New Champ Teofimo Lopez Continues Upstaging Bigger Names; Lomachenko Next?

Published

5 years ago

December 15, 2019

New Champ Teofimo Lopez Continues Upstaging Bigger Names; Lomachenko Next?

NEW YORK – It is standard practice in all sports, not just boxing, that any phenom who draws growing attention is soon said to be the “new” someone or other, a stylistic successor to a superstar who previously set impossibly high standards of excellence. Such comparisons can place enormous pressure on the flavor-of-the-moment upstart, who has to deal with the long shadow cast by the legendary figure to whom he has been unfairly linked, in addition to the already-difficult task of establishing himself on his own terms.

Consider the plight of such OK-but-not-great heavyweights as Jimmy Ellis, Greg Page and Larry Donald, all of whom patterned themselves as wannabe Muhammad Alis both in and out of the ring, and in each case came up far short of replicating the one-of-a-kind original.

The iconic figure to whom newly crowned IBF lightweight champion Teofimo “The Takeover” Lopez has been most frequently compared is all-time great Roberto Duran. It is far too early in the 22-year-old Lopez’s career for such assessments to have any real validity, but what happened here Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, and quite possibly might happen next spring, could serve to legitimize the Brooklyn-born knockout artist’s chances of becoming something so much more than just another flash in the pan.

Not only did Lopez (15-0, 12 KOs) electrify the on-site crowd of 10,101 and an ESPN viewing audience with what basically was a one-punch, second-round dethronement of the formidable Richard Commey (29-3, 26 KOs), he essentially upstaged the ostensible star of the show, WBO welterweight titlist Terence “Bud” Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs), who retained that belt with a ninth-round stoppage of Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-1-1, 17 KOs). And there are more than a few knowledgeable observers of the sweet science who consider Crawford to be the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.

What makes Lopez’s latest tour de force so impressive is not the manner in which he destroyed Commey, who is arguably the finest fighter to come out of Ghana since Hall of Famer Azumah Nelson, but the fact that it was witnessed from ringside by WBC/WBA/WBO lightweight ruler Vasiliy Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs), whose next outing could pair him with the ultra-self-confident kid for the undisputed 135-pound title. There are those who would say that Lopez is still too inexperienced to test himself against Loma, another established king of the ring with ample support as the sport’s pound-for-pound best, but impatience has always been a distinguishing feature of the very young, who want what they want and want it now.

“Ya’ll know who I want to fight next,” Lopez, in a not-so-veiled reference to Lomachenko, said after he separated Commey from his senses with a crushing overhand right that sent the Ghanaian crashing to the canvas early in round two. A fighter’s natural competitive instincts enabled a discombobulated Commey to lurch to his feet on unsteady legs, and those same instincts sent him backing into the ropes for support, as if there was any to be had. Lopez knew just what to do, boring in and taking target practice against an opponent incapable of fighting back until referee David Fields stepped in and acknowledged the inevitable after an elapsed time of 1 minute, 13 seconds.

Lomachenko is just as cocksure in his assessment of his abilities as Lopez is in his, and he said, sure, he’d be open to a clear-the-decks showdown with Lopez, a match that seemingly could be made easily since both fighters are promoted by Top Rank and thus regularly appear on ESPN telecasts.

“We want all the titles,” Lomachenko said of a scrap Top Rank CEO and founder Bob Arum said he is just as anxious to make as the would-be combatants. “Now (Lopez) is a world champion and interesting for me, because he has a title. I think yes (that his next bout will be against Lopez). I will prepare for this fight.”

It could well be that Lopez, who won his weight class at the 2015 U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials but was inexplicably left off the American squad, obliging him to represent his father’s birth country of Honduras in Rio de Janeiro, is getting too far ahead of himself in pressing for an immediate go at Loma. Canelo Alvarez, then only 23, was not nearly as well-rounded a fighter as he is now when he took on Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Sept. 14, 2013, losing a unanimous decision. The more prudent move might have been for Team Canelo to wait a couple of years for the Mexican sensation, another claimant to the much-debated pound-for-pound throne, to gain more seasoning, but, again, youth always feels it must be served sooner rather than later.

Promoter Lou DiBella, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 14, had a vested interest in the Commey-Lopez fight as he has Commey, but he couldn’t help but be impressed by what he’d seen of the winner.

