The Force is With Anthony Joshua as `The (British) Empire Strikes Back’

Published

4 years ago

May 28, 2019

The date was Dec. 8, 2007, and WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., who had just doused the hopes, if not the enthusiasm, of thousands of British boxing fans who had traveled to Las Vegas from the United Kingdom to cheer countryman Ricky Hatton in his bid to dethrone the favored American, spoke of a trans-oceanic trip he hadn’t made, and never would have to.

“I always wanted to fight in the UK,” Mayweather mused after he had dominated and then stopped the previously undefeated Hatton in the 10^th round. “But because I couldn’t, I had the best fighter in the UK come to me.”

Mayweather never made it across the pond because he had the power and leverage to make all challengers travel to a place of his choosing, which frequently was the MGM Grand on the Vegas Strip. When you are the perpetual side `A’ and highest-grossing prizefighter of all time, it’s not difficult to make side `B’ dance to your tune when it comes to negotiating contractual terms.

Times have changed, and the first working assignment in America for British’s vastly popular world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs), who takes on blubbery Mexican-American Andy Ruiz Jr. (32-1, 21 KOs) in the DAZN-streamed main event Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, bears little to no resemblance to the trip made by Hatton nearly 12 years ago. It most definitely is not reminiscent of the seemingly endless decades of failure by British big men, who without exception were required to journey to the United States and take regularly scheduled beatdowns from clearly superior American champions. That happened so often and over so long a period that it resulted in the coining of the term “horizontal heavyweights” to describe the manner in which most of the Brits’ longshot challenges were so emphatically squashed.

The non-boxing British Empire – which once was called “the empire on which the sun never sets” – officially became a thing of the past in 1997 when the UK ceded control of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. It must have been a bitter pill to swallow for a relatively small island nation that, in 1913, held sway over 23 percent of the world’s population and 24 percent of the land mass. The ebbing of British influence in a general sense more or less correlates to the lengthy gap between the heavyweight title reigns of Bob Fitzsimmons, who held the title from March 17, 1897, to June 9, 1899, and the first of three separate title ascendances for Lennox Lewis, achieved when he was arbitrarily declared the WBC champion on Dec. 14, 1992, in place of American Riddick Bowe, who had publicly renounced that sanctioning body’s recognition by dumping its bejeweled green belt into a trash can.

Thus did Lewis, born in London to Jamaican immigrant parents, become the first British world heavyweight champion of the 20^th century. And when he made the first defense of that title on May 8, 1993, with a 12-round unanimous decision over former IBF titlist Tony Tucker in Las Vegas, it ended an ignominious streak of 13 consecutive championship-bout defeats by British heavyweights to American titlists, all of which occurred on U.S. soil.

But Lewis did not so much take his various titles back to the UK as to keep them on semi-permanent loan to the U.S. Of the 18 world championship bouts in which he participated, 14 were in America, three in the UK and one in Africa. That, he has consistently stated, was by his choice and in recognition of the United States as the epicenter of all boxing and especially championship-level heavyweight boxing.

“In the beginning when I started boxing in America, I used to get booed because I was the Brit coming over to their country,” said Lewis, now 53 and retired since June 2003. “But when I won over there, they said, `Fine, he’s an OK Brit. He boxes well.’ They accepted me as a good fighter.

“In any case, you really had to go to America in those days for the big fights with Tyson, Holyfield and those guys.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by long-reigning super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe, the undefeated Welsh southpaw who logged 42 of his 46 career victories in the UK, one each in Germany and Denmark and two – the last two of his storied career – in the U.S., one in Vegas and one in New York.

“Brits, in order to prove themselves, always have to go over to America,” Calzaghe remarked a few days prior to his lifting of The Ring magazine’s light heavyweight championship belt on a 12-round split decision over Bernard Hopkins on April 19, 2008, in Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center.

