Canelo’s Fate May Rest in the Hands of a Bolivian Soccer Guy

Published

4 years ago

October 29, 2019

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Canelo’s Fate May Rest in the Hands of a Bolivian Soccer Guy

His name is Munir Somoya and, for now, he’s the least-known member of Team Canelo. But Somoya’s relative anonymity could well receive a major upgrade should Canelo Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs), making the always-risky two-division jump up from middleweight to light heavyweight for Saturday night’s DAZN-streamed challenge of WBO 175-pound champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev (34-3-1, 29 KOs), win as impressively as, say, Michael Spinks did when he dethroned Larry Holmes, or Roy Jones Jr. did when he took down the much larger John Ruiz, or Bernard Hopkins did when he schooled Antonio Tarver.

The aforementioned champions, all of whom have been or soon will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (Hopkins likely will be enshrined on June 14, 2020, and Jones is a mortal lock for the Class of 2022), successfully moved up two weight classes to win fights that history and their natural physical dimensions suggested might have represented an attempt to go a bridge too far. So, what did the Spinks Jinx, RJJ and B-Hop have in common? Their regular training regimens for those watershed matches were augmented by the addition to their corner teams of Mackie Shilstone, the now-celebrated New Orleans-based fitness expert whose methods once were deemed to be so untraditional as to be almost revolutionary. But there is no arguing with success; to a man, Spinks, Jones and Hopkins are effusive in their praise for the 69-year-old Shilstone, who KO magazine once named as one of the 50 most influential figures in boxing history.

Shilstone, who is not involved with Alvarez, also has a onetime boxing client list that includes Hall of Famer Riddick Bowe and future Hall of Famer Andre Ward (eligible for induction in 2021). Perhaps to demonstrate that he can take pounds off as sensibly as he helps to put them on, he oversaw the frequently flabby Bowe’s paring down from 272 to 235 for the first of his three confrontations with Evander Holyfield, in which the no-quite-as-large “Big Daddy” seized the WBA, IBF and WBC belts on a 15-round unanimous decision on Nov. 13, 1992.

It was Spinks’ upset of Holmes, who was attempting to match Rocky Marciano’s legendary record of 49-0, that made Shilstone something of a trailblazer in the field of nutrition and physiology, a reputation which over time he would go on to buff and polish to a sparkly sheen. But boxing represented only a small portion of Shilstone’s fitness empire. Over the past 30-plus years he has helped whip into supreme condition such other legendary athletes as tennis’ Serena Williams, football’s Peyton Manning, baseball’s Ozzie Smith and basketball’s Ralph Sampson and Manute Bol, scrawny skyscrapers who even more than any of Shilstone’s fighters needed all the help they could get in gaining weight the proper way.

“Their caloric machine is always in overdrive,” Shilstone once said of working with the 7-foot-4 Sampson and 7-7 Bol. “It’s like pumping blood up an elevator shaft.”

So what does Somoya have in common with Shilstone? Maybe nothing. And maybe quite a bit, as he is playing the role of a Shilstone equivalent for Alvarez, who is giving away four inches in height (he’s 5-8 to Kovalev’s 6-foot) and two inches in reach (Kovalev’s in 72½ inches to Canelo’s 70½). What may prove more consequential is that Kovalev has always been a light heavyweight, one who conceivably might have done what Alvarez is now attempting to do by bulking up to cruiserweight or possibly even heavyweight, as the undisputed light heavyweight titlist Spinks, with Shilstone’s assistance, did for Holmes. Alvarez, on the other hand, began his career as a junior welterweight. He was just 139 pounds for his pro debut, a fourth-round stoppage of Abraham Gonzalez on Oct. 29, 2005, although that bout took place when Canelo was just 15 years old. The precocious adolescent was in the 140s for his next 12 bouts, and 20 of his first 21 overall until he filled out to welterweight on the way up to junior middleweight and middleweight. The heaviest he has ever weighed for any professional outing was 167¼ for his third-round technical knockout of WBA “regular” super middleweight champ Rocky Fielding on Dec. 15, 2018, a massacre in which the Briton was floored four times. No one, however, is apt to equate the always-dangerous Kovalev with the out-of-his-league Fielding.

As TSS contributor Matt McGrain has noted, middleweight champions, even Hall of Fame-caliber ones, have a spotty record when diving into choppy light heavyweight waters. A highly accomplished Shilstone alumnus, Andre Ward, might be correct in opining that the 37-year-old Kovalev, a 4-1 underdog who is 0-2 against Ward, is “no longer `The Krusher,’ he’s simply Sergey Kovalev,” but even a lesser version of the hard-hitting Russian who routinely belted out opponents much larger than Canelo figures to have enough of a power advantage to pose a constant threat to detonate a bomb on the Mexican superstar’s jaw. It’s a fairly safe bet that Alvarez, upon making the 175-pound limit for the weigh-in, won’t come in much higher than that on fight night. It’s also a fairly safe bet that Kovalev could rehydrate into the mid- to high-180s, or possibly even a bit north of that, further accentuating the size difference between the two men.

