Congrats to AJ, But Fat Andy Obliged His Redemption by Forgetting History

Published

4 years ago

December 8, 2019

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A wise man, Spanish writer/philosopher George Santayana, once observed that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

All right, so the original quote attributed to Santayana, who was known for aphorisms, was worded slightly differently. But the rationale expressed in either version has remained the same almost forever, and in the specific case of now-dethroned heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr., the closest parallel to the harsh life lesson he learned Saturday evening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, took place on Feb. 11, 1990, in Tokyo. Ruiz can be excused for not seeing the HBO telecast of Buster Douglas’ shocking, 10^th-round knockout of heavyweight king Mike Tyson on that date because, well, the now-30-year-old Ruiz was still an infant, having been born only 155 days earlier. But you have to figure that by now he’d heard plenty about the most famous upset in boxing history, and how Douglas, the newly crowned champion and momentary toast of the pugilistic world, squandered his opportunity to be something more than a one-hit wonder by getting knocked out in the third round of his first and only title defense, by Evander Holyfield on Oct. 25, 1990, at The Mirage in Las Vegas.

There are, of course, several differences between the cruel price Ruiz must now pay for becoming too self-satisfied with his instant wealth and celebrity, as was the case with Douglas, who never again came within whiffing distance of the form he displayed, boxing-wise or belly-wise, that magical night (well, it was actually Sunday afternoon Tokyo time) in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Douglas went down on his back vs Holyfield and was counted out by referee Mills Lane; the disturbingly chubby Ruiz (33-2, 22 KOs) remained upright for the 12-round distance, but was handily out-boxed from the get-go in losing a wide unanimous decision in his rematch with Great Britain’s Anthony Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs), the man from whom he had lifted the IBF, WBA and WBO belts on a seventh-round stoppage in their first meeting on June 1 of this year in New York’s Madison Square Garden. And while Douglas never did share the ring a second time with Tyson, relinquishing his WBC, WBA and IBF straps to a new opponent, Holyfield, whom he also did not face again, Ruiz’s precipitous fall from grace came in a do-over with Joshua, which may or may not be a precursor to a rubber match that suddenly seems neither assured nor in that much public demand.

“I think I was chasing him too much instead of cutting off the ring,” said the ostensibly 6-foot-2 Ruiz, who officially weighed in at a preposterous 283.7 pounds, or 15.7 more than he did for his successful first go at Joshua, which was widely hailed as boxing’s biggest shocker since Douglas beat up the seemingly invincible Tyson. “I just felt like I couldn’t throw my combinations. But who wants to see a third fight?”

It would have been interesting to see if CompuBox, the punch-counting outfit, could have quickly scanned the sellout crowd of 15,000 in the outdoor stadium on the outskirts of Riyadh to tabulate how many hands went up in support of the possible rubber match that logic almost dictates will never happen. Where Ruiz, a United States citizen and the first heavyweight titlist of Mexican descent, was the taco-tasting flavor of the moment as soon as he had his hand raised against Joshua six months earlier, he now is teetering on the border of irrelevance, just as Douglas was when he demonstrated he did not have the will and discipline to ever again be the same fighter he was in cashing his lottery ticket against Tyson. Ruiz, his considerable girth aside, still has fast hands and decent power for a man his size, but his waddling pursuit of AJ in the Saudi desert now stamps him as little more than a more mobile hippo in a river teeming with faster-moving crocodiles. With Ruiz’s seeming expulsion from the club, what had been a Big Four of heavyweight boxing again has been constricted to a Big Three, with Joshua reclaiming a favored place at the head table along with WBC champion Deontay Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) and humongous Brit Tyson Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs), who technically remains the lineal champ.

Wilder and Fury are set to square off a second time on Feb. 22 at an undetermined site in a reprise of their classic first matchup, which ended in a controversial split draw on Dec. 1, 2018 at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. Some observers felt that the sharp-boxing Fury had banked enough rounds to get the nod, while dissenters sided with Wilder, who registered two knockdowns, including a 12^th-round flooring from which Fury barely beat the count. Whomever survives that showdown automatically becomes the people’s choice to go for the undisputed title against Joshua, unless, of course, there is some sort of undisclosed contractual obligation for Wilder and Fury to swap punches a third time.

Nor is Joshua, who has expressed his desire to fully complete his collection of bejeweled championship belts, likely to voluntarily surrender any to accommodate Ruiz’s entreaties to get it on a third time. The WBO announced immediately after the fight that Joshua must make his mandatory defense against Oleksandr Usyk (17-0, 13 KOs) within 180 days, while the IBF wants AJ to defend against its mandatory challenger, Kubrat Pulev (28-1, 14 KOs). A pairing of Joshua and Usyk, the former undisputed cruiserweight champion who 17-0 with 13 KOs, is of much more global interest than Joshua-Ruiz 3 would be, and the likelihood is that AJ would accede to the IBF’s wishes rather than allow one of his titles to be vacated.

Where does that leave Ruiz? Likely back in the outer waiting room of title contention, where he either can buckle down and prove that he is not Buster Douglas Not-So-Lite by paying some dues to his craft instead of hefty restaurant bills. As Douglas – who ballooned to almost 400 pounds after his retirement from boxing — proved, it is one thing to enjoy living large, but it quite another to allow your appetites to go unchecked.

