JACOBS-QUILLIN FOR WORLD TITLE, AND THRONE OF BROOKLYN, NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER

Published

9 years ago

October 9, 2015

After Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier squared off in their classic rubber match, the “Thrilla in Manila,” Ali biographer Thomas Hauser framed the importance of the confrontation in a manner that left no doubt that what was at stake transcended the possession of any sanctioning body’s bejeweled belt.

“They weren’t fighting so much for the heavyweight championship of the world,” Hauser noted. “They were fighting for the heavyweight championship of each other.”

In some ways, the Showtime-televised turf war that Daniel “Miracle Man” Jacobs (30-1, 27 KOs) and Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin (32-0-1, 23 KOs) will engage in on Dec. 5 in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center is reminiscent of Ali-Frazier III. It’s almost an afterthought that Jacobs’ WBA “regular” middleweight title will be on the line; what matters is that these are two Brooklyn guys, one homegrown, another an adopted son, who desperately want to claim the unofficial but highly prized designation as kingpin of New York City’s most populous (2,621,793) and iconic borough.

“This fight is to show who The Man in town is,” said promoter Lou DiBella. “The winner will own Brooklyn. If you’re The Man in Brooklyn, you’re The Man.”

At a press conference to announce the much-anticipated bout, both fighters left no doubt that being The Man along Flatbush Avenue — and everywhere else within Brooklyn’s 71-square-mile limits – is something that can’t be understood by outsiders. It is home, and home means a lot to nearly everyone, but maybe especially so to residents of a melting-pot community who know what it’s like to be the punch line of jokes told by other Americans, even fellow New Yorkers with more prestigious Manhattan zip codes. If you’re a Brooklynite, there is no place on earth quite like their little slice of heaven.

“To me, this fight means everything to Brooklyn,” said the 28-year-old Jacobs, who was born in the same gritty Brownsville section of the borough that gave boxing Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe. “This is a thick-skinned city that was raised on fighting. You always had to defend yourself. We have that pride of having great fighters that come from here. I’m fortunate to be (another Brooklyn-authenticated) champion and to continue that legacy.”

Said Quillin, 32, who was born in Chicago, raised in Grand Rapids, Mich., and moved to Brooklyn when he was 19, his adopted hometown is a place he has taken to his heart and which has loved him back, negating any presumed advantage Jacobs might have as a true native.

“This fight means everything to me,” said Quillin, a former WBO middleweight champ. “It’s two guys in the Battle for Brooklyn. We are both going to have great support in the building, and this fight will really inspire people.

“I feel like I’m a son of Brooklyn. Although I’m from Michigan, this city has taken me in like I’m one of their own. You see what Las Vegas did for Floyd Mayweather (another fighter raised in Grand Rapids who made his mark elsewhere). That’s what Brooklyn did for me.”

It’s not so common a misconception as it once was, with the Internet and mass communications filling in gaps of knowledge among Americans far removed from New York, but many U.S. residents of a certain age – like me, a native New Orleanian who didn’t relocate to the Philadelphia area until I was 36 – were unaware for a long time that the country’s most-populated city consisted of five separate but connected boroughs. Or maybe we just preferred to think that way. Oh, sure, the uninformed probably understood that Manhattan was skyscrapers, Times Square, Wall Street and Madison Avenue, incredibly expensive real estate and, from a sports perspective, the Knicks, Rangers and major fights in Madison Square Garden. The Bronx meant the Yankees and, from what we were told, a high crime rate. Queens and Staten Island? They were just there, less consequential parts of a larger whole.

But Brooklyn, it had been drilled into the national psyche, was unique. It was special. It was the place where dem lovable Bums, the Dodgers’ “Boys of Summer,” regularly won National League pennants only to be thwarted time and again (seven in all) by the lordly Yanks in subway World Series, with the blessed exception of 1955 when Duke, Campy, Pee Wee, Skoonj, Newk, Oisk and Gil silenced the standard “Wait ’til next year” refrain and made next year that year.

We outsiders knew Brooklyn as the place that actor William Bendix (who was born in Manhattan, by the way) lovingly referenced in several 1940s war movies, fretting as much about how his Dodgers were doing as to the more immediate task of defeating the Germans and the Japanese. We knew Brooklyn from the 1970s TV show, “Welcome Back, Kotter,” whose opening sequence included a sign that advised viewers that Brooklyn was America’s third-largest city, although it isn’t actually a city unto itself. We knew it from “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” both the book and the movie, which suggested tightknit families and roots sunk deep. And we were aware that Brooklynites talked, well, kind of funny.

But the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, Ebbets Field was demolished shortly thereafter, and the demographics of the Brooklyn that had been began to evolve into something else. The borough that was 97 percent white in the 1930s is now, according to a 2014 accounting, 49.5 percent white, with the remaining percentages filled in by all races and ethnicities.

But the spirit and pride that set Brooklyn apart, at least to that hodgepodge of humanity’s view of themselves, carries on. The Barclays Center officially opened on Sept. 21, 2012, bringing big-time sports to the borough for the first time since the Dodgers went west. The NHL’s Islanders are a new tenant this season, and the Barclays management has, in a way, declared itself the new “Mecca of Boxing,” going head-to-head with the Garden in a pugilistic version of Dodgers vs. Yankees, and this time dem Bums are determined to make next year every year.

“The two gentlemen up here are part of the Barclays Center,” Brett Yormark, Barclays’ CEO, said as he was flanked by the fighters at a press conference last week. “This is their home away from home. There is no better place for them to be getting it on.”

Brooklyn, which gave the world such notorious or venerated figures as crime boss Al Capone, wordsmiths Walt Whitman, Norman Mailer and Neil Simon, chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer, entertainers Jackie Gleason, Eddie Murphy, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, Richard Dreyfuss, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond and Jay Z, and sports greats Sandy Koufax, Joe Torre, Joe Paterno and Bernard King, as well as champion boxers Tyson, Bowe, Mark Breland, Shannon Briggs and Yuri Foreman, is back. It might not be the cultural and emotional center of the universe, or even of its own city, but to its residents much of the once-familiar magic has returned.

It will be interesting to see how the house is divided when Jacobs, a four-time New York Golden Gloves titlist who will be fighting at Barclays for the fifth time, and Quillin, who will be making his fourth appearance there, square off. After Bernard Hopkins won his first world championship, stopping Ecuador’s Segundo Mercado in seven rounds to claim the vacant IBF middleweight belt on April 29, 1995, he stated that he was the first “native Philadelphian” to win a title in that weight class. It was an assertion hotly disputed by former 160-pound ruler Joey Giardello – a native of Brooklyn, incidentally – who moved to Philly after he mustered out of the Army and made it his home throughout his 19-year professional career.

“We adopted Peter as one of Brooklyn’s own, but come fight night you will see a Brooklyn-born champion,” Jacobs said, sounding very much like Hopkins did 20 years ago.

However Brooklyn opts to subdivide its affections, the important thing is that Jacobs and Quillin will fight one another, as was not the case with Brownsville homeboys Tyson and Bowe, who were in the same division at more or less the same time but never crossed paths where it counts, in the ring. And their respectful current demeanors notwithstanding, expect things to heat up at the moment of truth.

“Take all the friendship and throw it out the window,” DiBella said. “This is going to be nasty. This is going to be brutal. There will be boxing, but these guys will throw bombs. They can’t help themselves. That’s what makes them so great.”

Post Views: 926

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bernard Fernandez

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

Published

1 day ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10^th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11^th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 946

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

5 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 2,197

Share The Sweet Science experience!

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

5 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 1,834

Share The Sweet Science experience!