DiSanto Making Sure Boxing Heroes Are Remembered From Cradle to Grave

Published

10 years ago

March 25, 2015

A potter’s field, pauper’s grave or common grave is a term for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people.

–From Wikipedia

There was an outpouring of emotion from boxing fans the world over, and deservedly so, when Matthew Saad Muhammad, arguably the greatest action fighter of all time, succumbed to the debilitating effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, on May 25, 2014.

Saad Muhammad, 59 at the time of his passing, was hardly unknown; he was a former WBC light heavyweight champion who defended that title eight times, and a first-ballot inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1998. But Saad Muhammad was not someone whose legacy could be defined solely by numbers in the record book; he was “Miracle Matthew,” a warrior imbued with such a remarkable heart and resilience that he came back from the brink of defeat time and again, winning bouts that were so exhilarating that the tapes should be preserved in a time capsule for future generations to unearth and marvel at.

“To me, Saad Muhammad is the most exciting fighter who ever lived,” says John DiSanto, who in 2004 founded PhillyBoxingHistory.com, a web site dedicated to the preservation of the memory of the local fighters who became his heroes. “His fights were unbelievable. I would say they were like `Rocky’ movies, but they can’t even make boxing movies that are that exciting.”

Saad Muhammad, however, died broke, the $4 million he earned during his 18-year professional career having long since vanished to imprudent spending and a leeching entourage. At one point he was unemployed and owed $250,000 in back taxes. When a proposed story of his life failed to find a buyer in Hollywood, Saad was reduced to working as an itinerant roofer, a sometimes trainer of fighters, and ultimately to life on the streets as a homeless person. It is a common tale, one repeated too often in a cutthroat sport that tends to chew up even its finest practitioners and spit them out once they’ve given their last full measure of devotion.

But the death of Saad Muhammad, sad though it might be, is only the beginning of another story, a more hopeful one that was repeated several times beforehand and is likely to be repeated again in the future. DiSanto, and others like him, are determined that fighters who made such an indelible mark on boxing, and on the memories of those who watched them bleed for our entertainment, should not fade away when the last spadeful of dirt is shoveled onto an unmarked grave.

Which is why DiSanto, 52, who a decade ago quit good-paying jobs in finance and marketing to devote all his attention to his avocation, again is asking the public to come forward with enough modest contributions so that Saad Muhammad’s final resting place be commemorated with a $5,000 gravestone where none now stands.

“Years from now, maybe someone will be doing research on Saad Muhammad, go to the cemetery and instead of seeing a bare patch of grass, he’ll see a big, beautiful gravestone,” DiSanto said.

A bare patch of grass in another cemetery is what prompted DiSanto to inaugurate the Philly Boxing History Gravestone Program, the first placement of which, in December 2005, commemorated the too-short life of super featherweight contender Tyrone Everett, who was only 24 when he was shot and killed by a jealous girlfriend on May 26, 1977. Everett is most remembered in Philadelphia and elsewhere as having been on the wrong end of one of the most egregious decisions ever, a 15-round split nod that enabled WBC 130-pound champion Alfredo Escalera of Puerto Rico to retain his title – in a bout staged in Philly, of all places.

“When I did it for Tyrone Everett, it sort of happened by accident,” DiSanto recalled. “I went out to Tyrone’s grave just to pay my respects. I had read about his viewing and how so many of his fans had shown up, the line going around the block. But when I got to the cemetery, I learned he didn’t have a gravestone. My first thought was, `This is something I can do. Tyrone Everett can’t be the only one.’”

DiSanto more or less paid the full price for Everett’s granite marker, but his next such project, a gravestone for welterweight contender “Gypsy” Joe Harris in 2006, saw him reach out to like-minded individuals who chafed at the notion of another great Philadelphia fighter bereft of proper identification. Harris was just 22 when his boxing license was revoked in October 1968 when an examination revealed that he was blind in his right eye. It was not a recent development; Harris was blinded in that eye as a child and had been fighting and winning with the equivalent of a pirate’s patch blocking half his field of vision.

“It was with the Gypsy Joe gravestone that it occurred to me that this might be something that could be ongoing,” DiSanto said.

And so it has been, with similar gravestones placed in 2008 for Garnet “Sugar” Hart and in 2011 for Eddie Cool, with Saad Muhammad up next. But while Saad may be the latest, he likely won’t be the last.

“When I do something like this, I announce it,” DiSanto said. “People can go online and donate $20 or whatever they can to make it happen. The thing is, some people complain that while this is a good thing to do, somebody else should be doing it. I keep hearing how there’s going to be this $300 million fight in May (Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao), and why doesn’t somebody involved with that just step up and pay for Saad Muhammad’s gravestone? But that hardly ever happens, so it’s up to us to do it.

“The way I look at it, fans of the fighters we remember and respect need to continue being fans. If I can get 100 of them to contribute 50 bucks, or 200 to contribute 25 bucks, we’re there. It’s simple math.”

