Hauser on Mayweather-Berto

Published

10 years ago

September 15, 2015

There has been an outpouring of commentary about an article entitled “Can Boxing Trust USADA?” that I wrote last week for SBNation.com [http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2015/9/9/9271811/can-boxing-trust-usada]. I plan on returning to the issues raised by that article at another time. This article is about Saturday night’s fight between Floyd Mayweather and Andre Berto.

Mayweather is one of the most gifted defensive fighters ever and also one of the most polarizing figures in boxing. He was raised by fighters and has amassed an unblemished record of 49 victories in 49 pro fights.

“Floyd knows everything there is to know about boxing except losing,” his uncle (former WBA super-featherweight and WBC super-lightweight champion Roger Mayweather) has said.

Mayweather is a fifteen-round fighter in a twelve-round era. He tires less than his opponent as a fight goes on. Ray Leonard (who most knowledgeable observers place comfortably above Floyd in historical rankings), acknowledges, “Mayweather is one of the best conditioned fighters I have ever seen, bar none. You have to give him his credit. Sometimes there’s outrageous things he says and does. But when he goes into that ring, he’s always in shape. That’s what I respect about him.”

But there’s a downside to the Mayweather saga.

Floyd has a well-documented history of violence against women.

His conspicuous consumption and constant bragging about how much money he makes appeals to some. But given the reality of economic inequality in America today, it turns a lot of people off.

Recently, Mayweather bought a car called the Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita for $4,800,000. In recent years, he has bought more than one hundred luxury cars.

According to the University of Nevada Las Vegas website, the cost of living on-campus and attending UNLV for a full school year is $20,012. That includes tuition, fees, rent, utilities, food, books, other school supplies, transportation, and miscellaneous personal expenses.

Instead of adding that car to his collection, Mayweather could have taken the money and gifted 240 full-year scholarships to young men and women in his hometown of Las Vegas. And for readers who are saying, “Why doesn’t Hauser donate some money for scholarships,” I’ll note that, several years ago, I had a financial windfall and donated $6,700 to the Arthur Curry Scholarship Fund at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

Where Mayweather’s in-ring performances are concerned, the most valid complaint has been his choice of opponents. Mayweather has never beaten an elite fighter in his prime. In recent years, he has avoided the best available competition, preferring to fight ordinary opponents or once-dangerous fighters who’ve seen better days.

Andre Berto fit into the Mayweather-opponent mold.

Berto’s father was a Haitian immigrant who competed as a mixed martial artist when Andre was a boy and ran a martial arts academy in Winter Haven, Florida, when Andre was growing up.

“I was exposed to a lot of things early, good and bad,” Berto told this writer several years ago. “Winter Haven is a rough town. Drugs, street gangs, AIDS; it’s all there. A lot of kids think there’s no way out, that there’s no way they can be better than what’s there. You see guys who could have been superstar athletes who gave in to drugs. I had a vision early that I could be great. In school, I was always a little stronger, a little faster, and a little better than the other kids. I wanted to be one of the ones who stood out. And I was living off the example that my father set for me. Self-respect, hard work, stay straight, stay focussed. When I was growing up, my father always told me, ‘The saddest thing in the world is wasted talent.’”

Andre played running back for the Winter Haven High School football team and ran the 100 and 200-yard dash in track. But his true love was boxing. “Running the streets” had a different meaning for him. He was doing roadwork. When he came to school with a black eye and puffed-up lip, it was from sparring, not a gang fight.

By the time Berto was a senior in high school, boxing had taken him to 22 countries. He was a decorated amateur, compiling a 260-and-12 record. He was knocked down twice in the amateurs but never stopped.

The knockdowns came at the 2002 National Golden Gloves.

“I’d won it the year before and was ranked number-one in the country at 152 pounds,” Berto recalls. “I got in the ring with a guy I didn’t know named DeShawn Johnson. I thought it would be an easy fight. He knocked me down twice in the first round and won a decision. I wanted to fight him again so bad. And a month later, he got jumped in a club. Some guys stomped him and shot him and he died.”

Berto turned pro in December 2004 and was regarded as a super-star in the making. At the close of 2010, he was 27-and-0 with 22 knockouts and the WBC welterweight champion.

“My spirit is to try to be dominant,” Andre told the media. “I want to be a superstar. I want to bring it back to the days when Mike Tyson would fight on television, and everybody got off work early so they wouldn’t miss it.”

