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The Avila Perspective Chap. 22, Rare Heavyweight Rumble in L.A. and More

Southern California has long been a bastion for prizefighting since the beginning of the modern boxing era in the 1880s.
Yet, very few heavyweight world title fights have taken place in Los Angeles or the surrounding areas. Though the state of California stages more prizefights than any other place in the world, it’s been over four years since the big guys fought for a world title in the city of Angels. Less than a dozen heavyweight world title fights have ever taken place in greater Los Angeles.
WBC heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) looks to snap that streak when he fights Tyson Fury (27-0, 17 KOs) at the Staples Center in the heart of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday Dec. 1. Showtime pay-per-view will televise.
“Heavyweight boxing is so exciting at this point in time; it’s on fire and I’m just so excited to be a part of the movement and I’m proud to be a part of this heavyweight division and be at the top of the podium as one of the kings of the division,” said Wilder.
It’s always amazing to see two large heavyweights exchanging blows in a boxing ring. Especially two gargantuan sized fellows with wingspans the size of a small Cessna. The boxing ring looks tiny when they’re inside.
Nothing seems to bring out the glitterati more than a heavyweight world title fight. I’ve seen more movie stars and entertainment celebrities at a heavyweight championship fight than at a baseball World Series game. The only thing that comes close would be an NBA championship game but that was long ago when Kobe Bryant sprinted on the courts for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Come to think of it, maybe it’s due to their triple X size.
The last heavyweight title fight in Los Angeles took place in May 2014 when Bermane Stiverne stopped Chris Arreola in the sixth round at the Galen Center across the street from USC. The late great Dan Goossen promoted that fight. A few months later the popular promoter would pass away from cancer. God rest his soul.
Goossen always wanted a heavyweight champion. We spoke many times on the subject of heavyweights. Even his son Craig Goossen would mention their dream of having a heavyweight world champion. It’s something he wanted for his dad. That goal was never reached sad to say.
Heavyweight fog
Back in the 70s the axiom was if you had the heavyweight world champion you controlled boxing. It changed when the IBF formed in 1984 with Larry Holmes its first champion and later the WBO formed and developed their own champions too. It confused fans and muddled the heavyweight landscape with too many champions.
Mike Tyson temporarily fixed that by annihilating everyone who dared claim to be a heavyweight world champion in the late 1980s. Through brutal methods he unified the heavyweight world championship and later it was passed to Evander Holyfield, then Lennox Lewis who added the IBO title to the ensemble in 1999.
The advent of the 21st century brought heavyweight disarray. But one thing that kept everything in order was the realization that if you checked the lineage of the heavyweight championship from fighter to fighter you could get trace the actual champion. It was something that boxing writers brought to the sport and it’s a primary reason journalists are important to prizefighting. The Ring magazine had a lot to do with connecting the dots of the actual passing of the heavyweight title from man to man.
That’s how we arrived to the fact that England’s Tyson Fury is a descendant of the first heavyweight world champion of the modern boxing era John L. Sullivan. Fury is the lineal holder of the title and Wilder has one of the more credible titles in the WBC belt. The winner can truly be called the heavyweight world champion of the world or as Mike Tyson once said “the baddest man on the planet.”
When Fury and Wilder meet it definitely clears up the heavyweight situation and determines the actual and true world champion. Apologies to Anthony Joshua.
“I’m the baddest man on the planet,” said Wilder recently, echoing Mike Tyson’s claim of long ago.
Looking back
Despite the rarity of heavyweight world title fights in Los Angeles there have been a few of significance.
Nobody living saw the first heavyweight world title fight in Los Angeles back on February 1906 when Tommy Burns beat Marvin Hart by decision after 20 rounds. Burns then defeated Fireman Jim Flynn on October 1906 and drew against Philadelphia Jack O’Brien on November 1906 and then defeated O’Brien in May 1907. All of those heavyweight defenses took place in Los Angeles.
