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The Hauser Report: Glen Sharp’s “Punching from the Shadows” (Book Review)

McFarland & Company publishes books about boxing on a regular basis. Some of them are solid works that contribute to the historical record of the sport. Others have the feel of vanity publishing, although McFarland doesn’t take payment from authors. On occasion, a particularly good book makes its way through the pipeline. Punching from the Shadows by Glen Sharp is a particularly good book.
Sharp has an undergraduate degree in economics and an M.A. in English. He has worked in state government for more than thirty years and is currently an analyst and editor at the California Energy Commission. Within that milieu, his most unique credential is that he boxed professionally for a year before retiring with a 1-and-2 ring record. His sojourn through the sweet science is realistically and evocatively written from the early roots of his journey to the end.
“I had major league dreams but not even minor league success and was haunted by my failure for years,” Sharp writes in the Preface to his book. “I thought telling my rise-and-fall story about a boxer that does not have much rise to it might be of help to me, too.”
Sharp grew up in a reasonably comfortable middle-class environment in a small farm town in Illinois.
“A common social confusion is that economic impoverishment is what leads people into boxing,” he notes. “But that is not the case. People are attracted to boxing or not, just as they are drawn to writing or acting or playing a musical instrument. But boxing is such difficult, painful, and dangerous work that the temptation to turn away from its call is difficult to ignore, and this is especially so when opportunities for an easier life are available elsewhere. Poverty does not force someone to begin boxing. There are billions of poor people in the world but not billions of boxers. But having some money in the bank, or even a chance to obtain cash any other way than by fighting, can lead someone to stop, which I would eventually discover for myself.”
Sharp’s introduction to boxing, his first sparring session, the Golden Gloves, and other rites of passage are well told. He recreates the sights and sounds of gym life well. He had decent physical gifts (in his imagination, he fancied himself a smaller version of Joe Frazier) and recalls, “I had been gifted with the ability to punch, especially with my left hand, in the same way other guys can throw a ball ninety-five miles an hour or more. I might not have had the best location, so to speak, or any off-speed stuff to set up my power, but I could rear back and fire.”
He also recreates an early amateur fight that saw a trainer named Alex Sherer in his corner.
“I had a difficult first round with the guy I was fighting,” Sharp recounts. “He landed lot of punches on me, including one right hand that left my nose bleeding. My nose wasnât broken but the faucet was certainly on. As I sat on the stool in my corner after the round, Alex climbed into the ring and wiped my face with a towel. I was breathing heavily already and, with every exhalation, a fine mist of blood would float into the air between us. Alex, kneeling right in front of me, looked like he was in a state of shock. I thought he was worried about me but I was wrong. âThis is a brand new shirt, goddam it,â he yelled at me, pointing at his chest while the red cloud settled on him like fog upon the ground. âThis is the first day Iâve worn it.â He stood up and stepped back to look at the damage. âJesus Christ,â he kept yelling. âA f****** brand new shirt and youâre getting blood all over it.â
Eventually, Sharp took his quest to the next level.
“A young person with decent athletic ability can be taught well enough to compete successfully at lower levels of boxing without having to discover how brave he is,” he notes. “At some point, however, as he progressively fights stiffer competition, it will become apparent how much of a stomach he has for boxing.”
Sharp had the stomach for it. At least, he thought he did. But his motivation was suspect. After graduating from college, in his words, “I began living like a lot of directionless college graduates, which is a lifestyle not much different than being in school except itâs better because you donât have to attend classes. I worked out sporadically, getting in shape for a fight when drinking beer and having fun got boring. I stayed in decent condition, but the inconsistency of training did not allow for much in the way of skill development.”
But reality was calling.
“The world expected me to become a contributing member of society,” he recalls. “Going to school was never fun for me and could sometimes involve a lot of work, but at least it allowed me to partially avoid the responsibilities of life. It finally dawned on me to become a professional boxer. After graduating from college, I didnât see any other option for me. Some people might laugh at the idea of a guy fighting professionally because he is too lazy or egotistical to get a job, but it doesnât seem funny to me.”
In late-1981, Sharp decided to turn pro and took a job as a service attendant on the night shift in a gas station to pursue his ring career. Joe Risso (a restaurant owner who knew virtually nothing about the business of boxing) became his manager. Former middleweight champion Bobo Olson (who might have had trouble training a fish to swim) was hired by Risso as Glen’s trainer.