But in recent years, Berto has regressed as a fighter. Like many Al Haymon clients, he was maneuvered around tough challenges and failed to develop his full potential. Since 2010, Andre has lost four of seven fights, including a knockout defeat at the hands of Jesus Soto Karass.

“The welterweight division is among the deepest in boxing,” Chris Mannix wrote for SI.com after Berto was named as Mayweather’s opponent for September 12. “There are established stars, rising stars, and compelling young talents. So of course, Floyd Mayweather picked one of the least qualified of them all. On the list of recent Mayweather opponents, Berto ranks among the worst.”

The match-up was so unappealing that Showtime entered into negotiations with Team Mayweather with an eye toward moving the fight from pay-per-view to CBS. Sources say that the idea failed for a number of reasons. Mayweather was reluctant to give up his contractual guarantee, and CBS-Showtime financial models predicted that advertising revenue would be significantly less than the projected income from even a diminished number of PPV buys. There wasn’t enough time to market the event to potential advertisers. And given Mayweather’s history of domestic violence, many mainstream advertisers didn’t want to be associated with him.

The odds varied widely. But generally, Mayweather was a 20-to-1 favorite.

The announced fight night attendance was 13,395, well short of a sellout. That number included quite a few complimentary tickets in addition to tickets that were sold at a discount.

From the opening bell on, Berto seemed resigned to his fate. He was a challenger who didn’t challenge. There were two guys in the ring, but it wasn’t much of a fight.

Mayweather isn’t a big puncher. But as Oscar De La Hoya has noted, “Every fighter has a punch.” Floyd’s punches might not stun. But they sting and are hard enough to keep opponents from coming forward with abandon.

Berto looked tight in the opening rounds and befuddled for most of the night. He came forward in a straight line, made zero adjustments, threw few meaningful punches, and fought as though Mayweather’s body was off limits.

Indeed, Andre talked more aggressively during the fight than he fought in it. Mayweather, as one might expect, responded to the verbiage. In round ten, referee Kenny Bayless stopped the proceedings briefly and told the fighters to stop trash-talking.

That led Showtime analyst Al Bernstein to observe, “Let’s be honest. The most interesting thing about this fight has been the debate.”

Blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo added, “The conversation might be more interesting than what we’re seeing in the ring.”

Mayweather outlanded Berto by a 232-to-83 margin. This observer gave Andre one round. The judges scored it 120-108, 118-110, 117-111 for Mayweather.

Prior to the fight, Mayweather and his team said repeatedly that this would be his last fight. Afterward, Floyd proclaimed, “My career is over. It’s official. You got to know when to hang ‘em up. I’m leaving the sport with all of my faculties. I’ve accomplished everything. There’s nothing more to accomplish in the sport.”

If Mayweather really doesn’t fight again, he deserves credit for standing by his word and leaving at the top (as Lennox Lewis did a decade ago). Most observers, myself included, think that Floyd will fight again.

There have been times in the past when Mayweather’s word was suspect. Time will tell whether or not he’s telling the truth now.

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.

Photo Credit: Idris Erba/Mayweather Promotions

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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.”

Thomas Hauser’s Literary Notes: Johnny Greaves Tells a Sad Tale

Published

2 days ago

May 11, 2025

Thomas Hauser

Johnny Greaves was a professional loser. He had one hundred professional fights between 2007 and 2013, lost 96 of them, scored one knockout, and was stopped short of the distance twelve times. There was no subtlety in how his role was explained to him: “Look, Johnny; professional boxing works two ways. You’re either a ticket-seller and make money for the promoter, in which case you get to win fights. If you don’t sell tickets but can look after yourself a bit, you become an opponent and you fight to lose.”

By losing, he could make upwards of one thousand pounds for a night‘s work.

Greaves grew up with an alcoholic father who beat his children and wife. Johnny learned how to survive the beatings, which is what his career as a fighter would become. He was a scared, angry, often violent child who was expelled from school and found solace in alcohol and drugs.

The fighters Greaves lost to in the pros ran the gamut from inept local favorites to future champions Liam Walsh, Anthony Crolla, Lee Selby, Gavin Rees, and Jack Catterall. Alcohol and drugs remained constants in his life. He fought after drinking, smoking weed, and snorting cocaine on the night before – and sometimes on the day of – a fight. On multiple occasions, he came close to committing suicide. His goal in boxing ultimately became to have one hundred professional fights.

