‘Pacman’ vs. ‘The Problem’ Will Sort Out Perception From Reality

Published

6 years ago

January 7, 2019

Sometimes it is the fighters’ real or perceived flaws, as much as their strengths, that make for a compelling if not necessarily great fight. Such would appear to be the case when 40-year-old Manny Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs), the only man ever to win world championships in eight weight classes, defends his “regular” WBA welterweight title against 29-year-old former four-division champ Adrien Broner (33-3-1, 24 KOs) on Jan. 19 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden.

The bout – marking “Pac-Man’s” first ring appearance on American soil in 26½ months, since he retained his WBO 147-pound crown on a unanimous decision over Jessie Vargas at Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center – is being heralded as a Really Big Deal, a precursor to more and better things for the living legend and sitting senator from the Philippines.

“I have to pass through him before fighting Floyd Mayweather,” Pacquiao said of what hinges on the outcome of his scrap with Broner, hinting at a rematch with his fellow fortysomething that resulted in a wide unanimous decision for Mayweather on May 2, 2015, a fight that even then was several years past its optimum expiration date. “I want to prove to the boxing fans that Manny Pacquiao is still in the pack. You will see more fights with Manny Pacquiao in the United States.”

Everyone involved in the promotion is making it sound like this bout, which hopefully will prove to be entertaining enough inside the ropes to warrant all the optimistic chatter, is on more or less the same level as 33-year-old, black-leather-encased Elvis Presley reminding everyone of just how huge he used to be with his globally televised, ratings-smashing “Aloha From Hawaii” comeback special on Jan. 14, 1973.

Pacquiao-Broner, presented by Premier Boxing Champions, will be televised via Showtime Pay Per View and Stephen Espinoza, the premium-cable outfit’s president of Sports and Event Programming, is among those dropping broad hints that the fight just might be as much can’t-miss TV as was the slimmed-down Elvis going back to his roots to belt out “Jailhouse Rock,” which considering the oft-arrested Broner’s participation might not be wholly inaccurate.

“Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner are two of the most gifted athletes in boxing today,” Espinoza gushed. “Both men throw punches with eye-opening speed and carry significant power in both hands. These attributes have made them two of the biggest draws in the sport. Pacquiao is a proven pay-per-view attraction, while Broner has consistently delivered many of the highest-rated boxing events on television. This matchup promises explosive action from bell to bell.”

Well, maybe. Then again….

It is axiomatic in the area of boxing promotion to never let any scintilla of negativity interfere with the obligatory cascade of breathless hype. For those at least willing to concede that all might not be as well as advertised, it should be noted that Pacquiao – a legitimate all-time great, future first-ballot Hall of Famer and three-time Fighter of the Year – has lost four of his last 10 fights and his seventh-round TKO of faded Argentine slugger Lucas Matthysse (who immediately announced his retirement) on July 15, might not have been as impressive as it appeared at first blush.

Although Pacquiao came away with Matthysse’s secondary welterweight title and ended a 13-bout non-KO streak dating back to his 12^th-round stoppage of Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14, 2009, the fight had to be promoted by Pacquiao himself in Kuala Lumpur because his longtime promotional company, Top Rank, had determined that the Manny Express no longer was capable of making regular stops to pick up sacks of box-office and TV profits. It also was for a belt handed out by the shameless WBA, which gleefully acknowledges “super,” “regular,” “interim” and all manner of other championships in the same weight classifications, the better to scoop up as many sanctioning fees as possible. The real WBA welterweight champion is Keith Thurman, who ends nearly two years of injury-prolonged inactivity when he takes on Joselito Lopez on Jan. 26 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Pacquiao found a new promotional partner in Al Haymon’s PBC because PBC signs fighters by the gross and, well, because “Pac-Man” still has the kind of transcendent name value that can be milked further. Manny fans always will be Manny fans, just as Elvis devotees never were going to stop getting weak in the knees whenever the King of Rock ’n’ Roll wiggled his hips on stage. But it will be up to the Fab Filipino to demonstrate that he still has more than fumes in the gas tank. The best-case scenario for him is that he justifies his significant -280 favoritism (bettors would have to wager $280 to come out a hundred bucks ahead) against Broner, who has an entirely different set of issues he needs to sort out both in the ring and in his train-wreck personal life.

