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Canelo Checkmates Jacobs in Another `Chess Match’ (Translation: Rather Boring)
Gennady Golovkin was in the house, of course. So was Demetrius Andrade, as well as a raft of other boxing celebrities and famous non-fighters in the sellout crowd of 20,203 in Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. The biggest of big-time boxing always packs the sport’s most prestigious venues, and Saturday night’s middleweight unification matchup of Canelo Alvarez and Daniel “Miracle Man” Jacobs was hyped, with ample justification, as the biggest bout of 2019 to date. Who knows? Maybe the fight – Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) retained his WBC and WBA middleweight titles, while annexing the IBF version held by Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs) on a unanimous decision — will still merit that designation at year’s end, particularly if heavyweight kingpins Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder continue to glare and preen at one another from afar, as is likely to be the case with welterweight superstars Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.
But for the beautiful people who paid premium prices to be there live and in person, as well as the many DAZN subscribers who no doubt wanted to believe that the action in the ring would match their inflated expectations, what was actually delivered, while technically proficient and entertaining enough when framed by that perspective, was somehow emotionally uninvolving. Perhaps that even was the case for obsessed Mexican and Mexican-American fans who might pay good money to watch their idol, Alvarez, chew bubble gum.
Boxing is indeed the sweet science, but there is a reason relatively limited but relentless and risk-taking action fighters like the late Arturo Gatti and Matthew Saad Muhammad generated electricity as if they were human versions of Hoover Dam. Ask any of the paying customers filing out of the T-Mobile Arena if they’d rather have seen an updated version of Hagler vs. Hearns or another pugilistic chess match and the overwhelming sentiment would be for what Golovkin likes to refer to as a “big drama show,” the kind frequently promised but only occasionally produced.
For a fight, particularly at an elite level, to be described as a “chess match” is code for it being, well, a tad boring. The last time chess commanded truly global attention among non-partisans was in 1972, when quirky American genius Bobby Fischer ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the world championship by defeating Russia’s Boris Spassky, 12½-8½ in a marathon contest in Reykjavik, Iceland, that stretched from July 11 through Aug. 31. Even then, however, the intensity of interest was not so much rooted in the now-deceased Fischer’s brilliant and unconventional play as in the U.S. vs. USSR aspects of a confrontation steeped with Cold War connotations.
Whenever a boxing match is described in chess terms, it’s usually time to rummage through the attics of our minds for the tortoise shell glasses, pocket protectors and bow ties that are the universal symbols of Big Bang Theory geekdom. But there was blow-by-blow announcer Brian Kenny, after the 12th round had concluded and waiting for the official decision to be announced, advising viewers that it was “a chess match early on,” and color commentator Sergio Mora adding that “when you have that much power and that much skill, it’s going to be a chess match.”
Golovkin (38-1-1, 34 KOs), who returns to action on June 8 in a stay-busy fight against Canadian mystery man Steve Rolls (19-0, 10 KOs) at Madison Square Garden, professed to be unimpressed by what he’d seen of Canelo, against whom he is 0-1-1, and Jacobs, whom he defeated on a close unanimous decision on March 18, 2017.
“Frankly, I was expecting much more,” GGG said, dismissively. “It was just like a sparring match. It was a little boring because they’re both high-level boxers. They should give more to the audience. I didn’t see any emotion. I didn’t see anything special.”
To be fair, there were some decent exchanges that never were sustained long enough to appreciably elevate spectators’ pulse rates. But it was Alvarez who moved his pawns, knights and bishops around with greater efficiency, well enough to get the nod by a 116-112 margin on judge Glenn Feldman’s scorecard, which seemed about right. Cohorts Steve Weisfeld and Dave Moretti had it closer, maybe too much so, at 115-113, suggesting a nail-biter that wasn’t borne out by the punch statistics, which showed Canelo connecting on 188 of 466, a solid 40.3 percent, and 120 of 204 power shots, an even more impressive 45.5 percent. Jacobs – who didn’t do himself any favors by too often switching back and forth between orthodox to southpaw stances, proving only that he doesn’t do it as well as, say, Terence Crawford – had corresponding figures of 131 of 649 (20.2 percent) and 89 of 309 (24.8 percent).
