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Holmes-Spinks I: The Grassy Knoll for Boxing’s Conspiracy Theorists

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The most enduring of American conspiracy theories involves a gunman who may or may not have existed and may or may not have been on a grassy knoll in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the subject of numerous speculative books and movies, all of which involve some individual’s ironclad take on what happened, why it happened and who was involved in making it happen, will always be grist for the mill for those still dissecting that national tragedy. More than a few of those arguments dispute the Warren Commission’s official conclusion that presumed killer Lee Harvey Oswald acted on his own and not in concert with unidentified, shadowy figures.

On a more recent and lesser scale, a raft of conspiracy theories arose in the wake of the alleged Aug. 10 jailhouse suicide of multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose list of celebrity acquaintances includes two presidents of the United States and even a member of the British royal family. As was the case when nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald before he could go on trial, conspiracy theorists on all sides have conjectured whether Epstein’s suspicious death was actually a hit and, if so, ordered by whom?

Boxing, with its blemished past dotted by nefarious power brokers and decisions that sometimes defy logic, also has provided conspiracy junkies with ample material to analyze and debate. Olympic boxing, often characterized as a cesspool of corruption, immediately comes to mind. So does the Sept. 10, 1993, majority draw in which WBC welterweight champion Pernell Whitaker, whom almost everyone without an official scorecard saw as the clear victor, was obliged to settle for a dissatisfying standoff with crowd favorite and Mexican national hero Julio Cesar Chavez in a bout that drew a live crowd of 60,000 or so in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Although Whitaker retained his title on the draw, he and his outraged supporters were convinced the outcome was predicated more on the WBC, headquartered in Mexico City, exerting behind-the-scenes influence to ensure that Chavez came away with his undefeated record still intact. Irrefutable truth is often difficult to pin down in such matters, but the 55-year-old “Sweet Pea,” who died after being struck by a car on July 14, went to his grave believing he had been cheated out of a deserved triumph that would have further embellished his Hall of Fame legacy.

Given its historical implications, what is arguably the grassy knoll of boxing remains the Sept. 21, 1985, pairing of long-reigning heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and undisputed light heavyweight titlist Michael Spinks, who was attempting to become the first (or maybe not) 175-pound champ to move up in weight and capture his sport’s most prestigious and lucrative prize.

Spinks – who came away with a razor-thin and controversial 15-round unanimous decision — was bidding to do something no other light heavyweight had ever done, although there are those who cite Tommy Burns, who outpointed heavyweight champ Marvin Hart over 20 rounds on Feb. 23, 2006, as the first 175-pound titlist to accomplish the feat. In any case, since Burns, 13 light heavyweight champs had tried and failed in their bids to become king of the heavyweights, a list that included such ring legends as Billy Conn, Archie Moore and Bob Foster.

Given the fact that the 35-year-old Holmes was making his 20th title defense and was widely considered as one of the best heavyweight champions of all time, he was installed as a prohibitive favorite over Spinks, who was not only bucking tradition but the perceived limits of his own body. Even respected Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray, noting that Spinks had weighed in at 199¾ pounds – heavier than such legendary heavyweight champions as and Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano ever did for title bouts – went a bit overboard in writing that the challenger looked “like a blowfish” and that his weight gain was accelerated by a 4,500-calorie-a-day diet that might be “all right for a guy getting ready to play Henry the Eighth.”

But Spinks’ bulking-up process was not the result of having scarfed down a bunch of French fries, chocolate milkshakes and doughnuts, but rather the calculated machinations of New Orleans-based fitness coach and nutritionist Mackie Shilstone, whose then-unorthodox methods would soon gain wider acceptance but then were seen by the boxing establishment as, well, somewhat bizarre.

“We have a scientific, unique program that is secret – a program that was developed specifically for Michael, using techniques that would be revolutionary for boxing,” Shilstone said to the bemusement of hidebound traditionalists.

Spinks, whose walking-around weight between light heavyweight matches was usually 10 pounds or so above the division limit, said he was already familiar working with Shilstone – to shed unwanted pounds.