“He’s got dynamite in his fists,” DiBella said of Lopez. “All you can do is just shrug your shoulders and say, `OK.’ That kid is a very athletic offensive force. Richard got caught with that dynamite and that was that. The fight was over when that big punch landed.”

But there is more to Lopez’s evolution as a potential megastar than a big punch. Style points count at the box office as much as talent, and DiBella said Lopez “has charisma coming out the ying-yang. When you have that kind of arsenal, you have a chance against anybody, including Loma.”

Lopez certainly understood – again – that this most recent occasion to shine came on the same night as the Heisman Trophy presentation in New York City. He celebrated another star turn by quickly tugging on an LSU football jersey bearing the No. 9 worn this season by Heisman-winning quarterback Joe Burrow, a virtual replay of what Lopez did on another Heisman night in 2018, when he needed only 44 seconds to demolish veteran contender Menard Menard at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, whereupon he produced a red Oklahoma jersey with the No. 1 worn by Sooners quarterback Kyler Murray.

It might be said that Teofimo Lopez is now the quarterback of his own destiny. And should he do unto Loma what he did to Menard, Commey and more than a few others, maybe those way-too-early comparisons to Duran won’t seem quite so wildly exaggerated.

Circumstances making the possibility of a Lomachenko-Lopez showcase event being made without fuss or bother must be at least a bit irksome to Crawford, who, despite still being at the top of his game, is 32 and possibly aware that his window of opportunity for making the high-visibility, high-paying legacy fights he desires must soon begin to close, at least a little.

No disrespect to Kavaliauskas, an Oxnard, Calif.-based Lithuanian whose full name is so long that for brevity’s sake it was shortened to his nickname, “Mean Machine,” on all promotional materials, but he is not on the more exalted tier as WBC/IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr., WBA welter titlist Manny Pacquiao and former division champs Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter, all of whom are controlled by Premier Boxing Champions, Matchroom Sport, DAZN or Fox/Showtime. That is a reality that, whether fight fans like it or not, diminishes the likelihood of their ever sharing the ring with Crawford.

Nor is Crawford, an introvert by nature indisposed to the sort of chest-thumping that is second nature to others, apt to brag and preen his way into a brighter spotlight. He does most of his talking with his fists, and they again made a compelling argument as to his exceptional skill level, if perhaps at a lower audible than, say, Ali, Mayweather or even the evolving Lopez.

Deftly switching from southpaw to orthodox and back again, as is his wont, Crawford – a native of Omaha, Neb., who was cheered on by an actual Heisman Trophy winner, Nebraska’s Johnny Rodgers, who made his way to the Garden after appearing at the Heisman presentation – probed for weaknesses in Mean Machine’s defenses before turning up the heat in the fifth round, when, from an orthodox stance, he registered the first of his three knockdowns with a straight right. He put his game opponent down twice more in the ninth, prompting referee Ricky Gonzalez to wave a halt to the proceedings after an elapsed time of 44 seconds. At the time of the stoppage, Crawford led 79-72 on two of the three official scorecards and by 78-73 on the other.

“I thought I’d have to entertain ya’ll for a little bit,” Crawford said of his tactical delay before pressing the issue. “He’s a strong fighter, durable, and I thought I’d give the crowd something to cheer for.”

Arum suggested that, standard roadblocks to the contrary, Crawford’s next opponent could be Shawn Porter, but that hardly seems as inevitable at this point as Lomachenko-Lopez. To say Crawford is frustrated at being fenced off from the kind of competition that could certify his belief that he is an all-time great would be an understatement.

“I’ll fight anybody. I’ve been saying that for I don’t know how long,” he said, somewhat ruefully. “I’m not ducking anyone on the PBC side or Top Rank platform. I want to fight all the top guys.”

In the third fight of the card televised by ESPN, two-time Olympian Michael “Mick” Conlan (13-0, 7 KOs), the Northern Island representative who believed he was screwed out of a medal in Rio on a controversial decision that went to Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin, and responded to the verdict by taking off his gloves and giving obscene single-finger expressions of his discontent to Russian president Putin, who was seated at ringside, got his revenge of sorts on a wide, 10-round unanimous decision over Nikitin (3-1, no KOs).

“I needed to right this wrong,” Conlan said. “Full credit to Nikitin, who fought his heart out. There’s no bad blood. There never was. Now, we can put this chapter of my career behind me.”

Photo credit: Mikey Williams for Top Rank

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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

6 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

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