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Abel Sanchez is the Latest Top-Tier Trainer to Be Bruised by a Ruptured Bond

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Abel Sanchez

Before his death at the age of 75 on Feb. 3, 2016, Richie Giachetti, the longest-tenured of longtime heavyweight champion Larry Holmes’ chief seconds, proudly spoke of the many contributions he had made in helping make the “Easton Assassin” the great fighter that he was. For his part, Holmes agreed with Giachetti’s glowing self-assessment, but only to a point. Although Holmes described Giachetti as a “master motivator” who deserves to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (something that has yet to happen), he declined to give him nearly as much credit as Giachetti reserved for himself.

“I think a trainer is very important at the beginning of a fighter’s career,” Holmes once said of his own professional evolution, and that of any champion who lingers long in the game and has used those years of experience to hone his craft to a point where nearly everything is done instinctively. “Over time, you don’t really need a trainer. You’ve got to train yourself. You’ve got to motivate yourself. And I don’t think anybody can put that in you but you. I don’t have trainers who want hundreds of thousands of dollars to train me.”

The bond between fighter and trainer can be strong and seemingly as unbreakable as forged steel, and it can be as tenuous as a slender and fraying thread. Sometimes, at alternate junctures in a shared journey, it can be both, as again was made evident when long-reigning former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin chose to end what had been a highly successful and mutually  beneficial nine-year relationship with trainer Abel Sanchez. At first glance, the break seems as shocking as the announcement in April 1970 that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had had a falling out and no longer would be making music together as Beatles.

In a prepared statement that was publicly released on Tuesday, the 37-year-old Golovkin, who on March 12 met with the media to announce that he had signed a lucrative contract with DAZN to fight six times for the subscriber-based streaming service through the end of 2021, said his long run with Sanchez had concluded. Sanchez was at “GGG’s” side for that occasion, but it now appears that that was the final time they would ever appear together as teammates, as it were, on a common quest.

“I would like to announce that I have made a major decision for myself and for my career,” Golovkin’s statement began. “I want to build on what I have already achieved and continue to better myself. Therefore, I will not be training with Abel Sanchez. This was not an easy decision for me and it is not a reflection of Abel’s professional abilities. He is a great trainer, a loyal trainer, and a Hall of Fame trainer.

“I will be announcing my new trainer at a later date. But today I want to thank Abel for the lessons he taught me in boxing.”

If the kind words of appreciation attributed to Golovkin sounded scripted, it’s because they probably were. The cold termination of what had seemed to be a warm and almost familial association is reminiscent of one of those old TV game shows where a departing contestant is handed a “nice parting gift” that isn’t really all that nice.

Contacted by RingTV.com, Sanchez said it was his belief that he was jettisoned for the same reason that so many other trainers in similar situations have been handed their walking papers. As Larry Holmes once noted, once you’ve attained a certain level in your career, why pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone who has already taught you all you need to know?

“Money. That’s what the nature of it is, money,” Sanchez, hardly sounding conciliatory toward his now-former top pupil, said when asked for a reason that might have precipitated a breakup the trainer neither sought nor wanted. He said Golovkin’s new deal with DAZN would pay him just one-fifth of the cut of the Kazakhstan native’s purses he normally received.

“My dignity and pride wouldn’t allow me to do that after nine years of total commitment and taking him to where I’ve taken him. I don’t think I deserved that so I turned it down,” continued Sanchez, the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2015 winner of the Eddie Futch Award as Trainer of the Year due largely to his work with Golovkin.

“Everything has been on a handshake basis, on a truthful basis. To be blindsided like this, it’s heartbreaking.”

Sanchez said that, over a period of about three weeks after the announcement of the deal with DAZN, he had an inkling of what eventually would go down. He said the decision to cut him loose was less GGG’s than of some members of the fighter’s inner circle.

There are, of course, legitimate and understandable reasons why fighters change trainers. And the reverse is also true, with trainers ditching fighters when it suits their purpose. Teddy Atlas, for one, has walked away from any number of fighters, including champions, because they could or would not adhere to his rigid dictums.  Money is a frequent cause for such professional divorces, as is the question of control.

