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Wladimir Klitschko’s Astounding Comeback

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George Foreman fashioned the most noteworthy comeback in boxing – perhaps in all of sports – when he returned after a 10-year absence and went on to regain the world heavyweight title. But Wladimir Klitschko also forged a remarkable comeback. The difference is that he did it without ever saying goodbye. There was no interregnum in his timeline; no second act.

Now that his career has come fully into focus, it’s plain that Klitschko will follow in the footsteps of his older brother and enter the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. And it’s easy to forget that there was a time when many pundits thought he was something of a tomato can.

Former Las Vegas Review-Journal sports editor Joe Hawk said this about Klitschko following his loss to Lamon Brewster: “Wladimir Klitschko joins the likes of John Ruiz and David Tua as purported boxers who should never again have their names appear on a sports page. We should’ve known about Klitschko, though. The Ukrainian-to-English converter on our computer says his full name translates to ‘Big Slow Stiff With Glass Chin.’” Associated Press sports columnist Tim Dahlberg was less snarky, but basically echoed that sentiment: “Wladimir Klitschko better get used to working in his brother’s corner during fights,” said Dahlberg in 2005. “It might be the only future he has left in boxing.”

Although he was reportedly 134-6 as an amateur and won a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics, Wladimir Klitschko (henceforth WK) wasn’t highly thought-of when he turned pro. He had two strikes against him. He didn’t look like a future heavyweight champion. The last lineal heavyweight champion that shared his pigmentation was one-trick pony Ingemar Johansson who captured the title in 1959 which was back in the Stone Age in the eyes of some young sportswriters. And WK was European, hailing from a part of the world once lampooned as the land of horizontal heavyweights.

And then, while he was still something of a mystery fighter, WK’s reputation was stained by losses to three fighters dismissed as second-raters: Ross Puritty, Corrie Sanders, and Lamon Brewster. Each of those fights ended inside the distance. Against Puritty and Brewster, WK simply ran out of gas. He was leading both fights comfortably on the scorecards. Against Sanders, who knocked him out clean in the second round, he simply forgot to duck.

Let’s look a little more closely at those three fights.

Ross Puritty could fairly be classified as a journeyman, but his record (24-13-1 going in) was very deceiving. The former UTEP defensive lineman had gone the distance with future heavyweight title-holder Chris Byrd, had knocked out former heavyweight title challengers Joe Hipp and Jose Luis Gonzalez, and had boxed a draw with fearsome Tommy Morrison…all this despite a very limited amateur background.

WK fought Puritty on Dec. 5, 1998, in Kiev. The match was assembled in a hurry. Wladimir had fought three weeks earlier and this was his ninth start of the year. The bout was for a minor title so it was scheduled for 12 rounds rather than ten. When the big Ukrainian fell in the 10th round, it was from sheer exhaustion. His corner stopped the fight moments into the 11th.

The fight wasn’t big news in the U.S., warranting only a paragraph or two in most papers. What most took from the story was simply that another undefeated European heavyweight had been exposed by an American boxer. Ho hum; what else is new?

WK won 16 straight after this mishap. During this skein he won the WBO title, outpointing Chris Byrd, and successfully defended it six times. But the WBO, the newest of the four major sanctioning bodies, had little cachet. Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield ruled other roosts and were considered more legitimate.

In his title-winning match against Byrd, WK went to post the favorite, but only because he was the bigger man. The presumption was that if the fight went the full 12, Byrd, a slick southpaw, might steal the decision.

Hardly anyone out-boxed Chris Byrd, but WK put on the clinic, pitching a near-shutout. In fact, one of the judges did award Wladimir every round. He didn’t merely out-box Byrd, he punished him. When the fight was over, one of Byrd’s eyes was completely closed and the other was barely half-open. But the fight was held in Cologne, Germany, and didn’t receive the media attention it would have received if it had been held in the United States.

WK’s WBO title reign ended with a loud thud in Hanover, Germany, when he was annihilated by the aforementioned Sanders, a 37-year-old South African who boasted a 38-2 record but whose best sport was actually golf. With 33 seconds remaining in the opening stanza, Sanders, a southpaw, caught WK napping and put him on the canvas. Three more knockdowns would follow before the bout was stopped in the following round, but the other knockdowns were extensions of the first. And then, three fights later, Waldimir suffered another mortifying defeat, this coming at the hands of Lamon Brewster.

