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Three Punch Combo – An Under the Radar Fight Certain to Entertain and More
This is a busy week in the sweet science. There is the big rematch on Saturday night (more on that later). In addition, Top Rank has a very big card
THREE PUNCH COMBO — This is a busy week in the sweet science. There is the big rematch on Saturday night (more on that later). In addition, Top Rank has a very big card of its own on ESPN on Friday night. I love all these events but there is another card on Thursday in Las Vegas that really piques my interest. And that is because I think the main event in the 140-pound division between Ruslan Madiev (12-0, 5 KO’s) and Pablo Cesar Cano (30-7-1, 21 KO’s) is going to be a scorcher.
Cano (pictured) is one of my favorite action fighters. He is a relentless pressure fighter who is more than willing to abandon all defense and eat leather just to create openings to land one or two power shots of his own. He is heavy handed with his best punch being the classic Mexican left hook to the body. Essentially, his strategy is to look to break down his opposition with constant pressure and body punching. Regardless of whether he is successful or not, his style always leads to entertaining scraps.
Madiev is also an aggressive fighter by nature and a volume puncher. Though he may not have the power of Cano, Madiev will be the much busier fighter. Similar to Cano, defense is not one of his strong suits. He lacks head movement and often stands in the pocket too long after hurling off combinations making him an inviting target to be countered.
Matchmaking is key to making fan-friendly fights and this is an example of excellent matchmaking. Madiev, with his volume, will be landing frequently on the defensively challenged Cano. But Madiev’s weaknesses of his own on defense will create opportunities for Cano to counter. I don’t see Madiev being able to hurt Cano either, or even get Cano’s respect to where he will slow down his aggressiveness. Essentially, this is going to be a high contact war for the duration of the fight and could, when all is said and done, be a sleeper candidate for fight of the year.
Subtle Factors To Keep In Mind For Canelo-Golovkin II
The much anticipated rematch for the middleweight championship between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KO’s) and Gennady Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KO’s) is finally here. There has already been plenty of talk and plenty written about this fight. Instead of focusing on the obvious, I want to dig in a little deeper and look at a few subtle factors that may factor into the outcome.
Golovkin turned pro in 2006 as a middleweight. For 12 years, he has fought in the same weight division. Granted, he is a fitness machine, but he is now 36 years old and making 160 can’t be as easy as it once was. And he has been doing it for such a long time that it has to be taking some kind of toll on his body. Again, he is a fitness freak but Father Time catches up on all of us and our bodies. There will come a day when making 160 becomes a very difficult endeavor that zaps quite a bit of energy from Golovkin. Could that be for the rematch with Alvarez? I don’t know, but it needs to at least be mentioned.
Canelo will be coming off nearly a one year layoff, the longest layoff of his career. As such, there is certain to be some ring rust. Remember in the first fight, Canelo was sharp early, landing some eye popping combinations. The first couple rounds seemed to play in favor of Canelo before Golovkin started to come on with his pressure. In a fight that could be close, if Canelo does not come out sharp and loses the early rounds this could play a telling tale on the scorecards.
Speaking of the scorecards, the three judges for the rematch — Dave Moretti, Glenn Feldman and Steve Weisfeld — are three of the best boxing judges in the world and I would go as far as saying if these three worked more bouts together that we would see far fewer controversies. Check out their work and with the exception of one or two anomalies they are generally on the button with their scores. I am 100 percent confident that if this fight goes to the scorecards that we will get the correct result.
But will it go to the cards? Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez are sure trying their very best to get under the skin of Canelo, challenging his manhood and questioning his “Mexican” style. This is a ploy in my opinion to get Canelo to stand in front of Golovkin and exchange more than he did in their first fight.
Have Sanchez and Golovkin in fact gotten under the skin of Canelo? Have they goaded Canelo into standing still and trading more than he did in the first fight? If so, it is not only to Golovkin’s advantage but will more than likely take the fight out of the hands of the judges.
PBC, Matchroom Boxing and Top Rank – My Excitement and My Concerns
2018 in boxing will be known for landmark broadcasting deals. Just this week, PBC announced its own landmark deal with Fox on top of its previously announced deal with Showtime. Matchroom Boxing is launching DAZN this week in the United States which is an online streaming platform promising to deliver marquee fights. And Top Rank has recently announced a new expanded partnership with ESPN to bring even more live boxing to their various platforms.
Fans will have access to more live boxing than ever before in the history of the sport. For a diehard fan like myself, I can’t help but be very excited. Not only will live events in the United States increase but we will now have access to worldwide fights that previously could be only be found on illegal and choppy streams.
This is all good for boxing, right? Well it should be but problems can also arise with the way these deals are structured.
The first big potential problem is that fighters aligned with these entities may only fight on the platform on which their entity is aligned. We have seen this before with television deals in boxing and it can get ugly. Crossover fights involving different entities become nearly impossible to make. One side usually has an edge (meaning their fighter is favored to win) and the other side is leery to make a deal. Plus, working out which platform the fight occurs on gets complicated. The only exceptions tend to be when a sanctioning body orders a fight or a fight becomes so big that the parties are motivated to work out a joint deal.
The other problem is that with the abundance of fights there will be many times where big events run concurrently. When two big fights take place on the same date and at the same time, eyeballs get split and everybody ultimately loses — the fans because they can only watch one event live, the promoters because interest is split, and the sport because marquee fights can only be seen by half the audience.
I am very excited about the abundance of live boxing that is about to be available in the United States. But it won’t be all positive unless those involved can find a way to work with one another and history suggests this probably won’t happen.
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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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