From Child Prodigy to Elite Trainer, ex-Champ Bones Adams has had a Bumpy Ride

Published

5 years ago

August 16, 2019

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PART ONE OF A TWO-PART STORY — Las Vegas boxing trainer Clarence “Bones” Adams (pictured working the mitts with Amir Khan) has something in common with Tiger Woods. Both appeared on the TV show “That’s Incredible.” The show, co-hosted by former NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton, had a five-year run (1980-84) on ABC.

Tiger hadn’t even started kindergarten when his father brought him on the show to show off his acuity at hitting golf balls into a cup. Many viewers undoubtedly wondered if this painfully shy five-year-old kid would hit his peak as a golfer before he hit puberty.

Bones Adams wasn’t as cuddly cute as Tiger when he appeared on the show, his small hands encased in oversized boxing gloves, but, of course, he was a lot older. The precocious puncher was eight.

Precocious indeed. Reportedly 176-4 as an amateur, Adams was 15 years old when he made his pro debut on April 3, 1990 in Memphis, Tennessee. In the opposite corner was Simmie Black, a veteran of 158 fights.

Black was a professional loser of the stripe that has become virtually extinct in the United States, but he was 37 years old and had swapped punches with several top-shelf fighters, and here he was matched against a 15-year-old kid with no professional boxing experience whatsoever.

The kid won a 4-round unanimous decision and several years later, at age 18, he would fight a future Hall of Famer for the bantamweight championship of the world.

Clarence Richard Adams Jr has been called Bones ever since he was a little boy. The nickname was attached to him because someone said he was all skin and bones and he embraced it because he always hated the name Clarence. He spent his formative years in Henderson, Kentucky, where his father was a truck driver until blood clots in his legs forced him to quit. New employment was hard to find. Tobacco and coal, the prime economic movers in the growth of Henderson County, were in decline.

For a time, the family lived in Smith Mills, Kentucky, in a house without electricity and running water. To help out his parents, Bones worked in the fields, picking soybeans, corn, and tobacco. Working in the fields and honing his skills as a boxer – the gym was in Evansville, Indiana, 11 miles from Henderson – left little time for school. He dropped out in the eighth grade.

“No disrespect intended,” says Bones, “but the kids in the projects in the inner cities had it easy compared to us.”

The Adams’ later moved to Detroit where they lived along 7 Mile Road, the grittiest corridor in the city. They then settled in the town of Carmi in southern Illinois (a little more than an hour’s drive from their ancestral home in Henderson) where Bones’ father, since deceased, ran pizza parlors. Bones was living in Carmi when he turned pro.

Bones brought a 26-0-1 record into his March 27, 1993 bout with IBF world bantamweight champion Orlando Canizales at Evian les Bains, France. But it was a soft 26-0-1, a record forged against no-name opponents in tank towns like Greenville, South Carolina, Saint Joseph, Missouri, and Eldorado, Illinois. At this stage of his development he had no business being in the same ring with Canizales, the pride of Laredo, Texas, who was making the 12th defense of his title and would come to be regarded in many quarters as the top bantamweight of the modern era.

“When the fight was pitched to me,” says Bones, “I was told that the venue was neutral, but when I got over there I saw people coming up to Canizales saying ‘how nice to see you again’ and I learned that one of the judges was from Texas.”

The previous year, Canizales had twice defended his title in France. The Texas judge, Ronnie Ralston, was working his fourth Canizales title fight. (Astoundingly – but hey, maybe not; this is boxing – when Canizales lost three years later to Junior “Poison” Jones in a bid for the IBF super bantamweight title, Ronnie Ralston scored the fight 119-109 for Canizales. The other judges had Jones winning by six and seven points.)

Bones was being thrown to the wolves, but he was no pushover. Canizales broke Bones’ jaw in the third round, but the kid kept plugging away. After ten frames, Canizales led by two points on all three cards; the fight still hung in the balance. But in the 11^th, Bones’ father, who had no boxing experience but was working his corner, tossed in the towel.

