Deontay Wilder’s Hall of Shame

Deontay Wilder’s Hall of Shame
This is a look at the title opposition of one Deontay Wilder, America’s great heavyweight hope and currently ranked number

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Published

7 years ago

November 11, 2017

Matt McGrain

Deontay Wilder’s Hall of Shame

This is a look at the title opposition of one Deontay Wilder, America’s great heavyweight hope and currently ranked number two in that flagship division.

What it is not is a critique of the WBC’s rankings policy. It could easily be interpreted as such; we are told time and time again that the reasoning behind a given fight is only that it is “mandatory” and therefore has to be fought.

It is a wonder that any competitive fights get made at all, this being the case.

This is also not an accounting of Wilder’s apparent bad inflatable slide luck in attempting to make stiffer matches for himself. It is an examination of what has actually happened rather than what someone tried to do.

I admit that it doesn’t make for pretty reading, but horror rarely does.

All rankings are by the TBRB; other independent ranking organizations are available – and they don’t seem to see things any differently.

ERIC MOLINA (23-2), 1^st Defense, June 2015.

I am not a total skeptic when it comes to soft opposition; “one for me, one for you” is a reasonable approach I think, and Wilder took on his only ranked opponent to date when he met Stiverne for the WBC trinket in early 2015. A more limited opponent seemed a reasonable move to me, and the Texan, Eric Molina, qualified.

Chris Arreola was in a strange place in his career in 2012. Having failed in his attempt at a heavyweight strap against Vitali Klitschko in 2009 and then lost to former cruiserweight belt-holder Tomasz Adamek in 2010 he had hit the road on what amounted to an old-fashioned barn-burning tour in boxing outback against his own selection of limited opposition. This culminated in a ten round decision win over a heavyweight named Friday Ahunanya, a once promising Nigerian heavy who had just dropped a six-rounder to a professional loser called Cisse Callif.

When the result of this fight was later changed to a No Contest when Arreola failed the drugs test (marijuana), I think it’s fair to say that the once proud Mexican-American had reached his career low. It is understandable then that Molina was excited to be matched with him in February of 2012. This excitement did not last long. Molina was blasted out in 150 seconds.

These things happen in boxing, and Arreola was capable of making them happen so it was fitting that Molina be afforded the chance to rebuild. Between this first round knockout defeat and his June 2015 meeting with Wilder, Molina had five fights. He met no ranked contenders. In fact, he met no fighters of note outside of a 45 year old DaVarryl Williamson who hadn’t boxed for two years and who was rescued from himself in the fifth. Molina stooped lower in his next contest, beating up the 10-12-2 Theo Kruger. After one more outing he was apparently “ready” to meet Wilder with the belt on the line.

Molina was not a bad fighter and he actually landed some good shots on the belt-holder on his way to being stopped in the ninth, lasting eight rounds longer than he had against Arreola. That being said, he was also woefully under-qualified for championship boxing. Still, as I said, a soft one is reasonable after lifting the title. The real question was the eternal one – who’s next?

Who should he have fought instead? Vyacheslav Glazkov, pre-injury, ranked seven.

JOHANN DUHAUPAS (32-2), 2^nd Defense, September 2015.

To his tremendous credit, Wilder was out quickly but the man in the other corner once again underwhelmed.

Frenchman Johann Duhaupas was big with a big reach but the headline in assessing him as an opponent for Wilder was his twelve round points loss to novice Erkan Teper in March 2015. Their fight was turgid, honest (although Teper did have a point deducted for pushing) and in no way controversial; cards of 116-111 twice and 115-112 in favor of Teper were a fair reflection of the contest.

Maybe, at the absolute limits of what is acceptable, Teper could have reasonably have been favored with a shot at Wilder’s trinket, especially after his next fight, a two round battering of David Price. But it was Duhaupas , the loser of that contest that would get to meet Deontay.

Welcome to Wilder territory.

Between Teper and his title match, Duhaupas was able to put a veneer of respectability on his shot with a narrow majority decision victory over Manuel Charr. Charr was a legitimate opponent and I thought Duhaupas handled him reasonably well, especially early, edging away and walking his opponent onto a decent jab, lobbing in the occasional ill-directed right when he felt it was safe to do so.

