Michael Hunter is Fueled by Thoughts of his Father as he Pursues Heavyweight Glory

Published

6 years ago

September 3, 2019

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“I got into boxing because of my dad and then I stayed in it because of my dad.” So said Michael Hunter who fights undefeated Sergey Kuzmin a week from Friday at Madison Square Garden on DAZN with the winner very much in the mix for a shot at a world heavyweight title in 2020.

For the uninitiated, Michael Hunter is the son of the late Mike “The Bounty” Hunter. Active from 1985 to 1996, Mike Hunter, an undersized heavyweight, was one of the more interesting fighters of his era. He had a unique style, a style that defied description. Perhaps the best comparison would be Tommy “Hurricane” Jackson, a boxer best remembered for his two fights with Floyd Patterson. “Name a punch,” said Arthur Daley of the New York Times, “and (Hurricane Jackson) has it. He also has a few nobody ever thought of before.”

All comparisons are imperfect and this is giving Mike Hunter the worst of it. He was very hard to hit cleanly. There were elements of his game similar to (take your pick) Young Griffo or Willie Pep or Pernell Whitaker. And he had a granite chin. He was stopped only once and that was in his final pro fight in Copenhagen against Brian Nielsen when he retired on his stool after four rounds with an injury of dubious authenticity. At that, he lasted one round longer than Tony Tubbs who went out the same way. The expression “There’s Something Fishy in Denmark” didn’t originate with Danish boxing promoter Mogens Palle but it could have.

Mike Hunter finished his career with a record of 26-7-2 with one no-decision. Who knows how far he would have gone if he had packed a harder punch? He scored only eight knockouts. But despite this drawback, he was one of the great spoilers in heavyweight history. Among his victims were Oliver McCall, Pinklon Thomas, Ossie Ocasio and Tyrell Biggs, all of whom out-weighed him by 16-20 pounds. On one of the rare occasions when he was pitted against a man of his own poundage, he dropped down to cruiserweight and won a wide 12-round decision over Dwight Muhammad Qawi.

Many boxing mavens know only the raw details of Mike Hunter’s life. They know he served time in prison before starting his boxing career at age twenty-six. They know he died under strange circumstances. He was shot during an altercation with two plainclothes policemen on the roof of the gone-to-seed St. Moritz Hotel in Hollywood where he had been staying. The cops were reportedly conducting a routine drug sting. He was shot twice and died from his wounds.

These raw facts, while true, obscure the true Mike Hunter. Among other things, he was a family man, devoted to his children. In Las Vegas, where he lived during the bulk of his boxing career, he usually brought his kids with him to the gym. In 1990, when he went off to Australia to fight hot prospect Jimmy Thunder, he arrived in Melbourne with his family, including two-year-old Michael, in tow. After Mike knocked out Thunder, the family remained in Australia for almost two years. (It was there that young Michael Hunter first learned to talk. When the family returned to the U.S., Michael’s playmates were bemused by his Australian accent.)

When Michael Hunter says that he got into boxing because of his father, he is referencing the fact that he literally grew up in the sport. There was also a boxing connection on his mother’s side. His maternal grandfather Norman Henry was a matchmaker in Philadelphia and for a time ran a boxing gym in Santa Monica. Norman Henry was close pals with Archie Moore and served as an adviser to George Foreman when Foreman re-entered the sport after a 10-year absence.

Michael idolized his father. In one of their conversations, the elder Hunter told his son how proud he would be if he became an Olympian. It eventually happened, but it took two tries.

Hunter made the 2008 U.S. Olympic team as a super heavyweight, but had to clear more hurdles to punch his ticket to Beijing and came up short in the final Olympic qualifier in Guatemala. Pressured to turn pro, he elected to give it one more shot although that meant staying an amateur for four more years.

In 2012, competing as a heavyweight, he represented the U.S. at the London games, fulfilling his father’s dream. But he failed to medal, losing his second-round contest to Russia’s Artur Beterbiev on a close and controversial decision.