Did Alvarez, who is third on most knowledgeable observers’ pound-for-pound lists behind Vasiliy Lomachenko and Crawford, do enough to make the jump up to No. 1? Probably not off of this fight, but the red-haired Mexican national hero is only 28 and has a compendium of weapons, most notably superior counterpunching ability and excellent body work, and there are times when, when he gets an opponent in trouble, that he has shown good finishing instincts. And as the unified middleweight titlist who also holds a super middleweight belt (the secondary version from the WBA), his career options are numerous and attractive.
Will Canelo try to fully consolidate the 160-pound division by fighting the winner of the June 28 bout between WBO champ Andrade (27-0, 17 KOs) and Poland’s Maciej Sulecki (28-1, 11 KOs) in Andrade’s hometown of Providence, R.I.? Mix it up for a third time with Golovkin, which probably is the highest-interest fight out there available to him, particularly since there are more than a few GGG supporters who believe he deserved to win one or both of the two previous meetings? Or move back up to super middle, where he could begin another unification process against WBC champion Anthony Dirrell (33-1-1, 24 KOs), IBF titlist Caleb Plant (18-0, 10 KOs), WBO ruler Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (40-0, 26 KOs) or WBA “super” super middleweight champ Callum Smith (25-0, 18 KOs)?
“I just want the biggest challenge,” Alvarez said after he’d whittled down the larger Jacobs. “That’s all I want.”
That seemingly suggested another pairing with Golovkin, which is not of paramount concern at this moment, but something that Canelo was not prepared to discount altogether. “For me, we’re done,” he said of a rivalry that has not been settled to everyone’s satisfaction. “But if the people want another fight, we’ll do it again and I’ll beat him again.
“That’s why I’m here. That what I was born for – to fight, to defend what’s mine. I’ll fight anyone.”
For Jacobs, the future is a bit murkier. Although he officially weighed in at the middleweight limit of 160 pounds, the cancer survivor from Brooklyn came in at 173.6 pounds at 8 o’clock the morning of the fight, costing him $250,000 per pound for violating a contractual clause that stipulated he could not rehydrate to more than 170 at that time. It is entirely reasonable to believe that Jacobs purposefully decided to take the nearly million-buck hit to his purse to come at the higher weight, presumably improving his chances of pulling off the upset.
“I feel like I gave enough tonight to get the victory,” Jacobs said, the standard response of nearly every fighter who loses on points and isn’t beaten to a bloody pulp. His promoter with Matchroom Sport USA, Eddie Hearn, raised the possibility that Jacobs might be better served going up to super middle. But at least Hearn didn’t go far enough to say that the decision was a miscarriage of justice.
“I thought it was a good fight, a very technical fight, cagey at times,” Hearn said. “I thought Danny started a little bit too slow. I had him winning five rounds. But to beat Canelo, you got to do more. At times (Jacobs) looked flat. Maybe he didn’t have as much spring in his step he might have at a higher weight.”
Chess matches can be like that.
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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Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
The final ShoBox event of 2025 played out tonight at the company’s regular staging ground in Plant City, Florida. When the smoke cleared, the “A-side” fighters in the featured bouts were 3-0 in step-up fights vs. battle-tested veterans, two of whom were former world title challengers. However, the victors in none of the three fights, with the arguable exception of lanky bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi, made any great gain in public esteem.
In the main event, a lightweight affair, Jonhatan Cardoso, a 25-year-old Brazilian, earned a hard-fought, 10-round unanimous decision over Los Mochis, Mexico southpaw Eduardo Ramirez. The decision would have been acceptable to most neutral observers if it had been deemed a draw, but the Brazilian won by scores of 97-93 and 96-94 twice.