Here are several examples of instances where well-known trainers were told by their equally or more famous fighters – and sometimes the other way around — that all good things at some point must come to an end:

Angelo Dundee ends long relationship with Sugar Ray Leonard

Leonard was coming off one of the most significant victories of his career, shocking middleweight champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler after a five-year layoff, when Dundee said he’d been vastly underpaid for that fight, for which he didn’t have a contract, and would only consent to be a part of the Sugar man’s challenge of WBC light heavyweight titlist Donny Lalonde (the vacant WBC super middleweight belt also was on the line) on Nov. 11, 1988, if he had a signed contract and thus would know beforehand what his financial compensation would be.

“Evidently I’m not necessary in the corner,” Dundee said of the dispute.  “They were offended because I had the audacity to have my lawyer call Mike Trainer’s office asking when I was going to be paid. I left it up to them for the Hagler fight. I depended on their generosity and I got one percent (of Leonard’s purse).”

Countered Leonard: “I’ll miss him. But what bothers me the most is the fact that I thought we had a special relationship. By the way things happened, I really don’t know if that relationship was valid at first. He’s like a family member to me. But when you hurt or destroy friendship, you lose it. It’s over.”

Although Dundee and Leonard never patched things up in a professional sense, they were able to let bygones be bygones. Leonard attended a 90th birthday celebration for Dundee on Aug. 30, 2011, five months before Angelo passed away.

“We talked about life. We talked about the fight game and reminisced about the special moments,” Leonard said of the restoration of their deep and abiding friendship. “He was a great guy to hang around with. You didn’t have to press a button to get him started, or to pause. Losing him puts into perspective how precious life is. I never thought we’d lose him, even at the age of 90. He had so much zest, so much enthusiasm about life, his next project, next fight or fighter and who he was helping to either remain or become a champion.”

Freddie Roach fired by Manny Pacquiao

The relationship of Roach and Pacquiao lasted much longer – almost twice as long, in fact, at 16 years – as that between Sanchez and Golovkin. But “Pac-Man” apparently took umbrage to a suggestion from Roach after he lost a close and disputed unanimous decision, and his WBO welterweight title, to Jeff Horn on July 2, 2017, in Horn’s hometown of Brisbane, Australia.  Roach’s transgression? Suggesting that Pacquiao’s roles as a legendary fighter and a senator in the Philippines each might be so demanding that he could not do justice to both, and thus would be well-advised to choose one or the other.

“Being a prize fighter is difficult, but being a world champion is so incredibly difficult,” Roach reasoned. “It takes just about all of your time and focus and energy, and I can’t imagine being able to do it and having another job.

“I didn’t know Manny was mad about that when I said it. I wish he had said something to me about it so we could have spoken to each other. But I have no complaints because my life is so much better in so many ways because of Manny Pacquiao.”

With Roach removed, Pacquiao’s good friend, Buboy Fernandez, was his trainer for his next bout, a seventh-round stoppage of Lucas Matthysse. But Roach would not be away for long, nor did many people familiar with their bond anticipate that that would be the case. “They’re like a married couple and it’s like they had a trial separation,” opined Justin Fortune, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach. So Roach was back for Pacquiao’s most recent bout, a wide points nod over Adrien Broner, but in an advisory role with Fernandez remaining the trainer of record. That again will be the case should the proposed pairing of Pacquiao, the “regular” WBA welterweight champion, and WBA “super” welterweight ruler Keith Thurman be finalized.

Bouie Fisher, Bernard Hopkins clash over compensation

Despite once describing long-enduring middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins as “like my son,” veteran Philadelphia trainer Bouie Fisher sided with his actual sons, James and Andre, in a dispute with B-Hop over how much money Fisher should have received for services already rendered or to be rendered in the future.

“Bernard is a difficult person to deal with,” Fisher said in 2005, after being fired by Hopkins. “He wants all the glory, he wants all the credit, he wants all the money. It’s all about him, him, him.”

That is not how Hopkins saw it, and, as was the case with Angelo Dundee’s late reconciliation with Sugar Ray Leonard, the fighter was there when his former trainer and father figure was hospitalized and close to death shortly before he passed away, at 83, on June 30, 2011. When Fisher briefly opened his eyes, Hopkins stepped back and began shadowboxing, the older man’s eyes suggesting a glint of recognition.