“It was his night,” Ruiz said of Joshua. “I don’t think I prepared as good as I should have. I gained too much weight, but I don’t want to give no excuses. He won, he boxed me around, but if we did the third (fight), best believe I will come in the best shape of my life.

“(The weight gain, from the 268 he came in for the first meeting with Joshua) kind of affected me a lot. I thought I would come in stronger and better. But you know what? Next time I am going to prepare better with my team. This time I tried to train myself at times, but no excuses. Anthony Joshua did a hell of a job.”

Perhaps a third Joshua-Ruiz bout, if it ever happens, should seek sponsorships from Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem. The subject of weight, both gained and lost, almost superseded more traditional boxing considerations from the time the rematch was announced right through the bell ending the 12^th round.

For his part, Ruiz either was in denial or simply lying about the level of his conditioning, which is tied so closely to the number that is displayed on a scale. Even after arriving in Riyadh, he insisted that he expected to come in “around eight pounds” lighter than he had for the first fight with Joshua, an estimation that either was a blatant prevarication or one of the worst miscalculations ever. Despite already having an Adonis-type physique, Joshua had determined that he needed to slim down to increase his mobility and endurance, a goal which appeared to be achieved when he whittled himself from 247.75 pounds for the first fight to 237.8. His reconstructed body more closely resembled that of an Olympic gold medalist swimmer than an Olympic gold medalist fighter. This AJ looked less Lennox Lewis than Michael Phelps, and the boost in his stamina was evident as he pranced around the huge 22-foot ring like a frisky colt for all 12 rounds, peppering Ruiz’s reddened face with stiff jabs, occasional overhand rights and change-of-pace left hooks downstairs.

It will be interesting to see if AJ will retain his sleek, more mobile look when the time comes to get it on with so feared a slugger as Wilder, or as monstrously large a man as Fury. That is another story for another day, and that day is surely coming.

Not so certain is how the saga of Andy Ruiz Jr. transitions to another, perhaps final chapter. With fleshy love handles spilling over the waistband of his trunks like crème filling from a squeezed doughnut, he has never looked the part of an elite heavyweight, but his lumpy appearance belied real skills that might have been even more evident were he to eat to live instead of living to eat. Which brings us back to his predecessor of squandered opportunities, Buster Douglas.

When Douglas beat Tyson – not only beat him, but beat him up – he was inspired to perform at a higher level than ever before by the untimely death of his beloved mother, Lula Pearl Douglas. That motivation, coupled with Tyson’s arrogant belief that he need only to show up and another frightened foe would collapse before him, produced an unexpected outcome that has become the stuff of legend.

Fit as he had ever been at 231 pounds for the Tyson fight, rumors abounded that Douglas was having pizza regularly delivered him in the hotel sauna as he prepped for Holyfield. When the man from Columbus, Ohio, weighed in at a jiggly 246 for a title defense for which he was being paid $24.075 million, hundreds of spectators at the open-to-the-public event literally sprinted from their seats to the casino sports book to get bets down on Holyfield.

That scene, of course, could not be repeated in Riyadh because there is no legalized gambling in Saudi Arabia, although it might have been a kick to see men in flowing white robes and keffiyehs on their heads sprinting toward the nearest sports book, had one existed. And while there is no gambling tolerated in Saudi Arabia, the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages also is against the law, as is male fraternization with women (most of whom are wrapped up like mummies anyway) who aren’t their wives. In other words, the place is never to become as much a travel destination for fun-seeking Westerners as, say, Vegas, which is why it says here that Riyadh can never become as much of a fight town as the free-spending sheiks and promoter Eddie Hearn might want, despite the fact that Saudi backers ponied up a massive site fee somewhere between $40 million and $100 million to host Ruiz-Joshua 2. Oh, and there’s also that little matter of Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian governmental policies, which might explain why superstar golfer Tiger Woods has steadfastly declined to journey there the past couple of years to play in the Saudi Invitational tournament, despite offers of a $3 million appearance fee regardless of how he fared on the links.

So, we shall see whether Ruiz, a father of five who celebrated his stunner over Joshua by splurging on a mansion and Rolls-Royce, among other shiny new toys, finally reins himself in or continues to drift into the hazy limbo to which Buster Douglas is forever relegated. After Buster was knocked down by Holyfield, and seemed in no particular hurry to get up, the gentlemanly trainer Eddie Futch – who was there as an interested spectator, without any connection to either fighter – lambasted the now-former champion as he almost never did when speaking publicly about anyone.

“Buster Douglas fought a disgraceful fight,” said Mr. Eddie, now deceased. “He allowed himself to get in such poor condition that he had nothing – no snap, not one good punch in three rounds. For the heavyweight champion to come in such condition is just outlandish.”

And this, from Mike Trainer, Sugar Ray Leonard’s longtime attorney and adviser, who was serving as The Mirage’s boxing consultant at that time.

“We break our necks to give the public a great evening and to keep the promise, which is why we have a beautiful stadium. Wynton Marsalis, Sugar Ray Leonard and fireworks. We compliment Evander Holyfield for coming into the ring well-prepared to keep that promise. However, our attitude is that fight purses should be more along the lines of winner-take-all so that the only incentive is victory.”

That isn’t going to happen either, but it does give pause for thought when one of the two participants in a big-ticket fight shows up seemingly not prepared to give his best effort.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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

Published

2 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

2 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

4 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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