Still, once again, Charr was not a ranked opponent; he was a gatekeeper, the type of fighter whose defeat would open up for the victor a fight with a ranked opponent, the defeat of whom might in turn open up an elimination bout against a top contender. Not in this instance. In this instance, a loss to a novice and a hairline victory over a gatekeeper got Duhaupas into a ring with Wilder.

It wasn’t pretty.

Who should he have fought instead? Carlos Takam, ranked six.

ARTUR SZPILKA (20-1), 3^rd Defense, January 2016.

Artur Szpilka is my favorite Deontay Wilder opponent and I will go so far as to say that had Wilder fought a ranked man in September, this would have been a reasonable outing in January.

Szpilka was a quick southpaw who made up for his dearth in reach with a shifting style and good arbitrary head movement. The problem with his status as a title-challenger, aside from an absence of a top ten ranking, was his defeat two years earlier to Wilder’s chief domestic rival Bryant Jennings. Jennings had taken the high road to Wilder’s low road, crashing himself upon the rock that was Wladimir Klitschko where Wilder preferred the weakest of the available “champions” in Stiverne; fair to say, Jennings paid for his bravery, never being quite the same again after his meeting with Doctor Steelhammer. Against Szpilka, though, Jennings had looked excellent, winning nearly every round on his way to a stoppage victory in the tenth.

Szpilka’s return was not the preferred route of prospective Wilder title-challengers though, and he even found time to defeat a legitimately ranked opponent in Tomasz Adamek. His first two opponents of 2015 were more in keeping with those favored by Wilder’s challenges in Ty Cobb (18-6) and Manuel Quezada (29-9 and on a five fight losing streak) and these victories, combined with a two round victory over Yasmany Consuegra who blew out his knee in the second were good enough to make the match with Wilder.

It is worth keeping in mind that this bizarre combination of opposition likely made Szpilka Wilder’s most legitimate opponent. Unsurprisingly it therefore made for his best match, too, as well as his key learning fight. Szpilka’s style made Wilder a little uncomfortable and the Pole won several rounds before Wilder closed the blinds in what remains, for me, his most impressive knockout.

Who should he have fought instead? Szpilka’s first conqueror, Bryant Jennings, ranked ten.

CHRIS ARREOLA (36-4-1), 4^th Defense, July 2016.

Wilder’s fourth defense against Chris Arreola was probably his most cynical. Arreola had name recognition to recommend him and little else. A perfectly reasonable opponent for a young prospect, he was no more a legitimate title challenger than I am, having recorded two wins in his previous six contests.

This underlines the problem with handing out baubles to fighters who are not yet ready to properly defend them: it takes a devalued property and gives it to a fighter who will happily devalue it further while making money.

After that one round blowout of Molina, Arreola matched Bermane Stiverne and was somehow installed as a prohibitive favorite. Stiverne promptly broke his nose and pounded out a decision win. Arreola saved himself from a descent into obscurity with another first round knockout, this time over Seth Mitchell, but the taste of that Stiverne defeat would not go away and he demanded and received a rematch. This time he was stopped in six. Arreola then fought a really fun fight with an unknown called Curtis Harper, earning himself an eight round decision and a short reprieve from obscurity, but much of this work was undone when he found himself on the lucky end of a ten round draw with Fred Kassi.

Then Arreola met Travis Kauffman.

Kauffman was exactly the sort of opponent Arreola should have been meeting at that point in his career. Kauffman had just moved on from facing professional losers with records like 10-21 or 19-22-3 and on to genuine tests, fighters who were coming to win but might not be expected to for whatever reason – in short, Arreola was now a trial horse. To give him his due, he got himself in shape for Kauffman, but was caught with a crackling up and down combination in the third and dropped. Drawing upon all his experience he forced Kauffman into the type of tough combat often seen in the netherworld where busted flushes show against drawing hands and with both men exhausted down the stretch he made it close – two cards reading 114-113 in his favor bought him the split, though my card read the same as the odd judge, who saw it by the same score in the other direction.

