Gary Shaw’s Version of Conor McGregor Was Kimbo Slice

Published

8 years ago

August 23, 2017

It has been suggested that, at this 21^st century stage of human development, there is no such thing as a truly original idea, only gussied-up versions of previous attempts at creating something unique. Perhaps more so than anyone else, Gary Shaw understands the rationale for pairing boxing great Floyd Mayweather Jr. and mixed martial arts sensation Conor McGregor. It’s basically the same notion that Roman emperors and their minions had when they would pit captured beasts from faraway lands, say a lion and a tiger, in the Colosseum. The Roman satirical poet Juvenal (circa 100 A.D.) coined the phrase “bread and circuses” to describe the practice of staging elaborate and costly games – chariot races, anyone? — in order for those in power to maintain control by periodically distracting their increasingly bored and restless subjects.

Boxing has not been around forever, although it sometimes seems like it, so Mayweather vs. McGregor, to be contested under boxing rules, has been relentlessly hyped as a fresh twist on a familiar format. Can the preening Mayweather, staunch upholder of his sport’s status quo, preserve order by putting away McGregor, a crass party-crasher from another combat-sport discipline? The lion again is doing battle with the tiger for entertainment purposes, and all indications are that pay-per-view and gross-revenue records will fall like tall wheat before the scythe.

But there is nothing really new or innovative about Mayweather vs. McGregor, except for the fact that each man’s reputation in his own realm is such that they come into Saturday night’s megafight at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena (to be televised via Showtime Pay Per View) with large, established fan bases that will be augmented by untold millions of the curious lured by what they’ve been promised is an event unlike anything they’ve ever witnessed. And maybe what will be delivered will prove at least somewhat worthy of the stiff tariff ponied up by on-site attendees and PPV subscribers, although Shaw has grave reservations.

“I don’t see any MMA fighter beating a boxer under boxing rules, especially one of Floyd’s class,” said Shaw, who has been on both sides of the philosophical chasm as president of his own boxing promotional company, Gary Shaw Productions and president of now-defunct EliteXC Live Events, a failed MMA challenger to the supremacy of UFC. “The footwork is different. Going from four-ounce gloves to eight-ounce gloves is an immense difference. Plus, a boxer is used to seeing where his opponent is, in terms of technique and distance. It’s not the same in MMA, where there’s standup but also kicking and ground-and-pound.

“Unless I’m very wrong, this is a fight that isn’t a real fight at all. I can’t imagine there’s any way that Mayweather can possibly lose. Now, if the fight was under MMA rules, McGregor would be just as much of a sure thing. He’d take Mayweather down quickly because Floyd doesn’t have those skills, and you can’t pick them up in an eight-week training camp. You just can’t.”

Now that he’s sold his boxing promotional company to Roc Nation Sports, with which he briefly was affiliated (“I lasted there about three weeks,” he said of an operation that appears to still be seeking its footing) and EliteXC has long since gone belly-up, Shaw, now 72, doesn’t have a reason to root for either of the expletive-spewing principals or their sport of origin. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an interest as to what happens as, a decade or so ago, he had his own dream of creating a crossover superstar who could straddle the worlds of boxing and MMA like the Colossus of Rhodes. The vehicle through which Shaw would achieve such sweeping success was, much like McGregor, bearded, lefthanded, possessed of crushing punching power and a menacing scowl that could melt lead.

Shaw’s candidate for the kind of superstardom that many seek but few attain came into this world on Feb. 8, 1974, in Nassau, the Bahamas, as Kevin Ferguson. Most came to know him by his nom de guerre, Kimbo Slice. His legend withered before it had much chance to take root, but there can be no denying that Kimbo, who was just 42 when he died on June 6, 2016, was for a time considered to be larger than life, a comet streaking across the sky. Just as McGregor arrives at this juncture with liberal splashes of charisma and a compelling back story (see Wright Thompson’s enthralling profile in the Aug. 21 issue of ESPN the Magazine), Kimbo had an undefinable something that drew people to him like moths to an open flame. Shaw’s ambitious plan was to take Kimbo, who came to widespread attention through YouTube videos of unsanctioned, bare-knuckle brawls that saw him destroy opponents with Tysonesque brutality, and make him into the heavyweight champion of the world.

“Kimbo is one of those people that comes along every once in ages who has what I call the it factor,” Shaw said in the late spring of 2009. “I have a lot of fighters who come to me and are great talents but don’t have the it factor. Manny Pacquiao has the it factor. He’s a star. He reeks of stardom. People gravitate toward him.

“Kimbo is that way. When he walks into a room, he lights up that room. People yell `Kimbo! Kimbo!’ It doesn’t have anything to do with how he did in his last fight. It has to do with the it factor. When Tyson walks into an arena, everyone stands up. He’s Mike Tyson, of course, but he’s got that it factor.”

The phenom known as Kimbo Slice was first brought to my attention by my son Randy, who asked me to check out a YouTube video of the thickly muscled former linebacker’s backyard demolition of some large, hairy guy whose name now escapes me. It was a cruder, more violent and much-abbreviated version of Sonny Liston disassembling Floyd Patterson. But being unofficial ruler of Miami’s street-fighting scene to king of the ring is a quantum leap, so I paid no heed to rumors that already were circulating that this baddest of badass dudes might soon be trying his hand at, you know, actual boxing.

