Featured Articles
Tales from L.A.

Tales from L.A.
One of the best welterweight title clashes in recent years took place as Errol Spence Jr. connected with a single sidewinder left cross to Shawn Porter’s chin and put him down. It proved to be the difference in their back and forth tussle at Staples Center.
It also climaxed a long week of media luncheons, workouts and photographic opportunities that spearheaded the PBC on Fox fight card last week in the city of Los Angeles.
That was only part of the story.
Because of the magnitude of the championship card that also featured super welterweights David Benavidez, Anthony Dirrell, Mario Barrios, Josesito Lopez and John Molina, a horde of boxing writers, photographers and videographers ascended to the second largest city in the U.S. from all parts of the world.
Wednesday’s Recon
Big fight cards similar to last week’s action bring the best of the best in reporting in the boxing world. Reporters descended from far away countries like Great Britain, Japan, Mexico and other nations to watch the heavy-duty boxing lineup that featured mostly 50-50 fights.
The media center was located in the Inter-Continental Hotel on Figueroa Street in downtown L.A. It’s about five city blocks from the Staples Center and accessible by subway if you have a hotel in Hollywood, Long Beach, East L.A. or Pasadena. The media hotel had a rooftop bar 70 stories up that allows you one of the most impressive views of the surrounding areas including a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean.
First to greet me at the media hotel was Tim Smith a former ace reporter for the New York Daily News who now heads the Premier Boxing Champions communications team. Few know the boxing game as well as the former New Yorker.
“O.G.!” shouted Smith when I entered the room filled with other reporters.
It takes an OG to recognize an OG.
Smith knows everybody in the boxing world and if you don’t know who Smith is, well, you better ask somebody.
Inside one of the banquet rooms several of the featured fighters gathered inside to meet the press. In a very informal setting people with video cameras, microphones and cell phones surrounded each of the boxers in the room depending on their importance.
Anthony Dirrell was surrounded by 30 or more reporters as I entered the room that measured about the size of a Major League Baseball infield. He talked about defending the WBC super middleweight title and other boxing aspects.
Dirrell has been boxing for many more years than most of the other participants with the exception of Josesito Lopez and Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero who began several years earlier.
It brought back fond memories to see these three members of the old guard.
Club Show Days
One major flaw with many of the top boxing reporters has always been their refusal to watch club shows from the smaller boxing promotion outfits. Southern California has a number of promotion companies that put on club shows every month.
These small club shows are where you can first discover the future gems of tomorrow.
Most of the top boxing writers come from newspapers or major magazines that only focus on major boxing stars that appear on televised cards. By the time they see the fighters many of them have been written about for years by those covering the club fight scene.
Discovering fighters at the beginning of their journeys in four-round fights provides invaluable background and insight. If a writer covers boxers at the beginning of their journeys, there are no surprises when they reach the championship level.
The gems stand out. But sometimes the hidden gems need a little dusting off to reach the top.
Anthony Dirrell was one of those who seemed to get lost in the shadow of his brother Andre Dirrell. But the Flint, Michigan native always had that extra toughness you needed to withstand the pain that made others quit.
The first time I got a glimpse of both Dirrells was on a boxing card at Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, Calif. back in 2006. It was a Goossen-Tutor Card and that night Anthony Dirrell waxed somebody in one round.
Four months later I saw Dirrell again at the Staples Center when fellow Michigan fighter James “Lights Out” Toney fought Samuel Peter in a heavyweight fight. Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero fought that same night and won the IBF featherweight world title. After that fight card we ran into Guerrero at The Pantry which was the only downtown restaurant that was open after 11 p.m. in L.A. back in 2006.
Guerrero was another one of those boxers that I saw in his pro debut back in April 2001. I remember it vividly because in the co-main event Hector Camacho Jr. arrived sitting atop a large snorting camel at Fantasy Springs Casino. Some things you never forget. Though Camacho never achieved the greatness most predicted for him, Guerrero achieved status as one of the best pound for pound fighters when he met Floyd Mayweather in the boxing ring in 2013.
Josesito Lopez is another who I personally saw in the boxing ring as a youngster even before he became a professional. The Riverside-based fighter always showed grit and super human determination. It’s amazing to watch athletes like Lopez rise from amateur to star status where they are part of a pay-per-view card that also attracted more than 16,000 fans to the Staples Center.
Watching Dirrell, Lopez and Guerrero rise through the ranks of the professional fight world from beginning to end gives a reporter an overall perspective that can’t be taught.
The main event fighters Spence and Porter were another two whose rise to the top were different. Spence was part of Team USA in 2012 and was picked up by Al Haymon as a professional. I saw his first three pro fights including his debut at Fantasy Springs Casino in November 2012 that featured Gary Russell Jr. in the main event. Most of the fighters on the Golden Boy Promotions fight card that night were signed by Haymon, but not all would remain.
Porter differed from Spence. He fought his way out of the Midwest boxing cards and the first time I saw him fight was against former two-time lightweight world champion Julio Diaz at the LA Memorial Sports Arena in 2012. Diaz proved too crafty for Porter and though the fight ended in a draw it easily could have been a loss for the Ohioan. Their rematch proved different and showed that Porter could adapt and evolve as he dominated Diaz at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas the next year.
Caplan
After the sizzling PBC fight card at Staples Center I ventured over to the Palm Restaurant located on Flower Avenue, a block east of the Staples Center. I was invited personally by super publicist Bill Caplan for a dinner party by the WBC.
I met Mr. Caplan around 1993 when he was the top publicist for Top Rank and they were promoting a slew of prospects including Oscar De La Hoya. Well, Oscar wasn’t just a prospect but a former Olympic gold medalist who a year earlier emerged victorious in Barcelona, Spain.
Few know the boxing world as well as Mr. Caplan (pictured hamming it up with WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman). He’s been involved in the boxing world as a publicist since the 1960s and worked with Aileen Eaton, Don Chargin, Don King, Bob Arum and now De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
“I was with Don King when he first started his promotion company,” said Caplan about the rise of King, one of the most recognizable figures in the boxing world.
Caplan also works for the World Boxing Council that coordinates the rankings and rules for world championship fights around the world. Right now the Mexico City-based organization has established VADA drug testing for all championship fights including women.
Sitting and talking with Caplan about boxing in the past and present has always been one of the treasured moments for me. Who else can talk about meeting with the original “Golden Boy” Art Aragon or his buddy Bennie Georgino a former boxing manager and promoter?
One man we shared tales about was the late Luis Magana who would have been right in the thick of the conversation with his own tales. The dapper gentleman from Mexico was a predecessor of Caplan and served as the Spanish publicist for the Olympic Auditorium during his days from the 1930s until the 1980s. He passed away 11 years ago in his mid-90s.
Caplan has been part of some incredible moments too. During his time, he’s watched the boxing masses get their results from magazines, newspapers, radio to television and now through internet streaming spanning more than 60 years. He’s a treasure and one of the kindest gentlemen in the hardscrabble world of pro boxing.
Moments like these with Caplan and others are part of the boxing that make you realize that it’s a very unique world. No other sport has a history as rich as prizefighting with the exception of Major League Baseball. Other sports are relatively new when compared to professional boxing that can be traced back hundreds of years.
Prizefighting has a lengthy history with unique personalities like Bill Caplan who keep the lineage of the sport enriched and thriving.
Last Saturday night, we spoke about several other moments in boxing but those are tales for another day.
Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel
To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.
It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”
Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”
But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”
Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welterweight Week in SoCal
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts