The Hauser Report: Wladimir Klitschko vs. Bryant Jennings

Published

10 years ago

April 28, 2015

There was a time when the public at large stopped to watch, read, and listen whenever the heavyweight champion of the world entered the ring. Those days are long gone. But it’s still worthy of note when the man presumed able to beat anyone else on the planet in a boxing match defends his crown.

At Madison Square Garden on April 25, Wladimir Klitschko put his championship on the line against Bryant Jennings.

Klitschko, age 39, is an anomaly among fighters. A highly-educated man, he transitions easily from Russian (learned in his native Ukraine) to German (the language of the country where his professional career bloomed) to English (he now lives in the United States with actress Hayden Panettiere).

Klitschko’s ring ledger shows 64 wins, 3 losses, and 54 knockouts. He has won 22 consecutive fights over the past eleven years. At present, he’s the longest-reigning of three champions from the old Soviet Union who stand atop three of boxing’s traditional glamour divisions. Sergey Kovalev (175 pounds) and Gennady Golovkin (160) are the others.

In a different era, Klitschko would have been regarded as a living legend by the American public. But boxing in the United States has been in decline for a long time. And on top of that, Wladimir plies his trade mostly in Europe.

“For our business model,” Bernd Boente (Klitschko’s primary business advisor) states, “America is not the center of the world.”

Prior to facing Jennings, Klitschko had fought at Madison Square Garden three times. The first was a second-round knockout of David Bostice on the undercard of Lennox Lewis’s April 29, 2000, annihilation of Michael Grant. That was followed by a seventh-round stoppage of Calvin Brock on November 11, 2006, and a desultory twelve-round decision over Sultan Ibragimov on February 23, 2008.

One of the problems that Klitschko has faced in seeking to prove his greatness since then (and erase the memory of knockout defeats at the hands of Ross Puritty, Corrie Sanders, and Lamon Brewster earlier in his career) has been a lack of inquisitors.

Dominance is one thing. Greatness is another. Since last appearing in New York, Wladimir had defeated the likes of Alex Leapai, Francesco Pianeta, Marius Wach, and Jean-Marc Mormeck. His most recent opponent, Kubart Pulev, evinced the skill and finesse of a Bulgarian circus strongman.

Jennings (a 15-to-1 underdog) wasn’t expected to pose much of a threat. His team kept referring to Buster Douglas’s monumental upset of Mike Tyson, which occurred almost twenty-five years to the day before the February 4 Klitschko-Jennings kick-off press conference. But Douglas was a well-schooled fighter with victories over Oliver McCall, Trevor Berbick, and Greg Page to his credit when he dethroned Tyson. Jennings had a meager amateur background. And his 19-and-0 (10 KOs) pro record had been compiled against pedestrian opposition.

At the kick-off press conference, Jennings had the look of a man who would be happier once the fight was over. And not because he thought that he’d be champion when the fighting was done.

Klitschko, by contrast, seemed happy and relaxed as the festivities unfolded.

“Let us, Bryant and me, entertain you,” Wladimir told the media. “He has the quality of Rocky Balboa. From Philadelphia.”

Nothing on Jennings’ resume suggested that he was a credible opponent for Klitschko. The bout shaped up as a performance rather than a competitive fight.

Team Klitschko controls its environment as completely as possible. In the case of Klitschko-Jennings, that included a contract clause mandating a smaller-than-usual eighteen-by-eighteen-foot ring.

When fight night arrived, a crowd of 17,056 sat in relative silence through an abbreviated undercard. But it came alive with Ukrainian flags waving when Wladimir entered the ring.

At 6-feet-6-inches, 242 pounds, Klitschko was three inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier than his opponent.

Jennings retreated in the early going, looking to survive rounds rather than win them. That allowed the Klitschko to dictate when and where there was violence. On the few occasions when Bryant came forward, he found it hard to work his way past Wladimir’s jab and the right hand that lay in wait behind it.

Then, in round four, Jennings became more aggressive, lunging forward with punches (which seemed to be asking for a counter) and pumping his free hand to the body when Klitschko tied him up on the inside.

In round six, the performance turned into a fight with hints of Klitschko’s 2004 loss to Lamon Brewster wafting through the air. In that long-ago encounter, Wladimir scored multiple knockdowns in the first few stanzas before collapsing from exhaustion at the end of round five. But this is a different Klitschko, stronger and far more confident than the Klitschko of eleven years ago.

Jennings won the sixth round. But in round seven, Wladimir recalibrated the distance between them and regained control, moving around the ring as though he were playing chess; fighting a patient, cerebral, methodical fight.

Jab . . . Straight right . . . An occasional hook up top . . . Minimal body punching (to avoid exposing his chin). Tie Jenning up when the smaller man got inside and push him back with superior strength.

In round nine, Klitschko suffered a small cut under his left eye. Referee Michael Griffin deducted a point from Wladimir in round ten for excessive holding. But not much else went in Jennings’ favor. Bryant fought as well as he could. But Klitschko was too big, too strong, and too good for him.

This writer scored the bout 118-109 in Klitschko’s favor. The judges saw it 118-109, 116-111, 116-111. Wladimir didn’t look as sharp as he has in recent outings. Perhaps age is creeping up on him. Or maybe Jennings is better than Kubrat Pulev and Alex Leapai.

One can (and should) argue that Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman were the legitimate heavyweight champions when Klitschko wore the WBO crown from October 2000 through March 2003. And brother Vitali was the more credible champion for part of Wladimir’s current reign, which began in 2006.

That said; Klitschko is now the best heavyweight in the world. His size and ring skills would have made him competitive in any era. The eighteen consecutive successful title defenses in his current run place him third in the heavyweight division behind Joe Louis (25) and Larry Holmes (20) in that category.

And there’s no end in sight. As Bernd Boente said recently, “As long as Wladimir is motivated and healthy, he will continue to fight. I know it is in the back of his mind that, if he is still champion on December 21, 2017, he will beat Joe Louis’s record [of 11 years, 8 months, and 8 days] for the longest reign by a heavyweight champion.”

So what comes next?

At present, the most interesting challengers Klitschko could face are Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.

It’s unlikely that Wilder will fight Klitschko. More likely, Deontay will avoid Wladimir and try to move in after Klitschko has departed from the scene. Fury might take the fight. Contested in England, Klitschko-Fury would be a huge event. Beating Fury wouldn’t do much for Wladimir’s legacy. Losing to him would hurt it.

And then there’s the possibility of Klitschko versus Shannon Briggs.

“We are in the entertainment business,” Boente told this writer. “We have to sell tickets and get ratings. Shannon Briggs is not at the top of our list for future opponents. But if we can’t get Fury, if we can’t get Wilder, we would have to consider Briggs.”

Uh oh.

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.”

Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

11 hours ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-First-BWAA-Dinner-was-Quite-the-Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

Gabriela-Fundora-KOs-Marilyn-Badillo-and-Perez-Upsets-Conwell-in-Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.

Will it be her last flyweight defense?

Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.

Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.

The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.

Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.

Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.

In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.

Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.

Perez Beats Conwell.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.

It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.

Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.

Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.

Other Bouts

Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.

It was very close.

Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.

Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.

One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.

Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.

Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.

Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

2 days ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Krusher-Kovalev-Exits-on-a-Winning-Note-TKOs-Artur-Mann-in-his-Farewell-Fight

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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