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Riddick Bowe’s Marine Corps Misadventure
The snide remarks stung then, probably more than any legal punch he received from Evander Holyfield or even the illegal ones below the belt landed by Andrew Golota. Twenty years later, they probably still haunt Riddick Bowe as the Ghost of Christmas Past tortured Ebenezer Scrooge. If there is a difference, it is that Scrooge’s vision was private, and in it he found ultimate redemption. For Bowe, who enjoyed so much success in the ring and so little of it at the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C., those 11 days of chasing a boyhood dream became an exercise in humiliation that has yet to fully cease. Perhaps the taint of it all will endure forever, as will the glory of his epic, three-bout trilogy with Holyfield.
Riddick Bowe wasn’t as good a Marine as Gomer Pyle.
Once he washed out of the Marines, Bowe should have become a UPS driver. That way he’d at least get to wear a uniform.
The Marines are looking for a few good men, and Riddick Bowe ain’t one of them.
There are worse things for a former heavyweight champion – one whose accomplishments include a silver medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, ring earnings estimated at between $65 million and $100 million, depending on whose figures you choose to believe, and his 2015 induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame – to endure than 11 days of discovering that some boyhood dreams are best left in one’s boyhood. Since he voluntarily separated himself from the Corps on Feb. 20, 1997, probably as much to the Marines’ relief as to his, the man known as “Big Daddy” has seen his fortune disappear, his mental and physical health diminish, his family and so-called friends drift away, and his otherwise commendable legacy at least somewhat tarnished.
Many of the sad and bad things that have made Bowe’s rags-to-riches story a cautionary tale of how easy it is for the process to be reversed likely would have happened regardless of whether he raised his right hand and taken the oath of enlistment on Feb. 10, 1997. Was it a just a publicity stunt to call positive attention to Bowe’s then-sputtering boxing career, or to the USMC? By all rights, Bowe, at 29, should never even have been considered as a candidate for Semper Fi-dom; the age limit for joining was 28; at 6-foot-5 and a bit north of 250 pounds, he was more than 20 pounds over the weight cutoff for his height, and he had a wife and five dependent children (the limit is three) at home.
The rationale for the Marines to grant multiple waivers for the celebrity recruit remains unclear, but one thing quickly became obvious: Once in uniform, Private Bowe would have to fulfill his duties in the same prescribed manner as would his younger, poorer and non-famous platoon mates. The Marines do not provide exceptions for wannabes who enter their ranks with a measure of wealth and privilege. For someone like Bowe, who detested training for fights and being told what to do as much as he reveled in being champion of the world and living life on his own pampered terms, the strict regimentation required of a Marine – and, even more so, of a Marine recruit – was virtually guaranteed to result in severe culture shock.
Chuck Wepner, the former heavyweight contender best known for his courageous but doomed challenge of WBC/WBA titlist Muhammad Ali on March 24, 1975, as well as being the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa character, knew better than most what Bowe was getting himself into. Wepner was 17 and a recent high school graduate when he joined the Marines in 1956, serving three years of active duty before mustering out as a corporal.
“The training in boot camp is harder than training for any opponent, ”Wepner, who lasted until the 15th round before being stopped by Ali,told boxing writer Robert Mladinich in 1997, shortly after Bowe left for Parris Island. “Riddick is a world-class athlete and will be in better shape than most of the recruits. I’m sure he can handle the physical aspect, but the mental aspect is the toughest part. The training is built on humiliation and embarrassment. They break you down so they can build you back up as a Marine. When you are a young kid looking for answers it will make a man out of you. But Riddick is pushing 30, a family man with $100 million in the bank. How is he going to take being called `maggot’ instead of `champ’ all day long?”
Bowe wasn’t the first individual to romanticize the notion of a military life, nor will he be the last. One of 13 children raised by Dorothy Bowe in a drug- and crime-infested housing project in the same gritty Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y., that spawned Mike Tyson, he spoke of wanting his mother to see him in his “dress blues at attention” and that “the Marines are the elite and I want to be part of itbefore I get too old.”
To those familiar with what Bowe had to overcome to become the splendid boxer he was during his prime, getting to wear those dress blues was not necessary to qualify as a heroic figure. He refused to yield to the lure of gangs and drugs, and took it as a personal responsibility to walk his mother to and from work to protect her from muggers on the lookout for an easy mark. But not all of his family members were so strong, or so fortunate; he lost a sister, killed by drug dealers, and a brother, killed by AIDS contracted from dirty needles.
When the mocking putdowns arose after Bowe quit the Marines after 11 days, only three of which involved actual training, the fortitude and singularity of purpose he previously had exhibited in rising above his circumstances were largely ignored.
