Scoping Out the Heavyweight Undercard in Saudi Arabia

Published

5 years ago

December 3, 2019

Scoping-Out-the-Heavyweight-Unercard-in-Saudi Arabia

Promoter Eddie Hearn has been threatening an all-heavyweight card for some time now, and although this Saturday’s undercard to Andy Ruiz-Anthony Joshua out in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, doesn’t quite qualify it’s unlikely he will come closer this side of a Joshua-Tyson Fury superfight.

Working back from chief support we look here at the heavyweights in action and what they bring to the mouth-watering rematch of June’s monumental shock.

First and foremost is one of ring history’s great ring survivors and arguably one of the great heavyweight contenders, Alexander Povetkin. Povetkin, 35-2, has been a player in the heavyweight division since his 2007 knockout of Chris Byrd, an astonishing stretch during which he has dueled with and dusted contenders from three different heavyweight eras over the course of more than twelve years. He was unlucky enough to share his entire prime with one Wladimir Klitschko before falling in a worthy stab at Joshua last summer and this has doomed Povetkin to failure in achieving heavyweight pre-eminence; but the moment Wladimir called time on his career, Povetkin became the de facto old-man of the division with all the ambivalence that status imparts.

The forty-year old’s latest tilt at the divisional big dogs began with a fittingly plodding but wide decision victory over Hughie Fury in August and continues in Diriyah against 18-1 former cruiserweight Michael Hunter. Hunter, who boxes out of Las Vegas, made a minor name for himself in giving pound-for-pounder Oleksandr Usyk his toughest fight back in early 2017 and cemented his place as a heavyweight gatekeeper with an impressive twelve round decision over prospect Sergey Kuzmin in September. The step up here to take on a fabled but faded contender in Povetkin is an old-fashioned and well-reasoned trajectory and maybe Hunter has got his timing right.

“[Povetkin] is ruthless and a warrior,” the American recently told Boxing Scene. “He has everything it takes to beat a guy on the come up like me. People really don’t know what I have so this is a test. This is the perfect opportunity for me.”

It is. For an older fighter without a punch the swarmer is the living nightmare in the ring. Povetkin, though, has a punch, and so for him the nightmare is of a different sort. A mobile fighter with generalship, then, is the chief tormentor. Hunter has the mobility and if he has the generalship, Povetkin could be in for a long night. There is an appealing symmetry here: Povetkin gatecrashed the heavyweight rankings by beating Byrd, a quick-footed, quick-thinking fighter who by rights should have been boxing in a lower weight division. That description is probably very close to an optimum Hunter but Povetkin has some hard years on him.

If the old man doesn’t get control of the fight early look for him to drop a narrow decision to a fighter Eddie Hearn would love to feed to one of his primed big beasts – either way expect an absorbing contest.

Before Povetkin takes to the ring, his natural successor, the Croation Filip Hrgovic, now 9-0, takes his own step up against aging American Eric Molina (now 27-5). It was once said of James “Buster” Douglas that he “lost every fight Don King ever wanted him to lose.” With the exception of a victory over an ancient Tomasz Adamek the same can be said of Molina who has obliged for several different promoters against four different money fighters. This is once again the expectation on Saturday as the 2018 Sweet Science prospect of the year hops onto an undercard stacked with fighters he may look to match next year.

“It’s a big step up for me in terms of level of opponent and also the size of the event,” Hrgovic admitted to Croatia Week of his fight with Molina. “The whole world will be watching…I’m expecting a hard fight. Eric Molina fought two times for the world title…I am expecting the hardest fight of my career.”

Maybe, maybe not. If the world is watching Hrgovic at all, it is watching to see the fighter’s limitations tested. Questions about the Croat remain unanswered: can he hold a punch from a confirmed puncher and is he available for punches only because he believes himself equal to them or is his defense a legitimate issue? Until we see him pushed against a quality opponent we can’t know.

At the moment, however, Hrgovic, like Povetkin once did, gives the impression of a serious fighter who will one day hold a strap and will also have a say in which fighters make the very top and which do not. Whether or not he himself will summit is dependent upon the answer to these questions. It’s unlikely Molina will provide these answers. Look for Hrgovic to become the fifth money fighter Eric Molina obliges in suffering a ten count.

Still with me? Good. Prior to Hrgovic’s potential emergence from the shadows is a fascinating redux in the form of Londoner Dillian Whyte (26-1). Whyte enjoyed the sympathy of almost the entire boxing world during his six-hundred day wait for a title shot while ranked as the WBC’s number one contender but that sympathy came to a juddering end when he was revealed to have failed a drug test prior to his twelve-round encounter with the dangerous Oscar Rivas. Whyte, an entertaining and engaging speaker, was suddenly silent as the bizarre machinations of the UK Anti-Doping agency were laid bare for all to see. Somehow Whyte is cleared to fight, and promoter Eddie Hearn has delivered an inconsistent and vulnerable opponent who nevertheless holds some name recognition, Mariusz Wach. Former Povetkin victim Wach, who boxes out of Poland and holds a well-padded record of 35-5 has had his own problems with steroids, testing positive after making it through twelve one-sided rounds with Wladimir Klitschko in 2012. Perhaps only in boxing could two men who have traced positive for performance enhancing drugs compete as a part of a show awash with cash in a country where homosexuality and public displays of affection are illegal.

Unfortunately, this fight may be weirdly compelling. Whyte is a confirmed puncher but Wach did twelve with Wladimir and saw the twelfth, too, with Povetkin. He is clearly slipping but there is no future for the Pole if he succumbs early but Whyte, too, has reason to impress. I’ll pick the Brit to get the job done in the first half of the contest thereby inflicting the quickest stoppage of Wach’s career in what may be his last fight.

Finally, we get to meet Magomedrasul Majidov a fighter desperately in need of a nickname but one with a serious amateur pedigree that makes him much more interesting than his 1-0 record.

Also interesting is his age: 33. Turning professional in their thirties seems more and more the norm for crack amateurs hailing from Eurasia and this Azerbaijani is no different, which makes him a man in a hurry. 6’3” and 230 he will be the smaller man in the ring against the 6’6”, 250lb British journeyman Tom Little, who has been banged out in each of his last three fights against Hrgovic, Daniel Dubois and David Price. On paper then this should be meat and potatoes for three-time world amateur superheavyweight champion Majidov, but he received a minor scare in his first professional fight against an American journeyman named Ed Fountain. Majidov defeated one Anthony Joshua in the 2011 amateur championships but punching for pay has always been a different matter and I expect Little to charge his inexperienced opponent at bell. Brief fireworks may ensue. Hopefully they will continue right up to the main event.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

2 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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