All of which makes Somoya, a Bolivian whose expertise mostly had been confined to working with soccer players in his home country, a bit of a wild card given his shadowy function as a sort of Shilstone equivalent. Although Shilstone’s methods were considered unorthodox when he first made his mark in boxing with Spinks, and were viewed with some suspicion by Spinks’ old-school trainer Eddie Futch, not much about the Somoya plan has garnered media attention, even though this is Somoya’s second time around with Canelo. The first came when he was brought aboard by Alvarez for his winning May 4 middleweight defense against Daniel Jacobs, which was hardly a walk in the park for the victor.

Unlike Spinks’ preparations for his first go at Holmes, in which Shilstone’s mad-scientist experiments – he had the challenger doing interval sprints instead of long jogs, among other innovations – were a fascinating subject to reporters 34-plus years ago, Somoya is just … there. Canelo hasn’t mentioned him often, and neither has his principal trainer, Eddy Reynoso. Even Eric Gomez, president of Canelo’s promotional company, Golden Boy, seemingly has only a vague notion as to what Somoya does.

“I’ve met the guy,” Gomez said of Somoya. “He has some sort of soccer background. I think he has a strategy and a plan, like he did for Jacobs. But not all fights are the same. I just know Canelo feels comfortable with him.”

Not surprisingly, Gomez does not view his guy as being too undersized, to cite an analogy used by trainer Teddy Atlas prior to the recent light heavyweight unification showdown of Atlas’ fighter, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, and Artur Beterbiev, as a piranha going up against a shark. As things turned out, Gvozdyk, the perceived piranha, didn’t have teeth large enough to out-chomp Beterbiev’s voracious shark.

“What people don’t realize is that Canelo’s a big kid,” Gomez said. “He’s like (Mike) Tyson, a tank. He has big, strong legs, big shoulders, a big back.”

But while other members of Team Canelo aren’t revealing any of Somoya’s secrets, whatever they are, leave it to Golden Boy executive and Shilstone fan Bernard Hopkins to offer his thoughts on a fight that is of massive consequence to the boxing industry, given Alvarez’s position as the highest-paid (the Kovalev fight is the third in his 11-bout, five-year, $365 million deal with DAZN) drawing card in the sport. Beating the bigger man, and especially if done in an emphatic fashion, makes Alvarez add the designation of giant-killer to his commendable portfolio. A loss doesn’t necessarily make him severely damaged goods, but it almost certainly would result in his moving down to super middle or, more likely, a more familiar comfort zone at 160.

“Canelo’s not the tallest light heavyweight, but you don’t have to be in order to be effective at 175,” said Hopkins, who reigned for extended periods at both middleweight and light heavy, with a wide points loss to Kovalev. “When I look at Canelo I think of the `Camden Buzzsaw,’ Dwight Muhammad Qawi, who was built kind of similar, wide and stocky. Yeah, Kovalev has advantages in height and range, but there are ways for a shorter fighter to neutralize that, especially if the shorter fighter has Canelo’s talent.”

Although Gomez said it will be up to Alvarez to decide which weight class he chooses to campaign in should he defeat Kovalev, Hopkins figures the most logical course would be for this fight to be a one-and-done before Canelo slims back down to middleweight and a more appealing variety of opponents that can be easily sold to the public by DAZN.

“The great thing about the middleweight division is that it’s loaded, maybe more than it’s been in the last 10 or 15 years,” Hopkins said. “Even if Canelo wins on Nov. 2, what’s his choice going to be? I don’t think 175 is that deep. I mean, Beterbiev is impressive and dangerous, but who really knows him? I see light heavyweight as a stopover for Canelo.

“I want Canelo to be undisputed (champion at middleweight). He can grab that IBF title that got stripped from him (and is now held by familiar foe Gennadiy Golovkin, against whom Alvarez is 1-0-1). There’s Demetrius Andrade (the WBO middleweight ruler), and the Charlo twins (Jermall holds a version of the WBC middleweight crown and Jermell is the WBC’s No. 1 contender at junior middleweight).

“Ultimately, Canelo’s body is going to tell him what to do to some extent, but you have to look at what matches are out there for him as well. I don’t think there’s as many big names at super middle, which is why he jumped over 168 and went straight to 175. DAZN is paying him a lot of money, so those people are going to want him to take the biggest fights at whichever weight he chooses to fight at because the fans are going to demand that.”

All of which begs one question, and maybe two. Will a victory over Kovalev suddenly make Munir Somoya a hot property, as Spinks’ upset of Holmes did for Shilstone? And would Somoya still have a place with Canelo if, should he elect to go back down to middleweight, he has to sensibly take off the weight he put on for Kovalev?