Depending upon which version of the story one chooses to believe, the 6-foot-1, 240-pound Kimbo Slice was either 0-0 in sanctioned boxing matches (according to BoxRec.com) or 7-0, with six knockouts (Wikipedia). Shaw said those seven bouts were indeed legit, and who cares if the list of Kimbo’s victims – James Wade, Tay Bledsoe, Charles Hackmann, Brian Green, Jesse Porter, Howard Jones and Shane Tilyard – is hardly a who’s who of professional pugilism. Pulverizing power might be the rawest and most primal of a fighter’s resources, but it can camouflage a lot of technical shortcomings. But before he could put himself into a position (if ever that was a possibility) to challenge either or both of the Klitschko brothers, Kimbo gave up his boxing dream to sign with UFC, whose president, Dana White, no doubt had taken note of the high ratings Kimbo’s MMA appearances on CBS had garnered for EliteXC.

Could Kimbo ever have approached anything even remotely close to the boxing potential as envisioned for him by Shaw?

“He wasn’t really young enough (37 when he ostensibly made his pro debut with first-round, 17-second knockout of Wade on Aug. 13, 2011) to be trying to make the transition, but he might have done well had he stuck with it,” Shaw said. “He was just so immensely strong that if he caught anybody on the chin, the fight was over. But he didn’t really train to put it all together in the boxing ring.”

Nor did Kimbo justify his initial burst of popularity in MMA (a 5-2 record with three knockouts in sanctioned matches, 1-1 in exhibitions). It factor or not, the onetime University of Miami football player and father of six with the made-for-Hollywood past (he had worked as a bouncer in a Miami strip club and later as a limousine driver and bodyguard for a pornography production company) had exploitable weaknesses both inside the ring and the octagon. He had dubious stamina, which virtually obliged him to end matters within mere minutes of a fight’s beginning, and, at best, negligible skills in MMA other than a big punch. What’s worse, his reputation was sullied when Sam Petruzelli, a last-minute fill-in for the injured Ken Shamrock in the main event of a CBS-televised card on Oct. 4, 2008, claimed he was pressured to stand up and trade shots with Kimbo, instead of taking the fight to the ground where his ju-jitsu skills might give him an edge. Whether the accusation was true or not, it spawned enough of a scandal that CBS pulled out of its deal with EliteXC and the organization eventually folded.

It is Kimbo’s brief encounter with “Merciless” Ray Mercer, an Olympic heavyweight gold medalist and former WBO heavyweight champion, however, that adds an element of intrigue to Mayweather-McGregor. An accomplished boxer, even if he was then 46, Mercer lasted only 72 seconds against Kimbo in their June 23, 2007, exhibition match in Atlantic City, tapping out after Kimbo got him in a guillotine choke hold. But in an actual sanctioned MMA bout, Mercer knocked out a highly decorated MMA veteran, Tim Sylvia, in nine seconds on June 13, 2009, putting him down and out with the first punch he threw.

If there is anything that can be taken from the strange journey of Kimbo Slice, who died of heart failure shortly after a mass on his liver was diagnosed, it is this: lions should remain lions and tigers should remain tigers. Without question Conor McGregor is a better mixed martial artist, and probably boxer, than Kimbo ever was, but then Floyd McGregor Jr. is no James Wade. You can, ahem, slice it any way you want and it still projects to be a mismatch.

“Mayweather is the dean of spatial relationships,” Shaw said. “He knows how close he can go to another fighter without that fighter connecting on Floyd’s chin. He is an absolute master of spacing, which is the key to hitting and not getting hit back. He’s been doing this for many, many years. He’s become, like, a professor of boxing.”

And what of Mayweather dropping hints that he will go for the gusto and take the kind of risks he has rarely taken in the past against a boxing neophyte like McGregor?

“He’s not going to change his style against McGregor,” Shaw predicted. “Why should he? What he’s been doing has worked for him all this time. He’s a highly skilled fighter, maybe one of the all-time greats in any era. I know some of the stuff he does outside the ring turns people off so they just don’t like him, but a lot of those people are going to pay to see him in the hope of seeing him get a come-uppance.

“It was the same thing with Mayweather-Pacquiao. I didn’t believe that would be a real fight, a competitive fight, and I don’t believe this one will be, either. The only bad thing is if it’s a repeat of Mayweather-Pacquiao, with Floyd so dominant that it’s seen as boring, it’ll have a negative effect on all the pay-per-views to follow. It’ll leave a sour taste.”

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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

2 days ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

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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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

2 days ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

Gabriela-Fundora-KOs-Marilyn-Badillo-and-Perez-Upsets-Conwell-in-Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.

Will it be her last flyweight defense?

Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.

Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.

The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.

Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.

Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.

In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.

Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.

Perez Beats Conwell.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.

It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.

Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.

Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.

Other Bouts

Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.

It was very close.

Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.

Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.

One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.

Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.

Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.

Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

3 days ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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