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HITS and MISSES from a Weekend Spearheaded by a Biggie in Saudi Arabia

The fate of Anthony Joshua’s future rested on how well he performed against Andy Ruiz on Saturday in Saudi Arabia. Billed as the “Clash on the Dunes”, Ruiz vs. Joshua 2 was the most hotly anticipated rematch of 2019 and one with huge ramifications at stake far beyond the careers of the two principal participants.
Could the fairly new over-the-top streaming service DAZN survive losing three of the four major heavyweight alphabet titles to a rival organization? And might the PBC have been on its way to creating its own branded heavyweight championship if Ruiz could somehow stave off Joshua one more time?
The stakes surrounding Ruiz-Joshua 2 on DAZN really couldn’t have been higher.
Plus, there was bountiful boxing action from other places around the world, including the fourth title defense for rising junior featherweight star Emanuel Navarette on ESPN+ and the continued showcase of newly-crowned WBC middleweight titleholder Jermall Charlo on Showtime.
Here are boxing’s biggest HITS and MISSES from the first weekend in December.
HIT: Anthony Joshua Floats Like a Butterfly in Career-Defining Reclamation Project
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, so it’s a good thing Anthony Joshua was still just 30 years old heading into his rematch against Andy Ruiz on Saturday in Saudi Arabia. Because Joshua boxed brilliantly over the course of 12 rounds in a way most people believed him to be incapable.
There are two common paths someone can take after suffering as humiliating experience as Joshua did when he was knocked down four times and stopped in seven rounds by Ruiz in June in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
Joshua could either have doubled down on his past mistakes, which included training more like a spokesperson and Instagram model than a professional fighter. Or he could rethink his entire approach and take the long way back up the mountain, which entails employing the single-minded approach of focusing all his efforts on reclaiming his heavyweight titles each and every day until the moment he steps back into the ring.
Joshua chose the latter, and it was immediately apparent as soon as he disrobed for the fight. Here appeared a man living the life of a true prizefighter now, and he went on to prove it by dominating al 12 rounds of action against the suddenly inept Ruiz.
MISS: The Predictable Failure of Andy Ruiz
If you needed a reminder about why Top Rank cut ties with the talented but discipline-challenged Ruiz at the end of last year, you saw it in Saudi Arabia. This isn’t to pile on Ruiz over the 15 extra pounds he entered the second contest carrying. In a way, that was sort of expected the moment Ruiz scored the stunning upset the first time around.
People who struggle with something like staying focused on training usually don’t suddenly become better at it unless they’re forced into it.
Humbling failures and huge successes both have a unique ability to bring out the best and worst in people. But failure often provides the opportunity for someone to accept their faults, whereas success leaves room for someone to keep denying the truth about all the things they could probably do better.
Ruiz wasn’t very competitive in the rematch. Part of it was Joshua’s newfound approach of no longer foolishly giving up his eight-inch reach advantage, but the piece that Ruiz could control in future fights would be to train seriously enough to be able to consistently apply pressure for 12 full rounds. He could hardly do it for one round on Saturday, so hopefully, the lesson has now been learned for good.
Ruiz is talented, affable and a very special fighter. It’s time for him to start treating himself that way.
HIT: Critical Heavyweight Contender Matchups on Ruiz-Joshua 2 Undercard
Boxing’s glamour division was featured mightily by promoter Eddie Hearn on the undercard of Ruiz-Joshua 2, and it’s about time a promoter did that. There’s no more important division in boxing than the action that happens above 200 pounds. Moreover, the heavyweight division is as deep and as talented as it’s been in a good 20 years or so.
So why don’t we see more heavyweights in important matchups on big fight cards? That must be what Hearn was wondering when he was putting this card together. That or it was just blind luck on his part.
Whatever the case, Filip Hrgovic appears to have all the tools to be a real contender someday, and he proved it by stopping veteran title challenger Eric Molina in the single biggest win of the 27-year-old from Croatia’s career. Hrgovic needed just three rounds to stop Molina, the same amount of time it took Joshua in 2016 and six rounds faster than Deontay Wilder did it the year prior.
