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Morilla’s Spit Bucket – Devon Back on the Beam, Bombastic Tyson Fury and More
The Spit Bucket is your weekly source of random thoughts, opinions and comments about the Manly Art, compiled by TSS boxing writer Diego Morilla. Make your suggestions and comments and dare to give us your own short commentary on this week’s boxing issues by sending us an email at diegomorillabox@hotmail.com .
Alexander Overcomes His Addiction First, Then Castillo
In a fight that took place on Tuesday, Nov. 21 in St. Petersburg, Florida, former two division champion Devon “The Great” Alexander produced a throwback performance against Nicaragua’s Walter Castillo in what turned out to be a 10-round one-sided pummeling, worthy of Alexander’s best years, back when he was on a short list of future pound-for-pound entrants and considered one of boxing’s finest.
But things went awry for Alexander (pictured on the left) starting in Dec. 2012 when he lost to Shawn Porter to start a 1-3 streak over the next two years before disappearing from the scene. We now know that Alexander was battling an opiod addiction during the long layoff before his Castillo fight, and it is nothing short of amazing to see him return in full force after such a potentially devastating situation. Thousands of people die in cheap inflatable water slides the United States every year from this epidemic, and yet Alexander not only overcame his addiction but he also recovered well enough to steer his career back towards the promise of “greatness” embedded in his nickname. Castillo is no measuring stick in that quest, that’s clear, but the signs are encouraging, and now the talent-rich welterweight division has one more contender to include in its championship brackets.
Tyson Fury
Like him or loathe him, Tyson Fury is one of the most interesting characters in sports. And for a fellow who hasn’t fought in two years, he sure knows how to keep his name in the news. The self-styled “Gypsy King,” who is 29 and looks 39, is the best showman to come down the pike since the young Muhammad Ali.
Fury jumped at the opportunity to challenge Tony Bellew when Bellew’s Dec. 17 fight with David Haye fell out. Fury offered to fight Bellew in May after he sheds six stone, the equivalent of 84 (!) pounds. Goodness that’s a lot of weight to lose, even if it’s distributed over a six-foot-nine frame.
“It’d be no contest,” he tweeted, “one uppercut.” After destroying Bellew, Fury said he would offer Bellew’s trainer a job holding his spit bucket. As for the current crop of heavyweight title-holders, Fury dismisses them as a “bunch of bums.”
Fury is back in training, but whether we see ever him in the ring again is questionable. In October of last year, after he pulled out of his rematch with Wladimir Klitschko for a second time, conceding he wasn’t fit to fight, Frank Lotierzo wrote, “Fury just doesn’t want to be a fighter any longer. It is as simple as that. He achieved his career goal and the thought of putting himself through the agony and torture he had to endure to get the title is overwhelming him.”
History informs us that Fury will inevitably return, even if his heart isn’t in it. It’s a simple matter of economics. The great baseball pitcher Sandy Koufax, who retired at age 31, once said that he miscalculated. He retired with enough money to last the rest of his life, but found out this was only true if he stopped spending. — Arne K. Lang
Dueling Fight Cards Reflect Poorly on Oscar
HBO has an attractive card on Saturday, Dec. 9. The fight between Orlando Salido and Miguel Roman shapes up as a barnburner and there are several other intriguing bouts on the TV portion of the show. But the timing is terrible.
The HBO card goes head-to-head with the Top Rank card in New York which will attract a much larger audience on ESPN. The undercard on that show is junk, but the main go between Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux is far more compelling than all of the HBO fights wrapped into one.
The HBO show is co-promoted by Golden Boy which arranged most of the matches. It wasn’t long ago that Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya was throwing venom at Floyd Mayweather and his collaborators at Showtime for stealing his thunder. Oscar had already locked in a big show at the StubHub Center when the Mayweather-McGregor fight was potted on the same date. Oscar was understandably livid. But here he goes trying to wean some of the audience away from a show that was set in stone before he and his cohorts concocted an alternative.
Oh well, better too much boxing than too little. And we can always tape the HBO show for future viewing. — Arne K. Lang
We Haven’t Seen Mayweather’s Best Hand Yet
Even before his retirement, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has managed to exploit his name as a brand in many other ventures. Notably, he had a cringe-worthy participation in Wrestlemania against the towering Big Show in a multi-million dollar appearance, he opened a “gentleman’s club” in Las Vegas (don’t ask me how I know this, but word in the streets is that cab and Uber drivers have had to google the location of the venue at the request of certain boxing observers interested exclusively in the journalistic and anthropological value of visiting such a place) and his TMT brand merchandise is among the most heavily counterfeited sports merchandise brands in the Western Hemisphere.
Now, Mayweather is trying his hand at something different. Literally.
It was recently announced that a company called One Entertainment announced a deal between Playtrex (developer of social casino games) and Hero Digital Entertainment (mobile games publisher) that will make Floyd Mayweather a “virtual host” and participant of their mobile game called Wild Poker, in which “Money” will be prominently featured among virtual players who take the form of wild animals and play the game according to their real life features. If you choose to be a shark, you will be an aggressive predator in your poker hands, and so forth. If the players chooses Mayweather as their avatars, they will be able to take advantage of Mayweather’s special skills in the game and use them in a poker context.
And if this doesn’t fit your idea of finally fulfilling your dream of getting in the ring with Mayweather, fret not, for there are options for you too. Mayweather is planning to launch a gym franchise all over the US and presumably abroad as well, with the first Mayweather Boxing + Fitness facility set to open in the Los Angeles area in January.
Photo credit: Douglas DeFelice / Premier Boxing Champions
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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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