The world did not see another heavyweight world title fight until 1939 when Joe Louis knocked out Jack Roper in the first round at Wrigley Field in South Los Angeles and did not see another for nearly 20 years until Floyd Patterson defended against Roy Harris at the same Wrigley Field in L.A. in 1958.
Heavyweights just didn’t make a habit of fighting in Los Angeles.
In 1973, Muhammad Ali fought Ken Norton in a rematch at the Inglewood Forum and won the rematch by split decision. He had lost the first encounter six months earlier in San Diego. Ironically, both Ali and Norton would live in Los Angeles through the 1990s and had offices within a half mile of each other in the Wilshire District.
In 1967, Joe Frazier fought Scrap Iron Johnson in a nontitle bout at the Olympic Auditorium which is about a half mile from the Staples Center. Fans who saw that fight claim it was the only time Frazier ever danced in a fight. Scrap Iron didn’t have a reverse gear, he was like a human glacier that only moved forward.
Jerry Quarry was the only real heavyweight that Los Angeles fans ever truly knew. But once he hit the contender status he rarely fought in Southern California. The big money was in Madison Square Garden. After fighting as a main event in the Olympic Auditorium from 1965 to 1967 against the likes of Joey Orbillo and Floyd Patterson, he grew too big for the limited seating of the Olympic Auditorium. His last L.A. appearance took place at the Inglewood Forum against Tony Doyle in 1973. That was after fighting Muhammad Ali twice in mega fights in Atlanta and Las Vegas. Quarry was too big an attraction and met the biggest names at the time in Earnie Shavers, Joe Frazier, and Ken Norton at Madison Square Garden.
Though Mike “Hercules” Weaver made his pro debut at the Olympic Auditorium in September 1972 it would be years before he found himself. After a 50/50 record during his first 11 pro fights, Weaver then found his groove outside of Los Angeles and made himself into a heavyweight contender. In June 1979 he fought Larry Holmes in a thrilling battle at Madison Square Garden. The next year Weaver would win the WBA heavyweight world title by knockout over John Tate. He fought Stan Ward at the Inglewood Forum in 1983 but no longer held the title. Both Weaver and Ward still live in Southern California and train fighters.
Vitali
No Southern California heavyweight was deemed worthy of challenging for a world title in Los Angeles until the arrival of Vitali Klitschko. The Ukrainian native was training in Los Angeles and fought three heavyweight world title fights in the city of Angels.
The first encounter was the best.
When Klitschko challenged Lennox Lewis at the Staples Center, in June 2003, he drew enthusiastic crowds from various geographic and social settings that stretched from the ritzy Malibu Beach crowd to the cruising sets of East L.A. Ontario and beyond. All were anxious to witness a rare heavyweight world title showdown.
They were not disappointed.
Southern California fans are accustomed to watching world title fights, but usually it’s at the lower weight classes.
When United Kingdom’s Lewis defended the WBC title against Klitschko 15 years ago it was strange for L.A. boxing fans to see two gargantuan men exchange concussive blows in a boxing ring.
That heavyweight clash still remains one of the best heavyweight collisions ever staged in Southern California. Both let loose when massive blows and showed incredible determination in a clash that saw blood pouring out of Klitschko’s eye forcing the fight to be stopped prematurely. Fans fell in love with Klitschko for his grit and with Lewis for his willingness to trade bombs with the big Ukrainian. It would turn out to be the last fight for Lewis who then retired from the sport.
Klitschko would later win the heavyweight world title and fight twice more in Los Angeles. First against Corrie Sanders in April 2004 and then against Southern California’s Chris Arreola in September 2009. It was the third and final time Klitschko would fight in Los Angeles. After that he only fought in Europe and when his brother Wladimir Klitschko won the other versions of the heavyweight titles that closed the door to America as both Klitschkos opted to fight in Europe.
