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Congrats to AJ, But Fat Andy Obliged His Redemption by Forgetting History
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, 10th-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 12th-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 12th 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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Fighting on His Home Turf, Galal Yafai Pulverizes Sunny Edwards
The Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England, was the site of tonight’s Matchroom Promotions card featuring flyweights Galal Yafai and Sunny Edwards in the main event. Yafai went to post a short underdog in what on paper was a 50/50 fight, but it was a rout from the start.
Yafai got right into Edwards’ grill in the opening round and never let up. Although there were no knockdowns, it was complete domination by the Birmingham southpaw until the referee stepped in and waived it off at the 1:10 mark of round six.
“Bloodline” was the tagline of the match-up. Sunny’s brother Charlie Edwards, now competing as a bantamweight, is a former flyweight world title-holder. Galal, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, is the third member of his family to make his mark as a prizefighter. Brother Kal, also a former Olympian, once held a world title at 115 and brother Gamal was a Commonwealth champion as a bantamweight.
Edwards and Galal Yafai were well-acquainted. They had fought as amateurs and had shared the ring on many occasions as sparring partners. Although Galal was 31 years old, he had only eight pro fights under his belt and was meeting a veteran of six world title fights whose only loss in 22 starts came the hands of the brilliant Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.
But that loss to Rodriguez in Arizona (Edwards’ corner pulled him out after nine frames) was of the kind that shortens careers. Although Sunny won a tune-up fight since that setback, tonight he had the appearance of a boxer who had grown old overnight. In fact, after the second round, he was heard saying to his corner “I really don’t want to be here.”
Edwards wanted out, but he dutifully answered the bell for the next four rounds. After the bout, he indicated that he had planned to retire after this fight, win, or lose, or draw.
The contest was billed as a WBC “eliminator” which positions Galal Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) for a match with Japanese veteran Kenshiro Teraji, the long-reigning light flyweight title-holder who moved up in weight last month and captured the WBC flyweight title at the expense of Cristofer Rosales.
Other Bouts of Note
Welterweight Conah Walker, from the Birmingham bedroom community of Wolverhampton, won a clear-cut 10-round decision over Lewis Ritson, winning by scores of 98-93 and 97-93 twice.
A former British lightweight champion, Ritson (23-5) lost for the fourth time in his last six starts, but was game to the core. At various times he appeared on the verge of being stopped, but he may have won the final round when he got the best of several exchanges. Walker, a heavy favorite, improved to 14-3-1 (6).
In a 12-round middleweight match, Kieron Conway won his fourth straight, advancing to 22-3-1 (6) with a split decision over a local product, Ryan Kelly (19-5-1). Kelly got the nod on one of the cards (115-114), but was out-voted by his colleagues who had it 116-112 and 115-113 for Conway.
While the decision was fair, this was a lackluster performance by Conway who had fought much stiffer competition and entered the ring a 6/1 favorite.
Twenty-two-year-old junior welterweight Cameron Vuong, a stablemate of Jack Catterall, stepped up in class and improved to 7-0 (3) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Gavin Gwynne. The judges had it 97-94, 96-94, and 96-95.
Vuong, who is half Vietnamese, out-boxed Gwynne from the outside but was far from impressive. A 34-year-old Welshman and veteran of eight domestic title fights, Gwynne (17-4-1) was the aggressor throughout and there were scattered boos when the decision was announced.
In a scheduled 8-rounder that wasn’t part of the main card, Liverpool’s Callum Smith (30-2, 22 KOs) wacked out Colombian trial horse Carlos Galvan in the fifth round. Smith, whose only defeats came at the hands of future Hall of Famers Canelo Alvarez (L 12) and Artur Beterbiev (L TKO 7), knocked Galvan down in the fourth and then twice more in the fifth with body punches before the match was halted. Galvan declined to 20-15-2.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal
Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal
With most of America in a turkey coma, all boxing eyes should be pointed toward England this weekend.
Former world titlist Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) challenges the fast-rising Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) for a regional flyweight on Saturday, Nov. 30, at Resorts World Arena in Birmingham. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
Without the fast-talking and dare-to-be-great Edwards, the flyweight division and super flyweight divisions would be in a blanket of invisibility. He’s the kind of personality the lower weight classes need.
The London kid loves to talk and loves to fight even more.
Edwards was calling out Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez when the San Antonio fighter was blasting out feared Thai slugger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and dismantling Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras. And he did this in front of a worldwide audience.
Of course, he fell short of defeating the young superstar but he kick-started the weight division with new life. And here he is again enticing more eyes on the flyweights as he challenges another potential star.
“I was happy and proud of Galal when he won the Olympic gold medal,” said Edwards who has sparred Yafai many times. “When me and Galal get in a small space, it’s fireworks.”