Moreover, both former titleholder Alexander Povetkin and the once-beaten American Michael Hunter showed why they should figure heavily into the future of the stacked division. The 40-year-old Povetkin and 31-year-old Hunter fought to a split draw in a fun, competitive fight that showed why both deserve the chance to fight their way into world title opportunities.
MISS: ESPN’s Low-budget Treatment of Emanuel Navarette vs. Francisco Horta
It wasn’t the most compelling action of the weekend, but how could ESPN expect people to care about WBO featherweight champion Emanuel Navarette’s fourth title defense against Francisco Horta in Mexico on Saturday night if they didn’t even bother to send any of their crew over there to cover the fight?
That’s what I was wondering on Saturday when I saw ESPN’s Bernardo Osuna and Tim Bradley calling the Top Rank on ESPN+ card from the studio. That kind of thing makes sense for lesser cards from the other side of the world sometimes, but it didn’t seem to fit this case. Puebla, the city in Mexico where the card took place, is on this side of the planet and has its own international airport. What gives?
Regardless, Navarette has enjoyed a fantastic 12 months. Over his last five fights, which began when he shockingly upset Isaac Dogboe in December 2018 for the title, Navarette has solidified himself as a must-watch star. That’s a hard thing to do for someone weighing only 122 pounds, and probably even harder to accomplish in today’s world where its common to see four or five full cards airing over different networks every single weekend.
That last bit about all the other options available is why ESPN shouldn’t cheap out on its fight coverage. Either a card is important enough to show us, or it isn’t. This one deserved better coverage.
HIT: Jermall Charlo’s Emphatic Middleweight Title Defense Against Dennis Hogan
If there’s any middleweight right now who deserves a big fight against a notable opponent, it’s Jermall Charlo.
Charlo, younger by one-minute to twin brother Jermell Charlo, is a two-weight world champion who just can’t seem to get another top middleweight in the ring. So, Charlo had to be content on Saturday to dominate and stop former 154-pound world title challenger Dennis Hogan in seven rounds in the main event of the Showtime card in Brooklyn.
Charlo is the reigning WBC middleweight champion thanks to the elevation of Canelo Alvarez to whatever that organization’s “Franchise” championship is supposed to designate. Regardless, the 29-year-old remains undefeated and ready for a bigger opportunity.
One fight that makes a ton of sense is a title unification against WBO titleholder Demetrius Andrade. There’s a PR narrative pushed by Andrade’s handlers that suggests their fighter has never been able to snag a big fight against a top name because he’s so dangerous and avoided.
Of course, that isn’t the entire story. After all, Andrade was set to face Jermell Charlo in December 2014 before dropping out less than a month away from the scheduled bout after finding out how much more money Charlo was making.
Now it seems Andrade would be a good fit for the other Charlo, and everyone should hope a fight like that gets made for both fighters. That’s especially true for Charlo, who hasn’t yet been afforded a chance to prove how good he can be since stopping current unified junior middleweight champion Julian Williams back in December 2016.
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A Paean to the Great Sportswriter Jimmy Cannon Who Passed Away 50 Years Ago This Week

“Of all his assignments,” said the renowned sportswriter Dave Anderson, “[Jimmy] Cannon appeared to enjoy boxing the most.”
Cannon would have sheepishly concurred. He dated his infatuation with boxing to 1919 when he stood outside a saloon listening to a man with a megaphone relay bulletins from the Dempsey-Willard fight in faraway Toledo. His father followed boxing as did all the Irishmen in his neighborhood. For him, an interest in the sport of boxing, he once wrote, was like a family heirloom. But it became a love-hate relationship. It was Jimmy Cannon, after all, who coined the phrase “boxing is the red light district of sports.”
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Jimmy Cannon’s death. He passed away at age 63 on Dec. 5, 1973, in his room at the residential hotel in mid-Manhattan where he made his home. In the realm of American sportswriters, there has never been a voice quite like him. He was “the hardest-boiled of the hard-drinking, hard-boiled school of sports writing,” wrote Darrell Simmons of the Atlanta Journal. One finds a glint of this in his summary of Sonny Liston’s first-round demolition of Albert Westphal in 1961: “Sonny Liston hit Albert Westphal like he was a cop.”
