Haymon Boxing on CBS

Published

10 years ago

April 6, 2015

The unveiling of Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions continued on Saturday afternoon with a two-hour presentation on CBS.

Haymon has pursued ring hegemony so aggressively as of late that one half-expects to go online and read that he has signed Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano. On Saturday, boxing fans settled for Adonis Stevenson and Artur Bieterbiev.

Beterbiev is a two-time Olympian and 2009 World Amateur champion from Russia, who lives and fights out of Montreal. He turned pro in 2013, was placed on a fast track, and had compiled a 7-and-0 record with 7 knockouts. His opponent – 36-year-old Gabriel Campillo (25-6, 12 KOs, 3 KOs by) – had four wins in his last eight bouts and was regarded as a measuring stick for a potential star.

From the opening bell, Campillo had all the earmarks of a shot fighter (which is why he was chosen as Bieterbiev’s opponent). His balance was poor. His timing was off. His reflexes were slow. He offered virtually no resistance. Bieterbiev decked him in the opening minute of round one (the tenth time in Gabriel’s career that he’d been on the canvas) and ended matters convincingly at the 2:22 mark of round four (the eleventh time in Gabriel’s career that he’d been on the canvas).

Stevenson, age 37, came into ring with a 25-and-1 record and 21 knockouts. Two years ago, he made a splash with a first-round knockout of Chad Dawson to claim the WBC 175-pound crown. That looks less impressive now than it did then, given the fact that Dawson has 1 win, 3 losses, and 2 “KO’s by” over the past three years. Stevenson also looked good in stopping Tavoris Cloud in seven rounds. But Cloud is 0-and-3 over the same time period.

Sakio Bika (Stevenson’s opponent) entered the ring with 32-6-3 (21 KOs) record. Bika, who is winless since 2013, had never fought above 168 pounds, and has never beaten a world-class fighter. Worse, Sakio initially weighed in for the Stevenson fight eight-tenths of a pound over the 175-pound limit. Given the fact that he’d never fought above 168 pounds before, that suggested his training regimen had been less than diligent.

Stevenson-Bika was wasn’t much of a fight. Adonis dropped his opponent twice en route to a unanimous twelve round decision.

Some observations on the telecast . . .

The CBS commentating team consisted of Brent Stover, Kevin Harlan, Paulie Malignaggi, and Virgil Hunter.

Stover, who’s best known as a studio host for CBS Sports Network, was the host and also handled post-fight interviews. During the intro, he told viewers that Bika “is annoying to fight because he won’t go away quietly.” After Stevenson-Bika, Brent declared, “It was an absolutely epic fight” (which was an absolutely silly overstatement).

Harlan (a play-by-play veteran, who has been behind the microphone for NFL, NBA, and NCAA basketball telecasts) was a disappointment. During the fights, he offered a lot of stats and pre-scripted lines. But his blow-by-blow call was shaky, and he didn’t seem to understand the difference between orthodox and southpaw fighters (for example, telling the world “another shot with the left hook” when Stevenson landed straight lefts).

Eventually, Harlan was reduced to commentary like, “Oh! He got hit with a left!” After a while, that simply became “Oh!”

Malignaggi is a solid commentator, who has proven his value in the past.

Hunter was excellent. His insights were solid and he communicated them well, although he needed to be miked differently. That was part of a larger audio problem. The sound kept cutting in and out throughout the telecast.

As was the case with Haymon Boxing’s shows on NBC and Spike, the ring announcer was unseen and the ring ropes were black. The ring walk format was improved over previous telecasts. Bieterbiev and Campillo were already in the ring when first seen on camera. Stevenson and Bika were shown walking to the ring, but to music of their choosing rather than the ponderous Hans Zimmer score used on NBC and Spike.

Once again, there was no clown show in the ring, which was free of sanctioning-body officials and assorted hangers-on. That was a plus.

Stevenson and Bika both wore gold trunks in the main event, which can be confusing to viewers when a telecast changes camera angles.

Also, Stevenson was referred to as the light-heavyweight champion of the world throughout the telecast. That was a disservice to Sergey Kovalev. Worse; Deontay Wilder was referenced as the heavyweight champion, which was misleading at best given Wladimir Klitschko’s primacy in the heavyweight division.

