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Thomas Hauser and Others Remember Dave Wolf at 75

This week marks a bittersweet milestone. Dave Wolf would have been 75 years old on August 24.
Dave died ten years ago, on December 23, 2008. As I wrote at the time, he was passive-aggressive, anti-social, and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He also did as good a job of managing Ray Mancini as any manager ever did for a fighter and performed managerial magic on other occasions for the likes of Donny Lalonde, Duane Bobick, Lonnie Bradley, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, and Donnie Poole.
The legendary Jimmy Cannon once wrote, “The fight manager wouldn’t defend his mother. He has been a coward in all the important matters of his life. He has cheated many people but he describes himself as a legitimate guy at every opportunity.”
Dave was the antithesis of that. His first question was always “What’s best for the fighter?” rather than “What’s best for me?”
He had as full an appreciation of boxing and its traditions as any person I’ve known. Beneath his gruff exterior, there was a warmth about him that led to his being embraced by those who knew him best. And he’s assured a slice of immortality because of his accomplishments in the sweet science and as the author of Foul: The Connie Hawkins Story, one of the best books ever written about basketball.
Recently, I asked some people who knew him what comes to mind when they think about him today.
Jon Wolf was Dave’s brother.
Gina Andriolo met Dave in the 1970s while she was working for a small newspaper in Brooklyn. Later, she represented Dave as his attorney. Eight years after they met, they were married. They separated after four years of marriage.
Toby Falk and Dave were high school sweethearts. Decades later, they reunited and lived together in Dave’s apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan from 1989 until his death in 2008.
Teddy Atlas trained two of Dave’s fighters, Donny Lalonde and Donnie Poole.
Ray Mancini was Dave’s signature fighter.
Ray Leonard fought Donny Lalonde, another of Dave’s fighters.
Seth Abraham and Lou DiBella knew Dave in their capacity as executives at HBO.
Bruce Trampler was a matchmaker for Bob Arum during Ray Mancini’s glory years with the promoter.
Promoters Russell Peltz and Artie Pelullo worked with Dave on several fights.
Ron Katz and Don Majeski have been matchmakers, advisers, and jacks-of-all trades in boxing for decades.
Al Bernstein, Larry Merchant and Jerry Izenberg knew Dave through their roles in the media.
Harold Lederman (HBO’s “unofficial ringside judge”) was judging fights officially when Dave was in his prime as a manager.
Randy Gordon was editor of The Ring when Ray Mancini was at his peak as a fighter.
Mark Kriegel wrote what is widely regarded as the definitive biography of Ray Mancini.
Craig Hamilton managed several fighters and is the foremost boxing memorabilia dealer in the United States. He dealt extensively with Dave in the latter capacity and helped Dave’s family liquidate his memorabilia collection after Dave’s death.
Some of their memories follow:
Jon Wolf: “My father had severe back problems that limited his mobility. Dave was six years older than I was, so when I was a boy, he played the role of father in teaching me to do things like riding a bike and playing baseball. He took me to the NFL championship game between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers at Yankee Stadium when I was twelve years old. It was freezing cold, and Dave kept missing parts of the game to get up from our seats and go get hot chocolate for me to keep me warm. I played basketball in high school. Dave was in journalism school at Columbia by then and came to all my games. He’d sit in the stands and shout instructions. There were times when it was like he was coaching the game.”
Gina Andriolo: “I was young when I met Dave, and I was very impressed. Right away, I could see he was one of the smartest people I’d ever known. He was very intense in his interaction with people. He could be brusque and combative. He always let people know where they stood with him. He liked being alone. And he loved sports; all sports, not just boxing. Dave could watch curling on TV and be happy.”
Toby Falk: “Dave was creative, intellectually curious, very intense, stubborn, determined. He was a private person, not at all social. He had no interest in talking with most people. Every now and then, he’d go to an opening at the Museum of Modern Art with me because he loved me, but it was a chore for him. If he bonded with you, he really liked you. But there weren’t many people who fit into that category. He’d stay up into the wee small hours of the morning watching old fights on television. But it wasn’t just boxing. It was all sports. His idea of a beautiful summer Sunday was to sit inside and watch a baseball game on television.”
Jerry Izenberg: “He was a very good writer. That’s what stands out in my mind. People remember that he wrote Foul, which was a very good book. But he also wrote some very good magazine articles.”
