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No Theatrics From Fury At Last Presser Before He Fights Klitschko
All behaved in a proper fashion on Tuesday, during the final presser for the Saturday scrap between Wladimir Klitschko. Or, maybe, improperly, if you assumed loose cannon challenger Tyson Fury would engage in some theatrical hijinks…
The presser took place in Dusseldorf, where the tangle between the 6-6 Klitschko, the pound for pound top fiver who hasn’t lost in a decade, and the 6-9 talker-extraordinaire Fury, will unfold.
In America, you can watch their face-off on HBO, on Saturday afternoon.
The stadium hosting the fight, Esprit, should be at capacity, 55,000 full. Wlad is 2-0 in Dusseldorf, having beaten Joseph Chingangu (1999) and Eddie Chambers (2010) in the same city.
A video package of Klitschko’s greatest hits was shown, and we saw challenger after challenger talk tough…and then take an L.
64 wins, 54 by KO..Klitschko took to the mic and spoke German first. In English, he said he’s fought in Dusseldorf before, and this time, it’s against a “colorful” guy. He said he heard Fury said he’s nervous, and that’s good, because it means he’s alert. He too is nervous before every fight, he said. He said he is sure the stadium will be sold out, and wished Fury good luck, shaking his hand.
He looked Fury in the eyes, while Fury looked straight ahead, for the record.
English was spoken at the almost somber presser by Fury. The 27-year-old Traveller promised “a real fight,” but no, he didn’t promise a win. Fury took the mic after a greatest hits package of some of his fight action and trash talking snippets were shown. He said he liked the video, stated that camp was solid, and that he is injury free. The task became that much more clear when he got to Dusseldorf, and admitted he was nervous, and shaky. Then he said he was sort of kidding. He joked that he was being mellow because he didn’t want to scare off Klitschko. He cracked on Wlad as an “old champion,” and said he hopes Wlad is ready to rumble.
Promoter Tom Loeffler showed off solid German as he presided over the hype session. You heard the words “Madison Square Garden,” comprehensible in any language, a few times from him.
Fury trainer Peter Fury promised “a real fight,” but no, he didn’t promise a win.
Klitschko trainer Johnathon Banks took to the mic. He said that division is in an interesting space, what with two giants throwing hands on Saturday. He said he’s loved the stuff Fury has done to hype the scrap, and he said he appreciates all the characters the sport boasts. “It’s going to be a great heavyweight fight,” Banks stated. “This is going to be one of the best matchups we’ve seen in a long time,” he continued, showing he learned more than training tips from Manny Steward.
Fury promoter Mick Hennessy encouraged all UK and Fury fans to hit Germany, to snag a ticket to see what he predicts: a Fury win by KO. “He fights like a warrior, he is a warrior,” said Hennessy.
Klitschko exec Bernd Bonte took to the mic and hyped the tangle in his native tongue.
There was then an announcement making certain fans know that the area will be secure, and that the standards of security at the stadium will be quite strict.The boxers took some queries from the press after all had turns at the mic.
–Wlad was asked how much an ab injury which postponed the fight affected him. The 39-year-old boxer, born in Ukraine, said that that’s happened before, and he’s fully ready for the fight Saturday.
–Fury said he thinks this will be “one of my easiest fights” because “I see so many chinks in the armor.” He expects to exploit the supposed weaknesses right quick on Saturday, he said.
–The gloves issue was spoken on. Fury didn’t like the first ones he was presented, and acceptable ones will be here in time for the fight, said Bonte.
–Klitschko was reminded that Manny Steward that Fury would be a future champ, and he said the same of Alex Povetkin, and he did that to motivate Wlad. Fury spoke up and took issue and said that when Wlad said anyone can become champ if they work hard enough. Not so..he could..and cousin Hughie, on site, could. But nobody else in the room could.
–The gloves issue was re-visited…Bonte busted on Hennessy and Fury for dithering, not signing off on a pair of gloves sent to them maybe five weeks ago. Hennessy said Fury trained in them for five weeks, and the gloves “kept on hurting his thumb. But he didn’t pull out,” he said, taking a poke at Wlad. Tyson then lightened the mood, joking that Mick and Bernd should step outside and settle it, bare knuckle. Hennessy then re-re-visited the issue, and they sparred over the not-present gloves, from a newish company in the space, Paffen Sport, some more.
–Fury was asked what a Traveller was. He said this group settles their differences by bare-knuckle fighting, that’s what and who they are.
–Wlad said Vitali showed up at camp, and hung out, no sparring. “It was like the old days, it was fun, because we haven’t done it in a long time,” he said.
–Fury said he did PED testing, WADA accredited, sometimes three times a month, and he’s clean. “I’ve been tested for the last quarter century,” Wlad said, saying he didn’t want to speak much on the subject.
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Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Bygone Days: Muhammad Ali at the Piano in the Lounge at the Tropicana
Among other things, Las Vegas in “olden days” was noted for its lounge shows. Circa 1970, for the price of two drinks, one could have caught the Ike and Tina Turner Review at the International. They performed three shows nightly, the last at 3:15 am, and they blew the doors off the joint.
