Marc Abrams is Proof That Even a Boxing PR Guy Can Be a Fighter

Published

5 years ago

September 9, 2019

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It is somewhat ironic that 15rounds.com, the boxing website owned by publicist Marc Abrams, invokes memories of champions of yesteryear and those who attempted to usurp them, rather than an era where titlists and challengers are only asked to survive the arguably lesser hell of going 12. Those nine additional minutes in the crucible of the ring sometimes served as a line of demarcation separating simple fatigue and utter exhaustion, and the kind of pain any fighter accepts as an occupational necessity and a level of agony that can make the difference between the merely well-conditioned and the fanatically determined.

The 46-year-old Abrams performs just about every task required of a boxing lifer with the exception of actually taking punches, but by any manner of assessment he has demonstrated he has already gone 15 hard rounds, many times over, in a decades-long battle within himself that he might soon be on the verge of winning.

If the third and final stage of a surgical cycle that began 10 months ago is successful in late October, Abrams is hopeful of resuming a normal life, or however normal that life is for a man who has surrendered all or parts of several diseased and malfunctioning internal organs. Until his body relays the message that he is finally all that he needs and wants to be, it will be because the bouts of incapacitating pain, waves of nausea and occasional hemorrhages necessitating blood transfusions are forever in his past. Maybe then he will be free to eat and enjoy more than a mouthful or two of food at a time without vomiting, an unwelcome development that has seen his weight precipitously plunge from 177 pounds to 138. He proudly notes, however, that he has put 1½ pounds back onto his scrawny frame, a telltale sign that his stomach is not quite as rebellious as it so long has been. Even a small step forward is a welcome development after so often being told by doctors that his quest for better health again was on hold or, worse, stuck in reverse.

“It literally has been hell,” Abrams said of the most recent period during which his plethora of medical issues, which might have cost him his life or at least significantly shortened it, took a foreboding turn. “But I am very optimistic that this next stomach surgery will be the end of it.”

Given his history of frequent hospital visits and grim prognoses, it is a wonder that Abrams has been able to mostly maintain a schedule and work ethic that would sap energy from presumably more able-bodied competitors. Although the native Philadelphian is known mostly as a publicist to the not-yet stars and never-weres, there is virtually no task in boxing he would refrain from taking if called upon. He said it is not unusual for him to put in 15 to 16 hours to his myriad duties each and every day, with perhaps a few hours taken off on Sundays.

“Before (his most recent surgery), I’d get up and start at 9 in the morning, maybe 8:30, and put in an hour before taking a shower,” he related. “I’d be in the Banner office (he has something akin to a full-time job with Philly-based promoter Art Pelullo) from 10 a.m. to maybe 5 in the afternoon, working the phones, sending out or answering emails. Whatever is needed. After that, I work on my own things or whomever I’m doing stuff for, until midnight, and often later.

“The next day, I do it all over again.”

It had always been Abrams’ hope to one day have a job in sports, although initially he believed he’d be involved in the NFL or NBA. But, he said, “I’ve always loved the big fights, when they would come on network TV. I was a big fan of Larry Holmes because all his fights were on TV, and because he was the heavyweight champion.

“I guess I caught the boxing bug even more when the Jack Newfield book (Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King) came out (in 1995). It had so much fascinating stuff in it, I wanted to learn more about boxing. That’s where my passion for the sport really began.”

Although Abrams has worked his share of bigger fight cards – he points out that he has done HBO, Showtime and ESPN events – he is most associated with promoters, managers and fighters who live and work in the Philly metropolitan area, the outer limits of which might extend westward to Reading, Pa., and to Atlantic City to the east. He estimates he has been associated with 50 to 75 such clients, most of whom appreciate his bulldog style although some were unwilling to reciprocate his loyalty, moving on to more established PR types as their place in the boxing pecking order rose.

“I can handle bigger shows,” Abrams stressed. “I’ve done stuff nationally and internationally. But before that you have to take pride in being kind of the main guy in your area. There are still a lot of great stories that need to be told about kids in and around Philly. OK, so maybe it isn’t the heyday that it was 20 or 25 years ago, but there still are a lot of good fights and good fighters locally. This is where I grew up and still live. I want to see local promoters and local fighters succeed and go on to the next level.”