Ah, but that was then and this is now, most pointedly in a heavyweight division in which America’s stranglehold of all or most of the undisputed and alphabet championships has devolved into a significantly loosened grip. Although the United States, with 54, remains far and away the leader in world heavyweight titles once or now held by representatives of a particular nation, the United Kingdom, a distant second with eight, is doing its best to paint over any lingering vestiges of the dark days of its “horizontal heavyweights,” an era in which defeat not only was anticipated, but accepted without complaint if the occasionally valiant loser exhibited what the British like to call a stiff upper lip.

“They love a loser in this country,” a perplexed Calzaghe said in Wales while preparing for his date with Hopkins. “It’s ridiculous.”

Four of the six Brits to have held some version of the heavyweight crown have done so since Lewis: Herbie Hide (WBO, two reigns), Frank Bruno (WBC), Henry Akinwande (WBC) and, of course, Joshua. But the WBO was not regarded as a “major” organization when it was presenting championship straps to Hide and Akinwande, and even the thickly muscled and beloved Bruno was generally dismissed as a minor player during a time ruled by such renowned U.S. heavyweights as Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe, Larry Holmes, George Foreman and Michael Spinks.

All of which is reason enough to believe that Joshua, an overwhelming favorite over a game but seemingly overmatched Ruiz, will be at the Garden only to better introduce himself to American fight fans before returning to his comfort zone in the UK, where he is far and away the most popular and marketable fighter in Europe. No American fighter – and the only one who can even be mentioned in the same breath at this point is WBC champ Deontay Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs) – can pack arenas and even massive stadiums as does Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua, the super heavyweight champion at the 2012 London Olympics and son of a Nigerian mother and Nigerian-Irish father. Joshua fought before crowds of 90,000 and 80,000, respectively, for defenses against Wladimir Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin in London’s Wembley Stadium, sandwiched around capacity turnouts of 78,000 in Cardiff, Wales’ Principality Stadium against Joseph Parker and Carlos Takam. If and when Joshua and Wilder agree to a much-anticipated full unification showdown, if AJ wants it on home turf, it will be so, and most likely not for the 50-50 revenue split that Wilder insists should be his because he ostensibly is in possession of the scepter once held by the regal likes of such American heavyweight legends as Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Foreman, Holmes, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe.

Those days, at least for now, are past, and Joshua is a British big man who does not have to go America to stake his claim to what already is demonstrably his. He holds three titles (four, if you include the IBO’s) to Wilder’s one and is the more established drawing card. Unlike other UK heavyweight wannabes, and even champions, including Lewis, he almost always gets to set terms favorable to himself. In a very real sense, until further notice, he is what Mayweather used to be, big enough and important enough to get the world to come to him.

For now, though, he is in America for what could ultimately prove to be a one-and-done. It will be interesting to see if his fans, like those who followed Hatton to Vegas for the likely come-uppance from Mayweather, are as supportive of and passionate about a major favorite as they were of an underdog with a puncher’s chance to defy the odds. Will they again show up by the thousands, screaming themselves hoarse singing “Rule, Brittania” and “God Save the Queen”? Or have they become too comfortably familiar with success, now that it’s Americans, and likely soon a Mexican-American, who is left horizontal on the canvas?

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Mercito Gesta Victorious Over Jojo Diaz at the Long Beach Pyramid

Published

2 days ago

March 19, 2023

David A. Avila

Mercito-Gesta-Victorious-Over-Jojo-Diaz-at-the-Long-Beach-Pyramid

LONG BEACH, CA.-Those in the know knew Mercito Gesta and Jojo Diaz would be a fight to watch and they delivered.

Gesta emerged the winner in a super lightweight clash between southpaws that saw the judges favor his busier style over Diaz’s body attack and bigger shots and win by split decision on Saturday.

Despite losing the main event because the star was overweight, Gesta (34-3-3, 17 KOs) used an outside method of tactic to edge past former world champion Diaz (32-4-1, 15 KOs) in front of more than 5,000 fans at the Pyramid.

The speedy Gesta opened up the fight with combination punching up and down against the peek-a-boo style of Diaz. For the first two rounds the San Diego fighter overwhelmed Diaz though none of the blows were impactful.