“Mackie had already helped me lose weight to get down to light heavyweight,” Spinks said when contacted for this story. “He told me that if I wanted to fight Larry Holmes for the heavyweight championship, he could help me put the weight on the right way. And that’s what he did. He also said he wouldn’t take anything from what I already had, in terms of what I did well as a light heavyweight, that I still would be able to do all that as a heavyweight. He was right, too. I was as fast as a heavyweight as I was as a light heavyweight.”

Unlike Conn, Moore, Foster and other light heavyweight champs who made no secret of their ambition to storm and conquer the heavyweight division, Michael admits to initially lacking the burning desire to replicate the feat of his older brother and fellow 1976 Olympic gold medalist Leon Spinks, who dethroned WBC/WBA heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali via 15-round split decision in a monumental upset on Feb. 15, 1978. Leon had always been naturally larger than Michael, never weighing less than 194 pounds for any of his first 23 outings as a pro. The mere notion of moving up to heavyweight seemed unlikely and more than a bit risky to Michael, who figured he would continue to do what he’d already been doing, which was to dominate all comers at light heavy.

It was Butch Lewis, who promoted both Spinks brothers, who determined that Michael going to heavyweight was not only doable, but highly advisable financially.

“Butch told me I could fight Larry Holmes for the heavyweight championship,” the younger Spinks recalled. “I was, like, `What?’ He said, ‘Yeah, and you can beat him.’ I said, `You really think so?’ And he said, `Absolutely.’

“Butch (who was 65 when he died of a heart attack on July 23, 2011) had faith in me, so I took that and ran with it.”

Maybe what bottom-line Butch had was absolute faith in the economic realities of boxing, which always hold that heavyweight champions are vastly better-compensated than their light heavyweight counterparts. Consider these numbers: Michael Spinks’ purse for his final light heavyweight defense, an eighth-round stoppage of Jim MacDonald on June 6, 1985, was a relatively paltry $100,000, a pittance compared to the $1.1 million contract he signed to challenge Holmes.

Say what you will about the flamboyant Lewis, who was noted for wearing a tuxedo and bow tie but no shirt on fight night, but his steering of Michael Spinks’ career was a case study on how to milk the system for every available dollar. It was Lewis who made the bold call, after Spinks had followed up his stunner over Holmes by outpointing the “Easton Assassin” on another close and controversial call, a 15-round split decision in the rematch seven months later, to hold Spinks out of the heavyweight unification tournament being put together by HBO Sports president Seth Abraham and promoter Don King. In doing so Spinks passed on a potential $5 million payday against eventual tourney winner Mike Tyson, but he was paid about the same amount to defeat the formidable Gerry Cooney, putting into motion a series of events that led to his June 27, 1988, megafight with Tyson in Atlantic City. OK, so Spinks didn’t make it through the first round, but he received a career-high $13.2 million for what proved to be his final fight and only professional loss, a pretty nice parting gift when you get right down to it.

Holmes had his own potential date with destiny in that first clash with Michael Spinks. Were he to win, it would be his 49th consecutive victory without a loss, matching the record set by Marciano – ironically, against Archie Moore and, even more ironically, 30 years to the day after The Rock knocked out the Ol’ Mongoose in the ninth round in what turned out to be his final fight.

In the lead-up to the fight at The Riviera in Las Vegas, for which members of the Marciano family were invited guests, Holmes seemed to chafe at constantly being compared to a beloved fighter who had died in a crash of a small private plane on Aug. 31, 1969. “I’m not fighting Marciano,” Holmes complained. “He’s dead. I never knew him. I’m fighting for Larry Holmes, for me, for what I can do for my family.”

To Holmes, who was no stranger to the seven-figure club and who was down for a $3 million purse, there was a racial component to the constant comparisons to Marciano, who was white, much in the same manner that black baseball great Hank Aaron was the target of unfair and sometimes cruel criticism as he neared the sacrosanct record of 714 career home runs set by Babe Ruth. When Aaron passed Ruth by homering for the 715th time on April 8, 1974, the feat was celebrated by many Americans and baseball fans in general, but not by everyone.

Members of the Marciano family, who ostensibly had been summoned to congratulate Holmes in the event of his making it to 49-0, celebrated when the close decision for Spinks – by margins of 143-142 (twice) and 145-142 – was announced. That did not set well with Holmes, who felt such a display was disrespectful to him and, additionally, was the wrong call historically as long-reigning champions such as himself usually got the benefit of the doubt in close fights.