Yafai, a 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, only has eight pro fights but at age 31 doesn’t have time to walk through the stages of careful preparation. But with blazing speed to go along with big power in his southpaw punches, it’s time for the Birmingham native to claim his spot on the world stage.
Is he ready?
“It’s a massive fight, it speaks for itself. Sunny is a great fighter, a former world champion, a good name and we’ve got history as well,” Yafai said at the press conference.” I’ve got to be a bit smarter, but I know Sunny inside-out.”
Both have blazing speed. Yafai has the power, but Edwards has the experience of pro-style competition.
Promoter Eddie Hearn calls this one of the top fights in British boxing.
“Sunny doesn’t care, he wants to be in great fights, he believes in himself and he is rolling the dice again on Saturday night, as is Galal. An Olympic gold medalist from Birmingham with just a handful of fights really, and already stepping up to take on one of the top, top flyweights in the world,” said Hearns.
Ryan Garcia in Beverly Hills
The budding Southern California superstar Ryan Garcia met the boxing media in Beverly Hills to announce an exhibition match against Japan’s kickboxing star Rukiya Anpo on December 30 in Tokyo. FANMIO pay-per-view will show the match if it takes place.
Garcia is still under contract with Golden Boy Promotions and according to the promotion company an agreement has not been established. But with Garcia under suspension for PED use following his last fight against Devin Haney back in April, an opportunity for the popular fighter to make a living will probably be allowed.
As long as everyone gets their cut.
Now 26, Garcia seeks to get back in the prize ring and do what he does best and that’s fire left hooks in machine gun fashion.
“He tried to knock out Manny Pacquiao and it pissed me off,” said Garcia on his reasons for accepting an exhibition match with the bigger in size Anpo. “That rubbed me the wrong way and now I’m here to show him someone in his prime with speed and power.”
Anpo wants a knockout and nothing else.
“I regret that I couldn’t finish Manny Pacquiao,” said Anpo who met Pacquiao in an exhibition this past summer in Tokyo. “That’s what we train to do in every fight. I have even more motivation this time and I will knock him out and finish Ryan Garcia as a professional.”
Following the press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 26, an e-mail by Golden Boy was sent to the media and stated: “Golden Boy Promotions has exclusive rights to Ryan Garcia’s fights. The organizers of this event (Garcia vs. Anpo) have acknowledged as such and have agreed in writing that our sign-off is needed for this event to occur. As no such sign-off has been given, as of today there is no event with Ryan Garcia.”
Simply said, they get their cut or no fight.
The potential money-making fight has a strong possibility to occur.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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The Noted Trainer Kevin Henry, Lucky to Be Alive, Reflects on Devin Haney and More
This past summer, on July 21, Las Vegas boxing trainer Kevin Henry almost died. He was on the Las Vegas Strip, walking north from Caesars Palace, when he was the victim of an auto-pedestrian accident, hit by a careless uber driver exiting the Treasure Island casino after dropping off a passenger.
Henry suffered two broken bones in his neck, shoulder and hip displacements, lost two teeth, and had facial injuries that required plastic surgery. He spent three months in the hospital, the first 20 days in ICU and the final month at an in-patient rehabilitation facility.
The good news is that the pain has subsided and Kevin Henry is back in the gym mentoring boxers and enjoying the camaraderie of his peers.
Kevin, 55, grew up around the sport. His father, the late Norman Henry, was a fixture on the Philadelphia boxing scene going back to the late 1940s when he was Bob Montgomery’s Man Friday. The elder Henry co-managed Jeff Chandler and others and had a long association with Don King where he defined his role as that of a troubleshooter. Kevin was born in Philadelphia, spent several years in the LA area during the days when his father was a matchmaker for Harold Smith’s MAPS (an acronym for Muhammad Ali Professional Sports), and has been a full-time resident of Las Vegas since 1992.
“When I was 16, maybe 17, I was the youngest licensed second in New Jersey” says Henry. “In Philadelphia, I got to hang with great old-school trainers like George Benton. In LA, my home away from home was the Hoover Street Gym. Jackie McCoy, Eddie Futch, and Jesse Reid trained fighters there. A young trainer couldn’t ask for a better schoolhouse.
“The old-school trainers liked me because I was organized. If a kid said to me, oops, I forgot my gym bag or I can’t spar because I forgot my mouthpiece – and this happened a lot – I’d say, no you didn’t, I have it right here. And the kids knew if they went out and did something they shouldn’t have, that I wasn’t going to tattle-tale.”
When Henry moved to Las Vegas, the local heavyweight scene was percolating. Michael Dokes was here as were Oliver McCall and Michael Hunter Sr. The latter two fought each other as they were climbing the ladder and eventually became fast friends.