Hunter won his first 12 pro fights before running into fellow unbeaten Oleksandr Usyk. Hunter had his moments, but the Ukrainian cruiserweight, who had a big 12^th round, won by seven points on all three cards. Michael’s management then decided that henceforth Michael would compete only as a heavyweight.

Hunter, in common with his father, had always fought bigger men. While still a teenager, he sparred with the likes of Samuel Peter and Hasim Rahman, the latter a long-time family friend who is now a member of his brain trust. As an amateur he swapped punches with the towering Tyson Fury at a U.S.A.-England dual meet. The judges gave Fury the decision in the 3-round go which Hunter insists was a great injustice. His former sparring partners include both Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, who brought Hunter to their training camp in a small skiing village in the Tirol mountains of Austria, a place that Hunter would like to re-visit. He says it’s the most beautiful place on earth.

Since fighting strictly as a heavyweight, the results have been smashing. He’s won five straight, including stoppages of Martin Bakole Ilunga (KO 5) and veteran Alexander Ustinov (TKO 10). The previously undefeated Ilunga, who carried 256 pounds on a six-foot-six frame, was touted by no less an authority than Barry McGuigan as the next big thing. They fought at London’s venerable York Hall.

Stylistically, Michael Hunter doesn’t fight anything like his father. But like his dad, he has embraced the role of a spoiler.

This past April, Hunter signed a promotional deal with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom organization. Shortly thereafter, Anthony Joshua’s fight with Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller fell out when Miller tested positive for PEDs. Several writers, including this reporter, rated Hunter the favorite to fill the empty slot, but Hearn ultimately picked Andy Ruiz.

Hunter was ringside for Joshua-Ruiz. When Ruiz scored his first knockdown, Hunter remembers shouting to no one in particular, “I told you so; I told you.” Hunter had sparred with Ruiz and like all the others that had shared the ring with the Mexican, he knew that there was more to Ruiz than meets the eye.

Hunter’s nemesis Oleksandr Usyk had previously signed with Matchroom. As first reported by The Athletic’s Mike Coppinger, Usyk will make his debut as a heavyweight on Oct. 12 in Chicago against Suriname-born Tyrone Spong, a former champion kickboxer who left that sport in 2014 after suffering a fractured leg in a fight in Istanbul.

“Skill-wise,” says Hunter, “Oleksandr Usyk can out-box any heavyweight. However, he doesn’t fight like a heavyweight and for that reason he may have trouble getting big fights. Heavyweights don’t like to get out-boxed. If they are going to lose, they would prefer to lose to a slugger.”

These remarks harked to his father. No important heavyweight wanted to fight Mike “The Bounty” Hunter, for even if he were to beat him, he wasn’t likely to look good in the process. The elder Hunter secured several big fights only because a replacement was needed and the promoter was desperate. He fought Tyrell Biggs for the vacant USBA title on 24 hours notice, salvaging a Top Rank ESPN fight that unraveled when Tony Tubbs tested positive for cocaine, his second infraction. Oh, and by the way, Hunter won the fight.

In addition to being a participant, Michael Hunter is a fan of boxing. He’s very much looking forward to the forthcoming light heavyweight unification fight between Oleksandr Gvozdyk and his old amateur rival Artur Beterbiev. “This will be a beautiful fight for the fans to watch,” he says. “It will be a test of wills. Beterbiev has great timing and I think he will do really well in the middle rounds.” But can he sustain it? Hunter is non-committal.

It’s an awkward question, but we had to ask it: Does Michael Hunter believe that the circumstances of his father’s death were accurately reported by the media? Mike Hunter was reportedly shot after hitting one of the officers over the head with a fake handgun.

“We’ll never know what really happened,” he says, noting that there were no witnesses. “The police may have drawn their guns a little too soon. There’s that tendency when they confront a black male they perceive to be a threat.” He says this matter-of-factly, without raising his voice, while acknowledging that the father he lost when he was seventeen years old, the man whose memory he cherishes, had personal demons and fell prey to drugs.