“Even though me and Bouie fell out – me and his sons fell out even more – I had mad respect for what I’ve been taught (by Fisher),” Hopkins said. “I looked at Bouie Fisher like a father, and I still do. I learned a lot from him. I don’t let disagreements and stuff outside of boxing overshadow years, even decades, of the good.”

Floyd Mayweather Sr. fired by Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The elder Mayweather had trained his son from an early age, but all that changed when Floyd Sr. was found guilty of illegal drug trafficking in 1993 and sent to prison. Floyd Sr.’s brother, former super featherweight and super lightweight champion Roger Mayweather, took over as Floyd Jr.’s trainer and he guided the 1996 Olympic bronze medalist to the WBC super featherweight  championship, his  first world title, in 1998. But upon Floyd Sr.’s release he resumed the handling of his son’s career, and some of past friction between them soon became apparent.

At the beginning of 2000, Floyd Jr. fired his father as his manager. After one more fight together, Floyd Jr. also fired him as his trainer. Not only that, but the son banned his dad from his training facility, evicted him from a home Floyd Jr. owned and repossessed the car Floyd Sr. was driving. They didn’t speak again for nearly seven years although, in a sure sign that blood really is thicker than water, they again came together much deeper into Floyd Jr.’s record-setting career as the highest-grossing boxer ever.

Jack Mosley fired by son Shane Mosley

In more than a few instances, the trainer becomes a handy scapegoat, and a handy candidate to get pinned with the blame when a fighter’s career takes a downward turn. That can even happen when the trainer is the fighter’s father. “Sugar” Shane Mosley had lost three of his four most recent bouts when he decided he needed to go in a different direction, and in March 2004 he dismissed his father, Jack Mosley, as his trainer. Jack had trained Shane from the time he laced up his first pair of gloves at the age of eight.

In a prepared statement, Shane wrote that “I am going to miss working with my father. Together, we scaled many mountains and I would never have had the success I have had if he had not been there to guide and teach me every step of the way. He is, without question, one of the all-time great trainers. More importantly, he is has been a great father who I love very much.

“However, the time has come for my father and I to sever our professional relationship so that I can try some new avenues designed to give my fans the Sugar Shane Mosley they deserve.”

Tyson Fury cans his uncle, Peter Fury

Peter Fury, Tyson Fury’s uncle, was there for the crowning moment of his nephew’s boxing career, on Nov. 28, 2016, when the “Gypsy King” stunned the world by scoring a unanimous decision over IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf, Germany.

“Happiest times of our lives,” the uncle said of the conquest of the long-reigning Klitschko.

But Peter’s influence didn’t extend so far that he could prevent Tyson from going on an epic binge of overeating, boozing and cocaine snorting that turned his moment of glory into an ongoing train wreck. Peter said he did what he could to halt the freefall, but Tyson had fallen under the spell of “unscrupulous mates” who got him drunk and high every night.

Maybe that’s why, when Tyson decided to get serious again about boxing, he rid himself of a hundred or so excess pounds, his taste for nose candy and alcoholic beverages, and, oh, yes, the uncle-trainer who had taken him to the top of the boxing mountain.  Peter was replaced as chief second by the much-younger Ben Davison, whom Tyson has referred to as the “Energizer bunny.”

“Peter is my uncle and I’ll do anything for him,” the cleaned-up Tyson Fury said of the change in his corner. “We worked together well, but sometimes a change is as good as anything else. We were maybe getting a bit stale in the gym, going through the same things over. We’re still talking, we haven’t fell out. I’m just branching out a little bit. For sure, I may work with Peter again. He has the experience, the knowledge. But at the moment, (Davison) is the man in charge.”

Mike Tyson fires Kevin Rooney

Tyson was coming off his signature victory, the first-round knockout of Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, and the trainer who had been with him since the launching of his pro career a little more than three years earlier was there to soak in more of the adulation both had become accustomed to. But little did Rooney know that his giddy ride with Tyson was about to end, ostensibly because Tyson’s promoter, Don King, was laying the groundwork to get rid of the trainer – the last link to Tyson’s past and his late mentor, Cus D’Amato – and replace him with the tag team of King sycophants Aaron Snowell and Jay Bright.