“I was robbed,” Holmes, in announcing one of his several retirements from boxing that didn’t stick, said at the postfight press conference, suggesting that alleged conspirators in influential places who finally had brought him down can “kiss me where the sun never shines,” which meant “my big black behind.”

Nor was Holmes any more disposed to be gracious to Peter Marciano, Rocky’s younger brother and the foremost keeper of the “Brockton Blockbuster’s” eternal flame. “You are freeloading off your dead brother,” Holmes told Peter, tossing in the zinger that “Rocky couldn’t carry my jockstrap.”

Months later, after the heat of the moment had long since cooled down, Holmes, in most instances a respectful and thoroughly decent man, offered a public apology to anyone he might have offended with his earlier intemperate remarks.

“I’m sorry for what I said, for the way things came out,” Holmes told a Boston reporter. “I don’t want to take anything away from Peter or the Marciano family. I haven’t slept for two months thinking about this.

“I’ve reached out to Peter Marciano. I’d like to get together with him, either in his town or mine (Easton, Pa.). There must be something that can be done to make this right.

“I have no hard feelings against Rocky Marciano. He was one of the greatest fighters of all time. His 49-0 record speaks for itself. If I hurt Marciano’s family, I regret it.”

What Holmes did not back away from, not then and not now, is his belief that he deserved to win both of his fights with Michael Spinks, with the first loss a thinly veiled and successful attempt to keep him from sidling up alongside the sainted Marciano.

“There was no doubt about it,” he said of a decision he still regards as a cold slap in the face. “I knew what they were going to do to me. I knew if I didn’t knock him out, I wasn’t going to get the decision.” Nor is he alone in that contention, just as there are Spinks partisans who are just as insistent that the judges got it right.

Asked if he thought then, or does now, that he did not receive all the credit he was due from Holmes and his other persistent proponents of the conspiracy theory that refuses to die, Spinks said it shouldn’t matter at this point. The record book indicates he won, so that should be that.

“It was a close fight, but I did think I won,” he reiterated. “There’s no animosity between me and Larry. We get along. He’s not really sore about it anymore. At one of his golf tournaments that I attended, he took the microphone and said something about how he’d lost to me, but that wasn’t all bad because he made so much money for losing.”

What Holmes wants to make clear more than anything is that he wants to forever bury any hint that race is or should still be a part of the discussion. He said there was too much of that in the past, and still too much now. He pointed out that Gerry Cooney, the white guy against whom his high-visibility fight was neatly divided into opposing racial camps, as well as Spinks have been regular participants in his charity golf tournament.

“Half of my family is white,” Holmes pointed out. “I’m not a racist. I don’t have anything against white folks or anybody else. My son is getting ready to be married in a couple of weeks to a white girl. My daughter is married to a white guy.

“I didn’t really care about racial s— then, and to this day I don’t care about it. Gerry Cooney is my friend. Now, I didn’t like the decisions in my fights with Michael Spinks, but you can’t dwell on that. You got to move past that.”

Which might be one man’s way of saying that any lingering ghosts on that figurative grassy knoll overlooking a boxing ring where a fight took place 34 years ago should finally be allowed to just fade away.

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Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas

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Sebastian Fundora proved too tall and too powerful for challenger Chordale Booker in retaining the WBC and WBO super welterweight titles by TKO on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Despite a year off, Fundora (22-1-1, 14 KOs) showed the shorter fellow southpaw Booker (23-2) that rust would not be a factor in front of the crowd at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

“I felt ready this whole time. I’ve been working very hard,” said Fundora.

Behind a massive height advantage Fundora jabbed away at Booker, the subject of an award-winning documentary called “The Boxer” in 2016. It portrayed his journey from nearly being imprisoned and having boxing as an outlet to success on the streets.

Booker tried to offset Fundora’s height but could not.

Fundora established his long spearing jab to maintain a zone of safety and when Booker ventured past the zone, he was met with uppercuts and lefts.

It was a puzzle Booker could not figure out.

Fundora won the WBO and WBC titles with an upset over Australia’s much heralded Tim Tszyu. Though accepting the fight within mere weeks of the fight to replace Keith Thurman, the fighter known as the “Towering Inferno” was able to out-fight the favored Aussie to win by split decision.