Southern California has not seen a heavyweight world title fight since Stiverne-Arreola in 2014. And in the history of prizefighting in the Los Angeles area only 11 heavyweight world title fights have ever taken place.
It’s history indeed when American heavyweight Wilder defends the WBC title against lineal champion Fury of Great Britain. It is well worth watching.
More importantly, the winner between Wilder and Fury has a true claim on the lineal heavyweight world title that can be traced all the way back to the first heavyweight world champion of the modern era John L. Sullivan.
“I’m the lineal champion of the world,” said Fury of holding the distinction. “I’ve never been beaten.”
Tickets are still available for the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel
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Ebanie Bridges Poised to Defend Her Title and Boost Her Brand in SanFran This Weekend

Ebanie Bridges opposes late sub Miyo Yoshida on the undercard of Saturday’s Matchroom card in San Francisco featuring the WBC lightweight title fight between Regis Prograis and Devin Haney. It’s doubtful that Bridges vs. Yoshida will steal the show (Prograis vs Haney is a compelling match-up), but it’s a stone-cold lock that Bridges vs. Yoshida will steal the weigh-in. It goes at 1 pm Friday at the Chase Center and is open to the public.
This is all Bridges’ doing. She can fight more than a little, as Damon Runyon would have phrased it, but is best known for turning up at weigh-ins in lingerie so sexy that Matchroom honcho Eddie Hearn averts his eyes to keep from blushing. Others can’t keep their eyes off the 37-year-old, well-endowed Australian and on Friday the paparazzi will crash the scene to capture images that will be all over the internet within hours.
This doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. Former opponent Shannon Courtenay, who saddled Bridges (9-1, 4 KOs) with her only defeat, chastised her for selling their fight for the wrong reasons and disrespecting the sport. Her most recent opponent, Shannon O’Connell, called her a skank and other terms of derision unfit for a family newspaper.
Bridges stopped her in the eighth round in what is her most gratifying win to date. “She made it personal,” says Ebanie. “It felt good to make her eat her words.”
Bridges, who set a withering pace, was making the first defense of the IBF bantamweight title she won with a comprehensive 10-round decision over Argentina’s long-reigning Maria Cecilia Roman. Shannon O’Connell, a fellow Aussie, entered that bout on an 8-fight winning streak that included hard-earned decisions over Australian standouts Taylah Robertson and Cherneka Johnson.
So, although Bridges vs O’Connell was contested in Leeds, England, it was something of the culmination of an Australian round-robin tournament, and it would be Ebanie Bridges that emerged as the Queen Bee.
Bridges has a platform on Only Fans. Known for its “adult” content, the web site is also a place where B-list celebrities go to monetize their fan base by promising a closer look into their personal lives. For attractive female celebs, that usually means displaying more skin that can be found in generic publicity photos, but well short of hard-core. Current Only Fans performers include recording artist Cardi B, actress Denise Richards, the former spouse of Charlie Sheen, actress Drea de Matteo, best known for portraying Adriana on “The Sopranos,” former “Baywatch” sex symbol Carmen Electra, boxer Mikaela Mayer, and former Miss USA Shanna Moakler who shares a daughter with Oscar de la Hoya.
Women that profit from cheesecake, to use an old word for racy photos, aren’t known for having the brightest bulbs between their ears but Bridges, despite embracing her nickname, the Blonde Bomber, doesn’t fit the stereotype. She’s no bimbo.
Ms. Bridges has two college degrees, an undergraduate degree in math and a master’s in secondary education. In her spare time, she finds solace in playing the piano and in drawing, a skill that she inherited from her father, a painter and commercial artist.
In her drawings, she is partial to British soccer coaches and athletes, in particular boxers. Some of her photos are embedded in her smart phone. These, I can attest, are very good. There was no mistaking her drawing of Sugar Ray Robinson. It ranked right up there with Stanley Weston whose illustrations adorned the covers of 57 issues of The Ring magazine.