In the third round Diaz finally began unloading his own combinations and displaying the fast hands that helped him win world titles in two divisions. Gesta seemed stunned by the blows, but his chin held up. The counter right hook was Diaz’s best weapon and snapped Gesta’s head back several times.

Gesta regained control in the fifth round after absorbing big blows from Diaz. He seemed to get angry that he was hurt and opened up with even more blows to send Diaz backpedaling.

Diaz targeted his attack to Gesta’s body and that seemed to slow down Gesta. But only for a round.

From the seventh until the 10^th each fighter tried to impose their style with Gesta opening up with fast flurries and Diaz using right hooks to connect with solid shots. They continued their method of attack until the final bell. All that mattered was what the judges preferred.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Diaz the winner 97-93 but two others saw Gesta the winner 99-91, 98-92. It was a close and interesting fight.

“I was expecting nothing. I was the victor in this fight and we gave a good fight,” said Gesta. “It’s not an easy fight and Jojo gave his best.”

Diaz was surprised by the outcome but accepted the verdict.

Everything was going good. I thought I was landing good body shots,” said Diaz. “I was pretty comfortable.”

Other Bouts

Mexico’s Oscar Duarte (25-1-1, 20 KOs) knocked out Chicago’s Alex Martin (18-5, 6 KOs) with a counter right hand after dropping him earlier in the fourth round. The super lightweight fight was stopped at 1:14 of the round.

A battle between undefeated super welterweights saw Florida’s Eric Tudor (8-0, 6 KOs) emerge the winner by unanimous decision after eight rounds versus Oakland’s Damoni Cato-Cain.

The taller Tudor showed polished skill and was not bothered by a large cut on his forehead caused by an accidental clash of heads. He used his jab and lead rights to defuse the attacks of the quick-fisted southpaw Cato-Cain. The judges scored the fight 80-72 and 78-74 twice for Tudor.

San Diego’s Jorge Chavez (5-0, 4 KOs) needed less than one round to figure out Nicaragua’s Bryan Perez (12-17-1, 11 KOs) and send him into dreamland with a three-punch combination. No need to count as referee Ray Corona waved the fight over. Perez shot a vicious right followed by another right and then a see-you-later left hook at 3.00 of the first round of the super featherweight match.

Photo credit: Al Applerose

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Jojo Diaz’s Slump Continues; Mercito Gesta Prevails on a Split Decision

Published

3 days ago

March 18, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Jojo-Diaz's-Slump-Continues-Mercito-Gestra-Prevails-on-a-Split-Decision

At age 30, Jojo Diaz’s career is on the skids. The 2012 U.S. Olympian, a former world title holder at 126 and 130 pounds and an interim title holder at 135, Diaz suffered his third straight loss tonight, upset by Mercito Gesta who won a split decision at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, CA.. The scoring was strange with Gesta winning nine of the 10 rounds on one of the cards and only three rounds on another. The tie-breaker, as it were, was a 98-92 tally for Gesta and even that didn’t capture the flavor of what was a closely-contested fight.

Originally listed as a 12-rounder, the match was reduced to 10 and that, it turned out, did Diaz no favors. However, it’s hard to feel sorry for the former Olympian as he came in overweight once again, having lost his 130-pound title on the scales in February of 2021.

Diaz also has issues outside the ropes. Best elucidated by prominent boxing writer Jake Donovan, they include a cluster of legal problems stemming from an arrest for drunk driving on Feb. 27 in the LA suburb of Claremont.

With the defeat, Diaz’s ledger declined to 32-4-1. His prior losses came at the hands of Gary Russell Jr, Devin Haney, and William Zepeda, boxers who are collectively 83-2. Mercito Gesta, a 35-year-old San Diego-based Filipino, improved to 34-3-3.

Co-Feature

Chihuahua, Mexico super lightweight Oscar Duarte has now won nine straight inside the distance after stopping 33-year-old Chicago southpaw Alex Martin in the eighth frame. Duarte, the busier fighter, had Martin on the deck twice in round eight before the fight was waived off.

