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

Published

8 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.”

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Bernard Fernandez

The Murder of Samuel Teah Calls to Mind Other Boxers Who Were Homicide Victims

Published

1 day ago

November 27, 2023

Arne K. Lang

The-Murder-of-Samuel-Teah-Calls-to-Mind-Other-Boxers-Who-Were-Homicide-Victims

There will be a boxing show this Friday at Philadelphia’s 2300 Arena, a low-budget card featuring the return of former IBF 130-pound world title-holder Tevin Farmer. During the event, there will assuredly be a somber moment when those in attendance stand and silently pay homage to Samuel Teah as the timekeeper tolls the traditional 10-bell farewell. Teah passed away last week on Black Friday, Nov. 24, another victim of America’s epidemic of gun violence. He was 36 years old.

Teah was shot in the mid-afternoon during an altercation that spilled onto the sidewalk of a street in Wilmington, Delaware, and died at a Wilmington hospital. As of this writing, there’s been no arrest, but the shooting was apparently not random. A bus driver for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, Teah was purportedly in Wilmington (roughly 35 miles from his home in Philadelphia) to visit the mother of his child.

Samuel Teah fought as recently as this past May when he suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of journeyman Andrew Rodgers at a show in Pennsylvania’s Newton Township, reducing his record to 19-5-1. Two months earlier he had spoiled the undefeated record of Enriko Gogokhia, an Egis Klimas fighter (think Oleksandr Usyk and Vasily Lomachenko) on a card in Ontario, California. This embellished his reputation as a spoiler. Earlier in his career, he had spoiled the undefeated record of O’Shaquie Foster, winning an 8-round unanimous decision over the man that currently reigns as the WBC world super featherweight champion.

What made Teah’s death more tragic, if that were possible, were all the tragedies that he had overcome. He was born in Liberia when that country was embroiled in a civil war. The family escaped to a refugee camp in Ghana and eventually reached the United States, settling first in New York and then Philadelphia. On the day after Christmas in 2008, when Teah was 21 and working at a Home Depot, he lost six members of his family in a fire that swept his mother’s West Philadelphia duplex after a kerosene heater exploded.

For some, Teah’s violent death may call to mind the murder of another Philadelphia boxer, Tyrone Everett.

That’s an awkward comparison.

Tyrone Everett was a world-class fighter. Six months before he was shot dead by his girlfriend in May of 1977, Everett, then 34-0, lost a 15-round split decision to Puerto Rico’s Alfredo Escalera in a failed bid to win Escalera’s WBC junior lightweight title, a decision so rancid that it stands among the worst decisions of all time. Moreover, the circumstances of Everett’s murder were sordid. His girlfriend, no stranger to the police, fatally shot him after finding him with a transvestite and there was heroin in the apartment they shared. (Editor’s note: For more on this incident, check out the new book by TSS contributor Sean Nam: “Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, Fixed Fights, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing” available on Amazon).

Samuel Teah was no Tyrone Everett. A man of deep faith, Sam’s positive attitude, despite all his tribulations, was infectious. “Everyone liked Teah,” said prominent Philadelphia sports journalist Joe Santoliquito who, upon hearing of Teah’s death, tweeted, “he will always have a special place in my heart.”

While the circumstances are different in every case, Teah joins a long list of boxers who met a violent death. If we limit the list to fighters who were still active at the time of their passing, here are four that jump immediately to mind.

Stanley Ketchel

The fabled Michigan Assassin, Ketchel met his maker on Oct. 15, 1910, at a ranch in Conway, Missouri. In the immortal words of John Lardner, “Stanley Ketchel was twenty-four years old when he was fatally shot in the back by the common-law husband of the lady who was cooking his breakfast.”

Battling Siki

Famed for knocking out Georges Carpentier when the “Orchid Man” held the world light heavyweight title, Siki was only 28 years old when he was gunned down in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan on Dec. 15, 1925, but by then the Senegal-born Frenchman had already degenerated into a trial horse. Siki’s body was found in the middle of the street with two bullets in his back fired at close range by an assailant, never identified, who was thought to be avenging a beating he suffered at one of the speakeasies that Siki was known to frequent.

Oscar Bonavena

At age 33, Oscar Bonavena was still an active boxer when he was gunned down on May 22, 1976, on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada, at the front gate of the infamous Mustang Ranch, a legal brothel. Bonavena had come up short in his biggest fights, losing a 15-round decision to Joe Frazier and losing by TKO in the 15^th round to Muhammad Ali, but the rugged Argentine was still a major player in the heavyweight division.

The shooter was a bodyguard for the brothel’s owner Joe Conforte, and rumor has that Conforte was the de facto triggerman, having Bonavena assassinated because the boxer was having an affair with Conforte’s 59-year-old wife Sally who was also Bonavena’s manager of record at this point in the boxer’s career. The story about it spawned “Love Shack,” a 2010 movie that despite a seemingly can’t-miss storyline and a formidable cast (Joe Pesci played Joe and Helen Mirren played Sally) proved to be a box-office dud.

