The Real Main Event On Saturday Night Is….

Published

9 years ago

October 14, 2015

Lethal power-puncher Gennady Golovkin, the world’s best middleweight, 33-0 and thirty-three years of age out of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, meets Canadian David Lemieux, 26 years old and 34-2 in Madison Square Garden on the seventeenth of this month.

It’s a good fight, and, should he win, Golovkin is on his way to becoming a great fighter. But it’s not the main event.

It is receiving top billing because the main protagonist is a middleweight power-puncher and because there are people in powerful positions that believe him a possible long-haul golden-goose but the real main event is in fact the chief support, the meeting between three weight strapholder #1 pound-for-pound, 43-0 lineal flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez, a man who has more knockouts to his name than Golovkin has fights, and Brian Viloria, a former strapholder at two different weights, 36-4 and a former TBRB top-ten pound-for-pounder. Viloria exited the pound-for-pound line-up only after a loss to the monstrous Juan Francisco Estrada, currently ranked #7 on the same list.

While Gonzalez and Golovkin are the main attractions and while Gonzalez dominates Golovkin in terms of prestige and titles, of the respective opponents, Viloria is also the more prestigious then. In 2011, when Lemieux was losing to the likes of Marco Antonio Rubio and Joachim Alcine, Viloria was knocking out beasts like Giovani Segura and Omar Romero. Being frank: Golovkin is in Gonzalez’s class as a fighter but clearly to be ranked below him pound-for-pound while, as opposition, Viloria is by far the more accomplished of the two opponents.

That said, arguments that Lemieux has more momentum than Viloria going in are sound. “The Hawaiian Punch”, continues to rebuild in the wake of his hurtful 2012 loss to Estrada, after which the first thing he did was take a whole year off before returning against granite-chinned Puerto Rican journeyman Juan Carlos Herrera. The fight was not a satisfying one with Viloria boxing and moving and potshotting his way to a wide unanimous decision. My initial thoughts were that Viloria had become gun-shy, but he looked more alive if not quite himself against Jose Zuniga in the summer of 2015, stopping the Mexican with a body attack after five. Bodyshots, too, were the formula for his fourth round stoppage of Armando Vazquez, but it was clear that Viloria was now treading water; that perhaps the seemingly overstated criticism of him from earlier in his career, namely that he was not always necessarily a natural fighter or one that could be relied upon to be switched on to his boxing in the manner of most top fighters, seemed worth recalling.

Then came his most recent fight, his June meeting with Omar Soto.

This fight was significant not just because, despite losing a two round blow-out to Roman Gonzalez in 2011 that sent him into a tailspin of form so bad he was no longer ranked, Soto was a step up from the very limited competition he had been meeting, but also because it was a rematch. Soto had pushed Viloria to a split decision back in 2010 in a fight I thought the Mexican had won with steady pressure and a dogged persistence in taking any and all punching opportunities. It was clear his style troubled Viloria and certainly, despite Soto’s drop in form, this was an interesting test for the American.

Viloria looked almost frightening against a clearly compromised Soto. He looked fast, angry, balanced and heavy-handed. Soto was forced to take a knee three times in 119 seconds, twice by right hands, once with a scything left-hook to the liver. Soto failed to make it out of the first round for the very first time.

First round knockouts appear often as mirages. One thinks one knows things that one does not, sometimes, behind a first round knockout. It was a first round knockout of Floyd Patterson by Sonny Liston that told us that Liston could not be beaten, least of all by a lightweight mimic like Cassius X, soon to be Muhammad Ali. In fact, Liston was already a past-prime alcoholic who was ready to be taken. Mike Tyson was only twenty months short of his destruction at the hands of James “Buster” Douglas when he flattened Michael Spinks, his private life already spinning dangerously out of control. This knockout, brutal and succinct though it was, has not answered key questions about Viloria – does he have the stamina for twelve hard rounds, does he have the stomach for another hard fight, but I don’t think these are the questions at hand for his fight against Roman Gonzalez.

