New Usyk Opponent Chazz Witherspoon Had a Good Story Spoiled by Harsh Reality

Published

6 years ago

October 10, 2019

New Usyk Opponent Chazz Witherspoon Had a Good Story Spoiled by Harsh Reality

All other things being more or less equal, if pressed every writer or columnist would admit that their professional instinct is to pull for the story.

Once upon a time, heavyweight prospect Chazz Witherspoon had a very good and marketable story. He is the second cousin of two-time former alphabet heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon and, in contradiction to all those wrong-side-of-the-tracks tales of boxers trying to rise above the impoverished circumstances of their upbringing, he was bright, polite and well-educated, so much so that the former star basketball player at Paulsboro, N.J., forsook the opportunity to walk on in that sport at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia to concentrate on academics. His classroom performance at Paulsboro High earned him a full scholarship at St. Joe’s where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical marketing. Even his ring nickname, “The Gentleman,” set him apart from the trash-talking, profanity-spewing street guys who might have had genuine talent in the ring but sometimes got publicity for all the wrong reasons.

“Chazz Witherspoon was a good story,” admitted Teddy Atlas, the longtime ESPN boxing analyst who is now on Witherspoon’s old turf (Chazz was born in Philadelphia, as well as having gone to college there), where he is readying WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk for his Oct. 18 unification matchup with IBF titlist Artur Beterbiev at the 2300 Arena in South Philly. “He was a nice kid, someone you root for. But that doesn’t mean every good story has a happy ending.”

It has been at least seven years since those who pay attention to the sport of boxing, and those who write about it, took much notice of the gentlemanly Chazz Witherspoon and his story. That, however, changed – at least temporarily – when he was named the replacement for a replacement as the opponent for former undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (16-0, 12 KOs), who makes his heavyweight debut against Witherspoon (38-3, 29 KOs) Saturday night at Chicago’s Wintrust Arena. The scheduled 12-rounder will be streamed by DAZN.

“I can’t wait to face Usyk,” said Witherspoon (pictured at yesterday’s open workout in Chicago). “I have been in training, ready for a big fight, and it doesn’t get any bigger than this.” Selected from a reported field of five fighters on standby in case of still another main-event adjustment, Witherspoon took the bout on four days’ notice after another designated victim, Tyrone Spong (14-0, 13 KOs), failed a test administered by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) and was scratched from his slot by the Illinois State Athletic Commission.

“Oleksandr is stepping up to heavyweight – and he’s going to find out it’s a totally different game. I’ve won my last eight fights, and I really feel that I’ve been waiting in the wings for a huge opportunity like this. I am going to put every ounce of myself into the fight on this massive stage.”

All well and good, and boxing doesn’t always follow the expected script, as demonstrated by such previous heavyweight longshot winners as Buster Douglas and Andy Ruiz Jr. Atlas expects Witherspoon, now 38 and likely facing his final opportunity to restore the career momentum blunted by past failures when stepping up in class, to dutifully play the same role assigned to Non-Power Five college football teams tasked with playing the Alabama Crimson Tide. Someone does periodically beat overwhelming odds to win the Powerball Lottery, right? But even Witherspoon has to realize that he was chosen for this dream shot not because he is the same reasonably hot prospect he once was, but because he is an aging trial horse with some residual name value and a story that can be milked of its last few drops of relevancy.

“He’s a competitive guy, so he’s going to go in there thinking he at least has a chance to win,” Atlas continued. “He’s a fighter, a real fighter, and real fighters always believe they can win. He wants to challenge himself, and I give him credit for that.

“But let’s be realistic. We live in the real world, not the world we wish it to be. This is Usyk’s first time putting his toe into the heavyweight pool. His handlers want him to make a big and impressive splash, and they want to be as certain as possible that they can control the result.

“This is not a learning experience for Usyk. They figure he’s learned enough. He’s undefeated, an Olympic gold medalist and the undisputed cruiserweight champion. This is not a Sherlock Holmes mystery that has to be solved. It’s pretty solvable. The butler didn’t do it. The proof is in the pudding. The pudding here is that three times Witherspoon stepped up and three times he lost convincingly.”

You want to compare odds? Douglas shocked Mike Tyson as a 42-to-1 underdog. Ruiz was a mere 11-1 outsider when he took down Joshua. At this time there are no odds posted regarding Witherspoon’s chances of upsetting Usyk, who, it should be noted, was 2018’s Fighter of the Year as selected by the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Sweet Science. If you want to surmise that “The Gentleman” is a 100-1 longshot, that might not be too much of a stretch. The plan always has been for Usyk, arguably the greatest cruiserweight of all time, to take just a few fights against Witherspoon-level opponents before testing himself against the heavyweight division’s major players, be it Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury, Ruiz, Joshua or whomever else might fit that description a bit down the road.