Vernon Forrest

While all homicides are tragic, some are more distressing than others and the death of Vernon Forrest on July 25, 2009, was particularly gut-wrenching. Forrest was shot twice in the back by would-be robbers with whom he exchanged gunfire on July 25, 2009 at a gas station in Atlanta.

Forget the fact that Forrest was a two-division title-holder who had regained the WBC world super welterweight title in his most recent fight with a lopsided decision over Sergio Mora. Few in the sport were as widely admired. His philanthropic work included establishing group homes in Atlanta for the mentally disabled. His death came just two weeks after the death of Arturo Gatti who left the sport following a loss by TKO to Alfonso Gomez in July of 2007 and died under suspicious circumstances at age 37 at a hotel in Brazil.

We here at The Sweet Science send our condolences to Samuel Teah’s family and loved ones. May he rest in peace.

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Benavidez Dismantles Andrade: Will Canelo Be Next?

Published

3 days ago

November 25, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Benavidez-Dismantles-Andrade-Will-Canelo-Be-Next?

SHOWTIME aired its final pay-per-view event tonight with a show that aired from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The four-fight PPV card included world title fights in the 140 and 130-pound divisions, plus an interim title fight at 168 and the return of former two-division title-holder Jarmall Charlo. The interim title fight was a battle of unbeatens between David Benavidez and Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade and that was the featured attraction.

Benavidez, 26, is big for the weight class and lived up to his new nickname, “El Monstro.” He had too much firepower for the 35-year-old Andrade, a 2008 Beijing Olympian who began his pro career at 154 and had won world titles in two lower weight classes. His big moment came in the waning seconds of round four when he knocked Andrade to his knees with a sweeping right hand. The fight turned brutally one-sided at that point although one of the judges had Benavidez ahead by only one point when the sixth round ended. But there would be no seventh round. Andrade’s corner wisely stopped the fight.

A consensus 7/2 favorite in man-to-man betting, Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) began his pro career in Mexico at age 16. In his post-fight interview, he called out Canelo Alvarez while brashly predicting that he would be a legend before he left the sport (and you’ll get no argument from this corner). It was the first pro loss for Andrade (32-1).

Co-Feature

Jermall Charlo returned to the ring after a 29-month absence and scored a lopsided 10-round decision over Jose Benavidez Jr. The judges had it 100-90, 99-91, and 98-92.

This bout was slated for the catch-weight of 163 pounds. Charlo came in overweight (166.4) but the match went ahead. Benavides Jr, a world title challenger during his days as a welterweight, had his moments, but was outclassed by Charlo who advanced his record to 33-0 (22). Benavidez falls to 28-3-1.

Matias-Ergashev

In what shaped up as the most action-packed fight of the night, 31-year-old Puerto Rican Subriel Matias retained his IBF 140-pound title, battering Shohjahon Ergashev into submission in a match that was halted by Ergashev’s corner two seconds into the sixth round. The heavy-handed Ergashev, who was undefeated heading in, dominated the first round-and-a-half, but Matias (20-1, 20 KOs) gradually wore him down.

Matias, who avenged his lone defeat to Petros Ananyan with a dominant showing in the rematch, had become something of a forgotten man in the talent-rich 140-pound weight class, but tonight he showed that he belongs among the elite in the division. It was the first pro loss for Egrashev (23-1, 20 KOs), a southpaw from Uzbekistan who fights out of Detroit and had SugarHill Steward (formally Javan “Sugar” Hill) in his corner.

Garcia-Roach

In the pay-per-view opener, Lamont Roach (24-1-1, 9 KOs) wrested the WBA 130-pound title from Hector Garcia (16-2) with a well-earned split decision. The judges had it 116-111 and 144-113 for Roach with the dissenter favoring Garcia 114-113.

A 32-year-old Dominican southpaw, Garcia was making the first defense of the title he won from Roger Gutierrez, a belt he was allowed to keep after moving up to lightweight to challenge Gervonta Davis, a bout he lost on a ninth-round stoppage. Roach, an underdog in the betting making his first start in 16 months, had come up short in a previous world title fight, losing a decision to Jamel Herring in 2019.

Roach was trailing on two of the scorecards through 10 rounds in what had been a ho-hum fight. But he cranked up the juice in the homestretch, rocking Garcia in the 11^th and flooring him with a right hook in the final stanza. Take away that knockdown (an illegal punch as it landed behind Roach’s head), and Garcia would have retained his belt with a draw.

Non-PPV

In his first start at 140 pounds, Puerto Rico’s Michel Rivera rebounded from his first pro loss (a wide decision at the hands of Frank Martin) with a unanimous 10-round decision over Sergey Lipinets. The judges had it 96-94 and 97-93 twice. Rivera, who improved to 25-1 (14) patterns his style and his persona after Muhammad Ali with whom he bears a strong facial resemblance.

