a little out of control as of late. To be honest, I don’t come to boxing for ring walks, so this isn’t really a deal breaker for me. What NBC has to fix, is the fact that the night’s ring walks stuck out like a sore thumb. You can’t have that. An alternative might be to show the television audience a video of the fighter rather than he/she walking to the ring.

Adrien Broner. Do I even need to say anything else? Wow. Why would you take what’s on the bottom of the boxing barrel and showcase it for new fans on network television? Unless Haymon is planning on hiring a life coach for Broner, let’s have less of him on NBC. Actually, let’s just have none of him on NBC.

The fights themselves could have been better. I don’t know if Al Haymon made these fights, but I’m assuming he did, and I think we can all agree that matchmaking is not his forte. The main event turned out to be a solid bout for new fans. You got a knockdown, some blood and lots of activity. I would have appreciated an undercard with two bouts that included well-matched fighters instead of named fighters. I don’t care if their records are 15-10, give me two guys whose styles give us fireworks and I’m happy. If the future of PBC is Haymon boxers fighting tomato cans, you can count me out, as well as the rest of America because they’re not tuning in for that. Remember, for them these aren’t even “name” fighters–they don’t know who these guys are!

All in all, I think we can agree that PBC has the potential to be good for boxing. At the very least, it will just be more of the same, and in that case I’ll still be here week in, week out watching guys leaving it all in the ring.

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Arne’s Almanac: The Australian Boxing Renaissance and More

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A new junior middleweight champion emerged this past Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The World Boxing Organization (which uses the nomenclature junior middleweight instead of super welterweight) had made it known that it planned to strip Jermell Charlo of his 154-pound title for taking the fight with Canelo Alvarez and that adjudication took effect the moment the bell sounded to signify the start of the contest.

Charlo was displaced by Tim Tszyu (pictured) whose first defense of his newly-acquired title comes in less than two weeks when he touches gloves with Albuquerque’s Brian Mendoza at the Gold Coast Convention Center in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia.

There are often hoots of derision when a fighter is anointed a title-holder without actually winning the diadem in the ring, but not in this instance. Tszyu (23-0, 17 KOs) would have been favored over Charlo if they had met and this would have been true even before Jermell’s hollow performance against Canelo.

Earlier that same day, WBO cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia returned to the ring after a 15-month absence and demolished Jordan Thompson at London’s Wembley Stadium. Although Opetaia (23-0, 18 KOs) was a massive favorite, he yet turned heads by winning every minute of the fight until it was halted after only 20 seconds of round four.

Australia now has three world title-holders, two of whom (Opetaia and Tszyu) are considered the best fighters in their respective weight classes. The other is Jason Moloney who recently won the WBO bantamweight title vacated by Naoya Inoue. And for whatever it’s worth, the Land Down Under has a fourth title-holder in IBF female bantamweight champion Ebanie Bridges.

There may be more in the pipeline. Sam Goodman (15-0, 7 KOs) is rated #1 at 122 pounds by the IBF and WBO. Tim Tszyu’s younger brother Nikita Tszyu (7-0, 6 KOs) has the look of a future champion and some folks are high on heavyweight Justis Huni (7-0, 4 KOs) who fights later this month in Cancun, Mexico with Andrew Tabiti in the opposite corner.

Things go in cycles and right now this is something of a golden era for Australian boxing.

Weekend Afterthoughts

The Showtime PPV topped by the Canelo-Charlo fight started swimmingly. The lid-lifter between middleweights Elijah Garcia and Jose Armando Resendiz was a doozy. Garcia, a 20-year-old southpaw from the Phoenix area, eventually assumed command and put Resendiz away in the eighth, but not before Resendiz showed that his upset of former title-holder Jarrett Hurd was no fluke.

The show went downhill from there. The second fight, pitting Mario Barrios and against Yordenis Ugas, the last man to defeat Manny Pacquiao, wasn’t a bad fight but too one-sided to provide great entertainment. Barrios, who had previously lost to Gervonta Davis and Keith Thurman, got his career back on track with a lopsided 12-round decision.

This reporter anticipated that the co-feature between super welterweights Jesus Ramos and Erickson Lubin would be a stirring battle with Ramos prevailing to maintain his undefeated record. I was wrong on both counts, dead wrong on the “stirring” part.