On rare occasions, two professional losers – “journeymen,” they’re called in The UK – are matched against each other. That was how Greaves got three of the four wins on his ledger. On September 29, 2013, he fought the one hundredth and final fight of his career against Dan Carr in London’s famed York Hall. Carr had a 2-42-2 ring record and would finish his career with three wins in ninety outings. Greaves-Carr was a fight that Johnny could win. He emerged triumphant on a four-round decision.

The Johnny Greaves Story, told by Greaves with the help of Adam Darke (Pitch Publishing) tells the whole sordid tale. Some of Greaves’s thoughts follow:

* “We all knew why we were there, and it wasn’t to win. The home fighters were the guys who had sold all the tickets and were deemed to have some talent. We were the scum. We knew our role. Give some young prospect a bit of a workout, keep out of the way of any big shots, lose on points but take home a wedge of cash, and fight again next week.”

* “If you fought too hard and won, then you wouldn’t get booked for any more shows. If you swung for the trees and got cut or knocked out, then you couldn’t fight for another 28 days. So what were you supposed to do? The answer was to LOOK like you were trying to win but be clever in the process. Slip and move, feint, throw little shots that were rangefinders, hold on, waste time. There was an art to this game, and I was quickly learning what a cynical business it was.”

* “The unknown for the journeyman was always how good your opponent might be. He could be a future world champion. Or he might be some hyped-up nightclub bouncer with a big following who was making lots of money for the promoter.”

* “No matter how well I fought, I wasn’t going to be getting any decisions. These fights weren’t scored fairly. The referees and judges understood who the paymasters were and they played the game. What was the point of having a go and being the best version of you if nobody was going to recognize or reward it?”

* “When I first stepped into the professional arena, I believed I was tough. believed that nobody could stop me. But fight by fight, those ideas were being challenged and broken down. Once you know that you can be hurt, dropped and knocked out, you’re never quite the same fighter.”

* “I had started off with a dream, an idea of what boxing was and what it would do for me. It was going to be a place where I could prove my toughness. A place that I could escape to and be someone else for a while. For a while, boxing was that place. But it wore me down to the point that I stopped caring. I’d grown sick and tired of it all. I wished that I could feel pride at what I’d achieved. But most of the time, I just felt like a loser.”

* “The fights were getting much more difficult, the damage to my body and my psyche taking longer and longer to repair after each defeat. I was putting myself in more and more danger with each passing fight. I was getting hurt more often and stopped more regularly. Even with the 28-day [suspensions], I didn’t have time to heal. I was staggering from one fight to the next and picking up more injuries along the way.”

* “I was losing my toughness and resilience. When that’s all you’ve ever had, it’s a hard thing to accept. Drink and drugs had always been present in my life. But now they became a regular part of my pre-fight preparation. It helped to shut out the fear and quieted the thoughts and worries that I shouldn’t be doing this anymore.”

* “My body was broken. My hands were constantly sore with blisters and cuts. I had early arthritis in my hip and my teeth were a mess. I looked an absolute state and inside I felt worse. But I couldn’t stop fighting yet. Not before the 100.”

* “I had abused myself time after time and stood in front of better men, taking a beating when I could have been sensible and covered up. At the start, I was rarely dropped or stopped. Now it was becoming a regular part of the game. Most of the guys I was facing were a lot better than me. This was mainly about survival.”

* “Was my brain f***ed from taking too many punches? I knew it was, to be honest. I could feel my speech changing and memory going. I was mentally unwell and shouldn’t have been fighting but the promoters didn’t care. Johnny Greaves was still a good booking. Maybe an even better one now that he might get knocked out.”

* “Nobody gave a f*** about me and whether I lived or died. I didn’t care about that much either. But the thought of being humiliated, knocked out in front of all those people; that was worse than the thought of dying. The idea of being exposed for what I was – a nobody.”

* “I was a miserable bastard in real life. A depressive downbeat mouthy little f***er. Everything I’ve done has been to mask the feeling that I’m worthless. That I have no value. The drinks and the drugs just helped me to forget that for a while. I still frighten myself a lot. My thoughts scare me. Do I really want to be here for the next thirty or forty years? I don’t know. If suicide wasn’t so impactful on people around you, I would have taken that leap. I don’t enjoy life and never have.”