Returning to 2013 and Viloria’s Waterloo against Estrada for a moment, the factors that made Estrada so much the master may not be present when Viloria meets Gonzalez.

Viloria landed two hard left hooks in the opening minutes but a distant warning note was already sounding. Viloria looked slow of foot. This enabled Estrada to repeatedly forage and even to audition punches until he settled on a right uppercut, no less, perhaps the hardest punch to land in such guerrilla fashion but the one that repeatedly found the target.

This is not an ability that Gonzalez has. He doesn’t pounce, but rather brings the most adept pressure of any fighter currently active, with all due respect to Golovkin, who may be the second. Catching fleet-footed flyweights is perhaps the most difficult job in all of boxing and it is one at which Roman Gonzalez absolutely excels, as I wrote in my detailed accounting of the new pound-for-pound king. But he is not recreating the jack-rabbit attack executed so faultlessly by Estrada.

Once Estrada had softened Viloria up, he came inside and dominated here also, really hurting his man in the ninth round in the process. Viloria, who has an iron jaw and is as hard as nails, barely made it out of the twelfth.

Estrada couldn’t get Viloria out of there, but Gonzalez is a better puncher. However, while Estrada enjoyed a huge (and generally overlooked) stylistic advantage over Viloria, Gonzalez does not. In fact, I suspect that Viloria is in the stylistic box-seat here, if he finds the right fight plan.

Viloria likes come forward fighters who wait for their turn. Gonzalez may be the best technician in the world and he is certainly capable of the unexpected but while he can counter-punch, you won’t generally see him pre-counter or try to pull the trigger on an opponent who has shaped a punch. He is too excellent for this. What this means is that a fighter with the guts to attack him might get to spend a few rounds on the same plane as him.

When fighters break, Gonzalez has already beaten them. It is only a matter of time before he catches them and fillets them. When they run from the off, Gonzalez builds terrifying momentum hunting them down and wins, at worst, a lop-sided decision. What Estrada did was fight him, and fought him for every minute of every round with a wonderful mix of movement and aggression. He prevented Gonzalez getting set with his superior speed and stalled his momentum with aggression and fluidity.

In a sense, Estrada has “lain down the blueprint” in the vocabulary of the Mayweather obsessive, but I suspect it is not one that Viloria can follow. He doesn’t have Estrada’s speed – in fact I think Gonzalez will be the faster fighter as well as the volume puncher – and he’s always struggled with that type of fighting retreat. He becomes disorganised. If he elects to box-punch for as long as he can hold the heat I think Gonzalez will stalk him down for the knockout. That’s a bold prediction – dig up the Estrada fight for an example of what Viloria can swallow without effect – but it’s one I stand by. If, on the other hand, Viloria strikes out to attack Gonzalez, to knock him out, and to do so early, I think he introduces enough variance, enough chaos, that such a result be possible. Viloria has excellent power when he lands right, and although he can sometimes seem strangely staid in fights of a certain nature, when he is aggressive and direct he can be devastating.

Like he was against Giovani Segura; like he was against Soto.

Of course, Gonzalez is a different matter altogether but trying to box-punch with the best box-puncher in the world and trying to move off against the best pressure fighter in the business, seems to me the greater of the evils, should Viloria be determined to win.

But if he can tap into that vein of power that surges in both his right and his left glove, if he can hurt Gonzalez early, and if he is fit, well and mentally adjusted so that he be able to maintain an attack in such circumstances, anything can happen. Whether or not Viloria and his team strike upon such a solution is another matter of course, in my experience most fighters want to believe that fighters can win boxing “their way.”

Against Gonzalez, boxing his way is going to get Brian Viloria hurt, badly, in an entertaining fight. But if he can find the heart and the nerve to set sail into the storm, we might just see a shock on this weekend. At 112lbs or below, Gonzalez is always going to be the right pick, regardless of the opposition, but Viloria is not chanceless.

