Three Punch Combo: The Story Behind Lomachenko-Marriaga and More

Published

8 years ago

July 30, 2017

THREE PUNCH COMBO — On Saturday, Vasyl Lomachenko (8-1, 6 KO’s) makes the third defense of his 130-pound title when he faces Miguel Marriaga (25-2, 21 KO’s) in an ESPN televised main event. Many boxing insiders see Marriaga as an unworthy challenger and expect the fight to be a cakewalk for the ultra-skilled Lomachenko. So why are we seeing such a fight on a big platform like ESPN? It’s the business of the sport that produced the bout.

Top Rank, Lomachenko’s promoter, clearly wanted Orlando Salido as the opponent for Lomachenko for this date. With limited options at 130 for Lomachenko, facing the only fighter he lost to as a pro in what was an entertaining fight made a lot of sense. However, Salido is well aware that there are not a lot of options at 130 for Lomachenko and that he is by far the most marketable name available. Salido set a high price for his services. It was not met and Salido will continue to hold out, believing that one day his price will be met.

So with Salido out, where else could Top Rank turn? They needed to keep Lomachenko busy and wanted him on the ESPN platform but did not have many options. The other top 130 pounders either already had fights scheduled or had previously turned down overtures to face Lomachenko. The list was thin and Top Rank ultimately, in a very calculated decision, settled on Marriaga.

Why Marriaga? He is coming off a loss to Oscar Valdez and his other loss was a one-sided defeat against Nicholas Walters. Lomachenko, of course, dominated the same Walters last November, so the selection of Marriaga as Lomachenko’s opponent wasn’t going to go over well in the boxing community.

The way Top Rank looked at this was that no matter who they picked, the opponent would not go over well after they could not entice Salido to take the bait. Marriaga is a name boxing fans are familiar with and, more importantly, his style is what Top Rank was seeking. In his bouts against Walters and Valdez, Marriaga showed at times an almost reckless abandon. He was willing to be aggressive and let his hands go, hoping to land something big to change the course of those bouts. By being so aggressive, he did land but also got hit a lot.

Why is this important? If Marriaga brings this same style to the ring when facing Lomachenko, we may see something in a Lomachenko fight that we have not seen happen to him since he faced Salido. I would venture to say we are going to see Lomachenko get hit. Marriaga is going to let his hands fly like he did against Walters and Valdez and inevitably land some punches. Lomachenko will counter and pick Marriaga apart but it’s the get hit part that is important.

Top Rank needed an opponent that Lomachenko could handle but also look a little vulnerable against. They need him to get hit. Lomachenko has been so dominant that he is scaring off many potential foes. Why get in the ring with someone who is just going to pick you apart while you are swinging at air? The risk is not worth it. So Top Rank needed an opponent who would be willing to let his hands fly and go for broke in the hopes that Lomachenko gets touched a bit. They need him to look somewhat human and not just a machine that dissects his opposition to bits. If Lomachenko gets cracked a few times, maybe other potential opponents think they can do something and the risk now becomes worth their while. That is how the business of the sport brought us Lomachenko-Marriaga on Saturday.

What Is Next For Mikey Garcia and Adrien Broner?

Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KO’s) scored a dominant unanimous decision win against Adrien Broner (33-3, 24 KO’s) in a bout contested in the 140-pound division. Now Garcia and Broner will head in drastically different paths with Garcia on the road to some more substantial fights while Broner must pick up the pieces.

In all probability, Garcia will return to the lightweight division his next time out where he still holds a belt. At age 29 and entering the prime of his career, he is clearly seeking big fights. The most likely opponent for Garcia would seem to be another belt holder at lightweight in Robert Easter Jr. Easter is undefeated with some solid wins under his belt and in need himself of a big fight. Easter is also aligned with Al Haymon and with Garcia having fought under the PBC banner his last three times out, the fight would seemingly be easy to make.

Garcia is a smart individual surrounded by very intelligent people. They realize the importance of marketability in this sport. It’s a big reason why Garcia and his team took the Broner fight. Broner has a name and Garcia needed the name on his resume. Easter may not have the name that Broner has, but Easter does have a belt and a win over him would make Garcia a unified champion and drive his price up. Keep in mind there is a huge name fighting one division below lightweight in the aforementioned Lomachenko who has made overtures about moving up if a big fight presents itself. Well, if Garcia is a unified champion, he would not only make for a natural opponent for Lomachenko in a super fight but also have serious bargaining power when negotiating such a fight.

As for Broner, as I wrote last week, his legacy takes a serious hit with the loss to Garcia. Broner needs to go back to the drawing board to resurrect his career. He is only 28 and has time to get back in the picture. Expect him to take a similar path that he took following his first career loss to Marcos Maidana. Broner will fight the classic “B” level type opponents and get a few wins in fights where he is heavily favored. One such opponent could be Ricky Burns. A Broner-Burns fight has been discussed on and off for a few years and the time may finally be right in the careers of both men to make it happen.

Under The Radar Fights

We have another big weekend of televised action this week. As is often the case of such weekends, a few fights tend to fly under the radar. A pair of fights on ESPN are not getting much attention right now but should not be missed.

On Saturday, Raymundo Beltran (33-7-1, 21 KO’s) returns to face Bryan Vasquez (35-2, 19 KO’s) in a lightweight fight that could turn into a war. The bout will serve as a co-feature to Vasyl Lomachenko’s 130-pound title defense. This is the third time I have featured Beltran in the under the radar segment and for good reason. He has a crowd pleasing style that just makes for good entertaining fights. He constantly presses forward looking to make the fight and draw opponents into exchanges. Vasquez is a solid fighter who has a very similar style to that of Beltran. See why I love this fight? We have two fighters who like to be aggressive and press the action. And two fighters who like to get their opponents into exchanges. Mark my words, this will be a good scrap and be the talk of the boxing community on Sunday.

Another fight that could turn into a war is the Golden Boy on ESPN headliner on Friday night between Mauricio Herrera (23-7, 7 KO’s) and Jesus Soto Karass (28-11-4, 18 KO’s). First off, both have seen their better days., but that’s why matching them together makes a lot of sense. The winner goes forward with one last opportunity and the loser really needs to strongly consider hanging the gloves up for good.

In his prime, Herrera was a technically sound boxer who used his legs and a precise jab to throw off the rhythm of his opponents. He was a master at setting up just the right angles to land sharp punches. But his legs are not what they used to be just a few years ago. This has led to Herrera being more in the pocket and getting hit a lot more. As for Soto Karass, he knows only one way to fight and that is going forward chucking leather. He has never been concerned about defense. Herrera, with his legs not what they once were, will be in front of Soto Karass most of the night. Herrera will find Soto Karass an easy target but also be in position to allow Soto Karass to do what he likes to do and that is throw punches. This could be a lot of fun.

As I so often preach, good matchmaking leads to good fights. The above two fights that are flying under the radar this week are examples of good matchmaking. Don’t miss them as they should be a lot of fun to watch.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

19 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-322-Super-Welter-Week-in-SoCal

Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

3 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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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 11^th 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

Published

4 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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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