Sharp’s relationship with Olson was doomed from the start. First, Bobo was disinterested in his new charge. And second, he insisted that Sharp fight “out of a shell.” But Glen didn’t have the physical gifts to implement that style.
“Each boxer,” Sharp explains, “has a basic style of fighting which reflects his physical assets and limitations, his personality and temperament, how much punishment he is willing and able to endure, his experience, and who trained him and how. But all successful boxers develop their own particular style for the same root reason – to land punches while at the same time minimizing the number of punches the opponent lands in return. As an amateur, I had two main talents. I could punch hard and I could take a punch. I relied on that ability and accepted the consequences of my other shortcomings. I knew what I had to do to win, and I knew how I would lose if I could not impose myself on my opponent. Everything about my fights made sense to me, even when they were not going well. I needed to learn how to pace myself. How to throw decoy punches. How to set up big punches. How to counter more cleanly and strategically. How to make my counterpunching so smooth and effective that my offense and my defense were not clearly distinguishable. I needed to improve a lot. None of the teaching that I needed, however, would have conflicted with my intent to become a smart slugger. My intentions would have become more sophisticated, but not more confused.”
“But Boboâs demands,” Sharp continues, “were alien to me both physically and psychologically. Neither my body nor my mind was designed to fight like Bobo wanted, and I knew it. With Boboâs shell, I punched less often, less quickly, less powerfully, and less accurately. My defensive skills were reduced. I couldnât move my head as freely or as quickly. I couldnât follow my opponentâs punches as well as I had before. I knew what Bobo wanted was wrong for me, and so I was at war with myself. Boxing is a difficult enough sport when you are comfortable with what you are trying to do in the ring. Trying to bring someone else contentment by parroting what he or she wants is suicidal.”
Then Yaqui Lopez came into Sharp’s life.
Lopez was a world class fighter who had fallen just short in championship outings against John Conteh, Victor Galindez, and Matthew Saad Muhammad. Like Sharp, he fought as a light-heavyweight.
In March 1982 (two months before Sharp’s first pro fight), Joe Risso arranged for Glen to spar with Lopez several days a week. That meant training with Olson in Sacramento on some days and driving to Stockton to spar with Yaqui on others. Sharp’s exposition of the year that he spent as Lopez’s sparring partner is superb:
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “This is what the first day with Yaqui felt like. I knew I was going to get the worst of it when I was in the middle of the ring, when I was at the end of his jab. I expected that. I didnât know exactly how bad the worst of it was going to be, but I knew it was going to be kind of bad. What I didnât expect was for it to be the same when I was inside his reach, boxing at close quarters. There was no place I could find to mount any kind of offense. There was no punch I could throw from any angle that seemed to bother Yaqui at all. In the three rounds we boxed that day, I donât think I landed a single punch. I got pieces of him, glancing blows off the top of his head or body punches that he did not completely block, but I did not land any clean shots. Worse than that, there was no place in the ring I found to be safe. Everywhere I moved, I was at Yaquiâs mercy. He picked me apart with his jabs and rights from a distance. When I stepped closer, he would combine the right hands with left hooks. When I got on top of him, he would blast me with uppercuts along with the hooks. Yaqui was better than me in every phase of boxing. He had an absolute advantage in everything we were doing in the ring, and I had never experienced that before.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “There was not much drama or art to be seen in my boxing with Yaqui. He quickly established that he was the hunter and I was the prey. Although I would occasionally challenge this hierarchy, my efforts always proved to be unsuccessful except for the briefest of moments. Until meeting Yaqui, I had something of an alpha male attitude about myself, always thinking I was the hunter in a boxing ring, and so my demotion was hurtful psychologically as well as physically. Every time I attempted to assert myself and temporarily reverse our roles, he would become even more assertive in response.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “In the short-term, in the course of a fight, you can commit yourself to taking more punches than you world normally enjoy. You might make that commitment because you see it as your only chance to win. But in daily sparring, there is no competition to win a contest, and it becomes difficult to commit yourself to taking that level of punishment on a regular basis day after day. I would go home every day and stand under the shower for fifteen or twenty minutes, hoping the water pounding on my head would balance the throbbing coming from the other direction. I tried not to think about how it was going to happen all over again the next day. In the worst of the days with Yaqui, I did not feel much like someone who used his sparring with world class talent as a learning experience. I thought of myself as being more like the aging failed fighters who were just trying to make a few dollars by letting themselves be punched around.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “As physically demanding as boxing with Yaqui was, the most difficult part was emotional as I saw no light at the end of the tunnel. You develop a unique perspective on life when you rise at six in the morning to run a few miles and one of your first waking thoughts is that, later in the day, you are going to get beat up. Every day during the hour drive to Stockton, my stomach would tighten as I went over what would take place once I got there, knowing there was nothing I could do or change to stop what was going to happen, knowing the next day was going to be the same. I could not ask for relief, either. Yaqui was not taking cheap shots at me, he was only doing his job, and I was the one who had put myself in the position of being his sparring partner. You cannot ask another man to lighten up on you. You can wish for pity. You can hope the guy kicking your butt begins to feel sorry for you, or at least his cornermen do and tell their guy to ease up a bit. You can even think about developing a religious life with the hope God might have mercy on your soul. But you cannot ask the guy you are boxing with to lighten up on you.”