So, by all means enjoy Golovkin-Leminuex on Saturday – just don’t be late, you might miss the main event.

Check out The Boxing Channel video “Golovkin vs Lemieux HBO PPV – Quick Results”.

Follow @McGrainM

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Matt McGrain

The Challenge of Playing Muhammad Ali

Published

3 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Thomas Hauser

There have been countless dramatizations of Muhammad Ali’s life and more will follow in the years ahead. The most heavily marketed of these so far have been the 1977 movie titled The Greatest starring Ali himself and the 2001 biopic Ali starring Will Smith.

The Greatest was fictionalized. Its saving grace apart from Ali’s presence on screen was the song “The Greatest Love of All” which was written for the film and later popularized by Whitney Houston. Beyond that, the movie was mediocre. “Of all our sports heroes,” Frank Deford wrote, “Ali needs least to be sanitized. But The Greatest is just a big vapid valentine. It took a dive.”

The 2001 film was equally bland but without the saving grace of Ali on camera. “I hated that film,” Spike Lee said. “It wasn’t Ali.” Jerry Izenberg was in accord, complaining, “Will Smith playing Ali was an impersonation, not a performance.”

The latest entry in the Ali registry is a play running this week off-Broadway at the AMT Theater (354 West 45th Street) in Manhattan.

The One: The Life of Muhammad Ali was written by David Serero, who has produced and directed the show in addition to playing the role of Angelo Dundee in the three-man drama. Serero, age 43, was born in Paris, is of Moroccan-French-Jewish heritage, and has excelled professionally as an opera singer (baritone) and actor (stage and screen).

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The play is flawed. There are glaring factual inaccuracies in the script that add nothing to the dramatic arc and detract from its credibility.

On the plus side; Zack Bazile (pictured) is exceptionally good as Ali. And Serero (wearing his director’s hat) brings the most out of him.

Growing up, Bazile (now 28) excelled in multiple sports. In 2018, while attending Ohio State, he won the NCAA Long Jump Championship and was named Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year. He also dabbled in boxing, competed in two amateur fights in 2022, and won both by knockout. He began acting three years ago.

Serero received roughly one thousand resumes when he published notices for a casting call in search of an actor to play Ali. One-hundred-twenty respondents were invited to audition.

“I had people who looked like Ali and were accomplished actors,” Serero recalls. “But when they were in the room, I didn’t feel Ali in front of me. You have to remember; we’re dealing with someone who really existed and there’s video of him, so it’s not like asking someone to play George Washington.”

And Ali was Ali. That’s a hard act to follow.

Bazile is a near-perfect fit. At 6-feet-2-inches tall, 195 pounds, he conveys Ali’s physicality. His body is sculpted in the manner of the young Ali. He moves like an athlete because he is an athlete. His face resembles Ali’s and his expressions are very much on the mark in the way he transmits emotion to the audience. He uses his voice the way Ali did. He moves his eyes the way Ali did. He has THE LOOK.

Zack was born the year that Ali lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta, so he has no first-hand memory of the young Ali who set the world ablaze. “But as an actor,” he says, “I’m representing Ali. That’s a responsibility I take very seriously. Everyone has an essence about them. I had to find the right balance – not too over the top – and capture that.”

Sitting in the audience watching Bazile, I felt at times as though it was Ali onstage in front of me. Zack has the pre-exile Ali down perfectly. The magic dissipates a bit as the stage Ali grows older. Bazile still has to add the weight of aging to his craft. But I couldn’t help but think, “Muhammad would have loved watching Zack play him.”

****

Twenty-four hours after the premiere of The One, David Serero left the stage for a night to shine brightly in a real boxing ring., The occasion was the tenth fight card that Larry Goldberg has promoted at Sony Hall in New York, a run that began with Goldberg’s first pro show ever on October 13, 2022.