In his best columns, Jimmy Cannon was less a sportswriter than an urban poet. Here’s what he wrote about Archie Moore in 1955 after Moore trounced Bobo Olson to set up a match with Rocky Marciano: “Someone should write a song about Archie Moore who in the Polo Grounds knocked out Bobo Olson in three rounds…It should be a song that comes out of the backrooms of sloughed saloons on night-drowned streets in morning-worried parts of bad towns. The guy who writes this one must be a piano player who can be dignified when he picks a quarter out of the marsh of a sawdust floor.”
Prior to fighting in Madison Square Garden the previous year – his first appearance in that iconic boxing arena – Moore had roamed the globe in search of fights in a career that began in the Great Depression. Cannon was partial to boxers like Archie Moore, great ring artisans who toiled in obscurity, fighting for small purses –“moving-around money” in Cannon’s words — until the establishment could no longer ignore them.
Jimmy Cannon was born in Lower Manhattan. He left high school after one year to become a copy boy for the New York Daily News. In 1936, at age 26, the News sent him to cover the biggest news story of the day, the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping trial. While there he met Damon Runyon who would become a lifelong friend. At Runyon’s suggestion, he applied for a job as a sportswriter at the New York American, a Hearst paper, and was hired.
During World War II, he was a war correspondent in Europe embedded in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army. When he returned from the war, he joined the New York Post and then, in 1959, the Journal-American which made him America’s highest-paid sportswriter at a purported salary of $1000 a week. His articles were syndicated and appeared in dozens of papers.
Cannon was very close to Joe Louis. He was the only reporter that Louis allowed in his hotel room on the morning of the Brown Bomber’s rematch with Max Schmeling. Louis, he wrote, “was a credit to his race, the human race.” It was his most-frequently-quoted line.
In an early story, Cannon named Sam Langford the best pound-for-pound fighter of all time. Later he joined with his colleagues on Press Row in naming Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest of the greats. As for the fellow who anointed himself “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali, Cannon profoundly disliked him. He persisted in calling him Cassius Clay long after Ali had adopted his Muslim name.
It troubled Cannon that Ali was afforded an opportunity to fight for the title after only 19 pro fights. Ali’s poetry, he thought, was infantile. He abhorred Ali’s political views. And, truth be told, he didn’t like Ali because certain segments of society adored him. Cannon didn’t like non-conformists – hippies and anti-war protesters and such. When queried about his boyhood in Greenwich Village, he was quick to note that he lived there “when it was a decent neighborhood, before it became freaky.”
Cannon’s animus toward Ali spilled over into his opinion of Ali’s foil, the bombastic sportscaster Howard Cosell. “If Howard Cosell were a sport,” he wrote,” it would be roller derby.”
Cannon frequently filled his column with a series of one-liners published under the heading “Nobody Asked Me, But…” His wonderfully acerbic put-down of Cosell appeared in one of these columns. But one can’t read these columns today without cringing at some of his ruminations. He once wrote, “Any man is in trouble if he falls in love with a woman he can’t knock down with one punch.” If a newspaperman wrote those words today, he would be out of a job so fast it would make his head spin.
Similarly, his famous line about Joe Louis being a credit to the human race no longer resonates in the way that it once did. There is in its benevolence an air of racial prejudice.
Jimmy Cannon was a lifelong bachelor but in his younger days before he quit drinking cold turkey in 1948, he was quite the ladies man, often seen promenading showgirls around town. Like his pal Damon Runyon, he was a night owl. As the years passed, however, he became somewhat reclusive. The world passed him by when rock n’ roll came in, pushing aside the Tin Pan Alley crooners and torch singers that had kept him company at his favorite late-night haunts.
Cannon’s end days were tough. He suffered a stroke in 1971 as he was packing to go to the Kentucky Derby and spent most of his waking hours in his last two-plus years in a wheelchair. Fortunately, he could afford to hire a full-time attendant. In 2002, he was posthumously elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category.
