Canelo and the Boneyard

Published

5 years ago

October 28, 2019

This weekend at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will attempt to heave his 5’8 frame from middleweight, where he reigns as the champion of the world, to the choppy waters of light-heavyweight where he is rendered a little man. His opponent is Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev, a top contender to the 175lb crown and a man in possession of a strap himself, a modern incarnation of the world champion.

As a championship leap, the most difficult for a physically mature fighter has historically been in the smallest divisions, but above lightweight the toughest may have proven to be the one Canelo has resolved to undertake this weekend. Light-heavyweight is a boneyard of capable middleweights who have jumped in the dark and suffered badly as a consequence. But history tells us that all is not lost for the Mexican; middleweight to light-heavyweight is fraught with danger but not without promise. Here we look at the 160lb champions who tried their hand, the failures, and rare successes, beginning back in 1955 at the New York Polo Grounds and Bobo Olson’s brave crack at the legendary Archie Moore.

Olson, like Canelo, ruled as the middleweight champion of the world when he stepped up and like Canelo he was targeting one of the most menacing puncher’s in the division’s history. A stiff rather than a serious puncher, Olson’s chances seemed to lie in his ability to scrap with the best middleweights the world had to offer on even terms, having succumbed just once to punches at 160lbs to the lethal fuselage wielded by the immortal Sugar Ray Robinson. Such was his plan. Moving to his left, Olson sought to round up Moore and jab him; the old champion measured Olson’s guns and found them wanting – then he trapped the smaller man (Olson was 5’10 and had a short reach) onto a gorgeous check right and tested him in a clinch. Uppercuts probed the sore spot and the awful truth was revealed – Olson couldn’t hold the Moore punch.

This is the most serious and practically difficult problem for any potential dual champion to overcome. Physics is not the friend of the smaller man. When we say “a light-heavyweight puncher trapped in a middleweight’s body” of someone like Gennady Golovkin we talk with reason. That said, an in-extremis puncher at middleweight is only a very good one at light-heavyweight, and a severe puncher at light-heavyweight will always hit harder than him – always. This is why Olson, who had survived numerous hitters at middleweight in the 1950s, found himself literally crawling on the floor behind Moore’s best shots later that same decade. And it broke him – Olson was never the same again.

The only middleweight to dent Olson before that fateful night was the aforementioned Robinson whose crack at the 175lb crown likely remains the most famous. The retelling of the story has the one-hundred-degree heat as the villain of the tale although Robinson himself fingered God almighty as the guilty party when he recovered in the dressing room. The conditions did play a part in Robinson’s desperate collapse that night, of that there can be no doubt, but as Maxim ruefully remarked, there was no air-conditioning unit in his corner – he did not collapse from the heat; why did the superior athlete succumb while Maxim did not?

Simply put, it was the bigger man’s physicality, another practical problem to overcome in wrestling a championship away from a naturally heavier opponent. Little remarked upon that night is the exhausted referee’s involvement. Maxim was warned for roughhousing, but Robinson, unthinkably, was spoken to by the referee for holding. This is the most graceful, fluid fighter in history and in his stab at the light-heavyweight title he was warned for holding. These interventions by the third man speak of the process.

As the bigger man, Maxim wants to induce exchanges, even against the electrifying Robinson. Maxim had calculated that his punches would be the heavier even against a nominee for the best puncher in history pound-for-pound. And he was indisputably right. The heat made this a nightmare for Robinson because it made box-moving so difficult for him. Inside he had to survive a vicious buffeting and mauling from Maxim, who drained him of energy and strength even as he lost rounds. So desperate did Robinson become to stem this tide that he resorted to holding – and eventually to quitting.

The physical pressure that the bigger man can bring to bear up close cannot be underestimated. The psychological pressure the bigger man can bring to bear in making prey of a retreating opponent exacts its own toll. Strength of character is as important as strength of body and in confronting a much bigger man the failure of either is terminal whatever the scorecards say at the moment of disaster. Canelo must make these discomfitures his ally in pressing him to work rather than hold, step rather than run.

