Is Otto Wallin the next Ingemar Johansson or the next Olle Tandberg?

Published

6 years ago

August 5, 2019

Is-Otto-Wallin-the-next-Ingemar-Johansson-or-the-next-Olle Tandberg

Back in March of this year, there was a collective groan when it was announced that Germany’s Tom Schwarz would be Tyson Fury’s next foe. Fury’s U.S. promoter, Bob Arum, had already announced that the rematch with Deontay Wilder had been placed on the backburner, but yet there had remained a glimmer of hope that public opinion would force Fury to proceed directly to a rematch with Wilder rather than let it “marinate” and potentially dissolve.

When the Fury-Schwarz fight was made, Tom Schwarz, although undefeated, was ranked by BoxRec as the world’s 41^st best heavyweight. To put that in perspective, he ranked 31 places below Dominic Breazeale.

To create more interest in Fury vs. Schwarz, by all indications an egregious mismatch, the promoters conjured up the name of Germany’s most famous boxer, Max Schmeling. Back in 1936, Schmeling upset the previously undefeated Joe Louis and there was nothing fluky about it. Schmeling chewed up the Brown Bomber before stopping him in the 12^th round. But for publicity purposes, the Schwarz-Schmeling comparison wasn’t a good one as Schmeling fought Joe Louis again and was so thoroughly drubbed in a fight that lasted only 124 seconds that it almost blotted out what Schmeling had accomplished in their first meeting.

Fortunately for the promoters, there was a more helpful comparison right at their fingertips in the form of Axel Schulz who would attend the fight as part of the German broadcasting team. Schulz, a virtual unknown when he was pitted against George Foreman at the MGM Grand in April of 1995, was the anti-Tom Schwarz, the counter-point to the argument that Tyson Fury’s hand-picked opponent was a no-hoper.

Foreman was long in the tooth in 1995, but Axel Schulz, raised in East Germany, was yet considered easy meat. “Ring experts,” said Alan Goldstein in the Baltimore Sun, “classify Schulz as a harmless piece of strudel.” But those experts were wrong. Big George escaped with a majority decision that many considered a gift.

“I would never fight that kid again. Forget it. Wherever he came from, let him go right back. He was like a Tasmanian devil or something,” said Foreman after the fight. True to his word, he spurned a rematch, leading the IBF to strip him of his title.

Could Tom Schwarz be the next Axel Schulz? We know the answer. That’s yesterday’s news.

And now, after this meandering preamble, let’s move on to Otto Wallin who will fight Tyson Fury on Sept. 14 at the MGM Grand.

Wallin hails from Sweden. He stands six-foot-five, similar to Tom Schwarz, but is somewhat leaner and unlike Schwarz he’s a southpaw. He’s undefeated as a pro (20-0, 13 KOs), but has fought only once in the United States. His bout with journeyman Nick Kisner, a puffed-up cruiserweight, ended after one round when Kisner suffered a bad cut over his right eye from an accidental head butt and would not come out for the second round, claiming that the cut had blurred his vision. It was ruled a no-contest. A second U.S. fight fell out at the 11^th hour when shopworn B.J. Flores failed his pre-fight medical exam.

As for good boxers from Sweden, it’s a very short list, understandably so as professional boxing was banned in Sweden from 1970 until 2007. The most famous Swedish boxer, needless to say, is the late Ingemar Johansson.

Sixty years ago, Johansson was accorded scant chance of taking the heavyweight title from Floyd Patterson. But Ingemar not only did it, he did it in a spectacular way, knocking Patterson to the canvas seven times in less than three full rounds of fighting before referee Ruby Goldstein halted the slaughter. The stunning upset was the lead story on the front page of dozens of newspapers including the New York Times. (They fought twice more with Patterson winning both inside the distance, but it is their first fight that everyone remembers.)

As the Fury-Wallin fight draws closer, the name of Ingemar Johansson will be bandied about in many pre-fight reports: Can Otto Wallin accomplish what Ingemar did on that balmy night in Yankee Stadium?

For the sake of ballast, writers that invoke the name of Johansson ought to leaven their copy with a reference to Olle Tandberg.

Tandberg, from Stockholm, was 18-4-1 but riding a 12-fight winning streak when he made his U.S. debut on Jan. 9, 1948 in a 10-round contest at Madison Square Garden. In the opposite corner was Joey Maxim.

Joe Louis was nearing the end of his title reign. The previous month, in the same Madison Square Garden ring, he had been fortunate to turn away Jersey Joe Walcott, winning a split decision that was widely viewed as a gift. It was obvious that a shake-up in the heavyweight division was imminent and those with a vested interest hoped that Olle Tandberg would add his name to the mix.

Joey Maxim was a solid technician who would go on to win the light heavyweight title, but at this juncture of his career he was regarded as nothing more than a high-class journeyman. He wasn’t a hard-hitter. He had knocked out only 13 of his 69 opponents. Tandberg would out-weigh him 208-179.

Tandberg was the “A” side, but Joey Maxim took him to school. “Maxim gave a thorough lacing to the Swedish giant,” said New York Times ringside reporter James P. Dawson. “He exposed Tandberg as a cumbersome novice, little more than an amateur.” Incredibly, one of the judges actually favored Tandberg (5-4-1) but his score was myopic, to say the least.

Tandberg never fought for the title, but his managers succeeded in luring future title-holder Jersey Joe Walcott to Stockholm in the summer of 1949. Jersey Joe knocked him out in the 5^th before an announced crowd of 43,000 at a soccer stadium and that was all she wrote for Olle Tandberg who promptly retired.

Fury

Early in his career, Tyson Fury attracted notoriety for off-the-cuff remarks that were flat-out ignorant and were hurtful to certain segments of the population, but of late he has been on his best behavior, mending fences, as it were. In Las Vegas in the days before his bout with Tom Schwarz, he was the opposite of reclusive, chatting and posing for pictures with strangers, basking in their adulation and winning legions of new fans with his charismatic personality. A prizefighter with the soul of a troubadour, the big galoot is larger than life, a cartoon character, a promoter’s dream. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in his second act were cartoon characters too.

Oh, and the self-styled Gypsy King can fight more than a little. He’s very fluid for a man his size and can deliver punches that sting with either hand. He thoroughly dismantled the seemingly rugged Schwarz who was a bloody mess when the fight was stopped late in the second round.

Returning to the question that was the title of this story, we ask whether Otto Wallin, the Swede, is the next Ingemar Johansson or next Olle Tandberg.

That’s a rhetorical question, folks. If you foresee Wallin winning this fight, we know a bookmaker who will give you juicy odds and take all that you can beg, borrow, and steal.

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Arne K. Lang

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

19 hours ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

19 hours ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

Published

2 days ago

March 28, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-319-Rematches-in-Las-Vegas-Cancun-and-More

Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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