“Parris Island has to be Disney World compared with Brownsville,” Michael Katz, then with the New York Daily News, wrote in defending Bowe as so much more than Gomer Lite. “Don’t even try to compare the mortality rates.”
But while Bowe had the courage to say no to drugs and gangs, he could not always suppress his indulgence in other areas. It was not unusual for him to gain 30 to 40 pounds between fights, and his frequently professed devotion to then-wife Judy and his five kids by her (whose images he had tattooed on his back) notwithstanding, he slept around with the reckless abandon of an alley cat. With the assistance of Florida writer John Greenburg, Bowe’s yet-unpublished memoirs, with the working title of Big Daddy Forever, includes a passage in which he speculates he might have impregnatedas many as 25 women. He also said a family friend paid for six abortions.
Little wonder that Bowe’s manager, Rock Newman, had to repeatedly urgelegendary trainer Eddie Futch, who often threatened to quit and sometimes did, to return to the fighter’s exasperated support team. Then again, Bowe himself always seemed to be looking for the exit. Sure, it was a giddy trip, thrice testing himself against a great warrior like Holyfield and pulling down some serious scratch in the process –at one point Bowe owned 26 cars, including four Rolls-Royces, and 10 houses — as well as having a private audience with the Pope in Vatican City and appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman – but at some point a fighter always has to return to the sweat, pain and monotony of the gym. To his credit, Bowe took time from his opulent and hedonistic ways to serve as a spokesman for Somalia famine relief and as a critic of South Africa’s then-official apartheid policy.
“It’s not like Bowe got money and then started hating the training,” Newman told The Washington Post in 2010. “He always hated it. There was rarely a fight – four, six, eight rounds, whatever – where Bowe didn’t want to quit. I mean, Bowe retired preparing for his second fight.”
Eventually, the lurching starts and screeching halts had to take a toll on any such athlete not named Roberto Duran, and that was never more apparent than in Bowe’s pair of disqualification victories against Golota, who was clearly winning on points in each instance until he sabotaged himself by too often targeting “Big Daddy’s” private parts. Although Bowe officially was 40-1 with 32 knockouts after the second of those matchups, he was a career-high and jiggly 252 pounds for the first, on July 11, 1996, the DQ prompting a half-hour riot in Madison Square Garden, a night which continues to live in pugilistic infamy.
Was it by coincidence or design that Bowe, searching for something he’d either lost or never found, revisited his old Marine Corps fantasy after the second referee-dictated nod over the ball-busting Golota, which took place on Dec. 14, 1996, in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall?
Bowe’s enlistment –the signup deal was for three months of boot camp at Parris Island, six weeks of combat training at Camp LeJeune, N.C., then three years of active and five years inactive Reserve duty in the Washington, D.C. area (Bowe was then living in Fort Washington, Md.) –wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary, other than the fact that most Marine enlistees aren’t granted a slew of waivers prior to holding a press conference to reveal their career pivot.
The Marines didn’t promise Bowe a rose garden prior to his affixing his signature on the enlistment documents. They had him visit Parris Island for a look-around, the better to let him know what he would be in for, and rather than to scare him off, what he saw made him even more enthusiastic. He insisted he would go in with his eyes wide open, and nothing could or would dissuade him.
The first eight days at Parris Island involved mostly paperwork and orientation. But it was that first day of actual training – up at 5 a.m., in bed at 9 p.m., with shouting drill instructors always at high, profane decibel levels – that caused Private Bowe to realize that the lifestyle change he had yearned for was not going to be a good fit. Although neither he nor anyone with the Marines familiar with his situation have spoken at length about particulars of his abbreviated stay, the consensus appears to be that multimillionaires accustomed to freedom of movement are not necessarily the best candidates for a $900.90-a-month job which requires absolute adherence to rules, regulations and a strict code of conduct that is the very essence of esprit de corps. Three days into the nitty-gritty part of his training, Bowe, as well as his friend, Deion Jordan, who was accepted with him under the USMC’s “Buddy Program,” became the first recruits to be released from Platoon 1036, C Company, 1st Recruit Battalion.
“I thought they’d probably give you a hard time for a week or so,” Bowe said. “I didn’t realize that for the 12 weeks you’re in boot camp, somebody was going to be in your face.”
Major Rick Long, then a Marine spokesman at Parris Island, said he had spoken to Bowe about his intention to voluntarily withdraw from training and that he understood, at least to a point, the boxer’s rationale for doing so. “He seemed very genuine in his desire to become a Marine,” Long noted. “However, he decided at this stage of his life that adjusting to the regimented lifestyle was too difficult. It was just a combination of being told when to eat and how fast, when to dress and how fast, and the structured environment. In Marine Corps recruit training, you are constantly supervised and you are on a very rigorous and fast-paced schedule.”