It is a dual battlefront for the Mexican. He must avoid exchanges with a powerful puncher – he must avoid the inside where a hunted fighter might traditionally rest. A man doesn’t come by the name of Krusher by playing pattycake, nor by acting the choirboy in the pocket.

There is good news in for Canelo in the form of Dick Tiger, however. Like Canelo, Tiger stood five feet eight inches; like Canelo he sported a reach of around seventy inches. Like Canelo, he, in 1966, stepped up from middleweight to take on the reigning light-heavyweight champion Jose Torres. Torres was shorter than Kovalev but his reach was longer and like the Russian he was a respected technician.

There is more. Like Canelo, Tiger made a fight out of slipping the jab, and like Canelo, he deployed a vicious body-attack, something the Mexican is almost certain to repeat against his bigger opponent. Tiger’s edge though was his innate toughness. Perhaps no fighter had more fight-discipline or intestinal fortitude. He was rocked by Torres right hands in the fifth, but he never erred. Canelo has shown some of this discipline in his fights with Golovkin. The fight plan is the fight plan, but the pain is the pain and Canelo will have to take his lumps against Kovalev to be successful. This, Tiger did, matching his body-attack against the Torres right and coming out, barely, with a victory. It was a performance born of grit and bought by experience and courage and remained perhaps the finest display by a middleweight at 175lbs until Bernard Hopkins came to call decades later.

For now, I must mention a problematic postscript for Canelo in the telling of Dick Tiger’s tale. For all that Torres was a capable fighter who could swat, he held no darkening power. When a true puncher came hunting, Tiger, the great Biafran, was met with disaster, knocked unconscious by the terrifying Bob Foster (as shown in the picture).

Canelo would do well to heed Tiger’s post-fight remarks after his knockout at the hands of Foster: “I do not see anything. I do not hear anything. Everything is all quiet, and it is dark. There is no pain, there is no sound. I did not know I was on the floor. Was I on the floor?”

These are dark and dangerous waters for a middleweight, even an iron-chinned one.

Does Canelo truly have an iron chin? Does Kovalev still wield that darkening power? Could Canelo turn hunter in the manner of that other famous weight-hopping redhead, Bob Fitzsimmons? Time, as always, will tell.

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Skylar Lacy Blocked for Lamar Jackson before Making his Mark in Boxing

Published

2 days ago

January 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Skylar-Lacy-Blocked-for-Lamar-Jackson-Before-Making-his-Mark-in-Boxing

Skylar Lacy, a six-foot-seven heavyweight, returns to the ring on Sunday, Feb. 2, opposing Brandon Moore on a card in Flint, Michigan, airing worldwide on DAZN.

As this is being written, the bookmakers hadn’t yet posted a line on the bout, but one couldn’t be accused of false coloring by calling the 10-round contest a 50/50 fight. And if his frustrating history is any guide, Lacy will have another draw appended to his record or come out on the wrong side of a split decision.

This should not be construed as a tip to wager on Moore. “Close fights just don’t seem to go my way,” says the boxer who played alongside future multi-year NFL MVP Lamar Jackson at the University of Louisville.

A 2021 National Golden Gloves champion, Skylar Lacy came up short in his final amateur bout, losing a split decision to future U.S. Olympian Joshua Edwards. His last Team Combat League assignment resulted in another loss by split decision and he was held to a draw in both instances when stepping up in class as a pro. “In my mind, I’m still undefeated,” says Lacy (8-0-2, 6 KOs). “No one has ever kicked my ass.”

Lacy was the B-side in both of those draws, the first coming in a 6-rounder against Top Rank fighter Antonio Mireles on a Top Rank show in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and the second in an 8-rounder against George Arias, a Lou DiBella fighter on a DiBella-promoted card in Philadelphia.