Sharp’s first professional fight was contested in Stockton on May 5, 1982. The opponent was an 0-and-1 novice named Lamont Santanas.
“Besides boxing differently depending upon whether I was training in Stockton or Sacramento,” Sharp writes, “I had two completely different training routines. I had Boboâs routine when he was in the gym, and I trained like Yaqui when I was with him and Bobo was not around. Not only were there differences in personalities and struggles for power, I was being taught two entirely different ways to fight. Every morning upon waking, I would remind myself what kind of fighter I was supposed to be that day.”
Against Santanas, Sharp won a four-round decision but recalls, “I only won this fight because I regressed to my amateur style. Three months of training with Bobo, and I fought better by ignoring most of what he had taught me. I knew my amateur approach was not the ticket to long-term success, but Bobo was not taking me where I needed to go, either.”
Eight weeks later, Sharp was in the ring again. His original opponent fell out. Glen was then required to weaken himself by dropping down to 165 pounds to face a 6-and-12 journeyman named Michael Hutchinson (the only opponent that Risso could get on short notice). Making matters worse, Hutchinson blew off the weight and came in at 174 pounds.
“This describes my relationship with Joe pretty well,” Sharp writes. “He was a good decent person in most every way. He didnât know anything about boxing, though, and was even less aware of how little he knew. Joe wanted to be a deal maker. He thought having a managerâs license made him a player in the world of boxing. What having a managerâs license means in reality, though, is that the manager could afford the thirty dollars application fee for a license. It was his job to have said that his fighter who had barely eaten for the past week so he could lose an extra eight pounds was not going into the ring with someone who hadnât starved himself at all. The manager makes his money because he is supposed to protect his fighters from the promoters and matchmakers and other managers who have other priorities and interests. But thatâs not what Joe did.”
Meanwhile, shortly before the bout, Olson called and told Glen that he had hurt his back and would be unable to work his corner for the fight.
“Bobo told me to box the way he had taught me,” Sharp recalls. “I thanked him and hung up the phone. It was the last time we would speak.”
Yaqui Lopez was in Sharp’s corner for the fight against Hutchinson. Glen picks up the narrative after the first round.
“The next thing I remember, I am sitting on the stool in my corner as the bell rings. Thinking the next round had just begun, I stood and took a step toward the center of the ring, but Yaqui grabs my arm and tells me the fight is over.
âWho won?â Sharp asked.
Looking back on that moment, Glen observes, “A good general rule in boxing is that, if you have to ask who won the fight you were just in, the answer is probably the other guy. Hutchinson had dropped me with a right hand and, when I rose, he hit me with about a dozen more punches before the referee stopped the fight. This all happened in the first round, and I have no memory of it.”
Thereafter, insult was added to injury.
“The morning after the fight,” Sharp recounts, “I called one of the doctors employed by the California Athletic Commission as ringside physicians during fights and explained my nose had been broken in Stockton the night before. He asked about the swelling, and I told him it was substantial. He said I should make an appointment for the next week when the swelling had subsided, and I did. When I saw [him] a week later, I had no bruising or swelling, and the only evidence that my nose had been broken was that it was crooked and made noises when I inhaled. The doctor said the bone was already healing and that he could no longer treat me for a broken nose. ‘You should have come here last week,’ he said, ‘before the bone began to set.’â
On November 27, 1982, Sharp entered the ring for the third and final time as a professional boxer. The opponent, Joe Dale Lewis, was making his pro debut and would finish his career with 2 wins, 9 losses, and 7 KOs by. Glen was stopped on cuts in the third round.
