Three Sons of Pro Fighters Poised to Pursue Their NFL Dreams

Published

5 years ago

April 28, 2019

Maybe, if former heavyweight David Long Sr. and former middleweight Sanderline Williams had become highly paid and celebrated world champions, their sons would have chosen to follow in their fighting fathers’ footsteps. Then again, perhaps not. Look at what the great Evander Holyfield accomplished in boxing, but still his athletically gifted son preferred to make his mark in another sport that also requires its participants to hit and be hit.

The NFL draft is a frenzied, three-day meat market in which 32 league-member teams, after analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of hundreds of draft-eligible college players, make their selections in rounds one through seven, hoping that at least a couple of their rookie additions improve their rosters and thus their chances at going to the Super Bowl. And if the 254 drafted players aren’t enough to provide just the right youthful infusion of talent, there’s also a glut of undrafted free agents to be signed, with the same goal in mind.

No less impressive than the painstakingly thorough work of NFL scouts and front offices is that of ESPN and the NFL Network, which every year somehow manage to put together video highlights of every drafted player, even those who played at small colleges and whose games never make it onto anyone’s television screen. In showing those clips, the TV talking heads at the draft, which this year was staged in Nashville, Tenn., also have anecdotes and informational tidbits to pass along to viewers.

Thus were NFL draft junkies – of which I confess to be one – alerted to the sizes, statistics and stories of Dre’Mont Jones and David Long Jr., draftees who might or might not go on to pro football stardom with their new teams. And you can bet a lot more attention would have been devoted to Elijah Holyfield, a potential draftee who wasn’t one of the chosen 254 but shortly thereafter signed a free-agent contract. Elijah’s lineage is certain to be a hot topic when he reports to training camp with the Carolina Panthers this summer.

Given his higher draft position and the elite status of the college program for which he played – the Ohio State defensive end was taken in the third round, No. 71 overall, by the Denver Broncos – Jones likely will get a longer look in camp than either Long, a linebacker for the West Virginia Mountaineers who went to the Tennessee Titans in the sixth round, No. 188 overall, or Holyfield, the former Georgia running back whose legendary father won’t be of much assistance if his kid doesn’t show enough in camp to convince his coaches he’s NFL material.

Stats? Here they are for Jones, a 6-foot-3, 281-pounder who put together some commendable numbers during his junior season with the Buckeyes: in 14 games, he totaled 8½ sacks, 13 tackles for loss, three fumble recoveries, one forced fumble, one defensive touchdown scored and one interception. His pre-draft analysis describes him as “an undersized defensive tackle with above-average length and a quick first step. He’s a disruptive one-gap run-defender. He has heavy hands and flashes some violence with his initial punch rushing the passer.”

That “violence with his initial punch” bit might come from his father, Sanderline Williams, who was a pretty good middleweight from Cleveland until he began mixing it up with the division’s top performers. Williams, now 61, posted a 24-15-1 record with 14 knockouts, but at one point he was 22-4 with those 14 wins inside the distance. It’s hard to fault someone, though, for failing to maintain career momentum when you consider that he twice fought James Toney (earning a draw in their first matchup) as well as single bouts with Gerald McClellan, Reggie Johnson, Nigel Benn and Iran Barkley, all of whom at one point were, like Toney, world champions. Oh, one more thing to be considered: despite sharing the ring with a Murderer’s Row of opponents, Williams was stopped just once, by Lindell Holmes, in the ninth round of a scheduled 10-rounder on June 29, 1985.

It stands to reason that his pop taught Dre’Mont some boxing moves, if only to better protect himself on the street as the occasion warranted. But even if pro football doesn’t work out for the first-team All-Big Ten player and he eventually tries his hand at boxing, it almost certainly won’t be at Williams’ old weight class. Jones would have to shed 121 pounds to get down to middleweight, a slimming-down which, if nothing else, might net him a commercial for Nutrisystem.

David Long Jr., at 5-11¼ and 227 pounds, is already a virtual clone of his heavyweight father, but a bit on the smallish side for an NFL linebacker. His pre-draft analysis lists him as “an undersized linebacker with below-average length and top-end speed. He’s an instinctive run defender who fills gaps and sifts through traffic between the tackles. He masks below-average speed by reading the play quickly and chasing with great effort.”

The elder Long, now 47, never went as far in the fight game as did Sanderline Williams, but he did post a 12-5-2 record with eight KOs as a pro. The Cincinnati native also has the distinction of sharing the ring with future WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, who starched him in one round on Nov. 26, 2011. But at first glance that bout did not appear to be the total mismatch that the outcome suggested. Although Wilder came in at 19-0, all of the wins in abbreviated fashion, Long Sr., who weighed 228 pounds to Wilder’s 215½, was a respectable 11-1-2 (7) at the time.

It was a given that Elijah Holyfield would be picked in the later rounds of the draft, if at all, after he ran the 40-yard dash in an abysmal (for a running back) 4.78 seconds at the NFL combine. But the 5-10, 217-pounder had a very productive junior season in the ultracompetitive Southeastern Conference, rushing for 1,018 yards and scoring seven touchdowns for Georgia despite splitting time with second-team All-SEC choice D’Andre Swift, a sophomore who rushed for 1,049 yards and scored 10 TDs. The pre-draft analysis on Elijah Holyfield notes that he “possesses good size and strength, but did not perform well at the combine except for the bench press (26 reps of 225 pounds). He’s a patient runner with strong leg drive, runs behind his pads and almost always falls forward at the end of runs. He lacks elite, make-you-miss suddenness, but shows good stop-start ability and has enough lateral ability to weave in and out of creases. He is more quick than fast and lacks a second gear when he hits daylight.”

Given the fact that Elijah Holyfield boxed until he was 13 and showed some promise, it wouldn’t be a shocker if he ever got around to trying his hand at the sport that made his dad rich and famous. But, ironically, it is the son who lived the dream that his father first had as a young boy growing up in Atlanta as a huge fan of the Georgia Bulldogs and the NFL Atlanta Falcons.

“Wasn’t nothing I wanted more than to play for that team (Georgia),” Evander hold me in August 2015, for a story I did on the highly recruited Elijah, the eighth of Evander’s 11 children by several women. “Herschel Walker had won the Heisman Trophy for Georgia (in 1982). It was my dream to be another Herschel Walker, and then to play for the Falcons and be another Dave Hampton.”

But while it isn’t easy to be successful in pro football, there is at least one voice from beyond the grave that says that making it at the highest levels of boxing is even more difficult.

“Athletically, boxing is the toughest profession in the world,” the late, great trainer Angelo Dundee once told me. “Just because you’re big and strong and great in football has nothing to do with it. I’ve seen it many times over the years, football players walking into gyms, asking me to train them into boxers. It never works. The qualities that a boxer has to have to be really good are different than in any other sport.”

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

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bernard Fernandez

Up Next

Three Punch Combo: A Look at Some Lead-in Fights to Canelo-Jacobs and More

Don't Miss

Prograis Wins in Louisiana; Easter and Barthelemy Fight to a Draw in Vegas

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

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-289-East-L.A.-A-Fight-Town-Claressa-Shields-and-More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

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

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

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

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

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

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

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

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

Shields doesn’t lose.

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

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

Don’t get Shields mad.

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

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

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

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

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

Fights to Watch

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

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

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

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

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

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-Jake-Paul-and-Women's-Boxing-a-Curmudgeon's-Take

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

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

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

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

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Former-World-Bamtamweight-Champion-Richie-Sandoval-Passes-Away-at-age-63

Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!