Jimmy Cannon once said that he resented it when someone told him that his stuff was too good to be in a newspaper. It was demeaning to newspapers and he never wanted to be anything but a newspaperman. He didn’t always bring his “A” game and some of his stuff wouldn’t hold up well, but the man could write like blazes and the sportswriting profession lost a giant when he drew his last breath.
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Arne K. Lang is a recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling. His latest book, titled Clash of the Little Giants: George Dixon, Terry McGovern, and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910, was released by McFarland in September, 2022.
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Ryan “KingRy” Garcia Returns With a Bang; KOs Oscar Duarte

It was a different Ryan “KingRy” Garcia the world saw in defeating Mexico’s rugged Oscar Duarte, but it was that same deadly left hook counter that got the job done by knockout on Saturday.
Only the quick survive.
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) used a variety of stances before luring knockout artist Duarte (26-1-1, 21 KOs) into his favorite punch before a sold-out crowd at Toyota Arena in Houston, Texas. That punch should be patented in gold.
It was somewhat advertised as knockout artist versus matinee idol, but those who know the sport knew that Garcia was a real puncher. But could he rebound from his loss earlier this year?
The answer was yes.
Garcia used a variety of styles beginning with a jab at a prescribed distance via his new trainer Derrick James. It allowed both Garcia and Duarte to gain footing and knock the cobwebs out of their reflexes. Garcia’s jab scored most of the early points during the first three rounds. He also snapped off some left hooks and rights.
“He was a strong fighter, took a strong punch,” said Garcia. “I hit him with some hard punches and he kept coming.”
Duarte, an ultra-pale Mexican from Durango, was cautious, knowing full well how many Garcia foes had underestimated the power behind his blows.
Slowly the muscular Mexican fighter began closing in with body shots and soon both fighters were locked in an inside battle. Garcia used a tucked-in shoulder style while Duarte pounded the body, back of the head and in the back causing the referee to warn for the illegal punches twice.
Still, Duarte had finally managed to punch Garcia with multiple shots for several rounds.
Around the sixth round Garcia was advised by his new trainer to begin jabbing and moving. It forced Duarte out of his rhythm as he was unable to punch without planting his feet. Suddenly, the momentum had reversed again and Duarte looked less dangerous.
“I had to slow his momentum down. That softened him up,” said Garcia about using that change in style to change Duarte’s pressure attack. “Shout out to Derrick James.”
Boos began cascading from the crowd but Garcia was on a roll and had definitely regained the advantage. A quick five-punch combination rocked Duarte though not all landed. The danger made the Mexican pause.
In the eighth round Duarte knew he had to take back the momentum and charged even harder. In one lickety-split second a near invisible counter left hook connected on Duarte’s temple and he stumbled like a drunken soldier on liberty in Honolulu. Garcia quickly followed up with rights and uppercuts as Duarte had a look of terror as his legs failed to maintain stability. Down he went for the count.
Duarte was counted out by referee James Green at 2:51 of the eighth round as Garcia watched from the other side of the ring.
“I started opening up my legs a little bit to open up the shot,” explained Garcia. “When I hurt somebody that hard, I just keep cracking them. I hurt him with a counter left hook.”
The weapon of champions.
Garcia’s victory returns him back to the forefront as one of boxing’s biggest gate attractions. A list of potential foes is his to dissect and choose.
“I’m just ready to continue to my ascent to be a champion at 140,” Garcia said.
It was a tranquil end after such a tumultuous last three days.
Other Bouts
Floyd Schofield (16-0, 12 KOs) blitzed Mexico’s Ricardo “Not Finito” Lopez (17-8-3) with a four knockdown blowout that left fans mesmerized and pleased with the fighter from Austin, Texas.
Schofield immediately shot out quick jabs and then a lightning four-punch combination that delivered Lopez to the canvas wondering what had happened. He got up. Then Scholfield moved in with a jab and crisp left hook and down went Lopez like a dunked basketball bouncing.