“My head was hanging in the air like a pinata,” Sharp writes. “Lewis must have thought it was his birthday. I could not figure out how he was hitting me so easily. I have replayed this fight in my mind thousands of times. Itâs like watching a train wreck in slow motion over and over again. I could see the punches coming, but I could not get out of the way. I knew I was confused by what was happening, but I could not understand why what was happening was happening the way it was. Itâs called freezing. I stood in front of Lewis like a deer caught in headlights. I have not been shy about expressing how disappointed I was with those around me [with regard to the weight issue] when I lost my fight with Mike Hutchinson. But this loss rests squarely on my shoulders. This was all mine.”
After the loss to Lewis, any thoughts that Sharp had of becoming a world-class fighter were in the past.
“I was a 1â2 fighter who had lost two fights in a row,” he acknowledges. “And those two losses did not happen by accident. I still thought I could probably become a decent fighter, but the world is full of decent fighters. It is one thing to be a utility infielder on a major league baseball team. But it is something completely different to be a utility boxer, to be a club fighter. I had lost hope that I could become a really good fighter, good enough to make the kind of money that validated the decision to box in the first place. If I was going to end up sitting at a desk anyway, why would I want to spend the next ten years just making ends meet – getting beat, getting hurt, wearing my body and my mind out – to eventually need the same sort of job I had been desperately trying to avoid, only to be ten years behind in that race.”
So Sharp retired. But something was eating away at his soul. In his words, “When Marlon Brandoâs character, Terry Malloy, said to his brother in On the Waterfront, ‘I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody,’ he is talking about being someone to himself. When he said he could have had class, he meant he could have had self-respect. He could have been proud of the character he played in his own story if he had only allowed himself to play that role. That is what he most wanted in life.”
Sharp wasn’t proud of himself. To the contrary, the more time passed, the more he became ashamed of how he had approached boxing.
“The idea of a professional boxer being someone who makes money from fighting is true only in the most literal sense,” he writes. “One is a professional more as a function of attitude than a matter of compensation. My aim was to be a successful professional boxer so I didnât have to get a job, which means I was destined to fail. My attraction to boxing was legitimate, but the relationship I developed with it was not. Boxing is a skill sport more than it is an athletic contest, and I was athletic enough to have become skilled enough. But I had not done the work necessary. Then I ran away from it when the work became too demanding. It is not easy to see yourself being less honorable than you thought you were.”
In 1987, Sharp started thinking about a comeback.
“I began training again,” he writes, “to finally make the commitment that I had failed to do when younger and had led to the failure. I hoped it was not too late. I wanted the story of my life in boxing to be an honorable one, even if unsuccessful. It was an attempt to atone for squandering a gift I had taken for granted when young and not realized how much I loved.”
Sharp trained for close to three years. Then reason prevailed in the form of advice from boxing minds wiser than his own. He never fought again.
Punching from the Shadows deserves a wide audience. Sharp brings a lot to the table. Unlike most writers, he has been in the ring. His journey through boxing was standard in some ways but unusual in others. And he writes well. Things that the reader thinks will happen don’t. And things that the reader is sure will never happen do. There’s a self-revelatory examination of Sharp’s personal relationships – particularly with his father and some of the women he dated – but not so much that it becomes cumbersome.
There are short axiomatic observations:
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Very little in life is as truthful as a fight.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Two contests are going on in a boxing ring, the boxer with his opponent and the boxer with himself.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The fight itself is often fun. Waiting for the fun to begin is not.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Getting concussions is probably not the best way to learn how to box.”
At times, the book is an intelligent exploration of the psychology of boxing.
“For the boxer,” Sharp explains, “two primal and perfectly natural responses – either fighting or taking flight – must find a way to live with each other. Being brave is not a matter of mindlessly throwing caution to the wind. Strength of character is required to hold both heroic intent and the desire to be safe in balanced tension with one another. A tremendous amount of work is required to strengthen oneself to hold that tension, to remain mindful, which is a state of awareness that strives to perform courageously but not unintelligently so.”
In other places, Punching from the Shadows is an engaging primer on boxing fundamentals.
Sharp offers an exceptionally good explanation of Joe Frazier’s fighting style and Frazier’s strengths and weakness as a fighter. Other insights include:
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “All good fighters learn to regulate their breathing, inhaling and exhaling rhythmically, a pattern upon which everything else is based. Every punch, every feint, every defensive move, every step forward or backward or sideways is coordinated with breathing. This reminds me of the schoolyard maxim that, if you ever get into a fight with someone who breathes through his nose, you should probably turn around and run because that guy knows what he is doing.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “The face is rubbed with Vaseline primarily so that, when it is hit with a punch, the leather gloves will slide off the skin more easily than otherwise would happen, reducing the chances of the facial skin being cut by a punch. The body is rubbed with Vaseline to make sure the opponentâs gloves are in contact with grease as often as possible. Every time boxers are close together or punching to the body or in a clinch, the gloves are rubbing against Vaseline, becoming coated with grease.”
*Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â “Although hitting the speed bag can look impressive, I donât know that it provides much benefit. The idea is that it increases your hand-eye coordination. But once you learn what you are doing and get a feel for the rhythm of the specific bag you are hitting, you can do it with your eyes closed. I would think that developing hand-eye coordination requires the eyes to at least be open. But I could be wrong because a guy with a 1â2 record obviously has a lot to learn about boxing.”
In the preface to Punching from the Shadows, Sharp writes, “I hope that you find me to be a pretty good storyteller, because I sure wasnât much of a fighter.”
Sharp is better than a pretty good storyteller. He’s first-rate.
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book â A Dangerous Journey: Another Year Inside Boxing â will be published next month by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism.
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Jorge Garcia is the TSS Fighter of the Month for April

Jorge Garcia has a lot in common with Mexican countrymen Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza. In common with those two, both reigning world title-holders, Garcia is big for his weight class and bubbled out of obscurity with a triumph forged as a heavy underdog in a match contested on American soil.
Garcia had his âcoming of age partyâ on April 19 in the first boxing event at the new Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California (roughly 35 miles north of San Diego), a 7,500-seat facility whose primary tenant is an indoor soccer team. It was a Golden Boy Promotions event and in the opposite corner was a Golden Boy fighter, Charles Conwell.
A former U.S. Olympian, Conwell was undefeated (21-0, 16 KOs) and had won three straight inside the distance since hooking up with Golden Boy whose PR department ballyhooed him as the most avoided fighter in the super welterweight division. At prominent betting sites, Conwell was as high as a 12/1 favorite.
The lanky Garcia was 32-4 (26 KOs) heading in, but it was easy to underestimate him as he had fought extensively in Tijuana where the boxing commission is notoriously docile and in his home state of Sinaloa. This would be only his second fight in the U.S. However, it was noteworthy in hindsight that three of his four losses were by split decision.
Garcia vs. Conwell was a robust affair. He and Conwell were credited with throwing 1451 punches combined. In terms of punches landed, there was little to choose between them but the CompuBox operator saw Garcia landing more power punches in eight of the 12 rounds. At the end, the verdict was split but there was no controversy.
An interested observer was Sebastian Fundora who was there to see his sister Gabriela defend her world flyweight titles. Sebastian owns two pieces of the 154-pound world title where the #1 contender per the WBO is Xander Zayas who keeps winning, but not with the verve of his earlier triumphs.
With his upset of Charles Conwell, Jorge Garcia has been bumped into the WBOâs #2 slot. Regardless of who he fights next, Garcia will earn the biggest payday of his career.
Honorable mention: Aaron McKenna
McKenna was favored to beat veteran campaigner Liam Smith in the co-feature to the Eubank-Benn battle this past Saturday in London, but he was stepping up in class against a former world title-holder who had competed against some of the top dogs in the middleweight division and who had famously stopped Chris Eubank Jr in the first of their two encounters. Moreover, the venue, Tottenham Hotspur, the third-largest soccer stadium in England, favored the 36-year-old Liverpudlian who was accustomed to a big fight atmosphere having fought Canelo Alvarez before 50,000-plus at Arlington Stadium in Texas.
McKenna, from the small town of Monaghan, Ireland, wasnât overwhelmed by the occasion. With his dad Feargal in his corner and his fighting brother Stephen McKenna cheering him on from ringside, Aaron won a wide decision in his first 12-round fight, punctuating his victory by knocking Smith to his knees with a body punch in the 12th round. In fact, if he hadnât had a point deducted for using his elbow, the Irishman would have pitched a shutout on one of the scorecards.
âThere might not be a more impressive example of a fighter moving up in class,â wrote Tris Dixon of the 25-year-old âSilencerâ who improved his ledger to 20-0 (10).
Photo credits: Garcia/Conwell photo compliments of Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy; McKenna-Smith provided by  Mark Robinson/Matchroom
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Chris Eubank Jr Outlasts Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Feudal bragging rights belong to Chris Eubank Jr. who out-lasted Conor Benn to
emerge victorious by unanimous decision in a non-title middleweight match held in
London on Saturday.