Al Bernstein: “Dave wrote one of my favorite books and one of the best sports books ever written. It was about Connie Hawkins, who’d been banned from playing in the NBA, and it broke new ground for what a sports book should be. Beyond that, Dave did what managers are supposed to do. He worked hard and maximized every opportunity for his fighters. I liked him a lot.”
Bruce Trampler: “I’ve never dealt with anyone who did his homework the way Dave did. He was one of the most conscientious, dedicated, well-prepared managers ever. I spent hours on the phone with him going through every detail of every fight again and again. Every conversation turned into a cross-examination. He was always asking questions and taking notes. He was painstaking in his preparation at every level. I give him the highest marks in every category that has anything to do with managing a fighter. He could be an annoying bastard and he was a complete pain-in-the-ass to deal with. But he was doing his job as he saw it, and he was one of the greatest managers ever.”
Ray Mancini: “Nobody – I mean, nobody – paid more attention to details than Dave. When I fought Alexis Arguello, Dave got Top Rank to agree that I’m going to leave the dressing room after the national anthem ends. If Arguello isn’t in the ring and the fight doesn’t start seven minutes after I’m in the ring, I’m leaving and Arguello has to wait for me to come back. That’s fine with me because, as a fighter, I don’t want to stand in the ring and get cold waiting for the fight to start. And everyone knew that Dave was crazy enough to take me out of the ring if Arguello was late. I loved it. I fought Ernesto Espana outdoors in a football stadium in Warren, Ohio. The day before the fight, Dave went to the stadium and stood in the ring at the same time of day the fight would start. Then he said, “Okay, this will be Ray’s corner and this will be Espana’s corner.’ He was making sure I had as much shade in my corner as possible and Espana was facing the sun. As a fighter, you love stuff like that.”
Lou DiBella: “He was a stand-up guy. For a guy without much charm, he was colorful in his own way. He was a guy who knew how to sit back and watch and figure out what was going on. He understood the strengths and weaknesses of his fighters. And unlike too many managers in this miserable business, he recognized that he had a fiduciary duty to his fighters and acted like it. There were never any side deals that the fighter didn’t know about.”
Mark Kriegel: “Dave was trained as a journalist. He was a story-teller, and that’s part of what a great manager does. He understood why Ray Mancini mattered, and he was able to tell the story in a way that people understood. He went from being a journalist to a producer, and he was great at it. I never met him, but I can’t think of another manager I would have liked to have met more.”
Randy Gordon: “Dave would come up to my offce at The Ring to look at old Ring magazines. This was before the Internet and Ebay, so it wasn’t easy to find them. He’d sit there and read, and then we’d talk about what he’d read. I learned a lot of my boxing history from those conversations. Some people thought Dave was on the weird side, different, strange, whatever word you want to use. But I enjoyed him as a fight guy, and I knew how much he cared about his fighters. He poured his heart into them.”
Don Majeski: “It’s easy to move a great fighter. Some fighters are so great that you don’t really have to manage. You just point them in the right direction and ask for more money. A great manager gets the most out of the least. Dave got people to treat .200 hitters like they were .300 hitters and .300 hitters like they hit .350. He made Ray Mancini, who was good but not great, into an iconic fighter. Bob [Arum] gave Ray the exposure, but it was Dave who gave Bob the product. He made millions of dollars for Donny Lalonde, who was an okay fighter. He got Ed “Too Tall” Jones onto CBS. He always looked after his guys. He never wanted one of his fighters to be an opponent. He was one hundred percent for his fighters. He was a great boxing guy.”
Craig Hamilton: “Ray Mancini was a likable white Italian-American fighter with a crowd-pleasing style. Any competent manager could have made good money with Ray, although probably not as much as Dave did. But look at the job Dave did for Lonnie Bradley. Lonnie was a black kid out of Harlem who was a competent fighter with a quiet personality. Dave maneuvered him to a winnable title fight [for the WBO middleweight belt against 13-and-6 David Mendez] and then got him a half-dozen title defenses against guys who weren’t very good.”