Far from a fan-friendly scrap, Ramos vs. Lubin was a snoozer. Lubin got the nod and although many thought Ramos was robbed, don’t look for a rematch any time soon. Concocting a sequel would bring back a bad memory.

The main event wasn’t much better. Jermell Charlo has been roundly excoriated on social media for his tepid effort. The folks that ponied up the dough to buy the pay-per-view didn’t get their money’s worth. But that’s boxing, the Theater of the Unexpected as Larry Merchant once phrased it.

The New GGG?

Buried on last Saturday’s Canelo-Charlo undercard was a 6-round contest between super middleweights Bek Nurmaganbet and Abimbola Osundairo. A 25-year-old Kazakh, Nurmaganbet advanced his record to 11-0 with a third-round stoppage. Nine of his wins have come inside the distance including the last seven, all of which ended inside three rounds.

Osundairo, a 30-year-old Chicago-based Nigerian, was a 2021 USA National Champion at 178 pounds. He was 5-0 in the pro ranks. Last year, he returned to his African homeland and won a 12-round contest to claim a regional title. On paper, he was a good match for the Kazakh.

For some readers, the name Osundairo may be vaguely familiar. That’s because he was involved in a bogus fight that became a major news story. The party of the other part, who offered no resistance, was actor Jussie Smollett.

Abimbola and his brother Olabinjo were paid to simulate an attack on Smollett which they carried out at 2 am on Jan. 29, 2019, on a street in downtown Chicago. Smollett, who is black and gay, claimed to be the victim of a hate crime, but developments would show that it was all a hoax. A jury found Smollett guilty on five counts related to the obstruction of justice and he was released on bond when his attorneys filed notice of an appeal.

Although Bek Nurmaganbet has built his record on the backs of no-name opponents, it’s worth noting that only one of those opponents had a losing record. Is he the successor to Gennady Golovkin as the next great KO artist from Kazakhstan? That may be asking too much, but remember his name; he bears watching.

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The Hauser Report: Jim Lampley and Bob Sheridan

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Two of boxing’s greatest blow-by-blow commentators were in the news last week. On Saturday night, Jim Lampley returned to the sweet science but in a role that was different from the one he’d enjoyed for decades at HBO. Sadly, three days earlier, Bob Sheridan died.

Let’s start with Lampley.

With all due respect to Sheridan (we’ll talk about his remarkable body of work later), Lampley is widely regarded as the greatest blow-by-blow commentator in boxing history. He was separated from the boxing scene when HBO stopped televising fights five years ago and resurfaced in a new role with PPV.com at Canelo Alvarez vs. Jermell Charlo.

PPV.com is a division of InDemand and streams various entertainment events. As part of its business, it streamed Canelo-Charlo in English and Spanish in the United States and Canada as a source of ancillary pay-per-view income for the promotion.

On August 22, PPV.com announced that Lampley and Lance Pugmire would co-host a live viewer chat during Canelo-Charlo. In keeping with his duties, Jim was in Las Vegas during fight week to generate interest in the fight and PPV.com.

Lampley arrived in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. He was a constant presence at media events, conducting interviews and being interviewed about the fight. His presence benefited the promotion by enlarging the pool of potential buyers who became aware of Canelo-Charlo. And the attention that Jim received was a boon for PPV.com, which became a talked-about alternative platform for buying the fight.

Lampley introduced himself to his PPV.com audience on fight night at 5:04 PM west coast time with a post that read, “After almost 5 years away from live boxing, the entire last 4 days in Las Vegas and the MGM Grand Hotel, the noise, the lights, the people, it’s been a hallucinogenic experience.”

When the judges awarded Erickson Lubin a stunningly bad decision over Jesus Ramos, Jim declared, “So I spent four years plus away from boxing, and I guess the judging didn’t get fixed.”

Lampley is a superb ambassador for boxing. His involvement with Canelo-Charlo was good for the entire promotion, not just PPV.com. But fight-night chats aren’t the best medium for Jim’s talent. And PPV.com shouldn’t be his end destination.

Part of the Jim Lampley experience for fans has always been the electric quality of his voice, a voice that generated excitement. By definition, that voice is missing in a written chat. Also, Lampley had an unmatched ability to view ring action and synthesize it into concise, perfectly-worded sound bites as it was unfolding, not several seconds afterward. In a written chat, that quality is lost in transition.