The Brewster fight was a repeat of WK’s match with Ross Puritty, only shorter. Wladimir won the first four rounds on all three scorecards. Brewster barely made it back to his corner at the end of the fourth. But then WK suffered a mysterious meltdown. He was knocked down twice in the fifth, the second coming just as the bell sounded to end the round. Ascertaining that he was in no condition to continue, even with a 60-second respite, referee Robert Byrd waived the fight off.

Wladimir was of the opinion that he had been drugged and, according to one post-fight story, his blood sugar level was discovered to be abnormally high. But when his attorney went to the press and demanded an investigation, important boxing writers, in the main, dismissed it as sour grapes. Where once they had questioned his chin, they now questioned his chin and his heart and his integrity.

Having been upset twice in a span of four fights, WK had a lot of making up to do to win back the affection of his fans and the respect of the media. Seventeen months after his loss to Brewster, with two more fights under his belt, he dispelled any questions about his heart, rallying to defeat Samuel Peter in a match in which he suffered three knockdowns. Wladimir was in distress in round five and again in round 10, but he won the last two rounds and prevailed by three points on all three scorecards.

Peter, a New Jersey-based Nigerian, trained by future Hall of Famer Lou Duva, was undefeated coming in with 22 knockouts among his 24 wins. With the fight being staged at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, he was chalked the favorite – the only time that WK was cast in an underdog role by the bookies until the final fight of his career.

The victory set up a rematch with Chris Byrd who now owned the IBF title. The second meeting was a carbon of the first through the first six rounds, but this time Byrd wouldn’t still be standing at the final bell. WK finished him off with a right hook in the seventh.

WK’s second world title reign lasted nine years and seven months. During his tenure he made 18 successful defenses and acquired the other two meaningful belts. He avenged his loss to Brewster (TKO 6), repeated his triumph over Samuel Peter (KO 10), comprehensively out-boxed former unified cruiserweight champion David Haye and, in a match between two former Olympic gold medalists, thoroughly outclassed previously undefeated Alexander Povetkin (that’s Povetkin eating a left hook in the photo).

WK would have pitched a shutout if not for having a point deducted after shoving Povetkin to the canvas. As it was, he won by 15 points on all three cards. The fight, however, was a stinker and there were precedents for it.

Wladimir was too dominant during his title reign. When he won lopsidedly, as was usually the case, it was said that he was too robotic. And the emphasis shifted away from him to his opponent who was seen as just another mediocrity plumbed from the wreckage of a weak division.

Yes, the heavyweight division was inferior relative to the days of Ali and Frazier and the young George Foreman. However, that was the Golden Era of Heavyweights and WK’s opposition stands up fairly well when juxtaposed against the heavyweight class of other eras. Overall, he opposed a more worthy cast of challengers than Joe Louis who was carefully steered away from good black fighters until he was deep into his 13-year title reign.

Klitschko vs. Povetkin was marred by excessive clinching. In hindsight it was precursor of the match that marked the end of WK’s title reign, his November of 2015 contest with Tyson Fury in Dusseldorf. That was an ugly fight, a poor effort by both contestants, although a few pixilated British scribes credited Fury with painting a masterpiece.

There was a rematch clause that to Wladimir’s dismay was never activated. If Tyson Fury had been fit to honor it, perhaps WK would have left the sport on a winning note. But from the standpoint of his legacy, perhaps it was better that his career ended as it did.

His farewell fight with young gun Anthony Joshua was a see-saw thriller contested under a clear sky before a great multitude at London’s venerated Wembley Stadium. And when it was over, folks that previously knocked him were forced to concede that he may have actually been pretty darn good. He was still pretty good, just not good enough to overcome Anthony Joshua but by then he was 41 years old!

If I were to ask you if WK ranked among the greatest heavyweights of all time, you should take that as a rhetorical question. Wladimir Klitschko was special.

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The Hauser Report: What’s Going On With Premier Boxing Champions?

