Mayweather’s Unfortunate Announcement Stole No Thunder From Canelo-GGG II

In sports, as in life, timing is everything. An example of perfectly good timing, at least for the winning team, came Saturday afternoon in Auburn, Ala

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Published

6 years ago

September 16, 2018

Bernard Fernandez

In sports, as in life, timing is everything. An example of perfectly good timing, at least for the winning team, came Saturday afternoon in Auburn, Ala., as LSU kicker Cole Tracy nailed a last-second field goal to cap a fourth-quarter rally and lift LSU to a 22-21 upset of Auburn in a terrific college football game.

An example of perfectly rotten timing came earlier in the day, as Floyd Mayweather Jr. revealed that he would be coming out of retirement, again, to take on the ghost of Manny Pacquiao in a rematch of their May 2, 2015, megafight that set financial records, but delivered far less action than any boxing fan could have hoped for given the astronomical ticket prices and only slightly less-outrageous pay-per-view subscription fee.

Coincidentally (possible, but unlikely), when they found themselves at a musical festival in Tokyo, “Money” and “Pac-Man” confronted one another and more or less announced the likelihood of a do-over sometime in December. The proposed rematch is something that Mayweather apparently believes will generate the same sort of global fascination that their first fight did, not to mention another hefty payday for himself.

“Manny don’t want none of this, baby,” a preening Mayweather was heard to say in a video that not unexpectedly went viral. “Easy work.”

An accompanying Instagram post on Mayweather’s account revealed why boxing’s foremost attention hound might consider another go at Pacquiao in a bout that the masses haven’t exactly been clamoring for. “Another 9 figure pay day on the way,” he optimistically predicted.

If Mayweather can squeeze another $100 million out of the public to put on another dog-and-pony show, he might prove himself to be more of a marketing genius than he already has demonstrated time and again. But it says here that the old master (he’s 41) will be sorely disappointed to learn that his drawing power is greatly diminished at this late stage of a remarkable career, a reality even more evident for the 39-year-old Pacquiao despite his recently won “regular” WBA welterweight title that came on a seventh-round stoppage of the even more-faded Lucas Matthysse.

Now, back to the matter of timing. Does anyone think it wasn’t planned that the notion of a May-Pac II clash was revealed on the very morning that Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin were to square off in the biggest fight of 2018, a fight that for the most part lived up to the lofty hype? It was widely speculated that Mayweather was trying to “steal the thunder” from Canelo-GGG II, which on the face of it is as much a certainty as early-morning sunrises. Much of the shenanigans that Mayweather is involved in to remain a lightning rod for controversy are orchestrated. Some, unfortunately, is not.

Let one thing be made clear. In addition to his gift for making himself the most fabulously wealthy boxer ever, Mayweather is the finest fighter of his era. He was the pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet for years, and one of the best ever, although the man who bills himself as “TBE” (the best ever) might be a tad excessive in his boastful claim to such a distinction. Many boxing historians would make him an underdog if somehow he could be paired, prime on prime, against Sugar Ray Robinson at welterweight, Roberto Duran at lightweight or Sugar Ray Leonard at any weight. But even now, Mayweather’s magnificent defense and overall skill set would, at least initially, stamp him as a top four or five pound-for-pound fighter were he to come back to campaign in earnest in a deep welterweight division packed with such young guns as Errol Spence Jr., Terence Crawford, Keith Thurman and, maybe soon, elite 140-pounders Jose Ramirez and Regis Prograis.

Conspicuously absent from the list of most-relevant welterweights is future first-ballot Hall of Famer Pacquiao, the secondary title he wrested from the used-up Matthysse (who promptly announced his retirement) notwithstanding. The only man ever to win world titles in eight weight classes, Pacquiao’s handling of Matthysse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, marked his first victory inside the distance since his 12^th-round TKO of Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14, 2009, snapping a kayo-less streak of 13 bouts.

That Pacquiao would subject himself to another near-certain loss to Mayweather is not surprising. Unlike the presumably fixed-for-life Mayweather, Manny appears to be in desperate financial straits. He owes millions of dollars to the IRS, has been jettisoned by his longtime promotional company, Top Rank, after a 17-year relationship, and he had to put up some of his own dwindling funds to promote the fight with Matthysse, which tanked at the box office. All of the elite fighters at 147 want to get a piece of Manny while there is still a scrap to fight over, but the Fab Filipino has to realize that his last, best shot at a significant payday might necessitate offering himself up as another testament to Floyd’s ego. When last they fought three-plus years ago, Pacquiao’s more enthusiastic supporters backed him with their hearts and wallets instead of with rationality, which dictated that his was probably a lost cause from the beginning. But at least Pacquiao had the excuse that he was fighting with a bum shoulder, an injury he concealed until after the fact.