The lack of paid advertising was a more troubling issue in terms of the overall landscape. In the New York market (where I watched the telecast), there was roughly two minutes (almost all of which was local) over the course of two hours. That was supplemented by twenty-two Premier Boxing Champions promotional spots and ten CBS promos. The PBC spots were repeated again and again to the point of being ineffective because of boredom.

After the inaugural Premier Boxing Champions telecasts on NBC and Spike, there was a lot of spin-doctoring by pro and anti-Haymon forces with regard to the ratings. The fact that virtually no advertisers were onboard for the CBS telecast is a sign that advertisers didn’t think the NBC and Spike ratings were particularly good.

Equally important, Al Haymon has a well-deserved reputation for putting his favored fighters in soft. To be entertaining over the long haul, boxing needs competitive fights.

Stevenson was a 12-to-1 betting favorite over Bika. Beterbiev was favored over Campillo by 25-to-1. The favorites are now 7-and-0 on Haymon’s NBC, Spike, and CBS telecasts. Could we have more competitive fights, please.

Also, for a boxing storyline to be compelling, it needs destination fights. Who are Stevenson and Bieterbiev fighting next?

The WBC has designated Sergey Kovalev as Stevenson’s mandatory challenger and decreed that, if agreement between the two camps can’t be reached by April 17, it will order a purse bid with a 50-50 split. The problem is that Kovalev is an HBO fighter while Stevenson is promoted by Yvon Michel and backed by Haymon.

Most likely, Haymon will support Michel in a way that allows Yvon to bid well above market value for Kovalev-Stevenson. That might be good for Sergey in that he’d make a lot of money. But it would mean that HBO, which has spent a lot of time and effort developing Kovalev as an attraction, would be left out in the cold.

Main Events has a longterm contract with Kovalev and would get a percentage of Sergey’s purse should Michel promote a Stevenson fight pursuant to a purse bid. But allowing Kovalev to take the fight under those circumstances could lead to the deterioration of Main Events’ relationship with HBO.

In other words, Kovalev-Stevenson might not happen, particularly since Adonis has avoided it in the past.

As for Bieterbiev; he looks like slightly younger version of Kovalev. Both are big punchers. Sergey is more experienced. And Artur still hasn’t fought a full four rounds in any fight. But there were questions about Kovalev’s stamina and ability to go rounds before he fought Bernard Hopkins.

Stevenson-Bieterbiev would be an entertaining fight. It would be a big step up for Artur. It might also be a step up for Adonis.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book – Thomas Hauser on Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

Keith Thurman Returns with a Bang; KOs Brock Jarvis in Sydney

Published

14 hours ago

March 12, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Keith-Thurman-Returns-with-a-Bang-KOs-Brock-Jarvis-in-Sydney

The combination of age and ring rust made Keith Thurman a tricky proposition against Brock Jarvis, but the 36-year-old Floridian, a former WBA and WBC world welterweight champion, had too much firepower for the overmatched Aussie, knocking out Jarvis in the third round tonight in Sydney and setting up a massive fight with Tim Tszyu.

Thurman’s career has been repeatedly interrupted with injuries. He missed all of 2023 and 2024 and this was only his second fight back since being out-pointed by Manny Pacquiao in 2019. He was slated to fight Tszyu in March of last year in Las Vegas with two 154-pound straps on the line, but pulled out with a biceps injury and was replaced by Sebastian Fundora who saddled the snakebit Tszyu with his first defeat.

Against Brock Jarvis, Thurman started slowly. The TV commentating team, which included Tszyu and Shawn Porter, had the busier Jarvis winning the first two rounds. But the savvy Thurman was simply “processing data” and found his grove in the third frame, smashing Jarvis to the canvas with a combination climaxed by a wicked uppercut. Jarvis staggered to his feet but was a cooked goose and the referee waived it off immediately when Jarvis hit the deck again after absorbing a harsh left hook. The official time was 2:19 of round three.

It was the second bad loss for Jarvis (22-2), a noted knockout puncher who had previously been stopped in the opening round by countryman Liam Paro. He hails from the Sydney suburb of Merrickville which also spawned Hall of Famer Jeff Fenech, Jarvis’s former trainer.

Thurman advanced to 37-1 with his twenty-third win inside the distance. According to Tszyu’s promoter George Rose, the match between Thurman and Tszyu will finally come to fruition on July 6, likely at the Gold Coast Convention Center in Broadbeach. That’s predicated on the assumption that Tszyu wins his next fight without complications which comes on April 6 against Minnesota’s 19-1 Joey Spencer at Newcastle, Australia.