Michael Hunter has a younger brother who may get there ahead of him in the race to fight for a world title. Keith Hunter, a 27-year-old welterweight, is 11-0. The brothers, who train in the same Las Vegas gym, are both “The Bounty” Hunters. Like father, like sons.

Sergey Kuzmin, Michael Hunter’s opponent on Sept. 13, hails from St. Petersburg, Russia, and, like Hunter, had a wealth of amateur experience. Kuzmin is 15-0 (11 KOs) with 1 no-decision, that coming in a match with Amir Mansour that was stopped in the third round when both suffered severe cuts following an accidental clash of heads. In his most recent fight, Kuzmin scored a majority decision over rugged Joey Dawejko.

The oddsmakers have chalked Hunter (17-1, 12 KOs) the favorite, but the odds are short, seemingly portending a very competitive fight. As always, Michael will feel his father’s presence as he enters the ring. And whatever the outcome, he has the satisfaction of knowing that his father would be very proud of him.

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Arne K. Lang

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Late Bloomer Anthony Cacace TKOs Hometown Favorite Leigh Wood in Nottingham

Published

12 hours ago

May 10, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions was at Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, England, tonight with a card featuring hometown favorite Leigh Wood against Ireland’s Anthony “Apache” Cacace.

Wood, a former two-time WBA featherweight champion, known for dramatic comebacks in bouts he was losing, may have reached the end of the road at age 36. He had his moments tonight, rocking Cacace on several occasions and winning the eighth round, but he paid the price, returning to his corner after round eight with swelling around both of his eyes.

In the ninth, Cacace, an 11/5 favorite, hurt Wood twice with left hands, the second of which knocked Wood into the ropes, dictating a standing 8-count by referee John Latham. When the bout resumed, Cacace went for the kill and battered Wood around the ring, forcing Wood’s trainer Ben Davison to throw in the towel. The official time was 2:15 of round nine.

Akin to Wood, Northern Ireland’s Cacace (24-1, 9 KOs) is also 36 years old and known as a late bloomer. This was his ninth straight win going back to 2017 (he missed all of 2018 and 2020). He formerly held the IBF 130-pound world title, a diadem he won with a stoppage of then-undefeated and heavily favored Joe Cordina, but that belt wasn’t at stake tonight as Cacace abandoned it rather than fulfill his less-lucrative mandatory. Wood falls to 28-4.

Semi-Wind-Up

Nottingham light heavyweight Ezra Taylor, fighting in his hometown for the first time since pro debut, delighted his fan base with a comprehensive 10-round decision over previously undefeated Troy Jones. Taylor, who improved to 12-0 (9) won by scores of 100-90, 99-91, and 98-92.

This was Taylor’s first fight with new trainer Malik Scott, best known for his work with Deontay Wilder. The victory may have earned him a match with Commonwealth title-holder Lewis Edmondson. Jones was 12-0 heading in.

Other Bouts of Note

In his first fight as a featherweight, Liam Davies rebounded from his first defeat with a 12-round unanimous decision over Northern Ireland’s previously undefeated Kurt Walker. Davies, who improved to 17-1 (8), staved off a late rally to prevail on scores of 115-113, 116-112, and 117-111. It was the first pro loss for the 30-year-old Walker (12-1), a Tokyo Olympian.

In a mild upset, Owen Cooper, a saucy Worcestershire man, won a 10-round decision over former Josh Taylor stablemate Chris Kongo. The referee’s scorecard read 96-94.

Cooper improved to 11-1 (4). It was the third loss in 20 starts for Kongo.

A non-televised 8-rounder featured junior welterweight Sam Noakes in a stay-busy fight. A roofer by trade and the brother of British welterweight title-holder Sean Noakes, Sam improved to 17-0 (15 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of overmatched Czech import Patrik Balez (13-5-1).