So . . . Any questions?

****

Steve Albert was Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator for two decades. But his reach extended far beyond boxing.

Albert’s sojourn through professional sports began in high school when he was a ball boy for the New York Knicks. Over the years, he was behind the microphone for more than a dozen teams in eleven leagues including four NBA franchises.

Putting the length of that trajectory in perspective . . . As a ballboy, Steve handed bottles of water and towels to a Knicks back-up forward named Phil Jackson. Later, they worked together as commentators for the New Jersey Nets. Then Steve provided the soundtrack for some of Jackson’s triumphs when he won eleven NBA championships as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.

It’s also a matter of record that Steve’s oldest brother, Marv, was arguably the greatest play-by-play announcer in NBA history. And brother Al enjoyed a successful career behind the microphone after playing professional hockey.

Now Steve has written a memoir titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Broadcast Booth. Those who know him know that Steve doesn’t like to say bad things about people. And he doesn’t here. Nor does he delve into the inner workings of sports media or the sports dream machine. The book is largely a collection of lighthearted personal recollections, although there are times when the gravity of boxing forces reflection.

“Fighters were unlike any other professional athletes I had ever encountered,” Albert writes. “Many were products of incomprehensible backgrounds, fiercely tough neighborhoods, ghettos and, in some cases, jungles. Some got into the sport because they were bullied as children. For others, boxing was a means of survival. In many cases, it was an escape from a way of life that most people couldn’t even fathom.”

At one point, Steve recounts a ringside ritual that he followed when he was behind the microphone for Showtime Boxing: “I would precisely line up my trio of beverages – coffee, water, soda – on the far edge of the table closest to the ring apron. Perhaps the best advice I ever received from Ferdie [broadcast partner Ferdie Pacheco] was early on in my blow-by-blow career – ‘Always cover your coffee at ringside with an index card unless you like your coffee with cream, sugar, and blood.’”

Writing about the prelude to the infamous Holyfield-Tyson “bite fight,” Albert recalls, “I remember thinking that Tyson was going to do something unusual that night. I had this sinking feeling in my gut that he was going to pull something exceedingly out of the ordinary. His grousing about Holyfield’s head butts in the first fight added to my concern. [But] nobody could have foreseen what actually happened. Had I opened that broadcast with, ‘Folks, tonight I predict that Mike Tyson will bite off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear,’ some fellas in white coats might have approached me and said, ‘Uh, Steve, could you come with us.'”

And then there’s my favorite line in the book: “I once asked a fighter if he was happily married,” Albert recounts. “He said, ‘Yes, but my wife’s not.'”

“All I ever wanted was to be a sportscaster,” Albert says in closing. “I didn’t always get it right, but I tried to do my job with honesty and integrity. For forty-five years, calling games was my life. I think it all worked out.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – The Most Honest Sport: Two More Years Inside Boxing – will be published this month and is available for preorder at:

https://www.amazon.com/Most-Honest-Sport-Inside-Boxing/dp/1955836329

In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Argentina’s Fernando Martinez Wins His Rematch with Kazuto Ioka

Published

3 days ago

May 11, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Argentina's-Fernando-Martinez-Wins-His-Rematch-with-Kazuto-Ioka

In an excellent fight climaxed by a furious 12^th round, Argentina’s Fernando Daniel Martinez came off the deck to win his rematch with Kazuto Ioka and retain his piece of the world 115-pound title. The match was staged at Ioka’s familiar stomping grounds, the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.

In their first meeting on July 7 of last year in Tokyo, Martinez was returned the winner on scores of 117-111, 116-112, and a bizarre 120-108. The rematch was slated for late December, but Martinez took ill a few hours before the weigh-in and the bout was postponed.

The 33-year-old Martinez, who came in sporting a 17-0 (9) record, was a 7-2 favorite to win the sequel, but there were plenty of reasons to favor Ioka, 36, aside from his home field advantage. The first Japanese male fighter to win world titles in four weight classes, Ioka was 3-0 in rematches and his long-time trainer Ismael Salas was on a nice roll. Salas was 2-0 last weekend in Times Square, having handled upset-maker Rolly Romero and Reito Tsutsumi who was making his pro debut.

But the fourth time was not a charm for Ioka (31-4-1) who seemingly pulled the fight out of the fire in round 10 when he pitched the Argentine to the canvas with a pair of left hooks, but then wasn’t able to capitalize on the momentum swing.

