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Luis Ortiz Must Shine Against Tony Thompson Saturday Night

Luis Ortiz Must Shine – Interim WBA heavyweight title holder Luis Ortiz 24-0 (21), based on his seventh round stoppage of Bryant Jennings this past December, is considered by many to be the most formidable fighter in the division. Due to his sheer destruction of Jennings who went the distance with Wladimir Klitschko eight months earlier in his previous fight, Ortiz owns the most impressive win among the top five or six contenders and title holders in the division.
Yes, Tyson Fury won a unanimous decision over Klitschko in Wladimir’s next bout, but to borrow a phrase from Muhammad Ali, Fury and Wladimir looked like two “washer-women” flailing away at each other. WBC title holder Deontay Wilder 36-0 (35), looked decent but not all-world beating former title holder Bermane Stiverne in his title winning effort back in January of 2015. And IBF title holder Charles Martin 23-0-1 (21) is a sizable underdog in his upcoming bout versus Anthony Joshua 15-0 (15) next month. Joshua is by far the most powerful and dangerous fighter Martin will have ever shared a ring with. As for WBA title holder Ruslan Chagaev 34-2-1 (21), he’s already lost to the two best opponents he’s ever fought, Wladimir Klitschko 64-4 (53) and Alexander Povetkin 30-1 (22). Without the title, Chagaev is an afterthought and a non-player at the top of the heavyweight division.
At age 36, soon to be 37, Luis Ortiz is well past the age where he should be fighting for vapid belts. The 6-foot-4, 235 pound Cuban defector has the size, boxing aptitude and punching power one thinks of when picturing what an elite heavyweight looks like. Taking the fight to him, even in spurts, looks to be suicide, as Jennings found out. But in fairness to Jennings, he was trying to move away and counter Ortiz – it’s just that he was giving up too much ground and Luis was walking right through him and smashing him with left uppercuts to the chin and hurting him.
When Ortiz fights 44 year old Tony Thompson on HBO Saturday night, his goal is to win impressively enough so those who see the bout start taking serious notice and consider him the top heavyweight. Thompson 40-6 (27) has only been stopped twice in his career, both times by Wladimir Klitschko. The first was in 2008 when the 36 year old made it deep into the fight and wasn’t halted until midway through the 11th round. Four years later, Thompson didn’t fare quite as well and was stopped at 2:56 of the sixth round with Tony on his feet after going down earlier in the round. At that time Thompson was coming off a 13 month period of inactivity and wasn’t the same fighter who challenged Klitschko the first time.
Since losing the rematch with Klitschko, Thompson has fought seven times, winning four and losing three. In his last two bouts he is 1-1, beating an overweight and out of shape Odlanier Solis, who quit after the eighth round because he was exhausted…..and then in his last bout losing a unanimous 10-round decision to Malik Scott 38-2-1 (13). Thompson looked slow and lethargic during the bout, but did manage to drop Scott with a right hook in the ninth round.
The table couldn’t be better set for Ortiz to shine. Thompson is on the decline, his speed, whatever he had, has evaporated and he’s a big target. In the main Ortiz should have his way and do basically whatever he wants. And that’s why he has to blow him out early and in an impressive fashion. In the heavyweight division, perception is reality.
As of this writing, Ortiz has his age going against him and everybody is focused on Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua. This is why Luis must steal some of their thunder by emphatically disposing of Thompson. Right now Ortiz doesn’t have many bargaining chips. He’s good, he’s big and powerful, and he can box. That makes him a valid threat to the Fury’s, Wilder’s and Joshua’s lurking at the top of the division.
“This fight is just another stepping stone on my path to becoming the unified heavyweight world champion,” Ortiz said via ESPN.com. “I came to the United States to chase my American dream, and fighting at the nation’s capital is a dream come true. My life is coming full circle, and I know that this fight will put me a step closer to achieving everything I have worked so hard for in my career.”
Yes, Thompson is a stepping stone for Ortiz. But he won’t get much credit for beating him if he doesn’t demolish him. Anyone reading this knows the trinity of Fury, Wilder and Joshua are going to try and wait Ortiz out and will avoid fighting him at all cost unless there is a public demand for it. And at 37, it may be that the only thing Ortiz can do is impress the public so much that they’ll demand that one of the trinity defends his belt against him…..and that will create interest in the fight and big money will be a byproduct.
The clock is ticking for Ortiz. And in all likelihood, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ortiz is older than what he says. Some of the fighters who have defected to the United States from Cuba have stretched the truth about their age, so you never know. All that we know is Ortiz is old for a blossoming heavyweight. Right now there’s no reason for Fury, Wilder, Joshua or Charles Martin to look Ortiz’s way. The money is low and the risk is high. And that’s why he needs to stimulate the fans Saturday night with a George Foreman or Mike Tyson-esque knockout win. If he can do that, then the name Luis Ortiz will be better known and he’ll be thought of as being a deserving challenger to one of the title holders. But if he labors and the fight with Thompson looks like a waltz and goes deep, he’ll have set himself back a year at a time when there aren’t many years left to make his move.
If Luis Ortiz is an elite heavyweight, he’ll knock out Tony Thompson in a spectacular and decisive fashion Saturday night and on Sunday morning he’ll be all the talk in most boxing circles!
Check out a results video for this fight at The Boxing Channel
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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.
Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.
Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)
Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.
The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).
Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”
A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.
Other winners:
Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon
Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney
Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire
Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix
The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.
The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.
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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.
No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.
“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.
Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.
Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.
In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.
That was a bad sign for Stanionis.
Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.
In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.
It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.
Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.
After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.
Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.
“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.
Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.
Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.
“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.
“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”
Other Bouts
Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.
The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.
“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.
Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.
Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.
Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.
In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.
“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”
In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.
“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”
After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.
Photo credit: Matchroom
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