Three Punch Combo: Spence-Porter Notes, Under the Radar Fights and More

Published

5 years ago

September 23, 2019

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THREE PUNCH COMBO — This coming week the eyes of the boxing world are on the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the big welterweight title fight between Errol Spence Jr. (25-0, 21 KO’s) and Shawn Porter (30-2-1, 17 KO’s). In analyzing the fight, two subtle factors jumped out at me.

Porter’s Size

Porter weighed in for his pro debut in 2008 at 165 ½ pounds. He fought most of the early part of his career in the 154-pound weight division. It wasn’t until his 16^th pro fight that he dropped down to welterweight. Porter is a big welterweight and someone we have seen physically maul many of his former opponents.

Keep in mind that while Porter has come down in weight, Spence has fought his entire career as a welterweight. Yes, Spence is a strong welterweight but I think Porter, although smaller in stature, has more physicality.

In my opinion, Porter is by far the physically strongest opponent that Spence has ever faced. This fact cannot be underestimated. How will Spence handle Porter’s strength? That answer may be the biggest factor in determining the winner and loser of this bout.

Spence’s Body Punching

Spence is one of the most lethal body punchers in boxing today. He is also very consistent, attacking his opponent’s ribcage from the first round until the fight concludes. This prolonged body attack will often zap his opponents’ strength as a fight progresses and make them less likely to throw their own punches in fear of being countered to the body in return.

So, the first question is, if Spence can rev up the body attack against Porter, then how will Porter respond as the fight enters the middle and late rounds? I think if Spence gets the body attack going, then Porter may go into more of a shell as the fight progresses, leading to potentially a wide decision in favor of Spence.

However, there is another factor to keep in mind. Porter is a short stocky welterweight with a smaller zone to attack his body. And he frequently keeps his elbows tucked in. So, when someone fires off a body shot, Porter often picks it off. Looking back at past Porter fights, opponents often do not attack his body as, frankly, it is not easy to do.

What if Porter is able to take away Spence’s body punching ability? It is not out of the question and could force Spence to make some major adjustments for the first time in his professional career.

Under The Radar Fight

There is a fight taking place on the undercard of Spence-Porter that I circled on the boxing calendar when it was announced several weeks ago.

In a battle of undefeated young pros, Mario Barrios (24-0, 16 KO’s) takes on Batyr Akhmedov (7-0, 6 KO’s) in a battle for a vacant 140-pound world title belt. Talent wise, there is not much that separates these two. The way I see it, this is a true 50/50 fight that could turn into a real barnburner.

Barrios, 24, is a natural boxer-puncher who likes to work behind the left jab to set up his best punch which is a left hook to the body. He also has sneaky quick hands and moves his head well, making him an evasive target who is hard to catch clean. He comes in riding an eight-fight knockout streak. Of note, several of those knockouts have come from body shots.

Though he is an excellent body puncher, Barrios does have a tendency to attempt to go to the body from too far of a distance, leaning forward, which can leave his chin exposed. Against an aggressive power puncher like Akhmedov, Barrios could pay for this flaw.

A 2016 Olympian, Akhmedov, 28, has strung together some impressive performances early in his pro career to rise up quickly in the rankings. A southpaw, he is an aggressive high-pressure fighter who possesses heavy handed power in both hands. He not only possesses power but quick hands and, similar to Barrios, is an excellent body puncher.

Akhmedov does have issues defensively. He does not move his head at all and when he throws, he tends to sit in the pocket too long, exposing himself to counters. In his fight against Ismael Barroso a year ago, Akhmedov was dropped and hurt badly with a counter left hook early in the fight. Though Akhmedov later came back to stop Barroso, his defensive issues were apparent and his performance raised some questions about his chin.

Barrios-Akhmedov is one of those fights that, given the talents of the two fighters along with their respective styles, can’t be anything but a solid entertaining professional fight. It could also turn into quite a shootout between two young fighters with a lot to prove and with a lot on the line.

This PPV undercard fight could very well steal the show.

Under The Radar Fight, Part Two

There is more boxing on tap this week than just the Spence-Porter event. Of note, ESPN+ will broadcast a card from the UK on Friday that will be headlined by a battle of undefeated heavyweights.

Coming off a big win in July against the previously undefeated Nathan Gorman, Daniel Dubois (12-0, 11 KO’s) makes a quick return to the ring to face Ebenezer Tetteh (19-0, 16 KO’s) in a bout scheduled for 12 rounds.

Dubois, 22, is considered one of the top young heavyweights in the world. Tetteh, 31, is totally unknown. But he is an undefeated heavyweight and this is a division that seems to produce more surprises from unknowns than any other division in the sport.

Here is what we know about Dubois: He is a former decorated amateur and as a pro has put on a string of impressive performances displaying devastating knockout power in both fists. The only fighter to take him the distance so far has been the seemingly always durable and defensive-minded Kevin Johnson.

When Dubois stepped in the ring with Gorman in July, he was a short favorite, yet many considered it a 50/50 fight. But Dubois, displaying superior skill, speed and power, overwhelmed Gorman from the opening bell, dropping him once in the third and stopping him in the fifth. It was an eye-opening performance that essentially vaulted him from a prospect into a contender.

Here is what we know about Tetteh: He has fought most of his career at either light heavyweight or cruiserweight while just recently jumping north to the heavyweight division. All his fights have taken place is his native Ghana and there are no even remotely recognizable names on his resume.

There is actually some YouTube footage of Tetteh. His style seems to be that of a free-swinger who will pick his spots to flurry and go for broke. Against the low-level opponents he has faced, this crude, unpolished style has worked, in large part because Tetteh has some pop in his punches.

I could probably write thousands of words on Tetteh’s defensive flaws but let’s just say he is easy to hit. Nevertheless, I see some risk here for Dubois. Tetteh is going to wing punches and throw from unorthodox angles. Something conceivably could clip the Londoner

Yes, given the telegraphed nature of the punches that Tetteh will deliver, along with his severe lack of regard for defense, there’s a very high probability that Dubois will land something big to end matters early. But I am always down for a heavyweight slugfest, even if it is brief.

This could be a fun little shootout assuming Tetteh wings away like we have seen in those YouTube clips.

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Matt Andrzejewski

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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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