Martinez set a fast pace and had Ioka fighting off his back foot for much of the fight. Beginning in round seven, Martinez looked fatigued, but the Argentine was conserving his energy for the championship rounds. In the end, he won the bout on all three cards: 114-113, 116-112, 117-110.

Up next for Fernando Martinez may be a date with fellow unbeaten Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, the lineal champion at 115. San Antonio’s Rodriguez is a huge favorite to keep his title when he defends against South Africa’s obscure Phumelela Cafu on July 19 in Frisco, Texas.

As for Ioka, had he won today’s rematch, that may have gotten him over the hump in so far as making it into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. True, winning titles in four weight classes is no great shakes when the bookends are only 10 pounds apart, but Ioka is still a worthy candidate.

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Emanuel Navarrete Survives a Bloody Battle with Charly Suarez in San Diego

Published

3 days ago

May 11, 2025

David A. Avila

Emanuel-Navarrete-Survives-a-Bloody-Battle-with-Charly-Suarez-in-San-Diego

In a torrid battle Mexico’s Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete and his staccato attack staved off the herky-jerky non-stop assaults of Philippine’s Charly Suarez to win by technical decision and retain the WBO super feather world title on Saturday.

What do they feed these guys?

Navarrete (40-2-1, 32 KOs) and his elongated arms managed to connect enough to compensate against the surprising Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs) who wowed the crowd at Pechanga Arena in San Diego.

An accidental clash of heads opened a cut on the side of Navarrete’s left eye and forced a stoppage midway through the fight.

From the opening round Navarrete used his windmill style of attack with punches from different angles that caught Suarez multiple times early. It did not matter. Suarez fired back with impunity and was just as hungry to punch it out with the Mexican fighter.

It was savage.

Every time Navarrete connected solidly, he seemed to pause and check out the damage. Bad idea. Suarez would immediately counter with bombs of his own and surprise the champion with his resilience and tenacity.

Wherever they found Suarez they should look for more, because the Filipino fighter from Manila was ferocious and never out of his depth.

Around the sixth round the Mexican fighter seemed a little drained and puzzled at the tireless attacks coming from Suarez. During an exchange of blows a cut opened up on Navarrete and it was ruled an accidental clash of heads by the referee. Blood streamed down the side of Navarrete’s face and it was cleared by the ringside physician.

But at the opening of the eighth round, the fight was stopped and the ringside physician ruled the cut was too bad to continue. The California State Athletic Commission looked at tape of the round when the cut opened to decipher if it was an accidental butt or a punch that caused the cut. It was unclear so the referee’s call of accidental clash of heads stood as the final ruling.

Score cards from the judges saw Navarrete the winner by scores of 78-75, 77-76 twice. He retains the WBO title.

Interim IBF Lightweight Title

The sharp-shooting Raymond “Danger” Muratalla (23-0, 17 KOs) maneuvered past Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-2, 12 KOs) by unanimous decision to win the interim IBF lightweight title after 12 rounds.

Both fighters were strategic in their approach with Muratalla switching from orthodox to southpaw at various times of the fight. Neither fighter was ever able to dominant any round.

Defense proved the difference between the two lightweights. Muratalla was able to slip more blows than Abdullaev and that proved the difference. The fighter from Fontana, California was able to pierce Abdullaev’s guard more often than not, especially with counter punches.

Abdullaev was never out of the fight. The Russian fighter was able to change tactics and counter the counters midway through the fight. It proved effective especially to the body. But it was not enough to offset Muratalla’s accuracy.

There were no knockdowns and after 12 rounds the judges scored it 118-110, 119-109 twice for Muratalla who now becomes the mandatory for the IBF lightweight title should Vasyl Lomachenko return to defend it.

Muratalla was brief.

“He was a tough fighter,” said Muratalla. “My defense is something I work on a lot.”

Perla Wins

Super flyweight Perla Bazaldua (2-0) eased past Mona Ward (0-2) with a polished display of fighting at length and inside.

Combination punching and defense allowed Bazaldua to punch in-between Ward’s attacks and force the St. Louis fighter to clinch repeatedly. But Ward hung in there despite taking a lot of blows. After four rounds the Los Angeles-based Bazaldua was scored the winner 40-36 on all three cards. Bazaldua signed a long term contract with Top Rank in March.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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