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KSI Beats Logan Paul and Haney and Saunders Win Title Fights in L.A.

LOS ANGELES-Two celebrity stars made their pro debuts in the main event and filled the arena with youngsters of all ages including more than a few brought by their moms on Saturday night.
KSI (1-0) defeated Logan Paul (0-1) by split decision to the cheers of some and the jeers of others before a packed Staples Center after a six round cruiserweight fight. It was the main event despite two legitimate world championship bouts that also took place before more than 13,000 fans.
It was a rematch of an amateur fight that took place year ago in the United Kingdom. This time no head gear.
After a year of intermittent training with professionals, the British-based KSI trained mostly in the U.S. and Paul trained in Los Angeles and both showed what they had learned.
Fans screamed loudly as if Mike Tyson were facing Lennox Lewis.
It was a strange yet electric atmosphere.
KSI opened the fight with a determined effort as Paul calmly avoided the windmill rights and lefts delivered his way by the British social media star. Aggression was the name of the game.
Back and forth the two went with KSI mostly the aggressor and Paul content to jab to the head and body and avoid the wild swings coming his way. Fans screamed at the near misses as if Babe Ruth had swung and missed at a fat curveball in the middle of the plate.
KSI grabbed the momentum with his constant attacks and was seemingly on his way to a solid win when Paul connected with a right uppercut. The bigger and taller American star Paul pushed down on the staggered Brit and hit him with the free hand and followed that with another blow to the back of the head. The British fighter stumbled a bit and referee Jack Reiss stopped the fight to allow KSI time to recover and to inform the three judges that he was deducting two points from Paul for the two infractions.
âI would have won,â said Paul about the deductions.
KSI resumed attacking the bigger man but caught some shots from Paul.
âI donât stop. He hit me with a few little shots here and there,â said KSI. âI donât stop, Iâm a dog man.â
Paul was the bigger man and had his moments in the latter half of the six-round fight but did not seem to believe in his strength. He never took advantage of his superiority in power.
After six rounds one judge scored it in favor of Paul 56-55, but two other judges saw it otherwise 57-54 and 56-55 for KSI.
âI just want to say fair play to KSI, you’re one of the toughest people I know. I wish you the best,â said Paul.
World Title Fights
WBC lightweight titlist Devin Haney (24-0, 15 KOs) brought his flash and precision expecting to show off to the new fan base, but Dominican fighter Alfredo Santiago (12-1, 4 KOs) had other ideas. Still, Haney ran away with the win via unanimous decision.
Things looked good when Haney floored Santiago in the fifth round with one of his flashy combinations punctuated by a right uppercut. Down went the taller Santiago but he managed to survive the onslaught.
For the remainder of the fight both contestants managed to entangle each other as each sought to establish ground. Haney looked to unload one of his slick combinations but the Dominican fighter closed ground to take away Haneyâs ability to unload his lethal combinations. Â It was holding and more holding for the remaining seven rounds.
After 12 rounds all three judges scored it for Haney 120-107 who retains the WBC lightweight title.
Haney said he hurt his shoulder midway in the fight, but despite the injury he was intrigued by the different fans that attended the boxing card.
âIâm very excited itâs a whole new fan base,â said Haney.
BJ Saunders
WBO super middleweight titlist Billy Joe Saunders (29-0, 14 KOs) may have been out of sorts in the Los Angeles climate but after 11 rounds of adapting to the air and Argentinaâs Marcelo Coceres (28-1-1), the southpaw Londoner lowered the boom to win by knockout.
It took a while but he got the job done.
Saunders had never fought on American soil and seemed not quite sure what to do with the Argentine slugger who was also making his American debut.
After 10 rounds of slipping and countering the left-handed super middleweight switched into high gear and unloaded with a blistering four-punch combination and down went Coceres. The crowd erupted after a rather slow fight. Coceres got up and tried to hammer it out with Saunders and was caught with a perfect right uppercut and down went the Argentine a second time. Again he got up and Saunders moved in for the attack and was on his way down from what looked like a slip but referee Ray Corona looked at the fighter and decided to end the fight at 1:59 of the 11th round. Saunders retains the WBO title.
âThat performance was not worthy,â said Saunders after the knockout win. âI knew in my own mind I had to get him out of thereâŠI had to go for the knockout.â
Saunders seeks a fight against Saul âCaneloâ Alvarez, the new light heavyweight world titlist, but who is also the WBA super middleweight titlist. Alvarez is also the top money-maker in the prizefighting world and anybody that fights the Mexican redhead will make a huge pot of money.
Saunders also has a message for Alvarez:
âIf you want to become full weight world champion take me now. I want Canelo Alvarez and now is the right time,â said Saunders.
Other Bouts Â
NABF super featherweight titlist Ronny Rios (32-3, 16 KOs) buzz sawed Colombiaâs Hugo Berrio (28-8-1, 18KOs) with a withering body attack that kept got worse and worse until the knockout ending.
