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Avila Perspective Chap. 49: Devin Haney’s Destiny and More Boxing Notes
Between super featherweights and super lightweights those three seemingly inter-changeable divisions are rife with talent. Devin Haney seems to be smack in the middle of the all three divisions and eager to prove his superiority. And he’s his own boss.
Equipped with blinding speed, boxing knowledge beyond his years and the self-confidence of a kamikaze pilot, the Las Vegas based Haney could be the straw that stirs the drink for the next decade of mega fights. He is self-promoted and recently signed with Matchroom Boxing so now he is co-promoted, but still in control of his direction.
It’s still early in his career but Haney doesn’t have a pause button.
In many ways he reminds me of a young Floyd Mayweather who like Haney was begging for opportunities to face the best in his early pro boxing career. Back in 1999, I was present at a party when Mayweather confronted Sugar Shane Mosley face to face and asked to fight him. I see similar traits in Haney.
The best are like that: supremely confident in their abilities.
Last Saturday, Haney mugged a Mexican fighter accustomed to mugging others. It was a déjà vu moment for me to watch this new Las Vegas budding star perform with such ease and impressiveness. The kid is on another level.
“I know that I’m faster than 90 percent of my opponents. Maybe 98 percent,” said Haney. “I know that speed was a factor.”
And like Mayweather, this kid wants the big fights and doesn’t want to wait. Haney is already calling out Teofimo Lopez and other lightweight champions like Vasyl Lomachenko.
“I’m willing to fight all the world champions,” said Haney, 20. “Anyone of the champions I want to fight.”
One future mega fight that still needs percolating would be a match against Golden Boy’s Ryan “The Flash” Garcia. Both have met each other in the amateurs and both want this showdown badly.
It kind of reminds me of Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley circa 1999 when they were headed for a showdown. History does repeat itself.
Back in the 1990s when De La Hoya arrived there were a ton of Southern California elite fighters in the lightweight division including Genaro Hernandez, Rafael Ruelas, Gabe Ruelas and Mosley. By the year 2000, De La Hoya fought them all except for Gabe Ruelas.
Of course, De La Hoya eventually was voted into the Boxing Hall of Fame and Mosley will be eligible too in a few years. Both had Hall of Fame chins to go with their spectacular fighting tools. Their incredible chins are vastly overlooked.
Today in 2019, Haney has a number of juicy possibilities that could make it another great year for lightweights. He and Garcia have the tools but do they have the chins? Only time will tell.
Heavyweight Splendor
Not since the late 1990s when Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe have heavyweights been a focus of mainstream conversations. One common thread has to be American heavyweights.
Fans lost track of the heavyweight boxing scene when the brothers Vitali Klitschko and Wladimir Klitschko won respective world title belts and then took them to Europe. Sure they battled some American heavyweights over there but that weight division lost visibility fighting in Germany and other European spots.
If you want visibility and fame you have to fight in the good old U.S. of A.
Deontay Wilder grabbed the WBC title in 2015 and since that moment has stirred the pot with his loquacious statements and taunts.
It’s what the heavyweights needed some good old American hype.
This Saturday, Great Britain’s Anthony Joshua, the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight title-holder, defends against Mexican heavyweight Andy Ruiz at Madison Square Garden. DAZN will stream live.
Joshua is a nice fellow but he’s no Wilder when it comes to gab. That other Brit named Tyson Fury, well, he’s just as colorful as the trunks that he wears.
Heavyweights haven’t done this much talking since the days of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It’s a good thing for the boxing world.
Wilder may not be as eloquent as Ali in his prime but he causes a stir whenever he says something like when he talked about killing someone in the ring. Maybe it sounded wrong but he’s not afraid to talk to the press. How else do you grab attention?
Fury has a good sense of humor and lets it fly on a regular basis. He lets everyone know he’s the “lineal champion of the world.” Before Fury I doubt if anyone outside of the boxing media had any idea what lineal champion meant. It’s a good time to be a heavyweight and a good time to be a fan of heavyweights. Ali must be clapping and cheering from the clouds.
Large Card at Soboba Casino in So Cal.
Speaking of Ali, a large TGB Promotions boxing card takes place on Saturday at Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, California. In the main event, Hugo Centeno (27-2, 14 KOs) faces former world title challenger Willie Monroe. FOX will televise.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s that area is where some of the greats used to train at nearby Gilman Springs. Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and Jerry Quarry would regularly train at the desert area compound before some of their fights. Quarry and his brother Mike Quarry ultimately moved to nearby Moreno Valley. The climate is hot and dry and supposedly the water is good for you. It became a popular place for world class fighters to train including the late great Archie Moore.
In Saturday’s Soboba Caino co-feature, Devon Alexander (27-5-1, 14 KOs) faces Ivan Redkach (22-4-1) in a welterweight match pitting two fighters looking to reclaim past glory. Alexander lost three of his last five fights that also included a draw against Victor Ortiz. Redkach was winning a fight against John Molina and seemed on the verge of a knockout win when things turned around. Molina went down twice then sent Redkach down twice for a knockout win. The Ukrainian fighter has back to back wins since that fight in December 2017.
I can’t remember the last time a boxing card was held at Soboba Casino. Recently, it’s been a popular spot for MMA, but not boxing. In the early 2000s they used to hold Sunday boxing cards there in the day time. Some of the hottest moments ever recorded in boxing took place there. And one of the coldest outdoor fights ever also took place there. Now, I heard they built an indoor arena for events. I’m looking forward to seeing the new venue.
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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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