Teddy Atlas: “There were some things Dave did that I took issue with in terms of our relationship. But I recognized his gifts and his ability to move a fighter. He was a smart guy. He knew how to play the game with the sanctioning organizations and was willing to play it. He loved playing the game. I think he enjoyed the maneuvering and getting to the kill more than the success of it. And he made money for his fighters. A fighter can be successful in the ring and not make a lot of money. Dave made good money for the fighters he managed. His talent was to take a fighter who was okay and make it appear to the world that the fighter was better than he was, maybe even great. He knew how to build a fighter and capitalize on it when the fighter won. He was a master at developing a storyline for his fighters and having it resonate with the press. He was difficult; some would say crazy. But he did the job for his fighters.”
Ray Mancini: “Dave was a control freak. That was his thing. He was doing it for me, but he wanted total control and we had our battles. Sometimes I had to tell him, ‘You work for me. I’m the fighter.’ Then he’d get hurt and sulk and say things like, ‘I guess you don’t need me anymore.’ If he got a bug up his ass about something, he wouldn’t talk to me for a while and he wouldn’t return phone calls. He was a complicated guy.”
“Gina Andriolo: Dave approached boxing like a three-dimensional chess game. Regardless of the immediate issue he was dealing with, he was always looking three moves down the road. He had an amazing capacity for detail and kept meticulous records on everything. Every detail mattered. Most fight managers go to their fighters’ weigh-ins. Dave would find out when the scales were being calibrated and send me to make sure they were calibrated right.”
Harold Lederman: “Dave knew boxing; no question about it. He was a great boxing guy. But he was a tough guy to deal with when it came to officials. He was always arguing he didn’t want this referee or that judge to work his fighter’s fight. He never argued that he didn’t want me, but there were a lot of guys he didn’t want. And he argued long enough and hard enough that he was usually able to get rid of the guys he didn’t want. That’s one of the things that made him a great manager.”
Jon Wolf: “Before one of Ray Mancini’s fights in Las Vegas, Dave told everyone in the entourage, ‘No one is to gamble until the fight is over.’ He didn’t want anyone leaving whatever good luck we might have on the casino floor or bringing any kind of bad luck in. That same trip, Dave sent me downstairs to buy copies of all the newspapers they had so he could read what was being written about the fight. I had four nickels left over after I bought the papers. So I put a nickel in a slot machine, and five dollars worth of nickels came out. I played a few more nickels with similar results and went back upstairs with the newspapers and a bucket full of nickels. Dave took one look and asked, ‘What the f*** is that?’ I explained, and he told me, ‘Get rid of them.’ So I took the nickels downstairs, found an old lady who was playing the nickel slots, and said to her, “Excuse me, ma’am. I just won these and God told me to give them away.'”
Artie Pelullo: “Dave was a strange quirky guy, very opinionated. A lot of people thought he was a pain-in-the-ass to deal with, but I never had a problem with him. He came to me with Lonnie Bradley, and we did a couple of fights together. He wasn’t the kind of guy you went to a bar with for a couple of drinks and light conversation. But you could make a deal with him and his word was good. I liked him.”
Seth Abraham: “Dave didn’t care much about pleasantries and what I would call conventional business practices. Several times, he came to meetings at HBO wearing shorts. It wasn’t important but it was unconventional and it sticks in my mind. He was very perceptive and very bright. He always presented his case well. And as best I could tell, he was always honest with me. If you’re in boxing, you have to learn who the honest people are and who are the dishonest people. As a TV executive, I did business with both. And I can honestly say, I never had any integrity issues with Dave.”
Russell Peltz: “I didn’t know Dave well, but I don’t think he liked me very much. I say that because, one time, I wanted to make a match with one of his fighters and Dave told the fighter he didn’t trust me. What had happened was, a few years earlier, Dave was managing Duane Bobick and wanted a comeback fight for Bobick after he’d been knocked out by John Tate. I offered him George Chaplin as an opponent and told Dave that Chaplin couldn’t fight, which I believed was true. So Bobick and Chaplin fought in Atlantic City, Chaplin knocked him out, and Dave never trusted me again.”
Gina Andriolo: “He loved his fighters. He believed in his fighters. And he looked after his fighters in every way. His philosophy was, a fighter should get in and out of boxing as quickly as possible with as little damage as possible and as much money as possible. God, he fought for his fighters. I remember, one time, Dave got particularly angry when a promoter who shall remain nameless sent him a contract he didn’t like. It wasn’t what Dave thought they’d agreed to. I was doing Dave’s legal work at the time. He was shouting at me, ‘Call that m*********** up and tell him no f***ing way. He can take his contract and shove it.’ So I called the promoter up and – I was being tactful – I said, ‘Dave has a slight problem with paragraph 4(B). Is there any way we can change it?’ And Dave started screaming at me, ‘That’s not what I said. I said tell him he’s a m*********** and he can shove his contract up his ass.’”