Added Marine Gunnery Sgt. Wiley Tiller: “As an athlete, he had it his way. In the Marines, you don’t have it that way. He would have been totally stripped of anything he ever was. That was probably messing with his manhood. He could have done the physical training, but being told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, that’s not easy for a 29-year-old to handle.”
Newman was of the opinion that family considerations, more so than the Marine way of doing things, likely was the primary reason for Bowe to bail. More than anything, he just might have been homesick.
“For eight years, Riddick’s spent enormous amounts of time away from his wife and family,” Newman reasoned. “The hardest part for Riddick was never in the ring, and it was never the long hours of training. It was always the separation that took place … He hated time away from his family.”
If Newman is correct, what has happened to Bowe in the aftermath of his famously futile flirtation with the Marine Corps devolves from bewildering to tragic. Two months after leaving Parris Island, Bowe abruptly announced his retirement from boxing (he later returned for three winning bouts against C-grade opponents from 2004 to 2008). A year after that, he and Judy separated, he was accused of kidnapping her and the children and forcing them into a car in Charlotte, N.C., and driving them to Maryland. Pleading guilty to a reduced federal charge of interstate domestic violence (for allegedly threatening Judy and the kids with a knife and pepper spray), he was convicted and, following several appeals, sentenced in January 2003 to 18 months in prison. He did the time, plus six months of house arrest, but maintains Judy and the children willingly got into his Lincoln Navigator and that “I never kidnapped anybody.”
Things would go from bad to worse. Bowe filed for bankruptcy in 2005, listing debts in excess of $4 million; his weight, always an issue when he was boxing, swelled to 300 pounds, and during the criminal proceedings against him it was revealed that he underwent neurological tests that indicated he had irreparable frontal lobe damage. Bowe does have slurred speech, but he steadfastly rejects any mental damage stemming from his 45-bout boxing career.
“I feel great,” he told The Post. “Some people tell me I talk funny, but this is the sport I chose and perhaps this is one of the downfalls. It is what it is.”
Bowe, now 49, is remarried – happily, he said, to wife Terri, with whom he has two children — and claims to have exorcised many of the demons that cast dark shadows on his frame of mind before, during and after he did his Marine thing. But, apart from the fact his once-vast fortune is gone, so are those he once welcomed into his inner circle. He no longer has any contact with his onetime Svengali, Newman, or with family members and confidantes who, he said, only wanted to be around him so long as he was paying their way.
“I really don’t have any regrets,” Bowe said in advance of his induction into the IBHOF in June 2015, dismissing some critics’ charges that he deliberately avoided squaring off against Lennox Lewis and Tyson in the pro ranks. “The fact that I fought Evander three times pretty much made up for everything else. I think those other guys (Lewis and Tyson) realize that they couldn’t have done anything better than I did when I fought Holyfield. They couldn’t even have done it as good. (Bowe won two of his three fights with Holyfield, including one by stoppage.)
“If I could change anything, the No. 1 thing is that I wouldn’t have Rock Newman as my manager. I wish I had people around me who had my best interests at heart. I wish I was more into the financial part of the game, that I had paid more attention to what was going on around me. There were meetings and stuff where I needed to be there. I really thought that (Newman) had my back. He didn’t.”
Time has a way of distorting reality to accommodate individual perspective. There are those who maintain that Bowe was unworthy of entering the hallowed halls of the IBHOF, and those who figure his 43-1 career record, with 33 KOs, made him a slam-dunk for election. There also are those who dismiss his 11 days at Parris Island as a cartoonish attempt to regain some form of relevancy, while others credit him for at least taking a few tentative steps toward realization of an inner truth that he long sought, and still lies beyond his grasp.
The real Riddick Bowe remains a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. He is that rare figure who is who he is, but only to himself. For the rest of us, he is who we choose to think of him as being. In their recruiting brochures the Marines promise that “the change is forever,” but one wonders how much change, or how permanent, can be wrought by 11 days in the broad stratosphere of life.
“I just hope Riddick finds whatever it is he’s looking for,” said Mackie Shilstone, the New Orleans-based conditioning expert who had the perplexing task of helping get Bowe ready for some of his most significant bouts. “It always seemed to me he was looking for some alter ego. I think that’s what happened when he went into the Marines. You know that was a form of escapism. He was always trying to escape from, or to, something.”