A lead right cross floored Berrio who looked like he was expecting anything but the right cross after absorbing body shots for three rounds. The end came at 2:56 of the fourth round. Referee Tom Taylor stopped the fight through mid-count exactly at the same time as Berrioâs corner fired in a white towel of surrender.
âI didnât even know he was going to go down,â said Rios about the impact of his right hand knockout. âIâve been practicing on sitting down on my punches.â
Local fighter Diego Pacheco with his long arms knocked out Aaron Casper with that seemingly elongated right after several rounds of pummeling in a super middleweight fight.
Pacheco, 18, kept the pressure against the veteran fighter but had some problems when Casper crowded him inside. But after several rounds of entanglement South Central L.A.âs Pacheco figured out the solution and floored Casper with a crisp right cross. Casper beat the count but was met with an eight punch barrage that sent the Georgia fighter down for good. Referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight at 2:49 of the fourth round.
âHe has a tremendous heart, heâs a warrior and I tip my hat to him,â said Pacheco of his fallen opponent.
Nikita Ababiy (8-0, 6 KOs) was the winner by disqualification over Jonathan Batista (19-16) in a super middleweight fight scheduled for four rounds. After Ababiy hit Batista behind the head and was deducted a point, the fight resumed and Batista slugged Ababiy repeatedly after the bell prompting referee Ray Corona to disqualify Batista at the end of round one.
Reshat Mati (5-0, 3 KOs) knocked out Cody Peterson (1-6) at 1:41 of the second round in a super welterweight match. Mati fights out of New York but is an Albanian native.
Another Celebrity fight
Josh Brueckner (1-0) of Michigan powered through Huntington Beachâs Tyler Smith (0-1) in a four round battle between former MMA fighters making their pro boxing debuts in a cruiserweight bout. Brueckner showed more speed and offense than Tyler who seemed bent on defending the rushes of his foe. After the victory Brueckner proposed marriage to his girlfriend Katie with whom he shares a popular Vlog on the Internet.
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: British Family Feud and More

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

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseballâs most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, âCurmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.â
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmelâs stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop oneâs latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sportâs top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a fatherâs unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. âFloyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,â says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floydâs ear. âThis kid is special,â they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of âThe Money Team.â In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception â Gervonta âTankâ Davis, now one of boxingâs top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. âI felt ready,â he said, âI knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.â
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Motonâs boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. âI grew up watching Floyd, so itâs natural I have some similarities to him,â says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac âPitbullâ Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. Itâs not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmelâs presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmelâs first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 œ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road itâs reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. â[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,â he said without hesitation,â great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.â
Itâs notable that there isnât a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldnât bet against it.
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Arneâs Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New Yorkâs Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of Americaâs largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writersâ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isnât a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the eventâs organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasnât a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New Yorkâs charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. âJimmyâ Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. âBoxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,â said hizzoner. âSo I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesnât belong in this town or in your game.â (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldnât have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the cityâs top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew âmore than 200â according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New Yorkâs newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischerâs baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isnât necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a âtalkieâ has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put  words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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