Jim Lampley belongs at ringside behind a microphone, not a keyboard.

Bob Sheridan plied his trade for decades. He had a distinctive announcing style and larger-than-life personality coupled with a love for boxing and the people he met in it.

 Sixteen years ago, I profiled “The Colonel” (as Sheridan was known). Bob’s resume grew even more impressive after that, capped by his 2016 induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. My original article about Bob is republished below as a tribute to a man whose enthusiasm for the sweet science was contagious.

Bob Sheridan was first behind the microphone for a fight in 1966. Since then, he has called more than 800 championship bouts and become an integral part of boxing’s historical soundtrack. From radio to broadcast television to closed-circuit to pay-per-view; been there, done that.

Bob Sheridan

Bob Sheridan

Sheridan is the international voice of boxing. He’s the commentator for the foreign-rights feed on most major bouts held in the United States and also for many fights overseas that are transmitted by satellite to the US. He was at ringside when Muhammad Ali battled George Foreman in Zaire and Joe Frazier in Manila. He has called the fights of legends like Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, and Roberto Duran. He was behind the microphone when Mike Tyson bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear. In large swaths of the world, his voice is synonymous with the sweet science.

Sheridan’s parents were born in 1905; his mother in County Mayo and his father in County Longford. Both of them came to the United States as toddlers.

Bob was born in Boston in 1944. “None of my grandparents were educated people,” he says. “But they were very family-oriented and wise. My father’s father, James Sheridan, was a sheet-metal worker in Boston, who died before I could know him. He passed the trade on to my father, who later became a building contractor. My maternal grandfather, Andrew Dougherty, was a farmer in New Hampshire. He knew a lot about Irish history and politics and talked endlessly to me about them.”

Sheridan went to college on a baseball scholarship at the University of Miami. “Baseball was my first love,” he says. He graduated in 1966 and, that summer, played a few games at third base for the Miami Marlins, who were a Class-A farm team for the Baltimore Orioles. “There was never any chance I’d stay with the club,” he acknowledges. “I’d been brought in to fill a spot until some kid they’d signed out of high school joined the team.”

His first year out of college, Sheridan also taught physical education in the Dade County school system and hosted his own radio talk show on WDER-FM, a small station in Miami. “I bought my own airtime,” he remembers. “It cost ten dollars for a two-hour slot between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM every Sunday morning. If I sold more than ten dollars in ads, I made a profit.”

But WDER-FM led to bigger things. The general manager for the Florida Marlins was Bill Durney, who co-hosted a radio show on WGBS (a major Florida station) with Red Barber. Barber was semi-retired and living in the Sunshine State. In earlier years, he’d been a radio and television baseball play-by-play announcer of legendary proportions. Durney introduced Sheridan to Barber.

“When I was young,” Sheridan says, picking up the story, “I wanted to be Babe Ruth. I had a pretty wild lifestyle, and I used to tell people that I was Babe Ruth reincarnated, except I’d been born four years before Babe died and I couldn’t play ball like him. However, I did have a tremendous ability to talk, and Red hired me. At first, I lined up interviews for him and read the sports news on his show. Then my role expanded. Red taught me a lot about the business. I learned from him that it doesn’t all come from the top of your head. There’s research and preparation. I prepare for every fight today like it was my first. I prepare for each undercard fight the same way I prepare for the main event. I learned that from Red Barber.”

Working with Barber gave Sheridan exposure throughout Florida. Then boxing entered his life.

The first fight that Sheridan had seen in person was Cassius Clay’s conquest of Sonny Liston in Miami Beach on February 25, 1964.

“Chris Dundee, the on-site promoter, called our baseball coach at Miami and asked if he could send some kids over to the arena to sell Coke at the fight,” Bob remembers. “Half a dozen of us went. I think a Coke sold for a quarter back then. We each made about four dollars, but I wasn’t there for the money. I was there for the fight. Clay wasn’t the most popular guy in the world, but I liked him. When the main event started, I stopped selling Coke, sat down in an aisle about twelve feet from the ring, and watched the fight. Of course, none of us had any idea of the magnitude of the history that was being made.”

In late-1966, Sheridan began calling Chris Dundee’s fights in Miami on WGBS radio. Boxing was a popular sport back then. There were fights in town every week, and Sheridan’s work became increasingly popular. “The more you do, the better you get,” he says. “And as I improved, more things fell into place.”