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Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh
Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh
Oleksandr Usyk left no doubt that he is the best heavyweight of his generation and one of the greatest boxers of all time with a unanimous decision over Tyson Fury tonight at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But although the Ukrainian won eight rounds on all three scorecards, this was no runaway. To pirate a line from one of the DAZN talking heads, Fury had his moments in every round but Usyk had more moments.
The early rounds were fought at a faster pace than the first meeting back in May. At the mid-point, the fight was even. The next three rounds – the next five to some observers – were all Usyk who threw more punches and landed the cleaner shots.
Fury won the final round in the eyes of this reporter scoring at home, but by then he needed a knockout to pull the match out of the fire.
The last round was an outstanding climax to an entertaining chess match during which both fighters took turns being the pursuer and the pursued.
An Olympic gold medalist and a unified world champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, the amazing Usyk improved his ledger to 23-0 (14). His next fight, more than likely, will come against the winner of the Feb. 22 match in Ridayh between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker which will share the bill with the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
Fury (34-2-1) may fight Anthony Joshua next. Regardless, no one wants a piece of Moses Itauma right now although the kid is only 19 years old.
Moses Itauma
Raised in London by a Nigerian father and a Slovakian mother, Itauma turned heads once again with another “wow” performance. None of his last seven opponents lasted beyond the second round.
His opponent tonight, 34-year-old Australian Demsey McKean, lasted less than two minutes. Itauma, a southpaw with blazing fast hands, had the Aussie on the deck twice during the 117-second skirmish. The first knockdown was the result of a cuffing punch that landed high on the head; the second knockdown was produced by an overhand left. McKean went down hard as his chief cornerman bounded on to the ring apron to halt the massacre.
Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs after going 20-0 as an amateur) is the real deal. It was the second straight loss for McKean (22-2) who lasted into the 10th round against Filip Hrgovic in his last start.
Bohachuk-Davis
In a fight billed as the co-main although it preceded Itauma-McKean, Serhii Bohachuk, an LA-based Ukrainian, stopped Ishmael Davis whose corner pulled him out after six frames.
Both fighters were coming off a loss in fights that were close on the scorecards, Bohachuk falling to Vergil Ortiz Jr in a Las Vegas barnburner and Davis losing to Josh Kelly.
Davis, who took the fight on short notice, subbing for Ismail Madrimov, declined to 13-2. He landed a few good shots but was on the canvas in the second round, compliments of a short left hook, and the relentless Bohachuk (25-2, 24 KOs) eventually wore him down.
Fisher-Allen
In a messy, 10-round bar brawl masquerading as a boxing match, Johnny Fisher, the Romford Bull, won a split decision over British countryman David Allen. Two judges favored Fisher by 95-94 tallies with the dissenter favoring Allen 96-93. When the scores were announced, there was a chorus of boos and those watching at home were outraged.
Allen was a step up in class for Fisher. The Doncaster man had a decent record (23-5-2 heading in) and had been routinely matched tough (his former opponents included Dillian Whyte, Luis “King Kong” Ortiz and three former Olympians). But Allen was fairly considered no more than a journeyman and Fisher (12-0 with 11 KOs, eight in the opening round) was a huge favorite.
In round five, Allen had Fisher on the canvas twice although only one was ruled a true knockdown. From that point, he landed the harder shots and, at the final bell, he fell to canvas shedding tears of joy, convinced that he had won.
He did not win, but he exposed Johnny Fisher as a fighter too slow to compete with elite heavyweights, a British version of the ponderous Russian-Canadian campaigner Arslanbek Makhmudov.
Other Bouts of Note
In a spirited 10-round featherweight match, Scotland’s Lee McGregor, a former European bantamweight champion and stablemate of former unified 140-pound title-holder Josh Taylor, advanced to 15-1-1 (11) with a unanimous decision over Isaac Lowe (25-3-3). The judges had it 96-92 and 97-91 twice.
A cousin and regular houseguest of Tyson Fury, Lowe fought most of the fight with cuts around both eyes and was twice deducted a point for losing his gumshield.
In a fight between super featherweights that could have gone either way, Liverpool southpaw Peter McGrail improved to 11-1 (6) with a 10-round unanimous decision over late sub Rhys Edwards. The judges had it 96-95 and 96-94 twice.
McGrail, a Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist, fought from the third round on with a cut above his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads. It was the first loss for Edwards (16-1), a 24-year-old Welshman who has another fight booked in three weeks.
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Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?
Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?
In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.
The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.
Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.
The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.
That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.
The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)
Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)
Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.
Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).
Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.
The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.
Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.
Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.
We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”
The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.
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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year
Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year
The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.
Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.
Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.
Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.
There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.
It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.
Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.
At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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