Canizales vs Adams was held in a classy joint, the Casino Royale resort overlooking Lake Geneva, a favorite getaway for European bluebloods. This was quite a departure for Bones who was only a few years removed from scrounging through dumpsters for aluminum cans and other stuff that could be sold to a recycling center or a junk dealer. But the luxurious accommodations were no consolation. At an age when many young men are hijinking through their freshman year of college, here was Bones Adams nursing a painfully broken jaw on a long flight home across the Atlantic, a jaw that would be surgically repaired at his own expense.

In both of his next two fights, Bones dislocated his left shoulder and was forced to shut it down. With three straight losses, all inside the distance, his future looked grim. But Bones persevered and in 1995 was accorded a match in Las Vegas with Kevin Kelley on the undercard of the world lightweight title fight between Oscar De La Hoya and LA-area rival Genero “Chicanito” Hernandez.

They fought outdoors at Caesars Palace in the early evening on a swelteringly hot day. Fighting for a purse of $40,000, Bones fought the last four rounds of the 12-round fight with a badly swollen left eye that appeared to ringsiders, but not referee Mitch Halpern, to be the result of an accidental head butt. When the smoke cleared, veteran Las Vegas judge Bill Graham had it 116-112 for Bones Adams, but he was overruled by Art Lurie, another local man, and Rhode Island import Clark Sammartino who both had it 114-114 and it went into the books as a draw.

A former featherweight champion, Kevin Kelley, the Flushing Flash, was 43-1-2 going in. He was one of the great action fighters of his day, but this particular fight was rather dull. “And that tells you right there I got screwed,” says Bones. “I controlled the ring, I made him fight my fight.”

Bones would be on the wrong side of another questionable decision in an even bigger fight, but prior to that disappointment, all of his hard work finally paid off and he experienced the highest high of his boxing career.

On March 4, 2000, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Adams deposed WBA super bantamweight champion Nestor Garza. Although he broke his hand in the eighth round, he won a wide decision.

“I was having a lot of aches and pains,” Bones recalled, “but when I woke up on the morning of the fight, I felt great, I felt very strong. I called all my friends and told them to bet on me. I had a lot of friends that night.”

Bones says that going into the fight he had only $980 to his name. He bet $900 on himself and says he secured 8/1 odds. (In truth, Garza wasn’t quite that big a favorite. In boxing, upsets invariably become bigger upsets in the re-telling and with the passage of time.)

After two successful title defenses, Bones returned to Mandalay Bay to oppose Paulie Ayala. Bones held the WBA 122-pound title, Ayala was that organization’s 118-pound champion, and yet there was no title at stake, save that of a fringe organization (we wouldn’t even try to explain how that came about – hey, this is boxing).

Title or no title, the fight created a lot of buzz. Wladimir Klitschko’s WBO title defense against Charles Shufford was relegated to the undercard. And the bout was a humdinger that went to the scorecards after 12 nip-and-tuck rounds. Bones won the last round on the card of all three judges, but that wasn’t sufficient to get him over the hump. Ayala won a split decision.

Bones didn’t bring the same fire into his rematch with Paulie Ayala who was returned a clear winner after 12 rounds. He felt that he deserved no less than a draw in his next fight, a 12-round featherweight contest with tough Guty Espadas Jr, but that fight too ended with Bones on the wrong side of a split decision. For this bout, Bones had a 12-week camp in Big Bear and felt that he had over-trained.

He would go on to have six more fights for small purses before calling it quits, retiring with a record of 44-7-4. When he left the sport, he wasn’t yet 26 years old, but he had a lot of mileage on his odometer – as a pro, he had answered the bell for 344 rounds – and it was time to say goodbye.

Bones concedes that he began to make some bad choices following his first loss to Paulie Ayala, for example using recreational drugs as a crutch to uplift his spirits. He then made a whopper of a bad choice when he accepted an offer of employment from the predatory Charles Horky. To be continued……

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Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh

Published

1 day ago

December 21, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh

Oleksandr Usyk left no doubt that he is the best heavyweight of his generation and one of the greatest boxers of all time with a unanimous decision over Tyson Fury tonight at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But although the Ukrainian won eight rounds on all three scorecards, this was no runaway. To pirate a line from one of the DAZN talking heads, Fury had his moments in every round but Usyk had more moments.

The early rounds were fought at a faster pace than the first meeting back in May. At the mid-point, the fight was even. The next three rounds – the next five to some observers – were all Usyk who threw more punches and landed the cleaner shots.