Rooney didn’t help his cause with his determination to fill a bigger cup with the flood of money being generated by Tyson, a not unreasonable expectation that one writer described as his being “financially ambitious.” So Rooney and his ambition were soon gone, any hope of his ever being replaced forever shattered when, on Oct. 1, 1996, a court ordered Tyson to pay his former trainer $4.4 million for breach of contract.

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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The Hauser Report: What’s Going On With Premier Boxing Champions?

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Eight years ago, Al Haymon unveiled what many thought would be the future of boxing. The boxing community had been awash in rumors for months. Haymon was amassing a war chest totaling hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of a venture capital fund in an effort to take over the sport . . . Haymon was signing hundreds of fighters to managerial and advisory contracts . . . Haymon was planning some sort of TV series . . . Time-buys on multiple networks for an entity called Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) were confirmed.

On March 7, 2015, Haymon began the rollout of his plan when NBC televised the inaugural PBC offering – a fight card featuring Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner in separate bouts. Free boxing. On network television.

But the plan fell short of expectations. Advertisers didn’t come onboard. DAZN and then Saudi Arabia became the flavor of the month. Now PBC is seeking to reassert itself through an alliance with Amazon. The first “PBC on Prime Video” offering will be a pay-per-view event on March 30 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But PBC isn’t the power it once was. No one talks about Al Haymon taking over boxing anymore.

Amazon will distribute the PBC show. It wants to build a live pay-per-view platform for multiple events, and this is an early foray into that realm. It has no interest in playing the sort of role that HBO and Showtime played in boxing. Amazon (like In Demand) will take and distribute the product it’s given.

The PBC pay-per-view events that are streamed on Prime Video will also be available to viewers through other streaming platforms like PPV.com as well as linear-TV cable and satellite PPV distributors.

In addition, Prime Video has said that it will stream a series of “free” (with a subscription to Amazon Prime) PBC Championship Boxing events in the United States and other designated countries on an exclusive basis.

The degree to which Amazon will provide a marketing push for PBC’s shows is unclear at the present time.

Four fights will be on the March 30 PPV stream. The main event was to have matched Keith Thurman vs. Tim Tszyu. Eight years ago when he headlined PBC’s inaugural telecast on NBC, Thurman was young and fresh. Now he’s 35 years old and has won only one fight in the preceding five years (a ten-round decision over Mario Barrios). Tszyu (the son of Kostya Tszyu) was eased into the WBO 154-pound title through an “interim” portal and is being groomed for a big-money fight down the road.

Then, earlier today (March 18), it was reported that Thurman had been injured in training camp and Sebastian Fundora (who’d been slated to fight Serheii Bohachuk on the undercard) will likely face Tszyu. Fundora was speeding along a fast track until his most recent fight which saw him pitching a shutout against Brian Mendoza when a one-punch knockout in round seven derailed his dream.

Sebastian Fundora

Sebastian Fundora

The primary supporting bouts on the pay-per-view stream are expected to be Erislandy Lara vs. Michael Zerafa and Rolly Romero vs. Isaac Cruz.

Lara is forty years old. During the past five years, he has fought Ramon Alvarez, Greg Vendetti, Thomas LaManna, and Gary O’Sullivan (which somehow enabled him to claim the WBA 160-pound belt). Zerafa’s primary qualification seems to be that (like Tszyu) he’s from Australia.

Romero is a tiresome loudmouth who often fails to back up his talk. He was knocked out by Gervonta Davis and was trailing Ismael Barroso on all three judges’ scorecards when a premature stoppage by referee Tony Weeks gifted him the WBA 140-pound belt. Cruz went the distance in a losing effort against Davis.

Former Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza has been consulted with regard to production on the March 30 PPV stream. As of this writing, the commentating team hasn’t been announced (which is odd since the event is less than two weeks away).

Meanwhile, the rest of the sports landscape is rapidly changing.

On January 23, it was announced that Netflix (Prime Video’s most formidable competitor with 247 million subscribers) had signed a deal to stream WWE’s flagship wrestling show – Raw. The ten-year deal will cost Netflix roughly five billion dollars. Netflix can opt out of the deal after five years or, if it chooses, extend it for another ten years.