Ray Mancini: “There were times when I said to myself, ‘This guy is out of his mind.’ Some of the things he asked for from promoters bordered on the ridiculous. Dave could take years off a promoter’s life. Lots of managers threaten to call a fight off. When Dave threatened to call a fight off, the promoter knew he might.”
Ray Leonard: “My best memories of Dave Wolf are from when I fought Donny Lalonde. He truly believed in Donny and the other fighters he worked with. We were cool with each other. What stands out most with me is that there was always respect between the two of us.”
Gina Andriolo: “There were always enormous piles of old newspapers and boxing magazines all over the apartment. Sometimes, that was a source of conflict between us. I’m not talking about a reasonable number of papers. I’d ask, ‘Why do we have to have ten-year-old newspapers stacked in the kitchen cabinets?’ But Dave needed them there to be happy. And he knew where every piece of paper was. God forbid I should move a piece of paper and he couldn’t find it.”
Jon Wolf: “Dave and I shared a bedroom when we were young. One time – I was three or four years old – my parents came home and Dave had built a wall in the bedroom out of chairs and whatever other furniture he could move so I’d stay on my side of the room and leave his toys alone and not knock his blocks over or mess up whatever game he was playing.”
Toby Falk: “There were piles of newspapers and magazines all over the apartment; thousands of magazines going back for years. In what I suspect was a major concession, he’d let Gina put flowery wallpaper in the kitchen when they were married. But he covered it over with fight posters as soon as she moved out.”
Craig Hamilton: “Dave’s main thing as a collector was fight programs, which a lot of people aren’t interested in because they don’t display that well. He had a solid fight program collection; Johnson-Jeffries and some other good ones. He wasn’t much of an autograph guy. He had a few good on-site posters, including one from Ali-Frazier III in Manila, and a lot of Ray Mancini stuff that had some value because Ray has a following, particularly in Ohio. But for someone who was obsessed with collecting, Dave’s collection wasn’t that good. Most of the rest was garbage. Dave had thousands of magazines that were virtually worthless. I’m not talking about old Ring magazines from the 1920s and 30s that are worth something. I’m talking about magazines from the 1970s and later that you can’t give away. Maybe a hospital will take them. They were stacked all over his apartment – in piles on the floor, on shelves, in closets, every place imaginable. There were piles and piles of magazines – three, four feet high – blocking access to bureau drawers and file cabinets. And they hadn’t been dusted in years. You could see that from the cobwebs. Obviously, they had meaning to Dave. They were very personal for him. But it wasn’t the place you’d bring a woman on a first date if you were trying to impress her. God bless Toby; I don’t know how she put up with it.”
Larry Merchant: “In a game that rewards individual initiative, Dave was a guy who jumped in, did his thing, and did it well. He was one of the more interesting characters in a business full of characters.”
Toby Falk: “Both of us had been married and divorced twice, so we didn’t feel the need to get married again. But we lived together for almost twenty years. He wasn’t well for much of our time together. There were complications from diabetes and some other problems. When he was fifty-five, he was diagnosed with leukemia. He didn’t fear death. He just didn’t want to be incapacitated or linger. He was cremated, so I can’t say he’s turning over in his grave over what’s happening now in America. But Dave was anti-authoritarian and very politically aware. And he hated injustice. Wherever he is now, I’m sure he’s very upset by Donald Trump.”
Ray Mancini: “Dave showed how the job should be done. He battled for everything for me. There were things other managers let happen to their fighters that Dave would never have let happen to me. What he did for my career, I can never thank him enough. I loved him. I loved him dearly.”
And a note in closing . . .
Dave and I became friends in his later years. I don’t use the term “friends” lightly. We had lunch together on a regular basis and talked often about people and events that had shaped us. As I wrote when he died, “Much of Dave’s anger stemmed from the fact that he hadn’t learned to read in a meaningful way until the age of twelve and thus had been labeled ‘dumb.’”