Other Bouts of Note

Melbourne Middleweight Michael Zerafa, who also covets a match with Tim Tszyu, improved to 33-5 (21 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of Germany’s obscure Besir Ay (19-2) who was on the deck twice before the referee waived it off. This was the second fight back for Zerafa after getting pulverized by Erislandy Lara who stopped him in the second round in March of last year. Ay, 35, is recognized as the middleweight champion of Germany.

In a middleweight match slated for 10, Tim Tszyu’s longtime sparring partner Cesar Mateo bombed out Sergei Vorobev in the fifth round, ending the match with a spectacular one-punch KO. The 26-year-old Mateo (18-0-1, 11 KOs) is a native of Tijuana. Vorobev (20-3-2) is a 30-year-old Sydneysider born in Russia.

Thurman vs. Jarvis, a pay-per-view event in Australia, aired in the U.S. on a tape-delay on the PBC youtube channel.

Photo credit: Grant Trouville / No Limit Boxing

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Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

Published

5 days ago

March 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

March 7 was an unusually heavy Friday for professional boxing. The show that warranted the most ink was the all-female card in London, a tour-de-force for the super-talented Lauren Price, but there were important fights on other continents.

Brighton

Michael Conlan, who sat out all of 2024 on the heels of being stopped in three of his previous five, returned to the ring in the British seaside resort city of Brighton in a shake-off-the-rust, 8-rounder against Asad Asif Khan, a 31-year-old Indian from Calcutta making his first appearance in a British ring.

Conlan, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist who famously signed with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks, is now 33 years old. Against Khan, he was far from impressive, but did enough to win by a 78-74 score and lock in a match with Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion.

Conlan, who improved to 19-3 (9), absorbed a lot of punishment in those three matches that he lost. With his deep amateur background, Michael has a lot of mileage on him and he would have been smart to call it quits after his embarrassingly one-sided defeat to Luis Alberto Lopez. His frayed reflexes speak to something more than ring rust. Heading in, Khan brought a 19-5-1 record but had scored only five wins inside the distance.

Conlan vs Khan was the co-feature. In the main event, Brighton welterweight Harlem Eubank, the cousin of Chris Eubank Jr, improved to 21-0 (9 KOs) with a dominant performance over Conlan’s Belfast homie Tyrone McKenna. Eubank was credited with three knockdowns, all the result of body punches, before referee John Latham had seen enough and pulled the plug at the 2:09 mark of round 10. It was the fourth loss in his last six outings for the 35-year-old McKenna (24-6-1).

Harlem Eubank wants to fight Conor Benn next and says he is willing to wait until after his cousin “wipes Benn out.” Chris Eubank Jr vs Benn is slated for April 26 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The North London facility, which has a retractable roof, is the third-largest soccer stadium in England.

Toronto

Local fan favorite Lucas Bahdi and his stablemate Sara Bailey were the headliners on last night’s card at the Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The event marked the first incursion of Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions into Canada.

Bahdi, who is from Niagara Falls but trains in Toronto, burst out of obscurity in July of last year in Tampa, Florida, with a spectacular one-punch knockout of heavily-hyped Ashton “H2O” Sylva. His next fight, on the undercard of Jake Paul’s match with Mike Tyson, was less “noisy” and the same could be said of his homecoming fight with Ryan James Racaza, an undefeated (15-0) but obscure southpaw from the Philippines who was making his North American debut.

Bahdi vs Racaza was a technical fight that didn’t warm up until Bahdi produced a knockdown in round seven with a sweeping left hook, a glancing blow that appeared to land behind Racaza’s ear. The Filipino was up in a jiff, looking at the referee as if to say, “this dude just hit me with a rabbit punch.”

The judges had it 99-90, 97-92, and 96-93 for the victorious Bahdi (19-0) who was the subject of a recent profile on these pages.

Sara Bailey, a decorated amateur who competed around the world under her maiden name Sara Haghighat Joo and now holds the WBA light flyweight title, successfully defended that trinket with a lopsided decision over Cristina Navarro (6-3), a 35-year-old Spaniard who “earned” this assignment by winning a 6-round decision over an opponent with a 1-4-3 record. The judges scored the monotonous fight 99-91 across the board for Bailey who improved to 6-0 and then returned to the ring to assist her husband in Lucas Bahdi’s corner.