Nearly a year passed since winning the titles and the months without action did not deter him from stepping on the gas second round and overwhelming the shorter Booker with a blistering attack.

Booker tried to survive and counter but no such luck.

In the fourth round a right hook by Booker was met with a thunderous four-punch combination by Fundora. A left uppercut snapped the head back of Booker who was clearly dazed by the blow. Another three-punch combination and the fight was stopped at 2:51 of the fourth round.

Fundora retained the WBC and WBO titles by technical knockout.

“We were training to wear him down,” said Fundora. “I’m a powerful fighter. With this fight I guess it showed even more.”

The two-belt champion is now smack in the middle of one of the most talented weight division in men’s boxing.

“I would love to be undisputed like my sister,” said Fundora of his sister Gabriela Fundora the undisputed flyweight world champion. “

Other Bouts

Arizona’s Jesus Ramos Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) knocked out Argentina’s Guido Schramm (16-4-2) in the seventh round of their super welterweight match. Ramos, a southpaw, caught Schramm with a left that paralyzed him along he ropes. The referee stopped the match at 1:38 of the seventh.

Arizona’s Elijah Garcia (17-1, 13 KOs) survived a knockdown by talented veteran Terrell Gausha (24-5-1) in the first round to mount a rally and win by split decision after 10 rounds in a middleweight match up.

Photo credit: Ryan Hafey / Premier Boxing Champions

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Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman

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Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman

For pretty much the entirety of my career as a sportswriter, I have doggedly adhered to the principle that there is a line separating professional integrity from unabashed fandom, and for me to cross it would be a violation of everything I believed in as a representative of whatever media outlet I was writing for at the time. In 50-plus years, only once did I cross that line. It was when I was in Canastota, N.Y., for an International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend and I had submitted the winning bid in a silent auction for an autographed photo of the great Carmen Basilio, being hoisted onto the shoulders of trainer Angelo Dundee and another cornerman after winning a title bout. I have that photo, which also was signed by Angelo, hanging on the wall of my apartment.

I broke my self-imposed rule by asking Carmen to pose with me holding the photo because he was my father’s favorite fighter, and thus mine when I was a little kid watching the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Friday Night Fights with my dad, a former pro welterweight and Navy veteran of World War II in the Pacific before he became a much-decorated police officer. Anyway, Carmen was long-since retired and I chose to believe that on the grand scale of professional propriety, my posing with him was nothing more than a small blip on a very large radar screen.

But with the shocking news that George Foreman had passed away on March 21, at the age of 76, it suddenly occurred to me that my idealistic principles have forever prevented me from having an autographed photo of Big George hanging on the same wall with the one of Basilio, which I no doubt will regret to my dying day. If I had bent my own standards of how a sportswriter should act in his dealings with one of his interview subjects, I might even have had one of George and I together, side by side, as is the case with any number of my colleagues who asked for and were granted photo op access to the famous athletes they covered.

Why do I now place George Foreman in a separate category from so many other elite fighters I have covered during my career? Had I not rigidly held to my belief that it was unprofessional and maybe even a bit unethical to cross that inviolable line, I might now have photos of myself standing alongside Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Lennox Lewis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns, Bernard Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad, not to mention such legends of other sports as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Walter Payton, Wayne Gretzky, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and the quarterbacking family of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning.

I had, of course, covered a number of Big George’s fights, but although he knew of me, it was not to the extent that he considered me to be a friend. All that changed, however, through the intercession of a mutual friend, boxing publicist Bill Caplan, whose relationship with George was longstanding and so deeply ingrained as to be almost familial.

My newspaper, the Philadelphia Daily News, had sent me to Los Angeles to cover a bout in which Julio Cesar Chavez was to fight Philly’s Ivan Robinson. Despite increasing pain, I somehow managed to file features on both main-event participants in the days before fight night prior to my arrival at the Staples Center in a condition that had gone from bad to worse. Bill noticed my distress in the press room and said he was going to get a ringside physician to check me out. “Maybe after the fight I came here to cover is over,” I told him, grimacing through gritted teeth. But Bill insisted that I get a medical opinion, and quickly, and the doctor who took my blood pressure said it was at a near-stroke level and that I needed to be transported by ambulance to a hospital ASAP. In the emergency room, it was determined that I was suffering from an unpassed kidney stone, a problem I had had several times previously, but not to this extent. I did not cover the fight I had come to see, of course, but I was able to make it back home alive and reasonably well before receiving additional treatment.