Marshall Kauffman, president of Reading-based King’s Promotions, has worked with Abrams often and he cites him as an example of someone who never gives less than his best effort, and has not forgotten where he comes from.

“Marc has helped me tremendously by doing PR and commentating for some of my shows, and he’s been just as helpful to numerous other local promoters,” Kauffman said. “Not having Marc around would be like not having boxing around in this area. If he weren’t here, that would make for a very empty space.”

Pelullo is also effusive in his praise of Abrams, saying, “I think Marc is one of the more knowledgeable publicists in the business. He has tapes on everybody, and what he doesn’t know about somebody he can find out within 30 minutes. He is very conscientious about his job. And he tells me what he really thinks rather than what he thinks I want to hear, which is very important.”

When he lived in an apartment in Center City Philadelphia, it was a messy bachelor pad with videotapes of boxing matches stacked from floor to ceiling in the living room and almost everywhere else. Since his December 2016 marriage to the former Ronnit Zalayet, the daughter of a British mother and Israeli father who was born in England, Abrams has relocated to more spacious digs in the Queen Village section of Philly, a living space that definitely shows the signs of a woman’s touch. Ronnit has urged her husband to transfer as many of the videotapes as possible to DVDs, significantly cutting down on the clutter. And, yes, Mrs. Abrams knew what she was getting into when she said “Yes” to Marc’s proposal of marriage, which came in Verona, N.Y., when Marc was there working the Ruslan Provodnikov-John Molina Jr. fight for Banner Promotions on June 11, 2016.

“She’s gotten into (boxing) a little bit,” Marc said of Ronnit, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. “She knows who the local people are, and a lot of the big people, too. When Vasiliy Lomachenko was fighting Luke Campbell (on ESPN+ from London), she told me, `I’ll be watching my shows on Netflix, but call me down when the British guy comes on.’”

More importantly than any shared interest in boxing, however, Ronnit was at her husband’s side when daunting medical news of more recent vintage came flowing down like floodwaters through a ruptured levee. She provided assistance beyond moral support by scouring the Internet and helping put Marc together with an internationally known colon and rectal specialist, Dr. Feza Remzi, in New York City. It was Remzi who successfully performed an intricate, nine-hour-plus J-pouch reconstruction operation on July 18, and urologist William C. Huang, also of New York, who performed a partial nephrectomy in April to remove a four-centimeter mass from his right kidney that turned out to be malignant. There were some complications that followed such delicate surgeries, which likely was to be expected, but Abrams can now claim to see light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.

Not that anything can make up for years of suffering – Abrams said he was 15 when evidence of ulcerative colitis, the first of his many medical problems, became apparent – but perhaps a small gesture from the writers whom he has helped for so long might provide some measure of consolation. The Boxing Writers Association of America first presented its Courage in Overcoming Adversity Award, now co-named in honor of Bill Crawford and John McCain, in 2006. Crawford, a onetime amateur boxer, was the recipient of a Congressional Medal of Honor and Purple Heart for his battlefield heroism during World War II; McCain, a Navy fighter pilot, former Naval Academy boxer and avid fight fan, was subjected to horrific abuse as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before going on to a long tenure as a United States Senator from Arizona and 2008 bid for the presidency as the Republican nominee.

Kassim Ouma, then a recently dethroned IBF junior middleweight champion, was the first person to be recognized for the prestigious award, a testament to the horrors he had endured as a conscripted child soldier in Uganda before he defected to the U.S. By the time Ouma took the stage to accept the award, his story was fairly common knowledge in boxing circles. A year later, the second honoree was some guy named Muhammad Ali.

In all, there have been 18 persons associated with boxing who have been cited for courage in overcoming adversity. Almost without exception, all recipients had at least a modicum of name recognition with the BWAA electorate. Here’s hoping that the trials and tribulations faced and overcome by Marc Abrams, who may not be as well known to BWAA voters outside of the Philadelphia area, at least earns him a place on the ballot.

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

5 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

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Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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