When Dave was young, dyslexia and other reading disabilities weren’t understood. The fact that he was able to surmount them to write Foul was remarkable in itself.
It was extraordinarily painful for a young boy with a high IQ who was sensitive in many ways to be labeled “dumb.” One way Dave dealt with the pain was to construct a hard exterior that served as a protective shell. Explaining that to me over lunch one day, Dave told me a story.
Once, when Dave was in grade school and the teacher briefly left the classroom, one of the boys started teasing him in front of the other children, saying that Dave couldn’t read.
“I can read,” Dave said.
“Prove it,” the boy countered. Then he went to the blackboard and wrote something in chalk. “Prove you can read. Read this.”
So very laboriously, Dave read aloud: “Dave . . . Wolf . . . is . . . stupid.”
More than a half-century later, Dave remembered that moment very clearly. And it still scarred him.
Photo: Dave Wolf with Donny Lalonde and Teddy Atlas. Photo undated but circa 1986.
Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book – There Will Always Be Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing
journalism.
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The Hauser Report: Keyshawn Davis at Madison Square Garden

The Hauser Report: Keyshawn Davis at Madison Square Garden
Bob Arum promoted his first fight card – Muhammad Ali vs. George Chuvalo – in Toronto on March 29, 1966. Top Rank was formed soon after and is arguably the greatest promotional company in the history of boxing.
Top Rank has promoted more than two thousand fight cards and seven hundred world championship bouts. It has been on the cutting edge of new technologies and was the first major player in boxing to understand and exploit the power of the Hispanic market in the United States.
But Top Rank has been struggling lately. Its roster of elite fighters has gotten smaller. Its lucrative exclusive contract with ESPN expires this summer and won’t be renewed. The company is exploring other options, but so is every other promoter in boxing not tied exclusively to DAZN.
Meanwhile, Arum is doing his best to develop what he hopes will be a new generation of stars. One of these fighters – Keyshawn Davis – was on display before a sold-out crowd of 4,979 at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre on Valentine’s Day.
Davis is 25 years old and came into the fight with a 12-and-0 (8 KOs) record. His opponent, 36-year-old Denys Berinchyk (19-0, 9 KOs), was the reigning WBO lightweight champion by virtue of an upset split-decision victory over Emanuel Navarrete last June. Berinchyk had the belt, but the spotlight was on Davis (a 2020 Olympic silver medalist and 6-to-1 betting favorite).
Throughout fight week, Davis had the carriage of a fighter who is undefeated in the professional ranks and knew that the odds were stacked in his favor. He reveled in acting the bully at the final pre-fight press conference where he repeatedly interrupted Berinchyk before getting up from his chair and looming over the Ukrainian. That was followed by an incident at the weigh-in when Keyshawn put his hands on Denys and, as the fighters turned to face the media, stepped into Berinchyk’s space. That earned a shove and tempers flared.
It’s easy for a fighter to act out like that when he’s facing a 6-to-1 underdog. It’s unlikely that Keyshawn would have behaved in the same manner had he been readying to fight – say – Gervonta Davis.
When fight night came, it was just a matter of time until Berinchyk was knocked out. There was no way he could deal with Keyshawn’s speed and power. One guy was fighting in slow motion and the other on fast-forward.
Davis dropped Berinchyk with a body shot in round three and ended matters in round four with a brutal hook to the liver that left Denis gasping for air on the canvas.
Keyshawn has speed, skills, and power. Time will tell if he has a chin and heart.
Davis-Berinchyk highlighted a basic truth about boxing and other sports. Some athletes are simply more physically gifted than others.
LeBron James has a wonderful work ethic. But there are many basketball players who work as hard as LeBron and know the nuances of the game just as well. His physical gifts separate him from the pack. Ditto for Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Judge, and every other elite athlete.
Jack Nicklaus wasn’t just a talented golfer. At age thirteen, Nicklaus ran a 100-yard dash in eleven seconds flat and was the starting quarterback, punter, and placekicker on his junior high school football team. As a high school basketball player, he averaged eighteen points a game on a team that went to the fourth round of the Ohio state championship tournament. That same year, he made twenty-six free throws in a row and was named “all-league” and “honorable mention all-state.” To round out his resume, he played catcher on the school baseball team.