No one has ever disputed Broner’s talent, which he has flashed often enough to seduce his backers into thinking it can yet be an ongoing thing. But the man aptly nicknamed “The Problem” also will enter the ring shrouded in a haze of question marks. Once hailed as someone who might embellish Cincinnati’s proud pugilistic heritage that was crafted in large part by the far more accomplished Ezzard Charles and Aaron Pryor, both of whom have been enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Broner as presently constituted is at best a fringe candidate for IBHOF immortalization. He is just 3-2-1 in his last six outings and, although still young enough to be considered in his prime, his litany of brushes with the law suggests that he should consider going plural with his nome de guerre and start calling himself “Problems.” Snarky detractors sometimes refer to him as “Mayweather Lite,” which, all things considered, is still more complimentary than he deserves.

In a Showtime episode of “All Access” meant to whet fan interest in the fight, Broner spoke of one of the first times he found himself incarcerated, facing a 57-year sentence, at which point the youthful miscreant vowed to himself that he would funnel his energy into boxing should he be fortunate to gain his freedom. He did, and he did. Except that he has spent so much time dealing with police that he could be the star of his own reality show, “Cops: On the Street With Adrien Broner.” In February 2018 he was arrested in an Atlanta mall on a charge of misdemeanor sexual battery for allegedly groping a woman, and he found himself in cuffs again just before Christmas, in Broward County, Fla., after a warrant was issued for his failure to appear in court earlier in the month. He was booked in county jail and then released, the case stemming to a December 2017 arrest when he was stopped for speeding and found to have no driver’s license, registration or proof of insurance.

But a lot of the legal lint that has stuck to Broner’s Velcro suit could be brushed at least temporarily clean should the +240 underdog demonstrate that the Pacquiao of our fondest memories, the force of nature who defeated, among others, Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley and Cotto, is incapable of solving one more Problem.

Until the first punch is thrown, much of the prefight drama will center on matters that are somewhat peripheral to whatever takes place inside the ropes. After briefly parting, Pacquiao and his longtime trainer, Freddie Roach, are reuniting for another grab for some of that old glory, and they’re both making it sound like there is more magic to be made.

“I am not making a prediction, but my goal is to knock out Broner,” Pacquiao said. “I forgot how much fun winning a fight by knockout was until I stopped Lucas Matthysse last summer. It felt great to win that way and the fans loved it too, so why not try for it again?”

Said Roach, perhaps oblivious to diminishment of any fighter’s skills by the relentless march of time: “I think experience has made Manny a better fighter. He still trains harder than anyone. I like Broner as a fighter. I think he has excellent boxing skills. But Broner has never faced anyone like Manny. Broner will be mentally exhausted within four rounds and physically spent within six. It will be impossible for Broner to keep pace with the Manny Pacquiao of this training camp.”

We shall see.

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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R.I.P Israel Vazquez who has Passed Away at age 46

Published

19 hours ago

December 3, 2024

TSS Press

RIP-Israel-Vazquez-who-has-Passed-Away-at-age-46

Israel Vazquez, a three-time world champion at 122 pounds and one of the most crowd-pleasing prizefighters of any era, has passed away at the age of 46. WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman revealed the bad news today (Dec. 3) on his social media platform.

Born on Christmas Day 1977, Vazquez began his pro career in his native Mexico City at age 17. He was 16 fights into his pro career when he made his U.S. debut in El Cajon, California, under the management of Frank Espinoza.

Vazquez is most remembered for his four-fight rivalry with fellow Mexico City native Rafael Marquez.

The first two meetings were contested before small crowds in Carson, California, and Hidalgo, Texas.

Marquez won the first meeting thanks to a left hook that broke Vazquez’s nose in the opening round. The nose swelled to the point that Vazquez, who was making the fourth defense of his WBC super bantamweight title, could no longer breathe and he was all done after seven rounds.

Vazquez won the rematch (TKO 6), setting the stage for a rubber match that would be a fight for the ages. The bout, contested on March 1, 2008 at the soccer stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, was a shoo-in for Fight of the Year, earning that accolade from the BWAA, The Ring magazine and others.

Vazquez pulled that fight out of the fire in the final round, knocking Marquez to the canvas to win a split decision. Ron Borges, writing for this publication, wrote, “they knocked pieces off each other that could never be fully reattached.”