Then, on March 7, Netflix furthered its commitment to “trash sports” when it announced that Mike Tyson and Jake Paul will meet in the ring in Texas on July 20 in an encounter to be streamed live on Netflix. It’s unclear whether the encounter will be a “fight” or a glorified sparring session.

Adding to the mix; Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers announced on February 6 that they will launch a joint subscription streaming service later this year that will bundle sports content from ESPN and affiliated networks (such as ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS), the Warner Brothers’ Discovery networks that showcase sports (TNT, TBS, TruTV), and Fox (the Fox broadcast network in addition to FS1, FS2 and BTN).

But back to PBC on Prime Video. If the March 30 fight card were streamed as part of the Amazon Prime membership package, it would be a plus for boxing fans. But it won’t be. It’s a pay-per-view event. And even before Thurman’s injury, it wasn’t pay-per-view-worthy as that term was once understood.

You get only one chance to make a first impression. This isn’t a good first impression for PBC on Prime Video.

***

On December 17, I posted a column in which I urged that Gerry Cooney and Cedric Kushner be included on the ballot for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There’s another, more obvious omission that I’d like to address.

Al Haymon has been at the center of the boxing universe for two decades. He built his power through a series of alliances with HBO (his point person was Kery Davis), Golden Boy (Richard Schaefer), and investors (Waddell & Reed) and maintained it through dealings with Showtime (Stephen Espinoza) and various other networks. There were times when it seemed as though he was on the verge of “taking over boxing.” Now Saudi Arabian oil money is the dominant force. But Haymon is breaking new ground through an association between Premier Boxing Champions and Amazon Video.

Haymon likes to style himself as an “advisor” or “manager.” In reality, he functions as a promoter. But labels are irrelevant. The bottom line is that no one has had a greater influence on boxing over the past twenty years than Al Haymon. He belongs in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and the first step toward that end is to put his name on the ballot for induction.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book — “MY MOTHER and me” — is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press this spring and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

Tomorrow (Monday) is a national holiday in Ireland which is always the case whenever Saint Patrick’s Day happens to fall on a Sunday. That explains why today’s fight card in the County Mayo town of Castlebar is being staged on a Sunday. After the show, the attendees with regular jobs can stay up late quaffing down a few pints at their favorite pub knowing they can sleep-in tomorrow. (And they likely needed a few pints to wash away the pain of paying good money to see this craphole show.)

All of the A-Side fighters were Irishmen including the headliner Dillian Whyte, a Londoner of Jamaican extraction who claims that one of his grandparents was born in Ireland. The “Body Snatcher” was matched against German-Romanian slug Christian Hammer.

Whyte, who turns 36 next month, last fought in November of 2022 when he won a lackluster decision over Jermaine Franklin. His rematch with Anthony Joshua in August of last year fell out when an “adverse analytical finding” turned up in his VADA test. Whyte bellowed loudly that he was innocent, but there was the presumption of guilt because he had served a two-year ban for illegal substances earlier in his career. But lo and behold, in a curious development, Whyte was cleared this month when a forensics expert associated with the Texas Boxing Commission asserted that the adverse result was caused by a nutritional supplement that contained a contaminent that wasn’t disclosed on the supplement’s list of ingredients. (Whyte was training in the United States and licensed to fight in Texas when the random drug test was administered.)

Hammer brought a 27-10 (17) record but had been stopped five times, most recently by Joe Joyce who blew him away in four rounds. He was in Castlebar just for the payday and retired on his stool after three frames. He was never down in the fight, but was tattooed with a bunch of punches on his flabby midsection. (The weights were not announced.)

With the win, Dillian Whyte advanced his record to 30-3 (20 KOs). More relevantly, he is back in the mix in the heavyweight picture. His American trainer Buddy McGirt hopes to have him back in the ring in a couple of months.

Other Bouts of Note

Roy Moylette, a 33-year-old junior welterweight from the nearby town of Islandeady, made the locals happy when he got off the deck to win the decision in an 8-round bout with Argentine journeyman Requen Facundo (17-15-2). Moylette (14-2-1) entered the pro ranks with a wealth of international amateur experience, but his pro career never took off. Heading into this match, he announced it would be his farewell fight.

The Argentine, a late sub who had begun his pro career as a featherweight, had Moylette on the canvas in the second round but couldn’t sustain the momentum. The referee, who had the unusual but unmistakably Irish name of Padraig O’Reachtagain, scored it 76-75.