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Eight years ago, Al Haymon unveiled what many thought would be the future of boxing. The boxing community had been awash in rumors for months. Haymon was amassing a war chest totaling hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of a venture capital fund in an effort to take over the sport . . . Haymon was signing hundreds of fighters to managerial and advisory contracts . . . Haymon was planning some sort of TV series . . . Time-buys on multiple networks for an entity called Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) were confirmed.

On March 7, 2015, Haymon began the rollout of his plan when NBC televised the inaugural PBC offering – a fight card featuring Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner in separate bouts. Free boxing. On network television.

But the plan fell short of expectations. Advertisers didn’t come onboard. DAZN and then Saudi Arabia became the flavor of the month. Now PBC is seeking to reassert itself through an alliance with Amazon. The first “PBC on Prime Video” offering will be a pay-per-view event on March 30 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But PBC isn’t the power it once was. No one talks about Al Haymon taking over boxing anymore.

Amazon will distribute the PBC show. It wants to build a live pay-per-view platform for multiple events, and this is an early foray into that realm. It has no interest in playing the sort of role that HBO and Showtime played in boxing. Amazon (like In Demand) will take and distribute the product it’s given.

The PBC pay-per-view events that are streamed on Prime Video will also be available to viewers through other streaming platforms like PPV.com as well as linear-TV cable and satellite PPV distributors.

In addition, Prime Video has said that it will stream a series of “free” (with a subscription to Amazon Prime) PBC Championship Boxing events in the United States and other designated countries on an exclusive basis.

The degree to which Amazon will provide a marketing push for PBC’s shows is unclear at the present time.

Four fights will be on the March 30 PPV stream. The main event was to have matched Keith Thurman vs. Tim Tszyu. Eight years ago when he headlined PBC’s inaugural telecast on NBC, Thurman was young and fresh. Now he’s 35 years old and has won only one fight in the preceding five years (a ten-round decision over Mario Barrios). Tszyu (the son of Kostya Tszyu) was eased into the WBO 154-pound title through an “interim” portal and is being groomed for a big-money fight down the road.

Then, earlier today (March 18), it was reported that Thurman had been injured in training camp and Sebastian Fundora (who’d been slated to fight Serheii Bohachuk on the undercard) will likely face Tszyu. Fundora was speeding along a fast track until his most recent fight which saw him pitching a shutout against Brian Mendoza when a one-punch knockout in round seven derailed his dream.

Sebastian Fundora

Sebastian Fundora

The primary supporting bouts on the pay-per-view stream are expected to be Erislandy Lara vs. Michael Zerafa and Rolly Romero vs. Isaac Cruz.

Lara is forty years old. During the past five years, he has fought Ramon Alvarez, Greg Vendetti, Thomas LaManna, and Gary O’Sullivan (which somehow enabled him to claim the WBA 160-pound belt). Zerafa’s primary qualification seems to be that (like Tszyu) he’s from Australia.

Romero is a tiresome loudmouth who often fails to back up his talk. He was knocked out by Gervonta Davis and was trailing Ismael Barroso on all three judges’ scorecards when a premature stoppage by referee Tony Weeks gifted him the WBA 140-pound belt. Cruz went the distance in a losing effort against Davis.

Former Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza has been consulted with regard to production on the March 30 PPV stream. As of this writing, the commentating team hasn’t been announced (which is odd since the event is less than two weeks away).

Meanwhile, the rest of the sports landscape is rapidly changing.

On January 23, it was announced that Netflix (Prime Video’s most formidable competitor with 247 million subscribers) had signed a deal to stream WWE’s flagship wrestling show – Raw. The ten-year deal will cost Netflix roughly five billion dollars. Netflix can opt out of the deal after five years or, if it chooses, extend it for another ten years.

Then, on March 7, Netflix furthered its commitment to “trash sports” when it announced that Mike Tyson and Jake Paul will meet in the ring in Texas on July 20 in an encounter to be streamed live on Netflix. It’s unclear whether the encounter will be a “fight” or a glorified sparring session.