That was true of the detached retina in Vazquez’s right eye. It would require multiple surgeries before Vazquez, nicknamed “El Magnifico,” fought again and the eye would eventually be replaced by a prosthetic.

Their fourth meeting, contested before a celebrity-studded crowd at LA’s Staples Center, was anticlimactic. Vazquez, damaged goods, was stopped in the third round and never fought again.

All four meetings were televised on Showtime which celebrated the rivalry in 2015, airing highlights from all four fights on March 7 of that year. TSS West Coast Bureau Chief David A. Avila, looking back at the series, wrote, “[It was] 28 rounds of the most scientifically brutal and awe-inspiring prizefighting at an elite level.” Avila would also call Israel Vazquez one of the sport’s greatest gentlemen, a class act, as evinced in his energetic handshake whenever meeting a new fan.

Vazquez used his ring earnings to open a boxing gym in the Greater Los Angeles City of South Gate.

Vazquez’s passing wasn’t unexpected. Mauricio Sulaiman announced last month that Vazquez had been diagnosed with Stage IV Sarcoma, a particularly virulent strain of cancer and along with Oscar Valdez and Top Rank, established a GoFundMe account to defray his medical expenses. Today, Sulaiman wrote, “Israel Vazquez is finally resting in peace. May God give strength and support to his wife Laura, their children, family and friends during these difficult times.”

We here at TSS share that sentiment and send our condolences.

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Fighting on His Home Turf, Galal Yafai Pulverizes Sunny Edwards

Published

4 days ago

November 30, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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The Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England, was the site of tonight’s Matchroom Promotions card featuring flyweights Galal Yafai and Sunny Edwards in the main event. Yafai went to post a short underdog in what on paper was a 50/50 fight, but it was a rout from the start.

Yafai got right into Edwards’ grill in the opening round and never let up. Although there were no knockdowns, it was complete domination by the Birmingham southpaw until the referee stepped in and waived it off at the 1:10 mark of round six.

“Bloodline” was the tagline of the match-up. Sunny’s brother Charlie Edwards, now competing as a bantamweight, is a former flyweight world title-holder. Galal, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, is the third member of his family to make his mark as a prizefighter. Brother Kal, also a former Olympian, once held a world title at 115 and brother Gamal was a Commonwealth champion as a bantamweight.

Edwards and Galal Yafai were well-acquainted. They had fought as amateurs and had shared the ring on many occasions as sparring partners. Although Galal was 31 years old, he had only eight pro fights under his belt and was meeting a veteran of six world title fights whose only loss in 22 starts came the hands of the brilliant Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.

But that loss to Rodriguez in Arizona (Edwards’ corner pulled him out after nine frames) was of the kind that shortens careers. Although Sunny won a tune-up fight since that setback, tonight he had the appearance of a boxer who had grown old overnight. In fact, after the second round, he was heard saying to his corner “I really don’t want to be here.”

Edwards wanted out, but he dutifully answered the bell for the next four rounds. After the bout, he indicated that he had planned to retire after this fight, win, or lose, or draw.

The contest was billed as a WBC “eliminator” which positions Galal Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) for a match with Japanese veteran Kenshiro Teraji, the long-reigning light flyweight title-holder who moved up in weight last month and captured the WBC flyweight title at the expense of Cristofer Rosales.

Other Bouts of Note

Welterweight Conah Walker, from the Birmingham bedroom community of Wolverhampton, won a clear-cut 10-round decision over Lewis Ritson, winning by scores of 98-93 and 97-93 twice.

A former British lightweight champion, Ritson (23-5) lost for the fourth time in his last six starts, but was game to the core. At various times he appeared on the verge of being stopped, but he may have won the final round when he got the best of several exchanges. Walker, a heavy favorite, improved to 14-3-1 (6).

In a 12-round middleweight match, Kieron Conway won his fourth straight, advancing to 22-3-1 (6) with a split decision over a local product, Ryan Kelly (19-5-1). Kelly got the nod on one of the cards (115-114), but was out-voted by his colleagues who had it 116-112 and 115-113 for Conway.

While the decision was fair, this was a lackluster performance by Conway who had fought much stiffer competition and entered the ring a 6/1 favorite.

Twenty-two-year-old junior welterweight Cameron Vuong, a stablemate of Jack Catterall, stepped up in class and improved to 7-0 (3) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Gavin Gwynne. The judges had it 97-94, 96-94, and 96-95.