But the gravestone program isn’t all that DiSanto does to keep alive the memory of the best fighters in one of America’s boxing hotbeds. Since 2008 he has annually presented the Briscoe Awards, in honor of the late, great middleweight contender “Bad” Bennie Briscoe, to contemporary Philadelphia fighters, and on May 17, 2011, he was present for the dedication of his most ambitious undertaking, a nearly seven-foot statue of former middleweight champion Joey Giardello in South Philly.

“The fighters who are fighting now, they’re history in the making,” DiSanto said. “Sometimes we don’t fully grasp that; time has to pass. The Briscoe Awards is a way to acknowledge what’s going on in the present, but it also is a way to fuse that with the memory of Bennie Briscoe, who deserves to be remembered forever. Those of us who saw him fight will never forget him.”

The Giardello statue, designed and crafted by noted sculptor Carl LeVotch, cost $100,000-plus and was the inspiration for numerous beef-and-beer dinners and other fundraisers over an extended period.

“That statue belongs to the people,” DiSanto said. “The people paid for it. Now, there were a couple of big donors, which made it a lot easier than it otherwise could have been. But there were also a lot of $10 donations that went into making the finished product a reality.

“To me, the Giardello statue is attributed to the artist that did it, and he did a beautiful job. It’s attributed to Joey’s family and to his legacy. But when I drive by Passyunk Avenue and I see it, I can say, `That’s mine, too.’”

So how long does DiSanto see himself throwing body, mind and spirit, into these myriad labors of love?

“At first I thought, `Boy, wouldn’t it be great to do this for a living?’” he said. “But in the 10 years since I’ve had the web site there is no living to be made. It’s a black hole as far as money is concerned. I’m just fortunate to have people who sponsor the Briscoe Awards and donate for the gravestones.

“Look, I know I’m going to have to go back to the kind of work I used to do, eventually. I miss my regular paycheck. But for now, this is what I do, and I believe in what I’m doing.

“When I get into something, I take it to ridiculous extremes and that’s what I’ve done with boxing. The sickness goes pretty far, and I tend to push it. But I’m happier doing this. I could go back to something in finance or marketing, working 12 hours a day, and be miserable. I’m not ready to do that yet.”

TSS readers interested in the Matthew Saad Muhammad gravestone a reality can make a donation by check or money order to “Philly Boxing History Gravestone Fund,” P.O. Box 428, Sewell, New Jersey 08080. Online payments via credit card can also be made by going to the PhillyBoxingHistory.com web site.

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Bernard Fernandez

Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

23 mins ago

December 18, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Steven-Navarro-is-the-TSS-2024-Prospect-of-the-Year

“I get ‘Bam’ vibes when I watch this kid,” said ESPN ringside commentator Tim Bradley during the opening round of Steven Navarro’s most recent match. Bradley was referencing WBC super flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, a precociously brilliant technician whose name now appears on most pound-for-pound lists.

There are some common threads between Steven Navarro, the latest fighter to adopt the nickname “Kid Dynamite,” and Bam Rodriguez. Both are southpaws currently competing in the junior bantamweight division. But, of course, Bradley was alluding to something more when he made the comparison. And Navarro’s showing bore witness that Bradley was on to something.

It was the fifth pro fight for Navarro who was matched against a Puerto Rican with a 7-1 ledger. He ended the contest in the second frame, scoring three knockdowns, each the result of a different combination of punches, forcing the referee to stop it. It was the fourth win inside the distance for the 20-year-old phenom.

Isaias Estevan “Steven” Navarro turned pro after coming up short in last December’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana. The #1 seed in the 57 kg (featherweight) division, he was upset in the finals, losing a controversial split decision. Heading in, Navarro had won 13 national tournaments beginning at age 12.

A graduate of LA’s historic Fairfax High School, Steven made his pro debut this past April on a Matchroom Promotions card at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and then inked a long-term deal with Top Rank. He comes from a boxing family. His father Refugio had 10 pro fights and three of Refugio’s cousins were boxers, most notably Jose Navarro who represented the USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a four-time world title challenger as a super flyweight. Jose was managed by Oscar De La Hoya for much of his pro career.

Nowadays, the line between a prospect and a rising contender has been blurred. Three years ago, in an effort to make matters less muddled, we operationally defined a prospect thusly: “A boxer with no more than a dozen fights, none yet of the 10-round variety.” To our way of thinking, a prospect by nature is still in the preliminary-bout phase of his career.

We may loosen these parameters in the future. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of talented female boxers who, like their Japanese male counterparts in the smallest weight classes, are often pushed into title fights when, from a historical perspective, they are just getting started.

But for the time being, we will adhere to our operational definition. And within the window that we have created, Steven Navarro stood out. In his first year as a pro, “Kid Dynamite” left us yearning to see more of him.

Honorable mention: Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior (5-0, 5 KOs)

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The Challenge of Playing Muhammad Ali

Published

9 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Thomas Hauser

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

****

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

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

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

****

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

photo (c) David Serero

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

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

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

Published

2 days ago

December 16, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credit: Steve Kim

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