Cardoso, now 18-1 (15), had the crowd in his corner., This was his fourth straight appearance in Plant City. Ramirez, disadvantaged by being the smaller man with a shorter reach, declined to 28-5-3.
Co-Feature
In a 10-round featherweight fight that had no indelible moments, Luis Reynaldo Nunez advanced to 20-0 (13) with a workmanlike 10-round unanimous decision over Mexico’s Leonardo Baez. The judges had it 99-91 and 98-92 twice.
Nunez, from the Dominican Republic, is an economical fighter who fights behind a tight guard. Reputedly 85-5 as an amateur, he is managed by Sampson Lewkowicz who handles David Benavidez among others and trained by Bob Santos. Baez (22-5) was returning to the ring after a two-year hiatus.
Also
In a contest slated for “10,” ever-improving bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi improved to 12-0 (3 KOs) with a sixth-round stoppage of Filipino import Aston Palicte (28-7-1). Akitsugi caught Palicte against the ropes and unleashed a flurry of punches climaxed by a right hook. Palicte went down and was unable to beat the count. The official time was 1:07 of round six.
This was the third straight win by stoppage for Akitsugi, a 27-year-old southpaw who trains at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym in LA under Roach’s assistant Eddie Hernandez. Palicte, who had been out of the ring for 16 months, is a former two-time world title challenger at superflyweight (115).
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Introducing Jaylan Phillips, Boxing’s Palindrome Man
On Thursday, Nov. 28, as Americans hunkered down at the dinner table with family and friends for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast, junior welterweight Jaylan Phillips and his trainer Kevin Henry were up in the sky flying from Las Vegas to Rochester, New York. For their Thanksgiving repast, they were offered a tiny bag of peanuts.
Phillips would not have eaten too much had the opportunity presented itself. The next day was the weigh-in. On Saturday, the 30th, he would compete in the 6-round main event of a small club show.
Phillips wasn’t brought to Rochester to win. His opponent, Wilfredo Flores, had a checkered career but he had once held a regional title and he lived in the general area. In boxing parlance, Jaylan Phillips was the “B” side. His role, from the promoter’s standpoint, was to fatten the record of the house fighter.
Jaylan didn’t follow the script. He won a unanimous decision over his 11-3-1 opponent, advancing his record to 4-3-4, and returned to Las Vegas with a new nickname, albeit not one of his own choosing or intended as a permanent accessory. This reporter dubbed him The Palindrome Man.
A palindrome is a word that spells the same backward and forward. Phillips’ current record is palindrome-ish.
It’s an odd record. One would be hard-pressed to find other active boxers with a slew of draws inside a small window of fights. It harks to the days, circa 1900, when some journeymen boxers accumulated as many draws as wins and losses combined.
A boxer with a 4-3-4 record would seem to be an unlikely candidate for a feature story, but the affable Jaylan Phillips is not your run-of-the-mill prizefighter.
Boxers, as we know, tend to be city folk, drawn from the black belts and the barrios of America’s urban places. Phillips grew up in Ebro, Florida, population 237 per the 2020 U.S. census. Ebro is in the Florida panhandle in the northwestern part of the state in a county that was dry until 2022. It is 23 miles due north of Panama City Beach but a world apart from the seaside Florida resort town and its pricey beachfront condos.
Of those 237 people, only five identified as African-American or black, or so it would be written, but the census-taker was obviously slothful. “That’s a crazy number,” says Phillips. “There has to be at least 40 or 50. And the reason I know that is that we are all related.”
“What does one do for excitement in Ebro?” we asked him. “Hunting, fishing, trapping, that sort of thing,” he said. And what does one trap? “Mostly raccoons,” he said, while adding that some of the elders in his extended family consider it a delicacy.
Phillips fought in Rochester, New York, on Saturday and was back in the gym in Las Vegas on Tuesday. He lives alone and does not own a car. His apartment, near UNLV, is three-and-a-half miles from the Top Rank Gym where he does most of his training. He jogs there and then jogs home again, this in a city where the temperature routinely exceeds 100 degrees for much of the year.