Adding to the mix; Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers announced on February 6 that they will launch a joint subscription streaming service later this year that will bundle sports content from ESPN and affiliated networks (such as ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS), the Warner Brothers’ Discovery networks that showcase sports (TNT, TBS, TruTV), and Fox (the Fox broadcast network in addition to FS1, FS2 and BTN).

But back to PBC on Prime Video. If the March 30 fight card were streamed as part of the Amazon Prime membership package, it would be a plus for boxing fans. But it won’t be. It’s a pay-per-view event. And even before Thurman’s injury, it wasn’t pay-per-view-worthy as that term was once understood.

You get only one chance to make a first impression. This isn’t a good first impression for PBC on Prime Video.

***

On December 17, I posted a column in which I urged that Gerry Cooney and Cedric Kushner be included on the ballot for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There’s another, more obvious omission that I’d like to address.

Al Haymon has been at the center of the boxing universe for two decades. He built his power through a series of alliances with HBO (his point person was Kery Davis), Golden Boy (Richard Schaefer), and investors (Waddell & Reed) and maintained it through dealings with Showtime (Stephen Espinoza) and various other networks. There were times when it seemed as though he was on the verge of “taking over boxing.” Now Saudi Arabian oil money is the dominant force. But Haymon is breaking new ground through an association between Premier Boxing Champions and Amazon Video.

Haymon likes to style himself as an “advisor” or “manager.” In reality, he functions as a promoter. But labels are irrelevant. The bottom line is that no one has had a greater influence on boxing over the past twenty years than Al Haymon. He belongs in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and the first step toward that end is to put his name on the ballot for induction.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book — “MY MOTHER and me” — is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press this spring and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. https://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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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

Tomorrow (Monday) is a national holiday in Ireland which is always the case whenever Saint Patrick’s Day happens to fall on a Sunday. That explains why today’s fight card in the County Mayo town of Castlebar is being staged on a Sunday. After the show, the attendees with regular jobs can stay up late quaffing down a few pints at their favorite pub knowing they can sleep-in tomorrow. (And they likely needed a few pints to wash away the pain of paying good money to see this craphole show.)

All of the A-Side fighters were Irishmen including the headliner Dillian Whyte, a Londoner of Jamaican extraction who claims that one of his grandparents was born in Ireland. The “Body Snatcher” was matched against German-Romanian slug Christian Hammer.

Whyte, who turns 36 next month, last fought in November of 2022 when he won a lackluster decision over Jermaine Franklin. His rematch with Anthony Joshua in August of last year fell out when an “adverse analytical finding” turned up in his VADA test. Whyte bellowed loudly that he was innocent, but there was the presumption of guilt because he had served a two-year ban for illegal substances earlier in his career. But lo and behold, in a curious development, Whyte was cleared this month when a forensics expert associated with the Texas Boxing Commission asserted that the adverse result was caused by a nutritional supplement that contained a contaminent that wasn’t disclosed on the supplement’s list of ingredients. (Whyte was training in the United States and licensed to fight in Texas when the random drug test was administered.)

Hammer brought a 27-10 (17) record but had been stopped five times, most recently by Joe Joyce who blew him away in four rounds. He was in Castlebar just for the payday and retired on his stool after three frames. He was never down in the fight, but was tattooed with a bunch of punches on his flabby midsection. (The weights were not announced.)

With the win, Dillian Whyte advanced his record to 30-3 (20 KOs). More relevantly, he is back in the mix in the heavyweight picture. His American trainer Buddy McGirt hopes to have him back in the ring in a couple of months.

Other Bouts of Note

Roy Moylette, a 33-year-old junior welterweight from the nearby town of Islandeady, made the locals happy when he got off the deck to win the decision in an 8-round bout with Argentine journeyman Requen Facundo (17-15-2). Moylette (14-2-1) entered the pro ranks with a wealth of international amateur experience, but his pro career never took off. Heading into this match, he announced it would be his farewell fight.

The Argentine, a late sub who had begun his pro career as a featherweight, had Moylette on the canvas in the second round but couldn’t sustain the momentum. The referee, who had the unusual but unmistakably Irish name of Padraig O’Reachtagain, scored it 76-75.

In what was likely his final pro fight, 39-year-old Cork super middleweight Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan left on a downbeat note, losing an 8-round decision to Sofiane Khati. O’Reachtagain had it 77-76 for the outsider.