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 71: Canelo, Berchelt, Nevada Hall of Fame and More

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Published

19 hours ago

April 26, 2024

David A. Avila

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Don’t call it an upset.

Days after Ryan Garcia proved the experts wrong, those same experts are re-tooling their evaluation processes.

It’s mind-boggling to me that 95 percent thought Garcia had no chance. Hear me out.

First, Garcia and Haney fought six times as amateurs with each winning three. But this time with no head gear and smaller gloves, Garcia had to have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. He is faster and a more powerful puncher.

Facts.

Haney is a wonderful boxer with smooth, almost artistic movements. But history has taught us power and speed like Garcia’s can’t be discounted. Think way back to legendary fighters like Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler. All that excellent defensive skill could not prevent Sadler from beating Pep in three of their four meetings.

Power has always been an equalizer against boxing skill.

Ben Lira, one of the wisest and most experienced trainers in Southern California, always professed knockout power was the greatest equalizer in a fight. “You can be behind for nine rounds and one punch can change the outcome,” he said.

Another weird theory spreading before the fight was that Garcia would quit in the fight. That was a puzzling one. Getting stopped by a perfect body shot is not quitting. And that punch came from Gervonta “Tank” Davis who can really crack.

So how did Garcia do it?

In the opening round Ryan Garcia timed Devin Haney’s jab and countered with a snapping left hook that rattled and wobbled the super lightweight champion. After that, Garcia forced Haney to find another game plan.

Garcia and trainer Derrick James must have worked hours on that move.

I must confess that I first saw Garcia’s ability many years ago when he was around 11 or 12. So I do have an advantage regarding his talent. A few things I noticed even back then were his speed and power. Also, that others resented his talent but respected him. He was the guy with everything: talent and looks.

And that brings resentment.

Recently I saw him and his crew rapping a song on social media. Now he’s got a song. Next thing you know Hollywood will be calling and he’ll be in the movies. It’s happened before with fighters such as Art Aragon, the first Golden Boy in the 50s. He was dating movie stars and getting involved with starlets all over Hollywood.

Is history repeating itself or is Garcia creating a new era for boxing?

Since 2016 people claimed he was just a social media creation. Now, after his win over Devin Haney a former undisputed lightweight champion and the WBC super lightweight titleholder, the boxer from the high desert area of Victorville has become one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

Ryan Garcia has entered a new dimension.

Golden Boy Season

After several down years the Los Angeles-based company Golden Boy Promotions suddenly is cracking the whip in 2024.

Avila

Vergil Ortiz Jr. (20-0, 20 KOs) returns to the ring and faces Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1, 17 KOs) a welterweight gatekeeper who lost to Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis. They meet as super welterweights in the co-main event at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, Calif. on Saturday, April 27. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card live.

It’s a quick return to action for Ortiz who is still adjusting to the new weight division. His last fight three months ago ended in less than one round in Las Vegas. It was cut short by an antsy referee and left Ortiz wanting more after more than a year of inactivity in the prize ring.

Ortiz has all the weapons.

Also, Northern California’s Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1, 18 KOs) meets Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1, 15 KOs) in a welterweight affair set for 12 rounds.

It’s difficult to believe that former super lightweight titlist Ramirez has been written off by fans after only one loss. That was several years ago against Scotland’s Josh Taylor. One loss does not mean the end of a career.

“My goal is to get back on top and to get all those belts back. I still feel like I am one of the best 140-pounders in the division,” said Ramirez who lives in nearby Avenal, Calif.

An added major attraction features Marlen Esparza in a unification rematch against Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz for the WBA, WBC, WBO flyweight titles. Their first fight was

a controversial win by Esparza that saw one judge give her nine of 10 rounds in a very close fight. Those Texas judges.

In a match that could steal the show, Oscar Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs) faces former world champion Jojo Diaz (33-5-1, 15 KOs) in a lightweight match.

Munguia and Canelo

Don’t sleep on this match.

Its current Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia facing former Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a battle between Mexico’s greatest sluggers next week at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 4.

“I think Jaime Munguia is going to do something special in the ring,” said Oscar De La Hoya, the CEO for Golden Boy.

Tijuana’s Munguia showed up at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood where a throng of media from Mexico and the US met him.

Munguia looked confident and happy about his opportunity to fight great Canelo.

“It’s a hard fight,” said Munguia. “Truth is, its big for Mexico and not only for Mexicans but for boxing.”

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 6 p.m. Yoeniz Tellez (7-0) vs Joseph Jackson (19-0).

Sat. DAZN 9:30 a.m. Peter McGrail (8-1) vs Marc Leach (18-3-1); Beatriz Ferreira (4-0) vs Yanina Del Carmen 14-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Vergil Ortiz (20-0) vs Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1); Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1) vs Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1); Marlen Esparza (14-1) vs Gabriela Alaniz (14-1).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

3 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

5 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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