Most of the fights on the six-bout card played out as expected. But two were tougher for the favorites than anticipated. Jacob Riley Solis was held to a draw by Daniel Jefferson. And Andy Dominguez was knocked down hard by Angel Meza in round three before rallying to claim a one-point split-decision triumph.

Serero sang the national anthem between the second and third fights and stilled the crowd with a virtuoso performance. Fans at sports events are usually restless during the singing of the anthem. This time, the crowd was captivated. Serero turned a flat ritual into an inspirational moment. People were turning to each other and saying “Wow!”

****

The unexpected happened in Tijuana last Saturday night when 25-to-1 underdog Bruno Surace climbed off the canvas after a second-round knockdown to score a shocking, one-punch, sixth-round stoppage of Jaime Munguia. There has been a lot of commentary since then about what happened that night. The best explanation I’ve heard came from a fan named John who wrote, “The fight was not over in the second round although Munguia thought it was because, if he caught him once, he would naturally catch him again. Plus he looked at this little four KO guy [Surace had scored 4 knockouts in 27 fights] the way all the fans did, like he had no punch. That is what a fan can afford to do. But a fighter should know better. The ref reminds you, ‘Protect yourself at all times.’ Somebody forgot that.”

photo (c) David Serero

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 16, 2024

Arne K. Lang

L.A.’s Rudy Hernandez is the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year

If asked to name a prominent boxing trainer who operates out of a gym in Los Angeles, the name Freddie Roach would jump immediately to mind. Best known for his work with Manny Pacquaio, Roach has been named the Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America a record seven times.

A mere seven miles from Roach’s iconic Wild Card Gym is the gym that Rudy Hernandez now calls home. Situated in the Little Tokyo neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles, the L.A. Boxing Gym – a relatively new addition to the SoCal boxing landscape — is as nondescript as its name. From the outside, one would not guess that two reigning world champions, Junto Nakatani and Anthony Olascuaga, were forged there.

As Freddie Roach will be forever linked with Manny Pacquiao, so will Rudy Hernandez be linked with Nakatani. The Japanese boxer was only 15 years old when his parents packed him off to the United States to be tutored by Hernandez. With Hernandez in his corner, the lanky southpaw won titles at 112 and 115 and currently holds the WBO bantamweight (118) belt. In his last start, he knocked out his Thai opponent, a 77-fight veteran who had never been stopped, advancing his record to 29-0 (22 KOs).

Nakatani’s name now appears on several pound-for-pound lists. A match with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue is brewing. When that match comes to fruition, it will be the grandest domestic showdown in Japanese boxing history.

“Junto Nakatani is the greatest fighter I’ve ever trained. It’s easy to work with him because even when he came to me at age 15, his focus was only on boxing. It was to be a champion one day and nothing interfered with that dream,” Hernandez told sports journalist Manouk Akopyan writing for Boxing Scene.

Akin to Nakatani, Rudy Hernandez built Anthony Olascuaga from scratch. The LA native was rucked out of obscurity in April of 2023 when Jonathan Gonzalez contracted pneumonia and was forced to withdraw from his date in Tokyo with lineal light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji. Olascuaga, with only five pro fights under his belt, filled the breach on 10 days’ notice and although he lost (TKO by 9), he earned kudos for his gritty performance against the man recognized as the best fighter in his weight class.

Two fights later, back in Tokyo, Olascuaga copped the WBO world flyweight title with a third-round stoppage of Riku Kano. His first defense came in October, again in Japan, and Olascuaga retained his belt with a first-round stoppage of the aforementioned Gonzalez. (This bout was originally ruled a no-contest as it ended after Gonzalez suffered a cut from an accidental clash of heads. But the referee ruled that Gonzalez was fit to continue before the Puerto Rican said “no mas,” alleging his vision was impaired, and the WBO upheld a protest from the Olascuaga camp and changed the result to a TKO. Regardless, Rudy Hernandez’s fighter would have kept his title.)