O’Sullivan (31-6, 21 KOs) will be remembered as the Irishman who wore a handlebar mustache during his fighting days in Boston, a look that harked to John L. Sullivan who Spike believed to be a distant relative. In his previous bout in May of 2022 he was stopped in eight frames by Erislandy Lara in Brooklyn, his fourth setback inside the distance and third in his last six.

A 31-year-old French-Algerian, Khati improved to 15-4 (5).

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Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: ‘The Blue Corner’

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Boxing, like all sports, is more fun to watch when the viewer has a rooting interest. That interest can spring from a variety of factors. Some people like or dislike a particular fighter on a personal level. Others – let’s be honest – root for or against a fighter based on ethnicity.

If I don’t know either of the fighters in a fight, I root for the underdog.

That can be dispiriting. Too many fight cards today consist largely of A-side vs. B-side fights. As a general rule, the A-side fighter comes out of the red corner and the B-side fighter is seated in the blue corner. Upsets are few and far between.

Tom Loeffler’s March 15 fight card at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater is a case in point. There are underdogs and then there are hopeless underdogs. I went to the fights hoping something that wasn’t supposed to happen would happen. But a look at the opponents’ records told me that was unlikely.

BoxRec.com is a wonderful tool for scoping out how competitive a fight is likely to be. Here’s what I learned from BoxRec.com before the fights and how things unfolded in the ring.

Fight #1: Giovanni Scuderi (9-0, 4 KOs) vs. Brandon Carmack – Scuderi’s last opponent had 57 losses. And that opponent might have beaten Carmack. I’m sure Brandon could decimate most people in a bar fight. But he lumbered around the ring like a heavybag with feet. Scuderi telegraphs every righthand he throws. But he has a basic jab. The match had the appearance of a picador sticking lances into a slow sluggish bull. W4 for Scuderi.

Fight #2: Nisa Rodriguez (0-0) vs. Jozette Cotton – Rodriguez is a 33-year-old New York City police officer with an extensive amateur background who was making her pro debut. Cotton was winless in four pro fights. Rodriguez fought tentatively. Cotton had a roll of flab around her waist (which spoke to her conditioning) and fought like she didn’t know how to box. W4 for Rodriguez.

Fight #3 Joseph Ward (10-1, 6 KOs) vs. Derrick Webster – Webster is 41 years old and has now won one of six fights since 2018. KO 2 for Ward.

Fight #4: Reshat Mati (14-0, 8 KOs) vs. Irving Macias – Macias has lost three of his last four fights, and the guy he beat during that stretch has 19 losses (including his last seven fights in a row). W8 for Mati.

Fight #5: Cletus Seldin (27-1, 23 KOs) vs. Jose Angulo – Angulo has lost six of his last eight fights, including four KOs by. W8 for Seldin, Here, I should note that, after the fight, Seldin took the ring announcer’s microphone, dropped to one knee, opened a small box containing a diamond engagement ring, and asked one Jessica Ostrowski to marry him. The future Mrs. Seldin (who was clad in black leather) said yes, and the happy couple paraded around the ring together.

Fight #6: Feargal McCrory (15-0, 7 KOs) vs. Carlos Carlson –  Carlson has had ten fights since 2016 and lost seven of them. The three guys he beat during that stretch have 92 losses between them. And he hadn’t fought in more than two years. Referee David Fields did the fans a favor by stopping the bout prematurely in round three. If Carlson had fought as vigorously during the fight as he complained about the stoppage afterward, it would have been a better fight.

Fight #7: The main event matched Callum Walsh (9-0, 7 KOs) against Dauren Yeleussinov. Walsh is a 23-year-old junior-middleweight who UFC CEO Dana White is trying to build as a boxing version of Conor McGregor. Yeleussinov has lost three of his last four fights (including a first-round KO by). And the opponent Dauren beat during that stretch has 22 losses (including a current losing streak of 19 a row). Yeleussinov was tailor-made for Walsh – slow on his feet with slow hands and not much of a punch. Callum got off first all night. KO 9.

In six of the seven fights, the underdog lost every round.