Photo credit: Leigh Dawney / Queensberry

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Published

2 days ago

May 9, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Years ago, I worked at a newsstand in the Beverly Hills area. It was a 24-hour a day version and the people that dropped by were very colorful and unique.

One elderly woman Eva, who bordered on homeless but pridefully wore lipstick, would stop by the newsstand weekly to purchase a pack of menthol cigarettes. On one occasion, she asked if I had ever been to San Diego?

I answered “yes, many times.”

She countered “you need to watch out for San Diego Smoke.”

This Saturday, Top Rank brings its brand of prizefighting to San Diego or what could be called San Diego Smoke. Leading the fight card is Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs) defending the WBO super feather title against undefeated Filipino Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) at Pechanga Arena. ESPN will televise.

This is Navarrete’s fourth defense of the super feather title.

The last time Navarrete stepped in the boxing ring he needed six rounds to dismantle the very capable Oscar Valdez in their rematch. One thing about Mexico City’s Navarrete is he always brings “the smoke.”

Also, on the same card is Fontana, California’s Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) vying for the interim IBF lightweight title against Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-1, 12 KOs) on the co-main event.

Abdullaev has only fought once before in the USA and was handily defeated by Devin Haney back in 2019. But that was six years ago and since then he has knocked off various contenders.

Muratalla is a slick fighting lightweight who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy now in Moreno Valley, Calif. It’s a virtual boot camp with many of the top fighters on the West Coast available to spar on a daily basis. If you need someone bigger or smaller, stronger or faster someone can match those needs.

When you have that kind of preparation available, it’s tough to beat. Still, you have to fight the fight. You never know what can happen inside the prize ring.

Another fighter to watch is Perla Bazaldua, 19, a young and very talented female fighter out of the Los Angeles area. She is trained by Manny Robles who is building a small army of top female fighters.

Bazaldua (1-0, 1 KO) meets Mona Ward (0-1) in a super flyweight match on the preliminary portion of the Top Rank card. Top Rank does not sign many female fighters so you know that they believe in her talent.

Others on the Top Rank card in San Diego include Giovani Santillan, Andres Cortes, Albert Gonzalez, Sebastian Gonzalez and others.

They all will bring a lot of smoke to San Diego.

Probox TV

A strong card led by Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (26-2, 18 KOs) facing Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0, 6 KOs) in a super welterweight clash between southpaws takes place on Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. PROBOX TV will stream the fight card.

Ardreal has rocketed up the standings and now faces veteran Lubin whose only losses came against world titlists Sebastian Fundora and Jermell Charlo. It’s a great match to decide who deserves a world title fight next.

Another juicy match pits Argentina’s Nazarena Romero (14-0-2) against Mexico’s Mayelli Flores (12-1-1) in a female super bantamweight contest.

Nottingham, England

Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KOs) defends the IBO super featherweight title against Leigh Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) in Wood’s hometown on Saturday at Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, England. DAZN will stream the Queensberry Promotions card.

Ireland’s Cacace seems to have the odds against him. But he is no stranger to dancing in the enemy’s lair or on foreign territory. He formerly defeated Josh Warrington in London and Joe Cordina in Riyadh in IBO title defenses.

Lampley at Wild Card

Boxing telecaster Jim Lampley will be signing his new book It Happened! at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 2 p.m. Lampley has been a large part of many of the greatest boxing events in the past 40 years. He and Freddie Roach will be at the signing.

Fights to Watch (All times Pacific Time)

Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Anthony Cacace (23-1) vs Leigh Wood (28-3).

Sat. PROBOX.tv 3 p.m. Erickson Lubin (26-2) vs Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1) vs Charly Suarez (18-0); Raymond Muratalla (22-0) vs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Published

3 days ago

May 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.

It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.

In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.

Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.

It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.

“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.

Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.

Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.

Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.

We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.

Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”

But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.

“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”

Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.

Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”

If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38^th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.

Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”

Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.

Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.

On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.

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