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.”

Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

3 hours 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

11 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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