Vuong, who is half Vietnamese, out-boxed Gwynne from the outside but was far from impressive. A 34-year-old Welshman and veteran of eight domestic title fights, Gwynne (17-4-1) was the aggressor throughout and there were scattered boos when the decision was announced.

In a scheduled 8-rounder that wasn’t part of the main card, Liverpool’s Callum Smith (30-2, 22 KOs) wacked out Colombian trial horse Carlos Galvan in the fifth round. Smith, whose only defeats came at the hands of future Hall of Famers Canelo Alvarez (L 12) and Artur Beterbiev (L TKO 7), knocked Galvan down in the fourth and then twice more in the fifth with body punches before the match was halted. Galvan declined to 20-15-2.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal

Published

5 days ago

November 29, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal

With most of America in a turkey coma, all boxing eyes should be pointed toward England this weekend.

Former world titlist Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) challenges the fast-rising Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) for a regional flyweight on Saturday, Nov. 30, at Resorts World Arena in Birmingham. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

Without the fast-talking and dare-to-be-great Edwards, the flyweight division and super flyweight divisions would be in a blanket of invisibility. He’s the kind of personality the lower weight classes need.

The London kid loves to talk and loves to fight even more.

Edwards was calling out Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez when the San Antonio fighter was blasting out feared Thai slugger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and dismantling Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras. And he did this in front of a worldwide audience.

Of course, he fell short of defeating the young superstar but he kick-started the weight division with new life. And here he is again enticing more eyes on the flyweights as he challenges another potential star.

“I was happy and proud of Galal when he won the Olympic gold medal,” said Edwards who has sparred Yafai many times. “When me and Galal get in a small space, it’s fireworks.”

Yafai, a 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, only has eight pro fights but at age 31 doesn’t have time to walk through the stages of careful preparation. But with blazing speed to go along with big power in his southpaw punches, it’s time for the Birmingham native to claim his spot on the world stage.

Is he ready?

“It’s a massive fight, it speaks for itself. Sunny is a great fighter, a former world champion, a good name and we’ve got history as well,” Yafai said at the press conference.” I’ve got to be a bit smarter, but I know Sunny inside-out.”

Both have blazing speed. Yafai has the power, but Edwards has the experience of pro-style competition.

Promoter Eddie Hearn calls this one of the top fights in British boxing.

“Sunny doesn’t care, he wants to be in great fights, he believes in himself and he is rolling the dice again on Saturday night, as is Galal. An Olympic gold medalist from Birmingham with just a handful of fights really, and already stepping up to take on one of the top, top flyweights in the world,” said Hearns.

Ryan Garcia in Beverly Hills

The budding Southern California superstar Ryan Garcia met the boxing media in Beverly Hills to announce an exhibition match against Japan’s kickboxing star Rukiya Anpo on December 30 in Tokyo. FANMIO pay-per-view will show the match if it takes place.

Garcia is still under contract with Golden Boy Promotions and according to the promotion company an agreement has not been established. But with Garcia under suspension for PED use following his last fight against Devin Haney back in April, an opportunity for the popular fighter to make a living will probably be allowed.

As long as everyone gets their cut.

Now 26, Garcia seeks to get back in the prize ring and do what he does best and that’s fire left hooks in machine gun fashion.

“He tried to knock out Manny Pacquiao and it pissed me off,” said Garcia on his reasons for accepting an exhibition match with the bigger in size Anpo. “That rubbed me the wrong way and now I’m here to show him someone in his prime with speed and power.”

Anpo wants a knockout and nothing else.

“I regret that I couldn’t finish Manny Pacquiao,” said Anpo who met Pacquiao in an exhibition this past summer in Tokyo. “That’s what we train to do in every fight. I have even more motivation this time and I will knock him out and finish Ryan Garcia as a professional.”

Following the press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 26, an e-mail by Golden Boy was sent to the media and stated: “Golden Boy Promotions has exclusive rights to Ryan Garcia’s fights. The organizers of this event (Garcia vs. Anpo) have acknowledged as such and have agreed in writing that our sign-off is needed for this event to occur. As no such sign-off has been given, as of today there is no event with Ryan Garcia.”

Simply said, they get their cut or no fight.

The potential money-making fight has a strong possibility to occur.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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