In what was likely his final pro fight, 39-year-old Cork super middleweight Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan left on a downbeat note, losing an 8-round decision to Sofiane Khati. O’Reachtagain had it 77-76 for the outsider.

O’Sullivan (31-6, 21 KOs) will be remembered as the Irishman who wore a handlebar mustache during his fighting days in Boston, a look that harked to John L. Sullivan who Spike believed to be a distant relative. In his previous bout in May of 2022 he was stopped in eight frames by Erislandy Lara in Brooklyn, his fourth setback inside the distance and third in his last six.

A 31-year-old French-Algerian, Khati improved to 15-4 (5).

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Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: ‘The Blue Corner’

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Boxing, like all sports, is more fun to watch when the viewer has a rooting interest. That interest can spring from a variety of factors. Some people like or dislike a particular fighter on a personal level. Others – let’s be honest – root for or against a fighter based on ethnicity.

If I don’t know either of the fighters in a fight, I root for the underdog.

That can be dispiriting. Too many fight cards today consist largely of A-side vs. B-side fights. As a general rule, the A-side fighter comes out of the red corner and the B-side fighter is seated in the blue corner. Upsets are few and far between.

Tom Loeffler’s March 15 fight card at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater is a case in point. There are underdogs and then there are hopeless underdogs. I went to the fights hoping something that wasn’t supposed to happen would happen. But a look at the opponents’ records told me that was unlikely.

BoxRec.com is a wonderful tool for scoping out how competitive a fight is likely to be. Here’s what I learned from BoxRec.com before the fights and how things unfolded in the ring.

Fight #1: Giovanni Scuderi (9-0, 4 KOs) vs. Brandon Carmack – Scuderi’s last opponent had 57 losses. And that opponent might have beaten Carmack. I’m sure Brandon could decimate most people in a bar fight. But he lumbered around the ring like a heavybag with feet. Scuderi telegraphs every righthand he throws. But he has a basic jab. The match had the appearance of a picador sticking lances into a slow sluggish bull. W4 for Scuderi.

Fight #2: Nisa Rodriguez (0-0) vs. Jozette Cotton – Rodriguez is a 33-year-old New York City police officer with an extensive amateur background who was making her pro debut. Cotton was winless in four pro fights. Rodriguez fought tentatively. Cotton had a roll of flab around her waist (which spoke to her conditioning) and fought like she didn’t know how to box. W4 for Rodriguez.

Fight #3 Joseph Ward (10-1, 6 KOs) vs. Derrick Webster – Webster is 41 years old and has now won one of six fights since 2018. KO 2 for Ward.

Fight #4: Reshat Mati (14-0, 8 KOs) vs. Irving Macias – Macias has lost three of his last four fights, and the guy he beat during that stretch has 19 losses (including his last seven fights in a row). W8 for Mati.

Fight #5: Cletus Seldin (27-1, 23 KOs) vs. Jose Angulo – Angulo has lost six of his last eight fights, including four KOs by. W8 for Seldin, Here, I should note that, after the fight, Seldin took the ring announcer’s microphone, dropped to one knee, opened a small box containing a diamond engagement ring, and asked one Jessica Ostrowski to marry him. The future Mrs. Seldin (who was clad in black leather) said yes, and the happy couple paraded around the ring together.

Fight #6: Feargal McCrory (15-0, 7 KOs) vs. Carlos Carlson –  Carlson has had ten fights since 2016 and lost seven of them. The three guys he beat during that stretch have 92 losses between them. And he hadn’t fought in more than two years. Referee David Fields did the fans a favor by stopping the bout prematurely in round three. If Carlson had fought as vigorously during the fight as he complained about the stoppage afterward, it would have been a better fight.

Fight #7: The main event matched Callum Walsh (9-0, 7 KOs) against Dauren Yeleussinov. Walsh is a 23-year-old junior-middleweight who UFC CEO Dana White is trying to build as a boxing version of Conor McGregor. Yeleussinov has lost three of his last four fights (including a first-round KO by). And the opponent Dauren beat during that stretch has 22 losses (including a current losing streak of 19 a row). Yeleussinov was tailor-made for Walsh – slow on his feet with slow hands and not much of a punch. Callum got off first all night. KO 9.