The ill-fated Hunter would become a member of the family. He married Kevin Henry’s sister. Michael Hunter Jr, a leading heavyweight contender whose victims include the white-hot Martin Bakole and Michael’s younger brother Keith Hunter, a 15-2 junior welterweight, are Kevin’s nephews.
Discounting Devin Haney’s father Bill, no boxing coach has spent more time in the company of Devin Haney. Henry was in Devin’s corner for the vast majority of his amateur bouts, including five of Devin’s six meetings with his great amateur rival Ryan Garcia, and their tie continued after Devin transitioned into a pro.
“He was like a little brother to me,” says Henry. “I remember the first day I saw him. It was at the old Round One gym which isn’t here anymore. A Rolls Royce pulled up out front. Derrick Harmon, who fought Roy Jones, was there with me. We figured that the person in the car was probably some famous professional athlete who had come to work up a sweat. But it was Bill Haney with his nine-year-old son. Neither Bill nor his kid knew anything about boxing; Bill wanted someone to teach Devin how to box. The boy was a blank canvas.
“Bill left and when he came back, he said, ‘how did he do?’ He was so proud when we told him his kid was a natural. Derrick and I couldn’t believe that the boy had never been in the gym before. We were amazed.”
The precocious Haney, who turned pro in Mexico at age 16, proved to be as good as advertised. He won the WBC world lightweight title in his twenty-fourth pro fight, pitching a shutout over previously undefeated Alfredo Santiago, went on to unify the title with wins over George Kambosos and Vasyl Lomachenko, and pitched another shutout in his first venture at 140, whitewashing Regis Prograis to capture another world title belt.
Kevin Henry was there for some of these fights and was lost in the shuffle at others. It remains a sore spot.
No active boxer has been looked-over by as many prominent trainers as Devin Haney. Bill Haney, who would be a finalist for both the 2023 BWAA Trainer of the Year and Manager of the Year, winning the latter, operated on the assumption that all had something useful to contribute and that from their inputs he could build something that was greater than the sum of its parts. He was bucking several bromides including the chestnut that too many chefs spoil the broth and that brings us to the night of April 20, 2024, when Bill Haney’s son caught up with his old amateur rival Ryan Garcia at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
In a memorable fight, Garcia buzzed Haney in the opening minute of the match with his patented left hook and would then go on to dominate the second half of the fight, putting Haney on the canvas three times – in rounds 7, 10, and 11 – en route to a scorching upset.
As we know, Garcia, who came in three pounds overweight, would have the “W” stripped from him when his urine samples revealed the presence of a performance-enhancing drug, ostarine. The New York State Athletic Commission changed the result to a no-contest and that is how it appears at boxrec, the sport’s official record-keeper.
Devin Haney remains undefeated (31-0, 1 NC) but Ryan Garcia knocked the mystique out of him.
In part because of his tender age – he turned 26 earlier this month – Haney was considered a threat to break Floyd Mayweather’s 50-0 record. No one talks about that anymore and if it should happen, it would command an asterisk.
Kevin Henry was there at the Haney-Garcia fight but, in a sense, he wasn’t there.
“They never put my name on the comp list ” he says, “so there was no ticket or pass waiting for me when I got to the arena. I was actually on the subway heading back to my hotel when Devin called me. He said, ‘where you at ‘bro.’ When I explained the situation to him, he said ‘turn around and come back and go to security.’
“Devin arranged to have a ticket waiting for me. My seat was directly behind his corner. The undercard was already in progress when I got back.
“This will sound arrogant, but I am certain the outcome would have been different if Devin had a different corner. The most experienced guy in his corner that night was Bob Ware, and Bob isn’t a trainer; he’s a cutman. When Devin faced adversity for the first time in his life, there was no experienced head there to get him turned around.
“In preparation for Garcia, we spent 3-4 weeks at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym. I actually suggested to Bill that he use Freddie in the corner. Freddie sees things that other trainers don’t see, even me, and Freddie would have known what adjustments to make. But Bill said no. He didn’t want to cede his authority.”
Kevin Henry’s admiration for Devin Haney, as a boxer and a person, hasn’t waned. “Ryan Garcia came in overweight at the weigh-in and you can just imagine how much weight he put on after he rehydrated. When they stood at center ring to get the referee’s instructions, Garcia looked like a middleweight to me. Devin dug deep and fought a great fight against a guy who was bigger and on steroids. One of the judges even had it a draw.” (True. Veteran arbiter Max DeLuca scored it 112-112. The other judges had Garcia winning by 4 and 6 points.)
As to what to expect from Devin when he returns, Henry says, “I worry about the mental part; some boxers don’t take losing well.” There are no such concerns about Kevin Henry who lost none of his mental acuity in that terrible accident and is back in his comfort zone.
Haney-Garcia photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions
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