Davis has exceptional physical gifts. The phrase “physically gifted” also applies to 20-year-old Abdullah Mason (16-0, 14 KOs) who dismantled Manuel Jaimes at the Hulu Theater on Friday night. Mason is a legitimate prospect. Like Davis, he has speed, skills, and power. Five months ago, Jaimes went the distance against Rolly Romero. Mason knocked him down four times on the way to a fourth-round stoppage.
Other thoughts on Friday night’s fights at Madison Square Garden include:
Juanma Lopez De Jesus (who represented Puerto Rico at the 2024 Olympics and is the son of former WBO champion Juan Manuel Lopez) made his pro debut at 114 pounds against Bryan Santiago. Santiago was a typical opponent for a prospect making his pro-debut. Lopez knocked him out at 59-seconds of round one with the first solid punch he landed. After the fight, Santiago literally didn’t know what hit him. For the record, it was an uppercut.
Rohan Polanco turned in a dominant performance, stopping Juan Carlos Torres in two rounds. Keon Davis (Keyshawn’s brother) knocked out an overmatched Ira Johnson, also in the second stanza.
Vito Mielnicki Jr. and Connor Coyle fought to a spirited draw although, in the eyes of this observer, the edge belonged to Mielnicki. And Xander Zayas turned in a solid performance in scoring a ninth-round stoppage over Slawa Spomer. Referee Charlie Fitch might have stepped in a bit too quickly. But Fitch is a good referee. Spomer was getting hit more than he should have been. And according to CompuBox, Slawa had been outlanded 257 to 39.
Top Rank hopes to keep Zayas and Mielnicki on track until there’s a vacant 154-pound belt that they can fight for or a weak champion that one of them can beat.
Two of the favorites on the February 14 card disappointed.
Jared Anderson had been touted as America’s best heavyweight until his deficiencies were exposed and he was knocked down three times en route to a fifth-round stoppage by Martin Bakole on the Crawford-Madrimov undercard in Los Angeles last August. Marios Kollias (born in Greece and now fighting out of Sweden) is a big, strong, very slow fighter with rudimentary skills. Kollias had two fights last year. In one of them, he lost to a Danish fighter named Kem Ljungquist. In the other, he beat a guy named Tamaz Izoria (who has 15 losses in 20 fights and has been knocked out 11 times).
The Jared Anderson who savagely demolished Jerry Forrest at Madison Square Garden two years ago would have made short work of Kollias. But that version of Anderson hasn’t been seen lately. Jared came in for the Kollias fight at a career-high 258 pounds. And he fought like a man who has doubts about whether he wants to continue fighting professionally.
Anderson-Kollias had the feel of a slow sparring session. Kollias’s trunks kept sliding below his protective cup, necessitating repeated stoppages so referee David Fields could adjust them. The only fire Jared showed came near the end of the tenth and final round when he flagrantly fouled Marios by throwing him over his hip to the canvas. Fields should have deducted two points for the unprovoked infraction but let the matter slide. Properly incentivized, Kollias landed his best punches of the night just before the final bell. The scorecards read 99-91, 99-91, 98-92 in Anderson’s favor.
Anderson-Kollias was a dreary fight. Nico Ali Walsh vs. Juan Carlos Guerra was a sad one.
Nico is Muhammad Ali’s grandson and fights in the neighborhood of 157 pounds. He turned pro in 2021 and, after knocking out five of six carefully chosen opponents, went the distance in his next six outings (including one “no contest”). When he entered the ring on Friday night, his record stood at 10-and-1.
Without the “Ali” name, Nico would still be an exceptionally nice young man and a college graduate with myriad talents. People are impressed by him and for good reason. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good fighter.
The buzz that attended the start of Nico’s ring career is gone. He hasn’t improved noticeably as a fighter and doesn’t have the physical gifts necessary to take him beyond the club-fight level.
Guerra was a fungible opponent. The assumption was that Nico would outbox him. Juan Carlos threw wide looping punches throughout the fight and was an inartful aggressor. But inartful aggression is better than no aggression at all.
Nico got hit too much by a guy who – fortunately for Nico – was short on power. He fought tentatively, seldom initiated the action, didn’t counterpunch effectively, and failed to dissuade Guerra from coming forward.
In the final round, trailing badly by any objective measure, Nico didn’t try to pick up the pace.
