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Feared Jr. Welters Mauricio Herrera & Hank Lundy To Battle at L.A. Sports Arena

Mauricio “El Maestro” Herrera meets Hank Lundy in a junior welterweight showdown on Saturday night.
In recent years, Herrera has leaped from relatively anonymous stature to becoming one of the most feared 140-pounders today.
Herrera (21-5, 7 Kos) fights Lundy (25-4-1, 12 Kos) at the famous L.A. Sports Arena in the main event, and it will be the final boxing match ever held at the historic venue.
HBO Latino will televise the Golden Boy Promotions event that signifies the 57-year-old end of a glorious boxing arena.
So why is every highly ranked junior welterweight so afraid of Herrera?
“As far as I’m concerned Mauricio Herrera is the true junior welterweight champion,” said HBO’s Max Kellerman loudly after Herrera was robbed of another decision this past December in Las Vegas. “He just doesn’t have the belt.”
For the past seven years Herrera was a well-kept secret known mainly by boxing fans in the Riverside County area of Southern California. Because he started boxing professionally at the late age of 27, he was thrust into the vipers den.
How many prizefighters begin pro careers at 27?
On August 2007, he stepped in the ring against Indio’s Angel Osuna, a tough, rugged middleweight with height, power and a tremendous chin. It was also Osuna’s debut and nobody realized at the time that Herrera was really a junior welterweight. (Osuna, sadly, suffered a brain bleed almost two years ago during a fight he was winning with Hugo Centeno. He was hospitalized over a month and no longer boxes.) The fight ended in Herrera’s first win as a pro. It never got easier.
Despite the ring shock of learning on the job against solid talent, it was in 2009 that Herrera got his first good test, facing L.A. southpaw Cleotis “Mookie” Pendarvis, a speedy and clever fighter also trying to crack the contender ceiling. That night Herrera took a short while to figure out Pendarvis. But once he got going he kept the pressure on and was able to keep Pendarvis on defense. It was a classic showdown between two very skillful boxers. Herrera won by majority decision.
Next was former world champion Mighty Mike Anchondo, a schoolyard legend from La Puente. He was a great amateur and also one of the early signees with Golden Boy Promotions. He grabbed a WBO super featherweight title in July 2004 but lost against Argentina’s Jorge Barrios in 2005. In 2009, at the Chumash Casino, Anchondo was looking for another world title shot in the junior welterweight division. Though many felt Herrera won, two of the judges did not and Herrera suffered his first loss.
The Riverside fighter told his promoter at the time he wanted another high profile fight. Meanwhile he was fed Efren Hinojosa and Hector Alatorre, two credible opponents with very solid experience. He defeated both. Now he was ready for television again.
Provodnikov
Russia’s Ruslan Provodnikov was on every contender’s “avoid list” after he knocked out former world champion Javier Jauregui and Emanuel Augustus in back-to-back fights. Jauregui was embarrassed by the much stronger Provodnikov and was in survival mode after the third round. Augustus, arguably one of the finest boxers in his prime, was stopped in the ninth round. Nobody wanted anything to do with Provodnikov, except Herrera.
The year 2011 was barely a week old when Herrera and Provodnikov met at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas. It was a cold night and a good crowd was inside, many venturing from the Riverside area to see the Friday Night Fights with ESPN.
When the bell rang, a battle erupted with both barely feeling out each other. Herrera emerged with a large welt on the side of his head and he was bleeding. It didn’t look like the Riverside junior welterweight was going to be able to fight much longer. It was barely one round and it looked bleak for Herrera.
Provodnikov was strong and confident as he looked at Herrera coming forward in the second round. They fired again but this time Herrera’s punches were landing first and Provodnikov couldn’t seem to find the target for the finishing touch. He never did. Round after round Provodnikov tried to take Herrera from his senses. Instead, he began showing signs of withstanding blows as his face began to swell too from the many strikes. After 12 brutal, bloody and close rounds, all three judges gave the fight to Herrera. It was a remarkable turnaround and would wake up the rest of the country that saw it on television.
World title fights
Though blessed with remarkable reflexes, intelligence and tenacity, Herrera never had explosive power. Whenever he walks into a fight it’s always the other fighter that has a record of impressive knockouts on his ledger. Judges seem to look at the record and give fighters with more knockouts more credibility.
When Herrera was matched against Mike Alvarado, one judge gave the Riverside fighter only one round out of 10. When Herrera fought Karim Mayfield he was given only two rounds by one judge. Against Danny Garcia in a fight for the world title, the world felt Herrera won but he was denied. Even fans in Puerto Rico where the fight was held felt Herrera was robbed of the decision.
“I had lots of Puerto Ricans come up to me and tell me I won the fight,” said Herrera, adding that he was surprised and pleased by the response from fans in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. But he felt he should have walked out of the arena with the WBC title wrapped around his waist.
Last December, Herrera met undefeated Jose Benavidez for the interim WBA super lightweight title in Las Vegas. After 12 rounds that saw Benavidez against the ropes peeking through his gloves, all three judges scored it for Benavidez. Dozens of boxing writers were on hand and only one saw it for Benavidez. His own promotion company felt he lost. His own father thought he had lost. But three judges at the fight somehow felt Herrera did not do enough, though he was the one carrying the fight and landing most of the blows.
L.A.
Despite living a mere 60 miles from Los Angeles the Riverside fighter has never fought in the City of Angels. Herrera fought mainly in the Inland Empire, where a resurgence in boxing has taken place in the last 20 years.
History knows Los Angeles as a hotspot for boxing for more than a century. Fighters like Sam Langdon, Jimmy McClarnin, Joe Louis, Baby Arizmendi, Sugar Ray Robinson, Art Aragon, Ike Williams, Mando Ramos, Muhammad Ali and Oscar De La Hoya blazed their way into the record books of boxing history. One of L.A.’s famed boxing venues for the past 60 years has been the L.A. Sports Arena. Now it’s closing its doors after this final fight card by Golden Boy Promotions.
Facing Herrera will be Philadelphia’s “Hammerin” Lundy, a long-time contender and like Herrera, a boxer who doesn’t have a lot of pop but does have a lot of skill. He’s defeated several fringe contenders and lost a few too. But except for the knockout loss to John Molina Jr., one could argue the other losses can be disputed.
“We could both be undefeated,” said Herrera, during their opening press conference last month in Los Angeles.
Lundy expects to win in front of Herrera’s home crowd and promises to be a handful.
“This is going to be an a– whipping,” said Lundy. “I can’t say too much because I don’t want to scare you.”
Herrera barely blinked when he heard those words. But he knows one more win and he can get Lucas Matthysse or maybe even Timothy Bradley.
Who knows?
Lundy gave Herrera his props for his previous fights.
“That fight against Danny Garcia, you won that fight. And that’s coming from a guy from Philadelphia,” said Lundy to Herrera.
This will be the last fight ever held at the L.A. Sports Arena. Ironically, boxing was the first sporting event ever held there. Boxing will close it down for good. The venue is being targeted for demolition and will be replaced by a soccer stadium. It’s blocks away from where the U.S. women’s soccer team recently celebrated its World Cup victory in front of more than 10,000 fans earlier this week.
The historical factor is not lost on Herrera.
“We’re going to close it down,” said Herrera.
A fiesta is planned on Saturday and begins at 1 p.m. Music, a beer garden, autograph booths with many current and former boxing champions, including Paul Gonzalez, will be on hand. The doors open for the boxing card at 4 p.m. It should be a memorable event.
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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”
It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.
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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America 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.
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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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