THE HAUSER REPORT: Haymon Boxing at Barclays Center

Published

10 years ago

April 13, 2015

Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions venture is a marathon, not a sprint. The latest installment of the race was run on Saturday, April 11, when NBC showcased Danny Garcia vs. Lamont Peterson and Andy Lee vs. Peter Quillin at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The ring is boxing’s traditional stage. PBC has added to that stage with a huge travelling set consisting of an entrance ramp, host desk, and enormous visual backdrop at one end of the arena. There’s also a massive piece of apparatus directly above the ring with circular lights and four large video screens, all of which is a plus for on-site fans.

There were five fights on April 11 prior to the NBC bouts and three fights afterward. The last three encounters were televised on NBCSN. With the exception of Heather Hardy, the house fighter emerged victorious in each of these supporting bouts.

Hardy entered the ring with a 12-0 (2 KOs) record. Her opponent was Renata Domsodi, a 40-year-old Hungarian who last fought at 114 pounds (two weight divisions below Heather) and was riding a two-fight losing streak. The primary difference between Domsodi and a Everlast heavy bag is that a heavy bag doesn’t bleed when it’s cut. An accidental clash of heads in round three opened an ugly gash above Renata’s right eye, at which point the fight was stopped and ruled “no contest.”

Lee came to Barclays with a 34-and-2 record, 24 KOs, and the WBO 160-pound belt by virtue of his sixth-round stoppage of Matt Korobov last December. On the negative side of the ledger, Andy has been knocked out by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and Brian Vera and seems to have passed his prime.

Quillin (31-0, 22 KOs) has been protected for most of career, fighting opponents who either were past their prime or never had one. His signature victories were against Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam, Gabriel Rosado, and a very old Winky Wright.

Quillin failed to make weight for Lee-Quillin, following in the footsteps of too many fighters who have skirted their contractual obligations recently and, in the process, gained a competitive edge. A deal was struck whereby Peter paid $125,000 of his $500,000 purse to Team Lee, raising the latter’s total to $625,000. The fight was also reclassified as a non-title bout.

It’s not often that a “champion” enters the ring as a 3-to-1 underdog, but that was the case here. Those odds seemed short at the 2:30 mark of round one, when Quillin landed a lead right and deposited Lee on the canvas. Andy rose on shaky legs but survived the round. He visited the canvas again in round three, when Quillin scored with another lead right while standing on Andy’s right foot (which referee Steve Willis mistakenly ruled a knockdown).

Adding to Lee’s miseries, he emerged from the third stanza with a cut above his left eye. But Andy exacted a measure of revenge and scored a knockdown of his own with a crisp right hook in round seven.

After that, the action slowed considerably. The fight was there for the taking by Quillin. But Peter fought cautiously; too cautiously. And Lee showed heart. This writer gave the nod to Quillin. The judges called it a split-decision for Garcia: 113-112, 112-113, 113-113. Lee kept his title, but didn’t look particularly good doing it.

Danny Garcia (WBC and WBA) and Lamont Peterson (IBF) each held 140-pound belts but contracted to fight at 143 pounds. Those who read tea leaves might speculate here that Haymon Boxing is likely to move away from the world sanctioning organizations in favor of its own championships.

Garcia had a 29-and-0 (17 KOs) record with signature victories over Amir Khan and Lucas Matthysse. But he’d fought only twice during the preceding nineteen months, winning a dubious majority decision against Mauricio Herrera and knocking out a pathetically-overmatched Rod Salka.

Peterson entered the ring with a 33-2-1 (17 KOs) record highlighted by a razor-thin split-decision triumph over Amir Khan. But Lamont had been stopped in the third round by Lucas Matthysse and dominated by Tim Bradley en route to a near-shutout decision loss.

Like Quillin, Garcia was a 3-to-1 betting favorite.

Garcia-Peterson was a strange fight. For the first seven rounds, Lamont didn’t do much of anything except circle away (the operative word being “away”). It frustrated Garcia, who was unable to cut off the ring. And it frustrated the fans, who had come to Barclays with the expectation of seeing a fight. There was sustained booing. And worse from Peterson’s point of view, he dug himself into a hole on the judges’ scorecards that he was unable to climb out of.

In round eight, Peterson began to fight. From that point on, he was the dominant fighter. But it was too little too late. Garcia prevailed on a majority decision: 115-113, 115-113, 114-114. Lamont could have won the fight. But he gave it away by cycling for seven rounds before fighting for five.

And a few more thoughts . . .

Sports entities in 2015 are valued as businesses in significant measure based on their television contracts. Right now, Haymon Boxing’s television contracts are showing a lot of red ink.

The purses for Garcia, Peterson, Lee, and Quillin totalled $3,700,000. On top of that, Haymon Boxing paid over $500,000 in production costs (including talent) in conjunction with the April 11 telecast. Add on the cost of opening Barclays Center and line items like marketing, undercard purses, travel expenses, and insurance. Haymon Boxing also paid for two-and-a-half hours of prime time on NBC.

Yet once again, there were relatively few ads on NBC. And overnight ratings indicate that the audience (while doing well in the age 18-to-49 male demographic) dropped 23 percent from PBC’s March 7 premiere on the network. In other words, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that this “loss leader” lost several million dollars.

Richard Schaefer was at Barclays Center, looking jovial, tan, and rested. The assumption is that he will return to boxing this summer to concentrate on building the PBC brand overseas and remove some of the day-to-day micro-managing chores from Al Haymon’s shoulders. Schaefer has a big job ahead of him.

* * *

Mike Stafford, who trains Adrien Broner and assists Barry Hunter in training Lamont Peterson, had some thoughts to share at the final pre-fight press conference for the April 11 PBC card. Referencing recent studies that document the brain damage suffered by football players at all levels of competition, Stafford observed, “In a way, it’s helping boxing. There were parents who wouldn’t let their children box because they didn’t want them getting hit in the head, but they’d let them play football. Now they see that football is just as dangerous. In fact, in football, you got guys 310 pounds smashing little guys around. In boxing, the weights are even.”

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.

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

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.”

Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

11 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-322-Super-Welter-Week-in-SoCal

Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

TSS-Salutes-Thomas-Hauser-and-his-Bernie-Award-Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!