It should not be inferred that Mayweather rose to the heights he did by beating up on used-to-be’s, never-were’s and not-quite-there-yets. There are many big-name victims on his resume, and he dispatched most of them in convincing fashion. But as he developed an antihero persona that stirred the masses one way or the other, raised his profile and inflated his bank account, he became ever more protective of his undefeated record and veneer of invincibility. His obstinance was the primary roadblock to delaying a fight with Pacquiao that came five years later than it should have, and his two bouts thereafter were a perfunctory tuneup of mouthy Andre Berto, who fashioned himself as Floyd Lite, and the novelty matchup with even mouthier UFC superstar Conor McGregor, whose crossover into a fighting discipline in which he played the deluded novice to “Money’s” grand master made the Irishman more of a designated victim than legitimate threat.

Now Mayweather is back, which might be because, like other retired greats, he craves the spotlight that has since focused on others. But it might also owe to the possibility that his fabulous and much-flaunted wealth, like that once possessed by Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, was not so fabulous as to be severely whittled down by his exorbitant spending habits.

In a 2014 Showtime special in which his lifestyle of the rich and famous was examined by, yes, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach, Mayweather’s otherworldly extravagance was nearly as incomprehensible to regular folk as that displayed by Charles Foster Kane, as played by the great Orson Welles, in the 1941 film classic Citizen Kane. Among the nuggets of information revealed in that program:

*Mayweather maintained three residences in Las Vegas, one in Sunny Isles, Fla., outside of Miami, one in Los Angeles and one in New York City. Among the 88 luxury cars he had purchased for himself and members of his unwieldy entourage, he kept a matching set at his primary Vegas residence (those were white) and one in Florida (those were black) “because I don’t want to get confused where I am,” he told Leach.

*Despite his fleet of spiffy rides, he couldn’t resist the urge to shell out $4.8 million for the world’s most expensive car, a Koenigseeg CCXR Trevita, a land rocket that can go from zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds and has a top speed of 250 mph. After Leach’s camera crew departed, Mayweather further splurged on a $3.2 million Pagani Huayra and a $3.3 million Aston-Martin 177.

*He wore wildly expensive boxer shorts and sneakers (Christian Louboutins, which are priced anywhere from $795 to $3,595 a pair, depending on the model) only once before discarding them.

*He kept on staff a personal, in-residence chef at $4,000 a day (useful if he got the late-night munchies) and a personal barber charged with the daily responsibility of keeping Floyd’s shaved skull shiny and follicle-free.

*The bars at his various residences are stocked with his beverage of choice (Louis XIII Remy Martin Cognac, which goes for $3,500 a bottle).

Although Mayweather’s investments supposedly guaranteed him at least $1 million a month in interest, his expenditures far exceeded that amount, which might have caused a cash-flow problem as he no longer is an active boxer and receiving checks with lots of zeros on them. Given his fondness for betting big on sports events, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop (he only goes public on those occasions when he collects on wagers), it is not unreasonable to believe that he either has cut back on his spending, sold off some of his pricier boy toys to lower the overhead or – more to the point in this instance – decided to throw down again with Manny for fun, profit and self-gratification.

But should Mayweather proceed with still another flight of fancy, he is apt to find out that all the network executives and other power brokers once obliged to dance to his tune aren’t willing to give him anything he wants, or even most of it, this time around. Those he bossed around because he could on his way up might want some payback now that he no longer is holding the whip. Even fans who once felt compelled to follow Mayweather’s every move might now balk at ponying up for a second installment of the slow waltz with Manny as the realization settles in that the first fight, when both men ostensibly were better than they are now, wasn’t exactly a barnburner.

No, Floyd didn’t steal thunder from Canelo and GGG with an announcement that made news but did not – could not – snatch boxing’s biggest headlines on a day in which a really good and competitive fight wasn’t about to be supplanted by one that wasn’t all that compelling three years ago, and another that might or might not take place in December.

If there is any surprise should Mayweather actually go through with this, it will come when he discovers he no longer controls the narrative, and he can’t regain his grasp on the steering wheel by relentlessly insulting Pacquiao or trying to surpass his own record for titillating f-bombs. For the Pacquiao fight in 2015, he ordered the revocation of credentials from two female reporters, Michelle Beadle and Rachel Nichols, who had the temerity to mention Floyd’s history of domestic abuse toward women, which is much more of a hot-button topic now than it was then. Beadle did not particularly mind being absent on fight night, and she said there is more to Mayweather, not all of it positive, than his superb defense, signature shoulder roll and unblemished record inside the ropes.

“I feel strongly about holding people accountable for their actions,” Beadle wrote after her credential had been lifted. “People are fed up. A lot, not all, but a lot of fans are tired of rooting for terrible human beings who are allowed to continue being terrible, so long as they’re winning.”