During his high school years, Phillips, now 25, concedes that he smoked a lot of weed and it impacted his grades. His interest in boxing was fueled by the exploits of Roy Jones Jr, another fighter with roots in the Florida panhandle. In his spare time, he enjoys watching tapes of old Sugar Ray Robinson fights which can be found on youtube. “He was the best,” says Phillips of Robinson who has been dead for 35 years, echoing an opinion that hasn’t diminished with the passage of time.
In his second pro fight, Phillips was thrust against a baby-faced novice from Cleveland, Abdullah Mason. Although Mason was only 17 years old, the Top Rank matchmaker did Jaylan no favors. He was still standing when the referee waived the fight off in the second round.
About the heavily-hyped Mason, Phillips says, “He’s a beast, like they say, but I would love to fight him again. I took that fight on two weeks’ notice. I’m confident the outcome would have been different if I had had a full camp.”
This observation will undoubtedly strike some as a delusion. Pound for pound, the precocious Mason just may be the top pro fighter in the world in his age group. But Jaylan isn’t lacking confidence which spills over when he talks about what lies ahead for him. “I will be a world champion,” he says matter-of-factly. And after boxing? “I see myself back home in Ebro living a humble life, hunting and fishing, but with a million dollars in the bank.”
If unswerving dedication and self-confidence are the keys to a successful boxing career, then Jaylan Phillips, notwithstanding his 4-3-4 record, is destined for big things. But here’s the rub:
“In boxing, it isn’t what you earn, but what you negotiate,” says the esteemed British boxing pundit Steve Bunce alluding to the importance of a well-connected manager. In a perfect world, each win would be stepping-stone to a bigger fight with a commensurately larger purse. But in this chaotic sport, a “B side” fighter who scores an upset in a low-level fight may actually be penalized for his “impertinence.” Promoters may be wary of using him again (the old “risk/reward” encumbrance) and, in a sport where it’s important for an up-and-comer to stay busy, his progress may be stalled.
Phillips doesn’t know when his next assignment will materialize, but regardless he will keep plugging along while setting an example that others who aspire to greatness would be wise to emulate.
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Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza Shine in Phoenix
Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza Shine in Phoenix
PHOENIX – Saturday was a busy night on the global boxing scene, and it’s quite likely that the howling attendees in Phoenix’s Footprint Center witnessed the finest overall card of the international schedule. The many Mexican flags on display in the packed, scaled down arena signaled the event’s theme.
Co-main events featured rematches that arose from a pair of prior crowd-pleasing slugfests. Each of tonight’s headlining bouts ended at the halfway point, but that was their only similarity.
Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete, now 39-2-1 (32), defended his WBO Junior Lightweight belt with a dramatic stoppage of more-than-willing Oscar Valdez, 32-3 (24). The 29-year-old champion spoke of retirement wishes, but after dominating a blazing battle in which he scored three knockdowns, his only focus was relaxing during the holidays then getting back to what sounded like long-term business.
“Valdez was extremely tough in this fight,” said Navarrete. “I knew I had to push him back and I did. You are now witnessing the second phase of my career and you can expect great things from me in 2025.”
“I don’t really know about the future,” said the crestfallen, 33-year-old Valdez. “No excuses. He did what he wanted to and I couldn’t.”
Navarrete, a three-division titlist, came up one scorecard short of a fourth belt in his previous fight last May, a split decision loss to Denys Berinchyk. This was Navarrete’s fourth Arizona appearance so he was cheered like a homeboy, but Valdez was definitely the crowd favorite, evident from the cheers that erupted as both fighters were shown arriving in glistening, low rider automobiles.
