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Monday Mashings: Kovalev, Gonzalez and Diaz

“Solid” was the best word to describe the Main Events fight card in Las Vegas.
It was the first time I got to see Sergey Kovalev perform in person. It’s difficult to analyze a fighter based on television viewing. Also, several other light heavyweights took center stage on Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
We drove in from Southern California on Saturday morning. Seems several sports tournaments had most of the hotels booked and the prices were incredibly high.
One of the best places to watch a boxing card is the Mandalay Bay. Over the years I saw several of the best matches in the last 50 years. One of the first great cards came in September 1999 when Oscar De La Hoya met Felix Trinidad. Then there was Paulie Ayala vs. Johnny Tapia and that was followed by Marco Antonio Barrera fighting Erik Morales. They were all within a year’s span.
When MGM properties bought the Mandalay Bay in 2005 that spelled the end of its dominance for mega fights. Now most of the mega fight cards are held at the MGM Grand. But there’s still magic left at the Mandalay Bay.
Main Events brought several great fights on Saturday. Any time you have a champion with three world title belts that means several things, including a willingness to fight anyone. The greats are like that. But fighters like that are few and promoters willing to risk losing their paydays are even fewer.
Kathy Duva, president of Main Events, has a solid gold champion in Kovalev and I’m sure she worries about the risks. But so far Kovalev has devoured the competition.
Kovalev has height, incredible reach and speed to go with the mind numbing power he possesses. Though it was a short fight against Nadjib Mohammedi, it was enough for me to see his main strengths.
Television tends to dumb down the speed and movements when watching on a screen. What I saw in the arena was Kovalev’s elongated reach and the speed he delivers those crushing right hand blows. Plus, he can truly box. He has good footwork, sets up his punches and willingly exchanges when the opponent unloads. That spells entertainment.
Mohammedi just seemed intimidated from the opening bell. It would have been interesting to see him get inside those long arms of Kovalev and work the inside. Instead it was Kovalev working from long range and unleashing missiles from a safe distance.
Kovalev has the tools to dominate the light heavies until we see what he can do with Andre Ward once that match is made. Ward has the speed advantage at super middleweight but what about at 175?
Another future rival could be Gennady “GGG” Golovkin should he move up that high in weight. The sparring match they had before in Big Bear is reaching legendary proportions. Most accounts say GGG stopped Kovalev. But that was sparring. As good as GGG is, it could be a lot different under the lights.
That’s a fight about a year or two in the future.
Jean Pascal
Former light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal and Cuba’s Yunieski Gonzalez engaged in perhaps the Fight of the Year in my opinion. It was a firefight from the second round on with each cracking the other.
These two guys can box but they were fighting on Saturday. Each exchange you could see they intended to knock the other out of the ring. Crushing blows were exchanged and the remarkable thing was they were connecting but not shy about unloading while leaving themselves open for retaliation.
I hadn’t seen a light heavyweight fight this good since James “Lights Out” Toney and Vassily Jirov clobbered each other for 12 rounds in 2003. It was serious business for Pascal and Gonzalez. And it was a very close fight with the judges scoring it for Pascal. I had it for Gonzalez but there were several rounds that could have gone the other way. Neither fighter dominated the other.
Despite only 17 pro fights Gonzalez never backed up. He was fearless. The only drawbacks in his game were his inability to profit from Pascal’s dipping down low. There are tricks he could have used to take advantage of the dipping down tactics but the Cuban probably needs more pro seasoning. Still, he looked on even ground with Pascal.
Pascal, on the other hand, has nerves of steel and one of the best chins in boxing. He was hammered a few times by Gonzalez and countered well after taking some bombs. His fight against Kovalev might have been too quick of a stoppage this past March. It was great to hear Kovalev say he wouldn’t mind taking on Gonzalez. That means there are two more fights ahead for Kovalev that fans would love to see. And with Ward and Golovkin down the road, that makes four more possibilities.
Joel Diaz
The kid from Palmdale can really crack. In the past many were concerned with his defense. He’s only 23 and for his age has already endured some eye-popping battles. In his seventh pro fight he was matched with undefeated Guy Robb in a pitched battle that saw both fighters get dropped. Ultimately Diaz had slightly more firepower and ended the fight early in Las Vegas.
He’s grown from featherweight to junior welterweight and seems to have carried his power with him. Last Saturday Diaz stopped Guadalajara’s Alejandro Rodriguez with vicious right hands. He may have busted the Mexican junior welter’s nose. Diaz is not real tall but fights tall and trains in Big Bear. He’s learned a lot sparring with guys from all over the world. It’s like a United Nations of boxing up there at Abel Sanchez Big Bear Summit.
Diaz has picked up some subtle defensive moves that aren’t obvious to the casual observer. He doesn’t get hit as much as before and knows how to set up his punches. Will he stay at junior welterweight or drop down to lightweight is the question.
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
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Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.
The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.
The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.
Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.
Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.
A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.
In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.
Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.
Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.
In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.
Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.
Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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