George Foreman did the foreword for my first boxing anthology, Championship Rounds, but he consented to do so only after he consulted with Bill Caplan to inquire if I was a writer who could be trusted not to twist his words to fit my own narrative. Bill told him I was a fair guy and that he should do the foreword once he had read the manuscript and deemed it worthy of an endorsement. It didn’t hurt that when I spoke with George by telephone, I remarked that he “owed” me. “Why do I owe you?” he asked, seemingly amused. “Because I bought two of your grills,” I replied, which drew the chuckle from him I had hoped to get.

More than a few of my colleagues at various media outlets can accurately say that George considered them to be his friends, but my relationship with him continued to grow. It didn’t hurt that I was on very amicable terms with his younger brother Roy Foreman, who lives just outside Atlantic City, and whenever I needed to speak to George directly he either answered right away or returned my call at his earliest convenience. I also don’t think it hurt that my father had once appeared in a primary undercard bout of a show in San Diego in the 1940s that was headlined by the great Archie Moore, who would later serve as one of George’s most trusted advisers. Before George’s very respectable but losing performance against heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, the challenger confided that “Archie is the only one who can tell me anything. When Archie Moore takes you to the side to tell you something, you can’t argue because he knows. I can’t argue with Archie Moore. When he tells me something, I have to say, `Yes, sir, that’s right.’”

Maybe the only person George trusted as much as the “Old Mongoose” was Bill Caplan, and it was Bill who told his dear friend of the abject grief my family and I were enduring after my wife, who had been battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, passed away on May 5 of last year. I would prefer not to divulge any details of something that shall forever remain private, but what George did in support of me and mine, and to honor the memory of a great lady who he never met, went above and beyond.

I included stories I did on George in three of my five boxing anthologies that already are in print (a sixth likely will come out this June), and I’d like to believe that our connection was solid enough that he shared the sort of insights that revealed him to be so much more than a devastating puncher inside the ropes. He was a quality human being in his everyday life, an individual who was widely admired and deserved to be recognized as such. But even if that were not the case, he would stand nearly alone for his ability to hit as hard as any heavyweight who ever lived. In recalling what it was like to share the ring with Big George in the epic “Rumble in the Jungle,” which Ali won by eighth-round knockout on Oct. 30, 1974, the victor said, “If you take any two heavyweights you can think of, and multiply (their punching power) by two, that’s George Foreman.”

Maybe Foreman might have fared better in that much-hyped bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, had he paced himself a bit more, but then that would not have been in keeping with his long-held belief that it did not pay for a powerful puncher to parcel his energy in measured doses.

“When you’re a puncher, it’s a real mysterious, almost magical thing,” he told me. “Guys who can’t punch, one thing they got to have is a lot of bravery because they knew they had to go 10 rounds, 12 rounds, 15 rounds almost every time. Punchers live with the fear if a fight keeps going another round, another round, they’re somehow going to lose. Every fight I ever had, I went for the knockout and nothing else. I didn’t really think I could win a decision. Even when I won on points, I felt like I failed.”

But even Big George didn’t have enough power to kayo the Grim Reaper indefinitely, although he might have dared to believe he could make that happen by dint of his indomitable will. After he won his first heavyweight championship, dethroning Joe Frazier by registering six knockdowns in less than two rounds on Jan. 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica, the new king of the big men said, “All of a sudden I’m beating a guy like Joe Frazier, who could punch like he could and never stop coming at you? I left there thinking, `Nobody can stand up to me.’ I just believed that if I caught anybody with a right uppercut or a left hook, he’s gone. I could knock anybody out with either hand. It seemed impossible to me that I could lose.”

In posting a 76-5 career record with 68 victories inside the distance, Big George didn’t lose often. Now that he’s taken his earthly leave, I can only regret the fact that I didn’t cross that line and ask him to pose for a picture with me. I hope he somehow knows that I shall forever be in debt for the graciousness he exhibited toward my wife and my family when we needed just such a gesture not only from a legendary fighter, but a true friend.