Four of the rounds clearly belonged to Guerra. The other two were up for grabs. Judges Waleska Roldan and Georgi Gergov scored the bout 58-56 for Guerra.
In a shocker, Ken Ezzo’s scorecard read 58-56 in Nico’s favor.
Most fights aren’t hard to score. A judge has to pay attention, know what he (or she) is watching, and be honest. Ezzo’s scorecard was a disgrace.
It’s still possible that, by virtue of his family name, Nico can be maneuvered to a nice payday on a Riyadh Season card in Saudi Arabia. But he’s getting hit in the head too much. So I’ll repeat what I wrote after watching him fight several years ago:
“Whenever Nico fights, my heart will be in his gloves. But I’d rather that he not fight again. Muhammad Ali sacrificed so much at the altar of boxing – more than enough to obviate the need for sacrifices by any member of his family in the years to come.”
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available 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.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Oscar Duarte KOs Miguel Madueno in a Battle of Mexicans at Anaheim

Oscar Duarte KOs Miguel Madueno in a Battle of Mexicans at Anaheim
No surprise. It was a Mexican beat down.
Oscar Duarte emerged victorious over fellow Mexican slugger Miguel Madueno by knockout to become a regional WBA super lightweight titlist on Saturday.
“Miguel (Madueno) is a gentleman and a warrior,” said Duarte. “He is a tough fighter but it was our night tonight.”
Chihuahua, Mexico’s Duarte (29-2-1, 23 KOs) started slowly but brutally stopped Sinaloa, Mexico’s Madueno who had never been knocked out before. The crowd at Honda Center in Anaheim roared its approval.
Not even new world titlist Keyshawn Davis was able to stop Madueno last July.
The taller Madueno opened up the first two rounds behind a stiff jab and some movement around the stalking style of Duarte. Though both Mexican fighters connected, it was Madueno who opened up stronger.
Then came the body shots.
“I knew he was going to move around when he felt my punches,” said Duarte.
The muscular Duarte had built a career as an inside fighter specializing in body shots. In the third round the light brown haired Duarte finally targeted the body and immediately saw results. Madueno had to change tactics.
Duarte had lost to Ryan Garcia by knockout 14 months ago in Texas. But since that loss he became the first to defeat Jojo Diaz by knockout and then last November beat down Uzbekistan’s Botirzhon Akhmedov. He was scheduled to fight Regis Prograis but an injury to the former world champion forced Madueno to step in as a replacement.
No matter.
Duarte began revving up the steamroller from the third round on with a pounding assault to the body and head that would not allow Madueno to dig in. A left hook to the chin by Duarte wobbled the Sinaloa fighter who had fought many times under the Thompson Boxing flag. The now departed Ken Thompson must have been proud at Madueno’s valiant performance.
It just wasn’t enough.
Madueno had success bouncing overhand rights on Duarte’s head but it was not enough. He battled through brutal exchanges and kept battling but the muscle-bound Duarte could not be halted.
In the fifth round Madueno tried to return to the long jabs and though he had early success, Duarte unleashed a three-punch combination to stop the nonsense. They both battled in a corner and Madueno emerged with blood streaming down his left eye. The referee ruled the cut was due to a blow.
“I felt his punches and I knew he was coming down,” Duarte said.
Duarte sensed the kill and opened up the sixth round with a bludgeoning six-punch volley. Madueno countered with a clean left hook. It was not a good exchange and it looked bad for the Sinaloan.
In the seventh round, Duarte looked like a Rhino that had just sharpened his horn and charged forward with bloodlust. The Chihuahua Mexican seemed determined to end the fight and connected with a right that staggered Madueno. Duarte followed up quickly with 17 more big blows to the body and head. Referee Thomas Taylor stepped in with a veering Madueno against the ropes and stopped the fight at 2:09 of the seventh round.
Duarte became the first man ever to defeat Madueno by knockout.
Now holding a regional WBA title, he is poised to fight for a world title.
“I’ll fight any champion. Let’s do it right now,” Duarte said.
Other Bouts
Houston’s Darius Fulgham (14-0, 12 KOs) proved too much for Detroit’s Winfred Harris Jr. (22-3-2) in overwhelming the clinching fighter and forcing a stoppage in the fourth round of their super middleweight bout. Fulgham was in control in every round that included a knockdown in the third round. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the beating.