Bridges is her own best publicist. It’s an attribute she shares with UFC superstar Conor McGregor.
It comes as no surprise to learn that they are well-acquainted. Bridges and McGregor sat together at the first fight between Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron. She is a spokesperson for the latest product that McGregor is pushing, Forged Irish Stout, a brand of beer that debuted at the Black Forge Inn, the Dublin pub that McGregor owns.
“I love Conor,” she says, “he’s lovely,” a rather odd adjective to apply to a man who once attacked a bus with a metal barricade at a UFC media event in Brooklyn, injuring three people.
“He’s great for my brand,” says Bridges of McGregor, “and I’m great for his brand.”
Like it or not, this is the new world order. This reporter is old enough to remember when colleges and universities had football teams. Now they have football franchises, which isn’t quite the same. A franchise requires a well-oiled marketing department to enhance the value of the brand.
Bridges got her first crack at a world title (the WBA version held by Shannon Courtenay) after only five pro fights against opponents who were collectively 12-25-5. Her opponent on Saturday, Miyo Yoshida, sports a 16-4 record and is coming off a loss.
This is fodder for critics of female boxing but, make no mistake, Bridges would be a tough out for any female bantamweight in the world and she has paid her dues. She had 30 amateur fights after previously training in karate, kickboxing, and Muay Thai. (In fairness to Matchroom’s matchmaker, he salvaged Saturday’s date for her, securing Yoshida after three previous opponents fell out.)
Looking ahead to 2024, Bridges envisions fighting England’s Nina Hughes, the WBA belt-holder, and then Denmark’s Dina Thorslund who owns the other two meaningful pieces of the bantamweight title. A match with Thorslund (currently 20-0, 8 KOs) with all four belts on the line would be a blockbuster and, by then, should it transpire, the Blonde Bombshell would undoubtedly be one of the most well-known boxers in the world.
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A Paean to the Great Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon Who Passed Away 50 Years Ago This Week

“Of all his assignments,” said the renowned sportswriter Dave Anderson, “[Jimmy] Cannon appeared to enjoy boxing the most.”
Cannon would have sheepishly concurred. He dated his infatuation with boxing to 1919 when he stood outside a saloon listening to a man with a megaphone relay bulletins from the Dempsey-Willard fight in faraway Toledo. His father followed boxing as did all the Irishmen in his neighborhood. For him, an interest in the sport of boxing, he once wrote, was like a family heirloom. But it became a love-hate relationship. It was Jimmy Cannon, after all, who coined the phrase “boxing is the red light district of sports.”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Jimmy Cannon’s death. He passed away at age 63 on Dec. 5, 1973, in his room at the residential hotel in mid-Manhattan where he made his home. In the realm of American sportswriters, there has never been a voice quite like him. He was “the hardest-boiled of the hard-drinking, hard-boiled school of sports writing,” wrote Darrell Simmons of the Atlanta Journal. One finds a glint of this in his summary of Sonny Liston’s first-round demolition of Albert Westphal in 1961: “Sonny Liston hit Albert Westphal like he was a cop.”
In his best columns, Jimmy Cannon was less a sportswriter than an urban poet. Here’s what he wrote about Archie Moore in 1955 after Moore trounced Bobo Olson to set up a match with Rocky Marciano: “Someone should write a song about Archie Moore who in the Polo Grounds knocked out Bobo Olson in three rounds…It should be a song that comes out of the backrooms of sloughed saloons on night-drowned streets in morning-worried parts of bad towns. The guy who writes this one must be a piano player who can be dignified when he picks a quarter out of the marsh of a sawdust floor.”
Prior to fighting in Madison Square Garden the previous year – his first appearance in that iconic boxing arena – Moore had roamed the globe in search of fights in a career that began in the Great Depression. Cannon was partial to boxers like Archie Moore, great ring artisans who toiled in obscurity, fighting for small purses –“moving-around money” in Cannon’s words — until the establishment could no longer ignore them.