Editor’s note: Bernard Fernandez entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the class of 2020. The greatly-admired publicist Bill Caplan, now in his late 80’s, entered the Hall in 2022.

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Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie

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In his first fight at 140 pounds and his first fight in Sydney, his hometown, in more than eight years, George Kambosos Jr scored a unanimous decision over late sub Jake Wyllie, a fellow Aussie who took the fight on five days’ notice. Kambosos won by scores of 115-113 and 117-111 twice.

Wyllie, a massive underdog, had his moments, particularly in round eight, and scored a moral victory by lasting the distance. At the final bell, it was Kambosos that looked the worse for wear after suffering a bad gash above his left eye from an accidental head butt in round nine, but most observers were in accord with the two judges that gave him nine of the 12 rounds.

Kambosos, who improved to 22-3 (10), scored his signature win in November of 2021 at Madison Square Garden with a narrow decision over lightweight belts holder Teofimo Lopez. Heading in, the Sydneysider, a longtime Manny Pacquiao sparring partner, was considered nothing more than a high-class journeyman and, notwithstanding that well-earned upset, the shoe still fits.

Astutely managed, Kambosos parlayed that triumph into several lucrative paydays with another forthcoming as he is slated to meet IBF 140-pound belt-holder Richardson Hitchins in June providing that the cut is fully healed. Hitchins captured the title in December in San Juan with a split decision over another Aussie, Liam Paro.

A 24-year-old Queenslander, Jake Wyllie had won 16 of his previous 18 fights with one no-contest. He was a step-up from Kambosos’ original opponent, 37-year-old Indonesian Daud Yordan who pulled out with an injury. After the match, Wyllie said, “I fought my heart out tonight and I feel like I am destined for great things.” With his gutsy effort, he earned a contract from Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn.

Co-feature

Queensland southpaw Skye Nicolson, one of Eddie Hearn’s favorite fighters, suffered her first pro defeat in the semi-wind-up, losing a split decision to U.S. import Tiara Brown who came in undefeated (18-0, 11 KOs) but hadn’t defeated anyone of note and was lightly-regarded. The popular Nicolson, making the third defense of the WBC featherweight title she won in Las Vegas with a wide decision over Denmark’s Sarah Mahfoud, was a consensus 8/1 favorite.

This was an entertaining affair. The scores were 97-93 and 96-94 for Brown with the dissenter favoring Nicholson (12-1) by a 96-94 tally. Tiara Brown, a 36-year-old Floridian, is one of several top-tier female boxers represented by Philadelphia booking agent Brian Cohen.

Other Bouts of Note

In a WBA bantamweight title fight, Cherneka Johnson successfully defended her title with a seventh-round stoppage of Nina Hughes. The one-sided affair was stopped by the referee at the 46-second mark of round seven with the assent of Hughes’ corner. A 30-year-old Australia-based New Zealander of Maori stock, Johnson advanced to 17-2 (7 KOs).

This was a rematch. They fought last year in Perth and Johnson won a majority decision that was somewhat controversial when Hughes was originally, but erroneously, identified as the winner. A 42-year-old Englishwoman, Hughes declined to 6-2.

Teremoana Junior, one of the newest members of the Matchroom stable, blasted out James Singh in the opening round. A six-foot-six heavyweight from Brisbane with a Cook Islands lineage, Teremoana came out with guns blazing and Singh, a burly but fragile Fijian, lasted only 132 seconds before he was rescued by the referee.

Teremoana, who turned pro after losing to the formidable Bakhodir Jalolov in the Paris Olympics, has won all seven of his pro fights by knockout. None of his opponents has lasted beyond the second round.

In a 10-round light heavyweight contest, Imam Khataev (10-0, 9 KOs) was extended the distance for the first time in his career by Durval Elias Palacio, but won comfortably on the cards (98-90, 99-89, 99-89).

Despite the wide scores, this was a hard fight for the Australia-based Russian, an Olympic bronze medalist whose physique is sculpted from the same mold as Mike Tyson (relatively short of stature with a thick neck hinged to a thick torso). Khataev had a point deducted for a low blow in round five and ended the bout with a swollen left eye. A 34-year-old Argentine, Palacio proved to be better than his record, currently 14-4.

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