Also

Twenty-two-year-old super bantamweight Angel Barrientes, a Las Vegas-based Hawaii native, delivered the best performance of the night with a one-sided beatdown of Alexander Castellano whose corner mercifully stopped the contest after the seventh round as the ring doctor stood in a neutral corner chatting with the referee.

The gritty Castellano, who hails from Tonawanda, New York, brought an 11-1-2 record and hadn’t previously been stopped. A glutton for punishment, he appeared to suffer a broken orbital bone. Barrientes improved to 13-1 (8 KOs).

The show was marred by an excessive amount of fluffy gobbledygook by the TV talking heads which slowed down the action and made the promotion almost unwatchable.

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fighting in his hometown, super flyweight David Jimenez scored a lopsided 12-round decision over Nicaragua’s Keyvin Lara. The judges had it 120-108, 119-109, and 116-112.

Jimenez, now 17-1, came to the fore in July of 2022 when he upset Ricardo Sandoval in Los Angeles, winning a well-earned majority decision over a 20/1 favorite riding a 16-fight winning streak. That boosted him into a title fight with the formidable Artem Dalakian who saddled him with his lone defeat.

Jimenez’s victory over Lara was his fifth since that setback. It sets up the Costa Rican for another title fight, this time against Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who acquired the WBA 115-pound title in July with an upset of Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Lara, who unsuccessfully challenged Ioka for a belt in 2016, falls to 32-7-1.

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Price Conquers Jonas on an All-Female Card at Royal Albert Hall

Published

5 days ago

March 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Price-Conquers-Jonas-on-an-All-Female-Card-at-Royal-Albert-Hall

Ben Shalom’s BOXXER Promotions was at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall tonight with an all-female card topped by a welterweight unification fight between WBC/IBF belt-holder Natasha Jonas and WBA champion Lauren Price.

Liverpool’s Jonas, who turns 41 in June, has had a sterling career, but Father Time has caught up with her. The 30-year-old Price, an Olympic gold medalist, had faster hands, faster feet, and hit harder. The classy Jonas (16-3-1) acknowledged as much in her post-fight interview: “She beat me to the punch every time.”

The scores were 100-90, 98-92, and 98-93.

In advancing her record to 9-0 (2), Price built a strong case that she is the best fighter to come down the pike from Wales since Joe Calzaghe. As for her next bout, she hopes to fight the winner of the March 29 rematch in Las Vegas between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan. That match, with all of the meaningful welterweight hardware at stake, would be a hot ticket item if potted in Cardiff.

Semi-wind-up

Caroline Dubois staved off a late rally to successfully defend her WBC lightweight title with a majority decision over South Korea’s spunky Bo Mi Re Shin. The judges had it 98-92, 98-93, and 95-95. Although the 95-95 tally by the Korean judge was quite a stretch, Shin performed far better than the odds – Dubois was a consensus 35/1 favorite — portended.

Dubois, a 24-year-old Londoner trained by Shane McGuigan, is the sister of IBF heavyweight title-holder Daniel Dubois. Reportedly 36-3 as an amateur, she advanced her pro record to 11-0-1 (5). Heading in, Shin (18-3-3) had won nine of her previous 10 with the lone setback coming via split decision in a robust fight with Belgium’s Delfine Persoon in Belgium.

Other Bouts of Note

Kariss Artingstall returned to the ring after a 14-month absence and scored a unanimous decision over former amateur rival Raven Chapman. The scores were 98-91, 97-92, 96-93.

The prize for Artingstall, who happens to be Lauren Price’s partner, was the inaugural British female featherweight title and a potential rematch with Skye Nicolson who would relish the chance to avenge her last defeat, a loss by split decision to Attingstall in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Nicolson, who was part of tonight’s broadcast team, defends her title later this month in Sydney against Florida’s Tiara Brown.

It was the first 10-rounder for Artingstall (7-0). Chapman (9-2) had an uphill battle after Artingstall decked her in the second round with a straight left hand.

In a mild upset, Jasmina Zopotoczna, a UK-based Pole, won a split decision over Chloe Watson, adding Watson’s European flyweight title to her own regional trinket. One of the judges favored Watson 97-93, but each of his colleagues had it 96-95 for the Pole. Although there was no great furor, the verdict was unpopular.

Zapotoczna, who fought off her back foot, improved to 9-1. It was the first pro loss for Watson who is trained by Ricky Hatton.

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