Jimmy Cannon was born in Lower Manhattan. He left high school after one year to become a copy boy for the New York Daily News. In 1936, at age 26, the News sent him to cover the biggest news story of the day, the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping trial. While there he met Damon Runyon who would become a lifelong friend. At Runyon’s suggestion, he applied for a job as a sportswriter at the New York American, a Hearst paper, and was hired.
During World War II, he was a war correspondent in Europe embedded in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. When he returned from the war, he joined the New York Post and then, in 1959, the Journal-American which made him America’s highest-paid sportswriter at a purported salary of $1000 a week. His articles were syndicated and appeared in dozens of papers.
Cannon was very close to Joe Louis. He was the only reporter that Louis allowed in his hotel room on the morning of the Brown Bomber’s rematch with Max Schmeling. Louis, he wrote, “was a credit to his race, the human race.” It was his most-frequently-quoted line.
In an early story, Cannon named Sam Langford the best pound-for-pound fighter of all time. Later he joined with his colleagues on Press Row in naming Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest of the greats. As for the fellow who anointed himself “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali, Cannon profoundly disliked him. He persisted in calling him Cassius Clay long after Ali had adopted his Muslim name.
It troubled Cannon that Ali was afforded an opportunity to fight for the title after only 19 pro fights. Ali’s poetry, he thought, was infantile. He abhorred Ali’s political views. And, truth be told, he didn’t like Ali because certain segments of society adored him. Cannon didn’t like non-conformists – hippies and anti-war protesters and such. When queried about his boyhood in Greenwich Village, he was quick to note that he lived there “when it was a decent neighborhood, before it became freaky.”
Cannon’s animus toward Ali spilled over into his opinion of Ali’s foil, the bombastic sportscaster Howard Cosell. “If Howard Cosell were a sport,” he wrote,” it would be roller derby.”
Cannon frequently filled his column with a series of one-liners published under the heading “Nobody Asked Me, But…” His wonderfully acerbic put-down of Cosell appeared in one of these columns. But one can’t read these columns today without cringing at some of his ruminations. He once wrote, “Any man is in trouble if he falls in love with a woman he can’t knock down with one punch.” If a newspaperman wrote those words today, he would be out of a job so fast it would make his head spin.
Similarly, his famous line about Joe Louis being a credit to the human race no longer resonates in the way that it once did. There is in its benevolence an air of racial prejudice.
Jimmy Cannon was a lifelong bachelor but in his younger days before he quit drinking cold turkey in 1948, he was quite the ladies man, often seen promenading showgirls around town. Like his pal Damon Runyon, he was a night owl. As the years passed, however, he became somewhat reclusive. The world passed him by when rock n’ roll came in, pushing aside the Tin Pan Alley crooners and torch singers that had kept him company at his favorite late-night haunts.
Cannon’s end days were tough. He suffered a stroke in 1971 as he was packing to go to the Kentucky Derby and spent most of his waking hours in his last two-plus years in a wheelchair. Fortunately, he could afford to hire a full-time attendant. In 2002, he was posthumously elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category.
Jimmy Cannon once said that he resented it when someone told him that his stuff was too good to be in a newspaper. It was demeaning to newspapers and he never wanted to be anything but a newspaperman. He didn’t always bring his “A” game and some of his stuff wouldn’t hold up well, but the man could write like blazes and the sportswriting profession lost a giant when he drew his last breath.
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Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.
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Ryan “KingRy” Garcia Returns With a Bang; KOs Oscar Duarte

It was a different Ryan “KingRy” Garcia the world saw in defeating Mexico’s rugged Oscar Duarte, but it was that same deadly left hook counter that got the job done by knockout on Saturday.
Only the quick survive.
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) used a variety of stances before luring knockout artist Duarte (26-1-1, 21 KOs) into his favorite punch before a sold-out crowd at Toyota Arena in Houston, Texas. That punch should be patented in gold.