It was the first fight in 16 months for the 34-year-old Lipinets (17-3-1), from SoCal via Kazakhstan. He rarely took a backward step but it wasn’t effective aggression.

In the opener on Showtime’s YouTube channel. 21-year-old super welterweight Vito Mielnicki Jr, now trained by Ronnie Shields, scored the best win of his career, advancing to 16-1 (11 KOs). The pride of Vineland, NJ, Mielnicki had Alexis Salazar on the canvas three times before the match was halted at the 2:27 mark of the opening stanza. Guadalajara’s Salazar (25-6) had been stopped only once previously.

Photo credit: Amanda Westcott / SHOWTIME

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Katie Taylor Turns the Tables on Chantelle Cameron in a Dublin Blockbuster

Published

3 days ago

November 25, 2023

David A. Avila

Katie Taylor Turns the Tables on Chantelle Cameron in a Dublin Blockbuster

Underdogs win too.

Katie Taylor changed tactics and changed the outcome to defeat her conqueror Chantelle Cameron by majority decision and become undisputed super lightweight champion on Saturday.

“Two weight undisputed champion, that sounds great,” said Taylor.

It took six months but the sold-out crowd in Dublin, Ireland saw Taylor (23-1) avenge a loss to Cameron (18-1) and re-assume her position as one of the leaders of the female fight world.

It was a different Taylor who returned to Ireland and this time she brought changes against the younger, stronger Cameron that proved effective.

At first it looked grim for Taylor who resumed her style of speed combinations and was met with jolting left jabs from Cameron. One jab actually delivered Taylor to the canvas but a slip of the foot was caught by the referee.

In the second round Taylor showed her cards.

Using her speed and agility, Taylor used her own jabs and movement to score and then would suddenly clinch both arms. And in between clinches, quick uppercuts and rights scored.

It was the recipe used by the Irish fighter for the remainder of the fight.

The change in tactics by Taylor took away Cameron’s most effective weapon, her strong left jab. Unable to use that weapon, she dove in looking to use her strength and was butted by Taylor in the third round. A deep bloody gash on the forehead of Cameron formed quickly.

Cameron never quit attacking and finally found success in the fourth and fifth rounds with pounding body shots. It seemed to slow her opponent down, who had been busier until the body attack slowed her volume.

Both tried their best to control the rounds. Taylor used her hit-and-clinch recipe while Cameron pounded the body and used her strength inside. The best round erupted in the seventh as both unleashed wicked combinations and uppercuts.

The crowd roared its approval.

All that furious action seemed to drain Taylor and allowed Cameron to overpower her with body shots in the eighth. It also forced Taylor to grab Cameron every time she got close. It became so obvious that the referee warned Taylor to stop holding.

A tired Taylor seemed ready to be taken over, but somehow she mustered enough energy to sling quick combos and clinch. Cameron tried avoiding the clinches but was not able to find a solution.

Taylor closed out the fight with speed combinations as Cameron looked to end the fight with one big blow that never arrived. A spent Taylor looked relieved at the final bell as Cameron could not land the big one.

After 10 rounds one judge scored it 95-95 while two others saw it 98-92 and 96-94 for Taylor who becomes undisputed super lightweight champion.

“Whoever wrote me off you don’t know me very well,” said Taylor. “Tonight, you saw the real me. When I’m boxing no one can beat me.”

The win by Taylor sets up a trilogy with Cameron.

“I don’t think there has ever been a trilogy in women’s boxing. This would be the first,” said Taylor.

2024 look out.

Nicolson Wins

Australia’s Skye Nicolson (9-0) controlled every round over Sweden’s Lucy Wildheart (10-3) by hitting and moving against the slow-moving fighter and eventually won by stoppage in the ninth round to retain an interim featherweight title.

Nicolson proved too fast and agile for Wildheart who seemed a second slower and was punished by counter shots. Eventually a bloody nose forced Wildheart’s corner to stop the fight at 1:11 of the ninth round.

The speedy featherweight Nicolson is the number one contender for undisputed champion Amanda Serrano.

Other Bouts

Ireland’s Gary Cully (17-1, 10 KOs) won by split decision over Reece Mould (18-2, 6 KOs) to return to the victory column after suffering a knockout loss six months ago in the same arena.

Cully, a tall lightweight, started slowly but soon found his rhythm and used uppercuts and movement to offset the hard-charging Mould. There were no knockdowns in the back-and-forth battle with two judges favoring Cully 97-93, 96-93 and one for Mould 97-93.

“I’m back baby and it feels good,” said Cully who was stopped by Mexico’s Jose Felix six months ago.

Speed southpaw Paddy Donovan (12-0, 9 KOs) knocked out Danny Ball (13-2-1) in their welterweight clash with a left to the body in the fourth round. He first dropped Ball with an overhand left during an exchange.

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