At this point it seemed the fight might stop. But it proceeded and Schofield unleashed another quick combo that sent Lopez down though he did try to punch back. It was getting monotonous. Lopez got up and then was met with another rapid fire five- or six-punch combination. Lopez was down for the fourth time and the referee stopped the devastation.
“I appreciate him risking his life,” said Schofield of his victim.
In a middleweight clash Shane Mosley Jr. (21-4, 12 KOs) out-worked Joshua Conley (17-6-1, 11 KOs) for five rounds before stopping the San Bernardino fighter at 1:51 of the sixth round. It was Mosley’s second consecutive knockout and fourth straight win.
Mosley continues to improve in every fight and again moves up the middleweight rankings.
Super middleweight prospect Darius Fulghum (9-0, 9 KOs) of Houston remained undefeated and kept his knockout string intact with a second round pounding and stoppage over Pachino Hill (8-5-1) in 56 seconds of that round.
Photo credit: Golden Boy Promotions
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Jordan Gill TKOs Michael Conlan Who May Have Reached the End of the Road

Fighting on his home turf, two-time Olympian Michael Conlan was an 8/1 favorite over Jordan Gill tonight in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Had he won, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn was eyeing a rematch for Conlan with Leigh Wood. Their March 2022 rumble in Nottingham was a popular pick for the Fight of the Year. But the 29-year-old Gill, a Cambridgeshire man, rendered that discussion moot with a seventh-round stoppage. It was Conlan’s third loss inside the distance in the last 18 months and he would be wise to call it a day. His punch resistance is plainly not what it once was.
It was with considerable fanfare that Conlan cast his lot with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks. Tonight was his first assignment for Matchroom and his first fight at 130 pounds after coming up short in two world featherweight title fights. And he almost didn’t make it past the second round. Gill had him on the canvas in the opening minute of round two compliments of a left hook and stunned him late in the round with a right hand that left him on unsteady legs.
He survived the round and for a fleeting moment in the sixth frame it appeared that he had reversed Gill’s momentum. But Gill took charge again in the next stanza, trapping Conlan in the corner and unloading a fusillade of punches that forced referee Howard Foster to waive it off, much to the great dismay of the crowd. The official time was 1:09 of round seven.
Released by Top Rank, Conlan trained for this fight in Miami, Florida, under Pedro Diaz, best known for rejuvenating the career of Miguel Cotto. But the switch in trainer and in promoter made no difference as Conlan, who won his first amateur title at age 11, was damaged goods before he entered the ring. It was a career-defining victory for Jordan Gill (28-2-1, 9 KOs) who was not known as a big puncher and was returning to the ring after being stopped by Kiko Martinez 13 months ago in his previous start.
Semi-wind-up
In the “Battle of Belfast,” undefeated welterweight Lewis Crocker seized control in the opening round and went on to win a lopsided decision over intra-city rival Tyrone McKenna (23-4-1). Two of the judges gave Crocker every round and the other had it 98-92, but yet this was entertaining fight in spurts. McKenna had more fans in the building, but Crocker, seven years younger at age 26, went to post a 7/2 favorite and youth was served.
Other Bouts of Note
Belfast super welterweight Caoimhin Agyarko, who overcame a near-fatal mugging at age 20, advanced to 14-0 (7) with a 10-round split decision over Troy Williamson (20-2-1). The judges had it 98-92 and 97-93 for Agyarko with a dissenter submitting a curious 96-94 score for the 31-year-old Williamson who wasn’t able to exploit his advantages in height and reach.
Sean McComb, a 31-year-old Belfast southpaw, scored what was arguably the best win of his career with a 10-round beat-down of longtime sparring partner Sam Maxwell. Two of the judges gave McComb every round and the other had it 99-88. McComb, who has an interesting nickname, “The Public Nuisance, successfully defended his WBO European super welterweight strap while elevating his record to 18-1 (6). The fading, 35-year-old Maxwell, a former BBBofC British title-holder, lost for third time in his last four starts after winning his first 16 pro fights.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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