Fury won the final round in the eyes of this reporter scoring at home, but by then he needed a knockout to pull the match out of the fire.

The last round was an outstanding climax to an entertaining chess match during which both fighters took turns being the pursuer and the pursued.

An Olympic gold medalist and a unified world champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, the amazing Usyk improved his ledger to 23-0 (14). His next fight, more than likely, will come against the winner of the Feb. 22 match in Ridayh between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker which will share the bill with the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.

Fury (34-2-1) may fight Anthony Joshua next. Regardless, no one wants a piece of Moses Itauma right now although the kid is only 19 years old.

Moses Itauma

Raised in London by a Nigerian father and a Slovakian mother, Itauma turned heads once again with another “wow” performance. None of his last seven opponents lasted beyond the second round.

His opponent tonight, 34-year-old Australian Demsey McKean, lasted less than two minutes. Itauma, a southpaw with blazing fast hands, had the Aussie on the deck twice during the 117-second skirmish. The first knockdown was the result of a cuffing punch that landed high on the head; the second knockdown was produced by an overhand left. McKean went down hard as his chief cornerman bounded on to the ring apron to halt the massacre.

Photo (c): Mark Robinson

Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs after going 20-0 as an amateur) is the real deal. It was the second straight loss for McKean (22-2) who lasted into the 10^th round against Filip Hrgovic in his last start.

Bohachuk-Davis

In a fight billed as the co-main although it preceded Itauma-McKean, Serhii Bohachuk, an LA-based Ukrainian, stopped Ishmael Davis whose corner pulled him out after six frames.

Both fighters were coming off a loss in fights that were close on the scorecards, Bohachuk falling to Vergil Ortiz Jr in a Las Vegas barnburner and Davis losing to Josh Kelly.

Davis, who took the fight on short notice, subbing for Ismail Madrimov, declined to 13-2. He landed a few good shots but was on the canvas in the second round, compliments of a short left hook, and the relentless Bohachuk (25-2, 24 KOs) eventually wore him down.

Fisher-Allen

In a messy, 10-round bar brawl masquerading as a boxing match, Johnny Fisher, the Romford Bull, won a split decision over British countryman David Allen. Two judges favored Fisher by 95-94 tallies with the dissenter favoring Allen 96-93. When the scores were announced, there was a chorus of boos and those watching at home were outraged.

Allen was a step up in class for Fisher. The Doncaster man had a decent record (23-5-2 heading in) and had been routinely matched tough (his former opponents included Dillian Whyte, Luis “King Kong” Ortiz and three former Olympians). But Allen was fairly considered no more than a journeyman and Fisher (12-0 with 11 KOs, eight in the opening round) was a huge favorite.

In round five, Allen had Fisher on the canvas twice although only one was ruled a true knockdown. From that point, he landed the harder shots and, at the final bell, he fell to canvas shedding tears of joy, convinced that he had won.

He did not win, but he exposed Johnny Fisher as a fighter too slow to compete with elite heavyweights, a British version of the ponderous Russian-Canadian campaigner Arslanbek Makhmudov.

Other Bouts of Note

In a spirited 10-round featherweight match, Scotland’s Lee McGregor, a former European bantamweight champion and stablemate of former unified 140-pound title-holder Josh Taylor, advanced to 15-1-1 (11) with a unanimous decision over Isaac Lowe (25-3-3). The judges had it 96-92 and 97-91 twice.

A cousin and regular houseguest of Tyson Fury, Lowe fought most of the fight with cuts around both eyes and was twice deducted a point for losing his gumshield.

In a fight between super featherweights that could have gone either way, Liverpool southpaw Peter McGrail improved to 11-1 (6) with a 10-round unanimous decision over late sub Rhys Edwards. The judges had it 96-95 and 96-94 twice.

McGrail, a Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist, fought from the third round on with a cut above his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads. It was the first loss for Edwards (16-1), a 24-year-old Welshman who has another fight booked in three weeks.

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Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?

Published

2 days ago

December 20, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?

In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.

The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.

Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.

The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.

That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.

The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)

Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)

Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.

Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).

Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.

The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.

Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.

Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.

We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”

The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

Published

3 days ago

December 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.

Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.

Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.

Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.

There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.

It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.

Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.

At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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