Duarte improved to 25-1-1 (20). Martin, who reportedly won six national titles as an amateur and was once looked upon as a promising prospect, declined to 18-5.

Other Bouts of Note

New Golden Boy signee Eric Tudor, a 21-year-old super welterweight from Fort Lauderdale, overcame a bad laceration over his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads in round four, to stay unbeaten, advancing to 8-0 (6) with a hard-fought unanimous 8-round decision over Oakland’s Damoni Cato-Cain. The judges had it 80-72 and 78-74 twice. It was the first pro loss for Cato-Cain (7-1-1) who had his first five fights in Tijuana.

In the DAZN opener, lanky Hawaian lightweight Dalis Kaleiopu went the distance for the first time in his young career, improving to 4-0 (3) with a unanimous decision over 36-year-old Colombian trial horse Jonathan Perez (40-35). The scores were 60-52 across the board. There were no knockdowns, but Perez, who gave up almost six inches in height, had a point deducted for a rabbit punch and another point for deducted for holding.

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‘Big Baby’ Wins the Battle of Behemoths; TKOs ‘Big Daddy’ in 6

Published

3 days ago

March 18, 2023

Arne K. Lang

Big-Baby-Wins-the-Battle-of-Behemoths-TKOs-Big-Daddy-in-6

Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne weighed in at a career-high 277 pounds for today’s battle in Dubai with Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, but he was the lighter man by 56 pounds. It figured that one or both would gas out if the bout lasted more than a few stanzas.

It was a war of attrition with both men looking exhausted at times, and when the end came it was Miller, at age 34 the younger man by nine years, who had his hand raised.

Browne was the busier man, but Miller, whose physique invites comparison with a rhinoceros, hardly blinked as he was tattooed with an assortment of punches. He hurt ‘Bid Daddy’ in round four, but the Aussie held his own in the next frame, perhaps even forging ahead on the cards, but only postponing the inevitable.

In round six, a succession of right hands knocked Browne on the seat of his pants. He beat the count, but another barrage from Miller impelled the referee to intervene. The official time was 2:33. It was the 21^st straight win for Miller (26-0-1, 22 KOs). Browne declined to 31-4 and, for his own sake, ought not fight again. All four of his losses have come inside the distance, some brutally.

The consensus of those that caught the livestream was that Floyd Mayweather Jr’s commentary was an annoying distraction that marred what was otherwise an entertaining show.

As for what’s next for “Big Baby” Miller, that’s hard to decipher as he has burned his bridges with the sport’s most powerful promoters. One possibility is Mahmoud Charr who, like Miller, has a big gap in his boxing timeline. Now 38 years old, Charr – who has a tenuous claim on a WBA world title (don’t we all?) — has reportedly taken up residence in Dubai.

Other Bouts of Note

In a 10-round cruiserweight affair, Suslan Asbarov, a 30-year-old Russian, advanced to 4-0 (1) with a hard-fought majority decision over Brandon Glanton. The judges had it 98-92, 97-93, and a more reasonable 95-95.

Asbarov was 12-9 in documented amateur fights and 1-0 in a sanctioned bare-knuckle fight, all in Moscow, entering this match. He bears watching, however, as Glanton (18-2) would be a tough out for almost anyone in his weight class. In his previous fight, at Plant City, Florida, Glanton lost a controversial decision to David Light, an undefeated Australian who challenges WBO world title-holder Lawrence Okolie at Manchester, England next week.

A 10-round super featherweight match between former world title challengers Jono Carroll and Miguel Marriaga preceded the semi-windup. Carroll, a 30-year-old Dublin southpaw, overcame a cut over his left eye suffered in the second round to win a wide unanimous decision in a fairly entertaining fight.

It was the sixth straight win for Carroll (24-2-1, 7 KOs) who elevated his game after serving as a sparring partner for Devin Haney. Marriaga, a 36-year-old Colombian, lost for the fourth time in his last five outings, declining to 30-7.

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