Hernandez, 62, is the brother of the late Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez. A two-time world title-holder at 130 pounds who fought the likes of Azumah Nelson, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr., Chicanito passed away in 2011, a cancer victim at age 45.

Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez was one of the most popular fighters in the Hispanic communities of Southern California. Rudy Hernandez, a late bloomer of sorts – at least in terms of public recognition — has kept his brother’s flame alive with own achievements. He is a worthy honoree for the 2024 Trainer of the Year.

Note: This is the first in our series of annual awards. The others will arrive sporadically over the next two weeks.

Photo credit: Steve Kim

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

A Shocker in Tijuana: Bruno Surace KOs Jaime Munguia !!

Published

3 days ago

December 15, 2024

Arne K. Lang

A-Shocker-in-Tijuana-Bruno-Sarace-KOs-Jaime-Munguia

It was a chilly night in Tijuana when Jaime Munguia entered the ring for his homecoming fight with Bruno Surace. The main event of a Zanfer/Top Rank co-promotion, Munguia vs. Surace was staged in the city’s 30,000-seat soccer stadium a stone’s throw from the U.S. border in the San Diego metroplex.

Surace, a Frenchman, brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but a quick glance at his record showed that he had scant chance of holding his own with the house fighter. Only four of Surace’s 25 wins had come by stoppage and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records. Munguia was making the first start in the city of his birth since February 2022. Surace had never fought outside Europe.

But hold the phone!

After losing every round heading into the sixth, Surace scored the Upset of the Year, ending the contest with a one-punch knockout.

It looked like a short and easy night for Munguia when he knocked Surace down with a left hook in the second stanza. From that point on, the Frenchman fought off his back foot, often with back to the ropes, throwing punches only in spurts. Munguia worked the body well and was seemingly on the way to wearing him down when he was struck by lightning in the form of an overhand right.

Down went Munguia, landing on his back. He struggled to get to his feet, but the referee waived it off a nano-second before reaching “10.” The official time was 2:36 of round six.

Munguia, who was 44-1 heading in with 35 KOs, was as high as a 35/1 favorite. In his only defeat, he had gone the distance with Canelo Alvarez. This was the biggest upset by a French fighter since Rene Jacquot outpointed Donald Curry in 1989 and Jacquot had the advantage of fighting in his homeland.

Co-Main

Mexico City’s Alan Picasso, ranked #1 by the WBC at 122 pounds, scored a third-round stoppage of last-minute sub Yehison Cuello in a scheduled 10-rounder contested at featherweight. Picaso (31-0-1, 17 KOs) is a solid technician. He ended the bout with a left to the rib cage, a punch that weaved around Cuello’s elbow and didn’t appear to be especially hard. The referee stopped his count at “nine” and waived the fight off.

A 29-year-old Colombian who reportedly had been training in Tijuana, the overmatched Cuello slumped to 13-3-1.

Other Bouts of Note

In a ho-hum affair, junior middleweight Jorge Garcia advanced to 32-4 (26) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Uzbekistan’s Kudratillo Abudukakhorov (20-4). The judges had it 97-92 and 99-90 twice. There were no knockdowns, but Garcia had a point deducted in round eight for low blows.

Garcia displayed none of the power that he showed in his most recent fight three months ago in Arizona and when he knocked out his German opponent in 46 seconds. Abudukakhorov, who has competed mostly as a welterweight, came in at 158 1/4 pounds and didn’t look in the best of shape. The Uzbek was purportedly 170-10 as an amateur (4-5 per boxrec).

Super bantamweight Sebastian Hernandez improved to 18-0 (17 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of Argentine import Sergio Martin (14-5). The end came at the 2:39 mark of round seven when Martin’s corner threw in the towel. Earlier in the round, Martin lost his mouthpiece and had a point deducted for holding.

Hernandez wasn’t all that impressive considering the high expectations born of his high knockout ratio, but appeared to have injured his right hand during the sixth round.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!