Both men came out throwing huge shots, but it was Navarrete who scored a flash knockdown in the first round, setting the tone for the rest of the fight. There was fierce action in every frame, with Navarrete getting the best of most of it, but even when he was in trouble Valdez roared back and brought the crowd to their feet. He got dropped again at the very end of round four, and Navarrete sent his mouthpiece into orbit the round after that.
When Navarrette drove Valdez into the ropes during round six it looked like referee Raul Caiz, Jr was about to intervene, but before he could decide, Navarrete finished matters himself with a perfect left to the ribs that crumpled Valdez into a KO at 2:42.
“He talked about getting ready to retire soon so I told him we had to fight again right now,” said Valdez prior to the rematch. There were numerous “be careful what you wish for” type predictions of doom and he entered the ring at around a two to one underdog, understanding the contest’s make or break stakes. “Boxing penalizes you if you have a lot of losses,” observed Valdez. “It’s not like other sports where you can lose and do better next season. In boxing, most people don’t want to see you again after a couple of losses.”
What Valdez might decide remains to be seen, but even in defeat he proved to be a warrior worth watching.
Co-Feature
After their epic, razor-close encounter almost exactly a year ago, it was obvious Rafael Espinoza, and fellow 30-year-old Robeisy Ramirez should meet again for the WBO featherweight title belt Espinoza earned by an upset majority decision. Espinoza turned the trick again this time around, inside the distance, but it was more anti-climactic than anything like toe-to-toe.
The 6’1” Espinoza, now 26-0 (22), was the aggressor from the opening frame, but 5’6” Ramirez, 14-3 (9) employed his short stature well to stay out of immediate danger and countered to the body for a slight edge. The Cuban challenger avoided much of their previous firefight and initially controlled the tempo. The crowd jeered him for staying away but it was an effective strategy, at least at first.
Espinoza connected much better in the fifth round and looked fresher as Ramirez’s face rapidly reddened. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere in round six, Ramirez took a punch then raised a glove in surrender. Whatever the reason, even looking at Ramirez’s swollen right eye, it looked like a “No Mas” moment. Replays showed a straight right to the eye socket, but that didn’t stop the crowd from hooting their disgust after ref Chris Flores signaled the end at 0:12.
***
Richard Torrez, Jr, now 12-0 (11), displayed his Olympic silver medal pedigree in a heavyweight bout against Issac Munoz, 18-2-1 (15). Torrez, 236.6, found his punching range quickly with southpaw leads as Munoz, 252, tried to stand his ground but looked hurt by early body work that forced him into the ropes. He was gasping for breath as Torrez peppered him in the second, and Munoz went back to his corner on unsteady legs.
Munoz’s team should have thought about saving him for another day in the third as he ate big shots. Luckily, referee Raul Caiz, Jr. was wiser and had seen enough, waving it off for a TKO at 0:59.
“I don’t train for the opponent,” reflected Torrez, who isn’t far from true contender status. “Every time I train, I train for a world championship fight.”
***
Super-lightweight Lindolfo Delgado, 139.9, improved to 22-0 (16), and took another step into the world title picture against Jackson Marinez, now 22-4 (10), 139.2.
On paper this junior welterweight matchup appeared fairly even, and Marinez managed to keep it that way for almost half the scheduled ten rounds against a solid prospect but Delgado kept upping the ante until Marinez was out of chips. The assembled swarm was whistling for more action after three tentative opening frames, as Delgado loaded up but couldn’t put much offense together.
That changed in the 4th when Delgado connected with solid crosses. In the fifth, a fine combination dropped Marinez into a delayed knockdown and a wicked follow-up right to the guts finished the wobbly Marinez, who had nothing to be ashamed of, off in the arms of ref Wes Melton. Official TKO time was 2:13.
In a matter of concurrent programming, Saturday also held a lot of highly publicized college football and basketball games which likely detracted from the larger mainstream audience and media coverage this fight card deserved. That’s a shame but you can’t fault boxing, Top Rank, or any of the fighters for that because, once again, they all came through big time in Phoenix.
Photos credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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