That assessment might be overly harsh. I don’t know Floyd well enough to weigh in on the subject one way or the other. But it is, and always has been, abundantly evident that his undeniable talent is eclipsed only by his unshakable belief that he operates on a higher plane than mere mortals. It is at once his gift and his curse.

All Hail to the Great Lotierzo

There is a reason Frank Lotierzo is TSS’ foremost expert in analyzing what will happen in an upcoming fight. The reason is simple: he’s right a lot more often than he’s wrong. When Frank predicted a points victory for Canelo Alvarez over Gennady Golovkin in their delayed and very contentious rematch, I should have reconsidered my own position, which was that GGG would win, probably on a stoppage (I picked him to get the job done in eight rounds, but I, like two of the official judges, had Canelo winning by a 115-113 margin).

Kudos to Frank, and mea culpas on my part to those TSS readers who erred in siding with me on this one. But the great thing about boxing is that there’s always another big fight coming up, and with it another chance to either look really smart or to embarrass yourself. Maybe we can agree to disagree somewhere down the line, Frank. Should be fun.

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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Canelo Wins Mexican Style Rematch by Majority Decision

Fast-Rising Omar Trinidad KOs Slavinskyi at the Commerce Casino

Published

4 hours ago

July 26, 2024

David A. Avila

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East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad knocked out Ukraine’s Viktor Slavinskyi to retain the WBC Continental America’s featherweight title on Friday in a strategic but entertaining contest.

Fighting in front of frenzied crowd of supporters Trinidad (16-0-1, 13 KOs) defeated southpaw Slavinskyi (15-3-1, 7 KOs) with a measured and careful attack at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

Fans familiar with Trinidad (pictured over the right shoulder of promoter Tom Loeffler) are familiar with his aggressive pressure fighting style, but the Boyle Heights pugilist took a careful approach against Slavinskyi. Instead of a pounding assault Trinidad kept the fight at a distance and used his reach advantage to perfection.

It was reminiscent of long-armed fighters of the past like the late great Mando Ramos of the late 1960s who could punch or box. Pick your poison.

Trinidad employed a constant jab and well-placed counter shots. The right hand, in particular, was especially effective.

“I couldn’t miss with the right,” said Trinidad

For seven rounds Trinidad dominated with counter-punching. Then, Slavinskyi increased the pressure and forced the East L.A. fighter to come along. He did.

“If I could get a knockout I’d put him in the blender,” Trinidad said.

From the eighth round until the end Trinidad engaged in his usual fast and furious style and was especially effective with uppercuts in ninth round. Slavinskyi walked into a right uppercut that sent him across the ring and into the ropes. Referee Ray Corona ruled it a knockdown.

In the final round Trinidad wasted no time in looking to unload with an uppercut and Slavinskyi walked into a right hand version. There was no escape as he was ruled unable to continue by Corona at 2:31 of the 10^th and final round.

Trinidad keeps the title.

“The left hook and right uppercut was the money shot,” said Trinidad. “It was well-timed and it was a money shot.”

Welterweights

A fight between buddies from the same Armenian amateur team saw Aram Amirkhanyun (16-0-1, 4 KOs) defeat Gor Yeritsyan (18-1, 14 KOs) by split decision after 10 hard-fought rounds in a welterweight fight for a regional title.

The judges scored it 96-94 Yeritsyan and 96-94 twice for Amirkhanyun. No knockdowns were scored.

Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) proved that adapting into a pro style was not a problem in soundly defeating Pittsburgh’s Colleen Davis (3-2-1) after six featherweight rounds. Her best weapon was accuracy.

Verduzco, who is trained by her mother Gloria Alvarado, had been one of the most decorated amateur boxers for many years. In just her second pro fight the tell-tale signs of the amateur style were gone.

While the taller Davis circled rapidly to the left, Verduzco calmly waited for the openings and blasted away with pinpoint shots to the body and head. Her right hook was deadly accurate and the left found openings whenever they appeared.

Davis was able to land rights but just not enough to offset the incoming fire from the Southern California fighter. After six rounds all three judges scored it 60-54 for Verduzco.

In a firefight, Abel Mejia (5-0, 4 KOs) barely survived a second round knockdown against Tijuana’s rugged Jose Correa (6-10, 4 KOs) and rallied to remain relevant in the super featherweight match. In the fourth and final round Mejia beat Correa to the punch with a left hook that knocked out the tough Mexican challenger at 55 seconds as referee Ray Corona stopped the fight.

A super featherweight fight saw Hawaii’s Jaybrio Pe Benito (5-0, 4 KOs) power past Texan Michael Land (1-5-1) for a knockout win at 1:30 of the second round. Benito was too powerful and busy for Land who tried but was unable to slow down the assault.

Photo credit: Lina Baker

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

2 days ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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