Lacy had the Mireles fight in hand when he faded in the homestretch. The altitude was a factor. Lake Tahoe, Nevada (officially Stateline) sits 6,225 feet above sea level. The fight with Arias took an opposite tack. Lacy came on strong after a slow start to stave off defeat.

Skylar will be the B-side once again in Michigan. The card’s promoter, former world title challenger Dmitriy Salita, inked Brandon Moore (16-1, 10 KOs) in January. “A capable American heavyweight with charisma, athleticism and skills is rare in today’s day and age. Brandon has got all these ingredients…”, said Salita in the press release announcing the signing. (Salita has an option on Skylar Lacy’s next pro fight in the event that Skylar should win, but the promoter has a larger investment in Moore who was previously signed to Top Rank, a multi-fight deal that evaporated after only one fight.)

Both Lacy and Moore excelled in other sports. The six-foot-six Moore was an outstanding basketball player in high school in Fort Lauderdale and at the NAIA level in college. Lacy was an all-state football lineman in Indiana before going on to the University of Louisville where he started as an offensive guard as a redshirt sophomore, blocking for freshman phenom Lamar Jackson. “Lamar was hard-working and humble,” says Lacy about the player who is now one of the world’s highest-paid professional athletes.

When Lacy committed to Louisville, the head coach was Charlie Strong who went on to become the head coach at the University of Texas. Lacy was never comfortable with Strong’s successor Bobby Petrino and transferred to San Jose State. Having earned his degree in only three years (a BA in communications) he was eligible immediately but never played a down because of injuries.

Returning to Indianapolis where he was raised by his truck dispatcher father, a single parent, Lacy gravitated to Pat McPherson’s IBG (Indy Boxing and Grappling) Gym on the city’s east side where he was the rare college graduate pounding the bags alongside at-risk kids from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

Lacy built a 12-6 record across his two seasons in Team Combat League while representing the Las Vegas Hustle (2023) and the Boston Butchers (2024).

For the uninitiated, a Team Combat League (TCL) event typically consists of 24 fights, each consisting of one three-minute round. The concept finds no favor with traditionalists, but Lacy is a fan. It’s an incentive for professional boxers to keep in shape between bouts without disturbing their professional record and, notes Lacy, it’s useful in exposing a competitor to different styles.

“It paid the bills and kept me from just sitting around the house,” says Lacy whose 12-6 record was forged against 13 different opponents.

As a sparring partner, Lacy has shared the ring with some of the top heavyweights of his generation, e.g., Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. He was one of Fury’s regular sparring partners during the Gypsy King’s trilogy with Deontay Wilder. He worked with Joshua at Derrick James’ gym in Dallas and at Ben Davison’s gym in England, helping Joshua prepare for his date in Saudi Arabia with Francis Ngannou and had previously sparred with Ngannou at the UFC Performance Center in Las Vegas. Skylar names traveling to new places as one of his hobbies and he got to scratch that itch when he joined Whyte’s camp in Portugal.

As to the hardest puncher he ever faced, he has no hesitation: “Ngannou,” he says. “I negotiated a nice price to spend a week in his camp and the first time he hit me I knew I should have asked for more.”

Lacy is confident that having shared the ring with some of the sport’s elite heavyweights will get him over the hump in what will be his first 10-rounder (Brandon Moore has never had to fight beyond eight rounds, having won his three 10-rounders inside the distance). Lacy vs. Moore is the co-feature to Claressa Shields’ homecoming fight with Danielle Perkins. Shields, basking in the favorable reviews accorded the big-screen biopic based on her first Olympic journey (“The Fire Inside”) will attempt to capture a title in yet another weight class at the expense of the 42-year-old Perkins, a former professional basketball player.

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Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

4 days ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Mizuki-Hiruta-Dominates-in-her-U.S.-Debut-and-Trinidad-Wins-Too-at-Commerce

Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

5 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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