In six of the seven fights, the underdog lost every round.

I’m tired of fighters who talk tough and posture at press conferences but won’t fight an opponent who’s remotely competitive. And yes; I know that prospects can’t go in tough every time out. But a prospect’s opponent should pose some kind of challenge.

And let’s be honest; most of the fighters on the March 15 card were there because they were local ticket-sellers, not prospects. Only Walsh has world-class potential. He’s 23 years old with skills and is getting better. Right now, he’s a very good club fighter. Let’s see if he becomes something more.

*        *        *

One moment from promoter Larry Goldberg’s March 7 club-fight card at Sony Hall in New York stands out in my mind.

In the second fight of the evening, Jason Castanon and Luis Rivera-Reyes squared off against one another in a scheduled four-round junior-welterweight bout. Each man was making his pro debut. Castanon’s opponent had pulled out the previous week, leaving matchmaker Eric Bottjer scrambling for a new opponent. Rivera-Reyes had been scheduled to fight on the undercard of a show in Puerto Rico but his opponent had also fallen out, so he was available.

Bottjer thought that Castanon vs. Rivera-Reyes would be a competitive fight. Each man was old for a boxer making his pro debut. Castano is 30; Rivera-Reyes is 35. But they had comparable amateur backgrounds.

Rivera-Reyes held his own in round one. But Castanon was the stronger, better-schooled fighter. In round two, Luis started getting beaten up. The punishment mounted in round three. Rivera-Reyes was still trying to win but it was a futile effort. With seconds left in the third stanza, a righthand staggered Luis and a second righthand put him down hard. He rose through an incredible act of will because that’s what real fighters do. But he was badly hurt and on wobbly legs. Referee Eddie Claudio asked if he wanted to continue.

Rivera-Reyes shook his head. No.

Afterward, an uncharitable observer said that Luis “quit.”

I think that Luis acted with honor. Sitting several feet from the ring, I had a perfect view of the pain and despair etched on his face as he confronted the reality that he was a beaten man. He didn’t jump to his feet at the count of ten-and-a-half, pretending that he was ready to keep fighting. He didn’t ignore the referee’s question and feign outrage when the fight was stopped. He acknowledged that he had given his all and was beaten. Fighters aren’t video-game figures. They get hurt. And sometimes they just can’t take anymore.

The moment reminded me of the 1983 rematch between Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor. Pryor had won their classic first encounter with a brutal knockout that left Arguello unconscious on the ring canvas. In round ten of Pryor-Arguello II, Alexis found himself on the canvas again. He was a warrior, one of the greatest fighters of all time. He could have gotten up. But he didn’t. He had done the best he could and realized that it was over. He sat with tears streaming down his face and later acknowledged. “It’s hard to accept, but it’s good to accept. I did it with grace and just accepted that the guy beat me. Even though I did my best, in the tenth round I accepted it right there. I said, ‘This is too much. I won’t take it. I‘ll just sit and watch Richard Steele count to ten.'”The look in Luis Rivera-Reyes’s eyes when he shook his head will stay with me for a long time. He had been beaten into submission in his first pro fight. And I wondered, how long will he hold onto the dream.

*          *          *

A nod to “March Madness” which begins this week . . .

College basketball has a problem – court storming.

It’s now in vogue for fans of the home team to surge onto the court after a big win. Tearing down the goal posts in football endangers fans who are tearing down the goal posts. Court storming endangers the players.

On January 21, Caitlin Clark (Iowa’s superstar guard) was knocked to the floor when Ohio State fans stormed the court after a big win.

On February 24, Kyle Fitzpatrick (Duke’s All-American center) injured his knee when Wake Forest fans stormed the court after a dramatic upset.

To date, the NCAA has done nothing about the problem. Several conferences have taken action on their own, the most notable example being the SEC which instituted an escalating fine that begins at $100,000 for the first incident. By contrast, the ACC has no penalty for court-storming; the Big Ten has no penalty until the third incident; and the Big East penalizes offending schools the paltry sum of $5,000.

It shouldn’t be hard to end court storming.

The NCAA should institute a rule – and fans should be advised late in each contest – that court storming will result in forfeiture of the game.

***

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press on April 2 and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

          In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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