The weirdest “lounge show” in Las Vegas wasn’t a late-night offering, but an impromptu duet performed in the mid-afternoon for a select standing-room audience in the lounge at the Tropicana. Sharing the piano in the Blue Room in a concert that could not have lasted much more than a minute were Muhammad Ali and world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. The date was June 25, 1972, a Sunday.
What brought about this odd collaboration was a weigh-in, not the official weigh-in, which would happen the next day, but a dress rehearsal conducted for the benefit of news reporters and photographers and a few invited guests such as the actor Jack Palance who would serve as the color commentator alongside the legendary Mel Allen on the closed-circuit telecast. On June 27, Ali and Foster would appear in separate bouts at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Ali was pit against Jerry Quarry in a rematch of their 1970 tilt in Atlanta; Foster would be defending his title against Jerry’s younger brother, Mike Quarry.
In those days, whenever Las Vegas hosted a prizefight that was a major news story, it was customary for the contestants to arrive in town about three weeks before their fight. They held public workouts, perhaps for a nominal fee, at the hotel-casino where they were lodged.
Muhammad Ali and Bob Foster were sequestered and trained at Caesars Palace. The Quarry brothers were domiciled a few blocks away at the Tropicana.
The Trop, as the locals called it, was the last major hotel-casino on the south end of the Strip, a stretch of road, officially Highway 91, the ran for 2.2 miles. When the resort opened in 1957, it had three hundred rooms. Like similar properties along the famous Strip, it would eventually go vertical, maturing into a high-rise.
In 1959, entertainment director Lou Walters (father of Barbara) imported a lavish musical revue from Paris, the Folies Bergere. The extravaganza with its topless showgirls became embedded in the Las Vegas mystique. The show, which gave the Tropicana its identity, ran for almost 50 full years, becoming the longest-running show in Las Vegas history.
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Although the Quarry brothers were on the premises, Ali and Foster arrived at the Blue Room first. After Dr. Donald Romeo performed his perfunctory examinations, there was nothing to do but stand around and wait from the brothers to show up. It was then that Foster spied a grand piano in the corner of the room.
Taking a seat at the bench, he tinkled the keys, producing something soft and bluesy. “Move over man,” said Ali, not the sort of person to be upstaged at anything. Taking a seat alongside Foster at the piano, he banged out something that struck the untrained ear of veteran New York scribe Dick Young as boogie-woogie.
When the Quarry brothers arrived, Ali went through his usual antics, shouting epithets at Jerry Quarry as Jerry was having his blood pressure taken. “These make the best fights, when you get some white hopes and some spooks,…er, I mean some colored folks,” Young quoted Ali as saying.
This comment was greeted with a big laugh, but Jerry Quarry, renowned for his fearsome left hook, delivered a better line after Ali had stormed out. Surveying the room, he noticed several attractive young ladies, dressed provocatively. “I can see I ain’t the only hooker in here,” he said.
—
The doubleheader needed good advance pub because both bouts were considered mismatches. In the first Ali-Quarry fight, Quarry suffered a terrible gash above his left eye before his corner pulled him out after three rounds. Ali was a 5/1 favorite in the rematch. Bob Foster, who would be making his tenth title defense, was an 8/1 favorite over Mike Quarry who was undefeated (35-0) but had been brought along very carefully and was still only 21 years old. (In his syndicated newspaper column, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder said the odds were 200/1 against both fights going the distance, but there wasn’t a bookie in the country that would take that bet.)
The Fights
There were no surprises. It was a sad night for the Quarry clan at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Muhammad Ali, clowning in the early rounds, took charge in the fifth and Jerry Quarry was in bad shape when the referee waived it off 19 seconds into the seventh round. In the semi-wind-up, Bob Foster retained his title in a more brutal fashion. He knocked the younger Quarry brother into dreamland with a thunderous left hook just as the fourth round was about to end. Mike Quarry lay on the canvas for a good three minutes before his handlers were able to revive him.
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In the ensuing years, the Tropicana was far less invested in boxing than many of its rivals on the Strip, but there was a wisp of activity in the mid-1980s. A noteworthy card, on June 30, 1985, saw Jimmy Paul successfully defend his world lightweight title with a 14th-round stoppage of Robin Blake. Freddie Roach, a featherweight with a big local following and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Henry Tillman appeared on the undercard. The lead promoter of this show, which aired on a Sunday afternoon on CBS (with Southern Nevada blacked out) was the indefatigable Bob Arum who seemingly has no intention of leaving this mortal coil until he has out-lived every Las Vegas casino-resort born in the twentieth century.
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I may drive past the Tropicana in the next few hours and give it a last look, mindful that Muhammad Ali once frolicked here, however briefly. But I won’t be there for the implosion.
On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, shortly after 2 a.m., the Tropicana, shuttered since April, will be reduced to rubble. On its grounds will rise a stadium for the soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s baseball team.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool
In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.
This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.
The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.
The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.
Semi-wind-up
A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.
Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.
The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.
Other Bouts of Note
In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.
In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.
A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.
In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.
Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.
A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.
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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney
IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.
Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.
Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.
Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.
The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.
Semi-wind-up
Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).
A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.
Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).
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