I’m tired of fighters who talk tough and posture at press conferences but won’t fight an opponent who’s remotely competitive. And yes; I know that prospects can’t go in tough every time out. But a prospect’s opponent should pose some kind of challenge.

And let’s be honest; most of the fighters on the March 15 card were there because they were local ticket-sellers, not prospects. Only Walsh has world-class potential. He’s 23 years old with skills and is getting better. Right now, he’s a very good club fighter. Let’s see if he becomes something more.

*        *        *

One moment from promoter Larry Goldberg’s March 7 club-fight card at Sony Hall in New York stands out in my mind.

In the second fight of the evening, Jason Castanon and Luis Rivera-Reyes squared off against one another in a scheduled four-round junior-welterweight bout. Each man was making his pro debut. Castanon’s opponent had pulled out the previous week, leaving matchmaker Eric Bottjer scrambling for a new opponent. Rivera-Reyes had been scheduled to fight on the undercard of a show in Puerto Rico but his opponent had also fallen out, so he was available.

Bottjer thought that Castanon vs. Rivera-Reyes would be a competitive fight. Each man was old for a boxer making his pro debut. Castano is 30; Rivera-Reyes is 35. But they had comparable amateur backgrounds.

Rivera-Reyes held his own in round one. But Castanon was the stronger, better-schooled fighter. In round two, Luis started getting beaten up. The punishment mounted in round three. Rivera-Reyes was still trying to win but it was a futile effort. With seconds left in the third stanza, a righthand staggered Luis and a second righthand put him down hard. He rose through an incredible act of will because that’s what real fighters do. But he was badly hurt and on wobbly legs. Referee Eddie Claudio asked if he wanted to continue.

Rivera-Reyes shook his head. No.

Afterward, an uncharitable observer said that Luis “quit.”

I think that Luis acted with honor. Sitting several feet from the ring, I had a perfect view of the pain and despair etched on his face as he confronted the reality that he was a beaten man. He didn’t jump to his feet at the count of ten-and-a-half, pretending that he was ready to keep fighting. He didn’t ignore the referee’s question and feign outrage when the fight was stopped. He acknowledged that he had given his all and was beaten. Fighters aren’t video-game figures. They get hurt. And sometimes they just can’t take anymore.

The moment reminded me of the 1983 rematch between Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor. Pryor had won their classic first encounter with a brutal knockout that left Arguello unconscious on the ring canvas. In round ten of Pryor-Arguello II, Alexis found himself on the canvas again. He was a warrior, one of the greatest fighters of all time. He could have gotten up. But he didn’t. He had done the best he could and realized that it was over. He sat with tears streaming down his face and later acknowledged. “It’s hard to accept, but it’s good to accept. I did it with grace and just accepted that the guy beat me. Even though I did my best, in the tenth round I accepted it right there. I said, ‘This is too much. I won’t take it. I‘ll just sit and watch Richard Steele count to ten.'”The look in Luis Rivera-Reyes’s eyes when he shook his head will stay with me for a long time. He had been beaten into submission in his first pro fight. And I wondered, how long will he hold onto the dream.

*          *          *

A nod to “March Madness” which begins this week . . .

College basketball has a problem – court storming.

It’s now in vogue for fans of the home team to surge onto the court after a big win. Tearing down the goal posts in football endangers fans who are tearing down the goal posts. Court storming endangers the players.

On January 21, Caitlin Clark (Iowa’s superstar guard) was knocked to the floor when Ohio State fans stormed the court after a big win.

On February 24, Kyle Fitzpatrick (Duke’s All-American center) injured his knee when Wake Forest fans stormed the court after a dramatic upset.

To date, the NCAA has done nothing about the problem. Several conferences have taken action on their own, the most notable example being the SEC which instituted an escalating fine that begins at $100,000 for the first incident. By contrast, the ACC has no penalty for court-storming; the Big Ten has no penalty until the third incident; and the Big East penalizes offending schools the paltry sum of $5,000.

It shouldn’t be hard to end court storming.

The NCAA should institute a rule – and fans should be advised late in each contest – that court storming will result in forfeiture of the game.

***

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press on April 2 and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.https://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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