It was somewhat advertised as knockout artist versus matinee idol, but those who know the sport knew that Garcia was a real puncher. But could he rebound from his loss earlier this year?
The answer was yes.
Garcia used a variety of styles beginning with a jab at a prescribed distance via his new trainer Derrick James. It allowed both Garcia and Duarte to gain footing and knock the cobwebs out of their reflexes. Garcia’s jab scored most of the early points during the first three rounds. He also snapped off some left hooks and rights.
“He was a strong fighter, took a strong punch,” said Garcia. “I hit him with some hard punches and he kept coming.”
Duarte, an ultra-pale Mexican from Durango, was cautious, knowing full well how many Garcia foes had underestimated the power behind his blows.
Slowly the muscular Mexican fighter began closing in with body shots and soon both fighters were locked in an inside battle. Garcia used a tucked-in shoulder style while Duarte pounded the body, back of the head and in the back causing the referee to warn for the illegal punches twice.
Still, Duarte had finally managed to punch Garcia with multiple shots for several rounds.
Around the sixth round Garcia was advised by his new trainer to begin jabbing and moving. It forced Duarte out of his rhythm as he was unable to punch without planting his feet. Suddenly, the momentum had reversed again and Duarte looked less dangerous.
“I had to slow his momentum down. That softened him up,” said Garcia about using that change in style to change Duarte’s pressure attack. “Shout out to Derrick James.”
Boos began cascading from the crowd but Garcia was on a roll and had definitely regained the advantage. A quick five-punch combination rocked Duarte though not all landed. The danger made the Mexican pause.
In the eighth round Duarte knew he had to take back the momentum and charged even harder. In one lickety-split second a near invisible counter left hook connected on Duarte’s temple and he stumbled like a drunken soldier on liberty in Honolulu. Garcia quickly followed up with rights and uppercuts as Duarte had a look of terror as his legs failed to maintain stability. Down he went for the count.
Duarte was counted out by referee James Green at 2:51 of the eighth round as Garcia watched from the other side of the ring.
“I started opening up my legs a little bit to open up the shot,” explained Garcia. “When I hurt somebody that hard, I just keep cracking them. I hurt him with a counter left hook.”
The weapon of champions.
Garcia’s victory returns him back to the forefront as one of boxing’s biggest gate attractions. A list of potential foes is his to dissect and choose.
“I’m just ready to continue to my ascent to be a champion at 140,” Garcia said.
It was a tranquil end after such a tumultuous last three days.
Other Bouts
Floyd Schofield (16-0, 12 KOs) blitzed Mexico’s Ricardo “Not Finito” Lopez (17-8-3) with a four knockdown blowout that left fans mesmerized and pleased with the fighter from Austin, Texas.
Schofield immediately shot out quick jabs and then a lightning four-punch combination that delivered Lopez to the canvas wondering what had happened. He got up. Then Scholfield moved in with a jab and crisp left hook and down went Lopez like a dunked basketball bouncing.
At this point it seemed the fight might stop. But it proceeded and Schofield unleashed another quick combo that sent Lopez down though he did try to punch back. It was getting monotonous. Lopez got up and then was met with another rapid fire five- or six-punch combination. Lopez was down for the fourth time and the referee stopped the devastation.
“I appreciate him risking his life,” said Schofield of his victim.
In a middleweight clash Shane Mosley Jr. (21-4, 12 KOs) out-worked Joshua Conley (17-6-1, 11 KOs) for five rounds before stopping the San Bernardino fighter at 1:51 of the sixth round. It was Mosley’s second consecutive knockout and fourth straight win.
Mosley continues to improve in every fight and again moves up the middleweight rankings.
Super middleweight prospect Darius Fulghum (9-0, 9 KOs) of Houston remained undefeated and kept his knockout string intact with a second round pounding and stoppage over Pachino Hill (8-5-1) in 56 seconds of that round.
Photo credit: Golden Boy Promotions
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