Fighting for their family heritage Eubank (35-3, 26 KOs) and Benn (23-1, 14 KOs)
continued the battle between families started 35 years ago by their fathers at Tottenham
Hotspur Stadium.
More than 65,000 fans attended.
Though Eubank Jr. had a weight and height advantage and a record of smashing his
way to victory via knockout, he had problems hurting the quicker and more agile Benn.
And though Benn had the advantage of moving up two weight divisions and forcing
Eubank to fight under a catch weight, the move did not weaken him much.
Instead, British fans and boxing fans across the world saw the two family rivals pummel
each other for all 12 rounds. Neither was able to gain separation.
Eubank looked physically bigger and used a ramming left jab to connect early in the
fight. Benn immediately showed off his speed advantage and surprised many with his
ability to absorb a big blow.Chris Eubank Jr Outlasts Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Benn scrambled around with his quickness and agility and scored often with bigcounters.
It took him a few rounds to stop overextending himself while delivering power shots.
In the third round Benn staggered Eubank with a left hook but was unable to follow up
against the dangerous middleweight who roared back with flurries of blows.
Eubank was methodic in his approach always moving forward, always using his weight
advantage via the shoulder to force Benn backward. The smaller Benn rocketed
overhand rights and was partly successful but not enough to force Eubank to retreat.
In the seventh round a right uppercut snapped Bennâs head violently but he was
undeterred from firing back. Bennâs chin stood firm despite Eubankâs vaunted power and
size advantage.
âI didnât know he had that in him,â Eubank said.
Benn opened strong in the eighth round with furious blows. And though he connected
he was unable to seriously hurt Eubank. And despite being drained by the weight loss,
the middleweight fighter remained strong all 12 rounds.
There were surprises from both fighters.
Benn was effective targeting the body. Perhaps if he had worked the body earlier he
would have found a better result.
With only two rounds remaining Eubank snapped off a right uppercut again and followed
up with body shots. In the final stanza Eubank pressed forward and exchanged with the
smaller Benn until the final bell. He simply out-landed the fighter and impressed all three
judges who scored it 116-112 for Eubank.
Eubank admitted he expected a knockout win but was satisfied with the victory.
âI under-estimated him,â Eubank said.
Benn was upset by the loss but recognized the reasons.
âHe worked harder toward the end,â said Benn.
McKenna Wins
In his first test in the elite level Aaron McKenna (20-0, 10 KOs) showed his ability to fight
inside or out in soundly defeating former world champion Liam Smith (33-5-1, 20 KOs)
by unanimous decision to win a regional WBA middleweight title.
Smith has made a career out of upsetting young upstarts but discovered the Irish fighter
more than capable of mixing it up with the veteran. It was a rough fight throughout the
12 rounds but McKenna showed off his abilities to fight as a southpaw or right-hander
with nary a hiccup.
McKenna had trained in Southern California early in his career and since that time heâs
accrued a variety of ways to fight. He was smooth and relentless in using his longer
arms and agility against Smith on the outside or in close.
In the 12 th round, McKenna landed a perfectly timed left hook to the ribs and down went
Smith. The former champion got up and attempted to knock out the tall
Irish fighter but could not.
All three judges scored in favor of McKenna 119-108, 117-109, 118-108.
Other Bouts
Anthony Yarde (27-3) defeated Lyndon Arthur (24-3) by unanimous decision after 12 rounds. in a light heavyweight match. It was the third time they met. Yarde won the last two fights.
Chris Billam-Smith (21-2) defeated Brandon Glanton (20-3) by decision. It was his first
fight since losing the WBO cruiserweight world title to Gilberto Ramirez last November.
Viddal Riley (13-0) out-worked Cheavon Clarke (10-2) in a 12-round back-and-forth-contest to win a unanimous decision.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: Benn vs Eubank Family Feud and More

Next generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.
This is huge in British boxing.
Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but wonât be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
This is about family pride.
The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.
Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.
Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times before suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.
Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.
Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.
Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta âTankâ Davis.
“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.
This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.
Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.
âThis fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,â said Eubank. âI have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.â
Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.
âHe’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.
Eubank smiles.
âWhether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,â he said.
Supporting Bout
Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Irelandâs Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.
âBeefyâ Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul âCaneloâ Alvarez did it several years ago.
McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.
Itâs youth versus experience.
âI’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,â said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.
Monster in L.A.
Japanâs super star Naoya âMonsterâ Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.
Itâs been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.
Pomona Fights
Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called âDMG Night of Championsâ on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.
Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.
Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).
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