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Malignaggi and Jacobs Count Down To Aug. 1 Fights in Brooklyn
You still see some elements of old-style NYC when you’re in the Village, as you walk the streets, as the summertime waft of settled garbage assaults your nostrils, but can’t defeat the pleasant aura brought about by the shining of the sun and the sight of the ladies in their summer dresses flouncing down the sidewalk.
You’ll see a snatch of graffiti, or a moldy but intriguing vintage shop, with a poster of Fat Elvis, looking bloated but sexy, still, in the smudged window.
But the signs of new New York are more prevalent as I walk to Via Della Pace, a cozy Italian eatery in the East Village, to meet and greet and question two of the guys topping the Aug. 1 boxing card at Barclays Center, because I see swankier shops, and folks in better brands of clothes and fewer nodded off eyelids attached to zombified junkies as you might have seen decades ago.
New New York…and the same goes for boxing…things change.
Barclays Center has become home to more bouts, more big cards, as disruptor in chief Al Haymon seeks to re-brand the sport. Brooklyn is a buzzy borough, and it figures that he siphons some of that buzz which can attach to his fights, such as the Danny Garcia-Paul Malignaggi tangle which will unfold the first week of August.
Barclays boss Brett Yormark, tucking into a grilled chicken salad with balsalmic dressing, and tossing back an espresso, was there, along with Malignaggi, who still has fighter/analyst on his business card. At 34 he is seeking to prove he’s still got fight left in him, that his fists are his primary weapon, that his mouth is still a secondary threat. Also in attendance was middleweight titlist Danny Jacobs, ever amiable, unfailingly polite while being asked about when he might step up to fight Gennady Golovkin, though he has a stern test, in Sergio Mora, staring at him Aug. 1. The promoter of the event, Brooklyn’s Lou DiBella, was making the rounds, also repping some old and new vibes. He was on the outside looking in when Golden Boy, the old Golden Boy, snagged a deal to be the sole promoter to stage shows at Barclays, back in 2012, and he let loose with his distaste for the move in the press back then. But on Wednesday, he spoke warmly of Yormark, who he declared to be a vibrant pusher of boxing product, a committed proponent of holding a marquee card a month at his building. They are working well together, he reported.
Malignaggi, but of course, did what he does second best, talk, and he told us he’s dialed in, in training, feeling good, and confident that he can beat Garcia, in the Philly fighters’ first fight at 147. The Brooklyner told us that he is feeling good weight-wise, because he has enlisted Memo Heredia to aid in supplement advice, as well as what and when to eat. Yep, he’s 34, and he admits that part gets harder as you get older. “I feel good, I feel really good right now. We had back to back camps and we’re working really smart, more so than working hard,” he told me. He had a show set May 23, but got cut and that got scratched. A better opp presented itself, as Danny O’Connor got replaced by Danny Garcia.
“Yeah, I’m with Memo…he’s actually going to come in this weekend,” he told me. Memo was in his corner working to that May date, he said, and he’s been taking the supplements Memo has advised him to. Basically, he thinks the taking of the supplements is mostly mental, unless you’re cheating, but he’s open to listening. Paulie said he’s doing testing, via USADA, and so he’s fine with having Heredia, who has a controversial past, in the fold. “He’s an intelligent guy, I think he gets a bad rep, because of certain past things,” but he thinks Memo is on the up and up, and he’s enjoyed the advice he gets on weigh loss. He said he wonders why Heredia gets more scrutiny than, say, Victor Conte, being that have cloudy pasts.
The boxer said he’s not willing to go all in, and over-tweak his regimen. He’s brought himself to this dance and his way will be the highway he travels all the way in this journey, he said.
Jacobs took questions about his tangle with Mora, the slick, smart Cali boxer. Jacobs said that Mora is a tough out, intelligent, crafty, “a tough test for anyone.”
The hitter said that he was happy with his last outing a TKO12W over Caleb Truax, and gave himself a B plus. This time, we could see something different, which I take to mean maybe he’s going to look to set down a bit more, look to land nastier, earlier. Jacobs didn’t want to give much in the way of hints, though…
If he does get past Mora, it’s feeling like a showdown with fellow New Yorker Peter Quillin could be in the cards for the fall. That seems a natural fit for Barclays, eh..
Readers, your thoughts on both those matchups, please. Weigh in, in our Forum!
Here is the release which went out, with quotes:
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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 11th 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.
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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.
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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.
No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.
“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.
Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.
Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.
In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.
That was a bad sign for Stanionis.
Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.
In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.
It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.
Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.
After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.
Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.
“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.
Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.
Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.
“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.
“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”
Other Bouts
Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.
The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.
“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.
Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.
Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.
Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.
In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.
“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”
In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.
“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”
After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.
Photo credit: Matchroom
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Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 318: Aussie Action, Vegas and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More
Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello
Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights
Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser
TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts
Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City
Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams
Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights
Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello
Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie
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