Featured Articles
A Shocker in Philadelphia as Fan Favorite Christian Carto is Knocked Out Cold

The ending came suddenly and unexpectedly, a bolt from the blue that no one in the standing-room-only audience could have anticipated.
Well, no one with the possible exception of the guy who landed the second-round bomb that left 1,300 or so spectators shocked and concerned for the welfare of the very popular young fighter they had come to cheer and support.
Victor Ruiz, a 28-year-old southpaw from Tijuana, Mexico, no doubt understood that he had been brought to the 2300 Arena in South Philadelphia to serve as the 18th consecutive victim for Christian Carto, who was being touted as his hometown’s best and most exciting bantamweight since another South Philly favorite, “Joltin’” Jeff Chandler, was crafting a career that would gain him enshrinement into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2000.
But the capacity-plus audience, well-dotted by Carto fans wearing shirts bearing his likeness, went from lusty screams of encouragement to instant, stunned silence when Ruiz delivered an overhand left that caught Carto flush on the jaw as he was moving forward. Carto, 22, was unconscious before he went down, making no attempt to cushion the landing. And when his head bounced off the canvas, referee Eric Dali didn’t even attempt to initiate a count, immediately signaling for the ring doctor to attend to the stricken fighter. It went into the books as a second-round knockout after an elapsed time of one minute, 56 seconds.
“Christian leaped in with his hands down into a perfect left,” said Carto’s cut man, Joey Eye. “The guy (Ruiz) was a world championship contender once and he knows how to fight. Christian got a little too confident and you saw what happened. It’s part of the business.
“He was out, really out, for over a minute. I know because I was counting the seconds. I was getting more and more nervous because he wasn’t responding at all. But he did come around eventually. Hopefully, he’ll be OK.”
Carto’s neck was immobilized and after a delay of several minutes he was taken from the ring on a gurney for transport to nearby Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for treatment and observation. He was able to briefly raise a gloved hand to acknowledge a concerned Ruiz, who, after celebrating his upset victory, knelt over Carto in an expression of concern when he realized the possible seriousness of his opponent’s condition.
It was later reported, encouragingly, that Carto’s CT scan came back negative.
Ruiz (23-10-1, 16 KOs) arguably was the best, most accomplished fighter Carto (17-1, 11 KOs) had faced on what had been a steady progression toward what many considered, and maybe still do, would result in real stardom. The crafty Mexican is a former world championship challenger, losing his only bid for a widely recognized title when he was stopped in seven rounds by IBF bantamweight ruler Zolani Tete of South Africa on June 4, 2016, in Liverpool, England. But Ruiz arrived in Philadelphia having lost four straight and five of his last six, and the official program for the “Philly Special” card almost dismissively described his presence in the scheduled eight-round main event thusly: “It’s easy to say that Ruiz has fought better opponents – he has – but the bottom line is that he lost to most of them. This is the right fight at the right time for Carto.”
Ruiz – his four-bout losing streak had come against quality fighters who were a combined 49-3-2 at the time he fought them — had other ideas than to serve as anyone’s steppingstone, as was indicated by his comments to lead promoter Michelle Rosado of Raging Babe Promotions the morning before the fight almost everyone expected him to dutifully lose.
“I took him to breakfast at IHOP,” Rosado noted. “I asked him what he knew about Carto. He said, `We know who he is. He’s a white kid, Italian(-American). He’s got a big following. Oh, and I’m going to knock him out.’”
It hardly seems to matter much now, but Carto won a feel-out first round on all three official scorecards, which seemed to have emboldened him to come out for round two in a more aggressive mode. After winning his first 11 pro bouts inside the distance, Carto had been obliged to settle for points nods in his next six outings and he might have been eager to end his KO drought.
“Then he walked into a shot that landed perfect, a looping left as he was walking in,” said Hall of Fame promoter J Russell Peltz, who was at ringside.
Peltz offered the opinion that it would “probably be at least six months” before Carto would be able to fight again, but that is only a guess. Some fighters never recover from the kind of knockout he sustained against Ruiz, mentally if not physically, and how he reacts moving forward is anyone’s guess.
“He’s a strong kid, and young,” Joey Eye noted. “Is he going to be gun-shy every time he gets in the ring from now on? Or is it going to make him so pissed off that he goes after everybody. You don’t know.”
Ruiz’s exclamation-point victory in the marquee bout rendered what had taken place in the preceding six bouts almost meaningless, but an otherwise uninspiring undercard was salvaged in the lead-in to Carto-Ruiz as North Philly welterweight Marcel Rivers (7-0, 4 KOs) registered an exciting and competitive six-round unanimous decision over Derrick Whitley (4-1-1), a southpaw from Springfield, Mass. All three judges favored Rivers by 58-56, but Whitley could have made a case for winning by the same margin, nor would a draw been out of the question.
Bouts involving two highly regarded Philly heavyweights, however, hardly seemed to justify the hype. Darmani Rock (14-0, 9 KOs), the 2015 National Golden Gloves super heavyweight champion from the city’s Germantown section, at 273.3 pounds has a jiggly physique seemingly more suitable to being harpooned than punched, but Steven Lyons (5-4, 2 KOs), from Houma, La., with a weight disadvantage of 66.6 pounds, seemed disinclined to engage from the start in a scheduled six-rounder, finally going down on one knee after being hit with a couple of body shots and being counted out at 1:20 of the fourth round. That fight, however, almost could pass for Ali-Frazier I in comparison to the pro debut of much-touted South Philly big man Sonny Conto, the 2018 National Golden Gloves super heavyweight runner-up from South Philly who was credited with a first-round TKO of Jimmie Levins (0-5), from Buffalo, N.Y. The inept Levins went down five times in the first round, all of which were ruled slips by Dali, although in fairness it should be noted that Conto did land a left hook preceding Levins’ fifth trip to the deck. Fight fans will see more of Conto, enough of a prospect that megapromotional company Top Rank has an interest in him, but Greg Sirb, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, said that Levins should not expect to ever again appear in a fight in which he has jurisdiction.
In other bouts, bantamweights Alejandro Jimenez (4-0-1, 1 KO), of New Hope, Pa., and Edgar Cortes (6-4-1), of Vineland, N.J., fought to a six-round split draw; junior welterweight Gerardo Martinez (4-1, 1 KO), Coatesville, Pa., scored a four-round majority decision over Osnel Charles (12-19-1, 2 KOs), of Atlantic City, N.J., and bantamweight Jonathan Torres (2-0), of Bethlehem, Pa., won a four-round unanimous decision over Dallas Holden (1-4), of Atlantic City.
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.
Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel
To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
Featured Articles
Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.
Will it be her last flyweight defense?
Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.
Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.
The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.
Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.
Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.
“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”
The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.
In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.
Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.
Perez Beats Conwell.
Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.
It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.
Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.
Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.
It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.
Other Bouts
Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.
It was very close.
Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.
Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.
One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.
Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.
Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.
Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.
Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.
Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.
The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.
Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.
Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.
That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.
Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.
Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.
In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.
Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.
Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.
The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
-
Featured Articles2 weeks ago
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More