Which is to say the Ukrainian southpaw would likely have been almost as overwhelming a choice to have won against his originally announced opponent, Carlos Takam (37-5-1, 28 KOs), or Spong, a former kickboxer whose pugilistic resume was crafted against a lineup of hand-picked opponents as soft as Spong’s six-pack abs are hard, which might owe in part to his now-verified use of clomiphene, a banned substance that can be used to increase testosterone. At least the 38-year-old Takam, at first glance, would appear to have posed a more legitimate test for Usyk than Spong or Witherspoon, in light of the fact that the veteran from Cameroon, now living in Las Vegas, lasted until the 10^th round before being stopped by then-WBA/IBF champ Joshua on Oct. 28, 2017. His scheduled go at Usyk, originally scheduled for May 25, was scratched when Usyk suffered a torn bicep in training and had to withdraw.

Chazz Witherspoon might never have risen to the level of a Wilder, Fury or Joshua, or even that of cousin Tim, now 62, who has not been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and may never be, but who had quite a nice career in giving the great Larry Holmes one of his sternest tests in addition to having had separate and brief reigns as the WBC and WBA heavyweight titlist.

After a second-round knockout of Nigeria’s Innocent Otukwu on Sept. 16, 2006, that improved his record to 14-0 (8), Chazz was asked whether his “good family genes” were a contributing factor to his rising prominence.

“Oh, definitely,” he said. “You know you have it in your makeup when you got a champion’s blood running through your veins.”

Chazz remained a person of interest when he was paired against another young heavyweight with a hook of a story, Chris Arreola, whose stated goal was to become the first big man of Mexican heritage to win his sport’s most prestigious prize. When they squared off on June 23, 2008, a bout for the WBC Continental Americas belt that was televised by HBO, Witherspoon was 23-0 with 14 KOs and Arreola 23-0 with 21 wins inside the distance.

“Witherspoon and Arreola clearly are the two most advanced, relatively unknown American heavyweights,” veteran HBO analyst Larry Merchant opined before that bout. “The winner will emerge as the better of the two and immediately goes on the short list of U.S. contenders who could be in line to get a crack at one of the world titles in the relatively near future.”

Merchant’s words, as it turned out, were prophetic. Arreola – who, four bouts later challenged WBC champ Vitali Klitschko and would fight three times in all for heavyweight titles, losing each — had to settle for a third-round disqualification victory when Witherspoon’s corner team, having heard the bell, entered the ring while referee Randy Phillips was in the process of administering a count after Witherspoon had gone down a second time. Although Phillips’ decision to end the fight was a stunner, the outcome likely would have been the same; Witherspoon was wobbled in the first round and was decked twice in the third, lurching to his feet on shaky legs after the second knockdown.

There would be no title shots for Witherspoon, and an expected loss to Usyk likely would mean there never will be. In his two most important ring appearances after the Arreola disaster, ’Spoon was stopped in nine rounds by veteran contender Tony Thompson, then 38, on Dec. 5, 2009, and in three rounds by former Michigan State linebacker Seth Mitchell, a Golden Boy protégé, on April 28, 2012. Mitchell fought only three times after his stoppage of Witherspoon, sandwiching knockout losses at the hands of Johnathon Banks and, yes, Arreola, around a points nod over Banks, a onetime pupil of the late Emanuel Steward now best known as the trainer of Gennadiy Golovkin.

While it is true that Witherspoon has strung together an eight-fight winning streak, those outings were spread over five years and against suspect opposition. Raise your hand if you are familiar with the careers of the men defeated during that run by Witherspoon, a list that includes the non-celebrated likes of Tyyab Beale, Cory Phelps, Galen Brown, Nick Guivas, Michael Marrone, Carlos Sandoval, Lamont Capers and Santander Silgado.

Which is not to say that Witherspoon will not at least remind some people of the promise of better things that marked his emergence as a fighter to be tracked. If all the stars align just so, he could come away as a sort of Otto Wallin, who gave such a good, and surprising, account of himself in his recent points loss to Tyson Fury. Avoiding humiliation against a clearly superior fighter like Usyk in a high-visibility scrap might provide enough incentive for him to keep on keeping on. Even being on the wrong side of a rout might not be all bad.

“At least there should be some fairness in this because he’s going to get a decent payday,” Atlas, ever the pragmatist, noted. “I’m sure he’s getting paid pretty well because he had the promoter (Eddie Hearn) over a barrel at the 11^th hour. I just hope he doesn’t get hurt too bad.”

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

6 hours ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-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.

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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

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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

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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.

The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.

The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.

Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.

Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.

A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.

In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.

Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.

Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.

In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.

Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.

Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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