Dundee started taking Sheridan to fights out of town. He was hired to do radio color commentary for University of Miami football games. The first championship fight he called was Jerry Quarry against Jimmy Ellis for the WBA heavyweight title in 1968. Television work followed.

By the mid-1970s, Sheridan had gained a considerable following. Then his life took an unusual detour. He moved to Ireland and began raising cattle on a small farm in County Clare. “It’s hard to relate to city people the pleasures of working on a farm,” he says. “But remember; my grandfather was a farmer, and I loved horses and cattle.”

Sheridan owned ten acres in County Clare, leased a hundred more and, at one point, had two hundred head of cattle.” Then the detour got stranger.

“I figured I was breeding cattle and raising them, so why not ride them,” he remembers. “I tell people, I was always a bullshitter so bull-riding was the next logical step. Anyway, I took up rodeo bull-riding. In retrospect, it was crazy. This was before flak jackets. There were a lot of bruises and I broke my back one time at a rodeo in Arkansas. I’d fly from Shannon to the United States, do a rodeo, and fly back home again. For a while, I was Aer Lingus’s number-one non-commercial account. The last time I got on a bull was in 1981 at Madison Square Garden. I got bucked off in two seconds. The chute wasn’t even shut before I was off. After that, I stopped. But it was a very enjoyable period in my life. Rodeo cowboys are great athletes and fun guys to be around. The characters in rodeo are like the characters in boxing.”

In late-1981, Sheridan left the cattle business and moved back to Boston. “I loved every minute of it,” he says. “But land became too expensive to lease.” He now lives in Las Vegas with his wife of ten years, the former Annie Kelly, who was born in County Tipperary.

“I was a hard-drinking womanizing single guy for a long time,” Sheridan acknowledges. “I was married once before to another Irish girl, and it was a horrible marriage because I wasn’t mature enough to handle it. Whatever went wrong in that one, I’ll take responsibility for it. I’m a much better husband now.”

In addition to being a better husband, Sheridan is also now a fixture on the international boxing scene. He’s behind the microphone for forty fight cards annually, but that doesn’t begin to tell the story of his travels. In one seven-week stretch last year, he was ringside for fights in Memphis, the Philippines, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Boise, and South Africa. In 2005, he visited Australia eleven times.

Here, it should be noted that Sheridan has had four heart attacks and twelve angio-plasties. “I have heart attacks like other people have the flu,” he jokes. But in the next sentences, he adds,” Any health problems I’ve had are the result of genetics and eating and drinking too much. Don’t blame boxing; the traveling isn’t a problem. I get a bit tired sometimes, but there’s always an adrenaline rush when the fights begin.”

“I love boxing,” Sheraton says as his thoughts return to the sweet science. “It’s the purest sport in the world; it’s the greatest sport in the world. And my enthusiasm for it is one of my strengths as an announcer. I’m not a journalist. I don’t focus on the negative when I’m commentating. Sure, boxing has problems, but other sports have problems too. My job as a boxing commentator is to give people the facts and entertain the public. I never forget the brutality of boxing and how dangerous it is. I was tough enough to get on the back of a bull again and again. I’m not tough enough to be a fighter. But boxing takes poor kids without hope like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson and elevates them to a place where they’re among the most famous people on the planet. And each fight is an event. Nothing excites me more than two great fighters getting in the ring for a championship fight.”

“There’s an old saying,” Sheridan observes in closing. “If you find a job you love, you never have to do a day’s work in your life. When I’m behind the microphone, I’m happy.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – The Universal Sport: Two Years Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. 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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Canelo Alvarez Returns to Form; Proves Too Strong for Jermell Charlo

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Canelo Alvarez Returns to Form; Proves Too Strong for Jermell Charlo

Daring to be great does not guarantee success.

Mexico’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez powered his way past fellow undisputed but lighter world champion Jermell Charlo for a unanimous decision in front of a pro-Mexican crowd who cheered every attack by their champion on Saturday.

The difference in weight proved daunting.

A seemingly refreshed Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 KOs) returned to form in soundly defeating Houston’s Charlo (35-2-1, 19 KOs) who fired back like the champion he is at the T-Mobile Arena. More than 60 percent of the crowd seemed overwhelmingly pro-Canelo.

It was Canelo’s night and he was not going to disappoint.

Though his recent performances had been subpar, the real Canelo showed up looking sharp from the opening bell. He was not underestimating Charlo, a fellow pound-for-pound fighter according to many boxing publications.

After a tenuous opening round the fight slipped into its real rhythm in the second round as the taller and more slippery moving fighter decided to engage. While inside the range of fire, Charlo opened up with jabs and a crisp left hook. Canelo stalked the taller fighter and connected twice with combinations to the head and body. Neither fighter was hurt. Charlo showcased a fast triple jab. But when he tried to clinch, he was tossed away like a dangling tree branch by the stronger Alvarez.

It was a telling moment.

“I’m a strong fighter all the time. Nobody can beat Canelo,” said Alvarez.

In the third round Alvarez fired three rapid jabs and a right to the body that left the crowd in a collective exasperation. A right uppercut by Charlo connected and he was met by Canelo attacking the body viciously. Charlo held on twice.

It became apparent that Charlo could not handle Alvarez’s power and strength inside the pocket. And whenever he clinched he was met by powerful left hook shots to the body and a right to the head.

Charlo showed a very good chin and resilience despite getting pounded occasionally by the Mexican redhead’s body attack. It’s why he was undisputed super welterweight champion.

The fighter from Houston was gambling that he could match wits against boxing’s biggest draw. He was gambling that Alvarez’s recent performances were proof that he was ready to be toppled. And Charlo was not going to shy away from the fire.

The lanky Texas fighter showed brilliant speed and solid defense to go along with his championship heart. In the seventh round. Canelo pressured Charlo against the ropes with three jabs and a quick right to the forehead, followed by a right uppercut to Charlo’s chin. After a few seconds Charlo dropped to a knee for the count. He survived.

“We worked on that. He’s a great fighter and knows how to work in the ring,” said Alvarez.

For the remainder of the match, Alvarez remained in stalking mode and Charlo looking to counter with left hooks and an occasional right uppercut. Nothing seemed to work for Charlo who was hoping the rise from 154-pounds to 168-pounds would not prove a problem. It was.

After 12 rounds all three judges scored in favor of Alvarez 119-108, 118-109 twice. He retains the undisputed super middleweight world championship. Charlo will go back down to super welterweight where he reigned supreme.

“I wasn’t me tonight. This is boxing. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,” said Charlo who was knocked down for only the second time in his career. “Truthfully, you can tell the difference in the weight.”

Alvarez hugged Charlo after the fight and told him he respected the gamble Charlo accepted in moving up.

“I love boxing so f——g much. Boxing is my life,” said Alvarez.

Other Bouts

In a battle between reluctant contenders, Erickson Lubin captured the win by unanimous decision over Arizona’s Jesus Ramos to maintain his place in line for a world title match.

“I stuck to the game plan. We came back with the victory tonight,” said Lubin.

“I was in control of the fight. I’m one of the top dogs in the division.”

Both super welterweights seemed hesitant to open up with any semblance of combinations. Lubin countered while Ramos worked the body with jabs. After 12 low-key rounds Lubin was declared the winner by scores of 115-113, 116-112, 117-111.

Ramos was surprised but never really formed an all-out attack.

“I was trying to show different dimensions to my game,” Ramos said. “Maybe a little bit more pressure.”

Mario Barrios (28-2, 18 Ks) put it all together and defeated Yordenis Ugas (27-6, 12 KOs) in a battle between ex-world champions. That left jab and left hook did all the work in picking apart Cuba’s excellent fighter Ugas.

“I just concentrated on my jab,” Barrios said.

Knockdowns by Barrios in the second and twelfth round proved emphatically the difference between the two former champions.

“All the work I put in paid off. Early on he hurt me with a right liver shot,” said Barrios who trained in Las Vegas with Bob Santos. “I knew he was coming with it. I was prepared.”

A counter left hook dropped Ugas twice.

Arizona’s Elijah Garcia (16-0, 13 KOs) out-slugged Mexico’s Armando Resendiz (14-2, 10 KOs) in a spirited middleweight battle and stopped the fighter in the eighth round. The 20-year-old southpaw from Phoenix connected with a powerful right hook that Resendiz did not see and that ended the regional title fight at 1:23 of the eighth round.

“He was 100 percent my toughest opponent,” said Garcia.

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