Regardless, the fight was changed to a No Contest after Arreola failed another drug test.

Of course he got a fight with Wilder.

Who should he have fought instead? Anyone.

GERALD WASHINGTON (18-0-1), 5^th Defense, February 2017.

At the time of his meeting with Gerald Washington, Wilder was ranked the number four heavyweight in the world and was heralded the world champion by the WBC. Gerald Washington was a prospect. A prospect in his mid-thirties, so a prospect in a rush, but a prospect none the less.

Washington’s three-pronged arrival in 2015/16 heralded a fighter of no little talent who carried all the foibles any heavy of his inexperience can be expected to exhibit. Against the sawn-off aggressor Amir Mansour he looked genuinely excellent early before floundering against his more seasoned opponent down the stretch. He was lucky, in my view, to escape with the split draw the judges found for him but it was an excellent learning fight for a man who at a lean 250lbs looked the part.

Next up was a true veteran in Eddie Chambers. Here, I thought Washington was probably good for his eight round decision win but it was bizarre to watch a man with such a pronounced size advantage work so hard to avoid exchanges. More bizarre still was the huge number of punches both men missed. It is rare that such inaccuracy is televised.

I’ve never seen him beat up the bloated ghost of the fighter who had once been Ray Austin but that was the shambolic elimination for his meeting with Deontay Wilder. Wilder staged a predictably one-sided blow-out over five.

Who should he have fought instead? Dillian Whyte (10), Christian Hammer (9), Andy Ruiz (8) or Kubrat Pulev (6).

BERMANE STIVERNE (25-2-1), 6^th Defense, November 2017.

To be fair to Wilder, Bermane Stiverne was a substitute opponent for Luis Ortiz, who failed a drug test. It is also fair to point out that when Wilder’s British counterpart Anthony Joshua lost his opponent, world number six contender Kubrat Pulev on short notice, he substituted world number seven contender Carlos Takam.

That, as they say, is how it’s done.

It is also worth pointing out that Stiverne was due to fight on the Wilder-Ortiz undercard with a view to stoking and then staging the rematch nobody wanted to see early next year anyway. While that percolates, consider, too, that Stiverne had somehow remained a WBC top contender despite the fact that he has fought only once in the three years since Wilder pounded out a wide, dull decision over him. He fought 30-10 Audley Harrison victim Derric Rossy and was extended the full ten rounds.

Stiverne, like all these opponents, did nothing to earn a ranking on a reasoned, independent organization’s top ten at heavyweight. All of them were deeply, deeply flawed as title opponents. It is true that Wilder has been unlucky in cornering quality opposition, but it is also true that he is the number two draw in heavyweight boxing and if his representatives want to get low-key quality opposition to America to test him, it is just a matter of paying.

If they prefer to corner fan dollars while lining up victims, that is their choice and as a road to riches it is as tried and tested as fighting the best. But what must be remembered, as negotiations begin in earnest for the Joshua-Wilder showdown this coming year, is that this policy has left Joshua’s people with far and away the stronger hand.

It is Joshua who has bested by far the better opposition. He has beaten four ranked men in his 20 fights – Charles Martin (9), Dominic Breazeale (9), Wladimir Klitschko (1) and Carlos Takam (7) – while Wilder has managed one in his 39 (Bermane Stiverne; 6).

In matters not unrelated, Joshua is commanding purses between $13m and $19m while Wilder cleared as little as $1.4m dollars for his most recent contest.

To be clear, Wilder’s call for a 50/50 split in any fight between the two is ridiculous at best and dishonest at worst; it is likely that if Wilder is assigned 25% of the take (and he will, and should, get more) then it will represent a payday in wild excess of anything he has ever earned.

There’s no fooling boxing. One way or the other you get what you deserve.

Photo credit: Amanda Westcott

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Matt McGrain

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Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-Paul and ‘Boots’ Ennis

Published

39 mins ago

November 21, 2024

Luis A. Cortes III

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Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured with his friend and training partner Joey Dawejko).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way. So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

—

Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.” What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

Published

2 days ago

November 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era. Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

—

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

—

Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

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The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

Published

4 days ago

November 17, 2024

Thomas Hauser

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Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

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Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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