Light flyweight Ricardo Sandoval (26-2, 18 KOs) soundly defeated the speedy Saleto Henderson (10-2, 7 KOs) by unanimous decision after 10 rounds. Both fighters showed off great chins but the taller Sandoval out-punched Henderson. Two judges scored it 100-90 for Sandoval and a third judge had it 98-92.

Ricardo Sandoval
An entertaining welterweight clash saw Chicago’s Kenneth Sims Jr. (22-2-1, 8 KOs) outpoint San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda (21-8, 9 KOs) but in the latter part of the match both slugged it out. The fans were pleased by the action. All three judges favored Sims 99-91 twice and 98-92, but Castaneda proved he was not overmatched.
Bakersfield’s Joel Iriarte (6-0, 6 KOs) had no problems against Darel Harris (19-24-2) who he stopped at 1:21 of the second round in a welterweight clash.
Photos credit: Al Applerose
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Featured Articles
Arnold Barboza Edges Past Jack Catterall in Manchester

In a battle between elite counter-punchers Southern California’s Arnold Barboza Jr. slightly out-worked Jack Catterall in England to win a razor-close split decision and become the interim WBO super lightweight titlist on Saturday.
“It was a chess match,” said Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing.
Barboza (32-0, 11 KOs) managed to overcome a hostile British crowd to defeat hometown favorite Catterall (30-2, 13 KOs) in a battle between defensive masters at the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester.
It was a match made for boxing purists who love the art of feints and counter-punches that are a major part of orthodox fighter Barboza and the southpaw Catterall. It was a fight that harkened back to the battle between Sugar Ray Leonard and Wilfredo Benitez in 1979.
Feints and more feints.
Neither fighter looked to give up ground from the first round until the last. Each was cognizant of the other’s ability to counter-strike.
Catterall benefited early from the hometown crowd. With few blows fired and even fewer blows landing, the crowd’s roars for the local fighter might have registered with the judges. Though neither fighter connected more than a dozen punches in any round, the crowd was more pleased with “El Gato” Catterall’s efforts.
No round was clear-cut.
Barboza began to increase his tempo around the third round. Though the fighter from El Monte, California never loaded up on his punches, he was more ready to risk receive incoming blows from Catterall. And they did come.
Perhaps it was Barboza’s steadier use of the jab to the chest and head that made the difference. And when the Californian opened-up with combinations, Catterall was ready with jolting lefts. If not for Barboza’s chin he might have hit the deck from the blows.
In the seventh round Barboza found the target for repeated right hand leads. One after another connected. And when it looked like he might overrun the British fighter, things turned around as Catterall connected below the belt. When Barboza complained to the referee, Catterall delivered three head blows at the end of the round. The referee ruled the blow was low, but still, the follow-up blows did land.
It was anyone’s fight.
From the ninth round on Barboza took the lead as the aggressor while Catterall maintained his counter-punching mode. Though neither fighter could gain separation, Barboza was slightly busier and that may have proved the difference in the final four rounds.
Catterall connected with the heavier punches throughout the fight. But he just never opened-up with combinations and settled for counters. And though he connected often with single blows, combinations were rarely fired by the Manchester fighter. But he was always in the fight.
No knockdowns were scored and after 12 rounds one judge saw Catterall the winner 115-113, but two others gave Barboza the win by 115-113 to become the number one contender for the WBO super lightweight title.
“Since I was little I just wanted respect,” said Barboza. “I got my respect today.”
Catterall was gracious in defeat.
“It was a tricky fight,” Catterall said. “I thought I just did enough.”
Barboza said he does not care who he fights next.
“Anybody can get it,” he said.
Other Bouts
Super featherweight Reece “The Bomber” Bellotti (20-5,15 KOs) belted Michael Gomez Jr. throughout 10 rounds with body shots. Twice he floored Gomez with shots to the liver until the fight was stopped at the end of the ninth round by technical knockout.
In another super featherweight clash James Dickens (35-5, 14 KOs) repeatedly out-maneuvered Zelfa Barrett (31-3, 17 KOs) to win by unanimous decision after 10 rounds.
Welterweight Pat McCormack (7-0, 6 KOs) blasted out veteran Robbie Davies Jr. (24-6) with three knockdowns in six rounds. The fight was stopped at the end of the sixth round in a scheduled 10-round fight.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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