For Whom the Bell Tolled: 2019 Boxing Obituaries PART ONE

Published

5 years ago

December 29, 2019

For-Whom-the-Bell-Tolled-2019-Boxing-Obituaries-Part-Two

A strong year for boxing was soured by the deaths of former ring notables and boxing personalities. In this annual year-end tribute, we acknowledge those that left us. The obits are running in two parts with the decedents listed chronologically according to the date of their passing. PART ONE covers January through May.

Jan. 2 – ALBERTO REYES – His father Cleto Reyes began manufacturing boxing gloves in the 1940s. Alberto took the company into the international market in the 1970s and Reyes gloves, originally made by hand, are now sold on five continents. Known as a puncher’s glove, Muhammad Ali used them for his rematch with Leon Spinks and Manny Pacquiao wouldn’t use any other kind. At age 63 or 66 (reports vary) in Mexico City.

Jan. 4 – MICKEY CRAWFORD – The Saginaw, Michigan welterweight fought seven times on national television during the era of the Gillette-sponsored Friday Night Fights. Crawford lacked a knockout punch but had the tools to scrape by such notables as Paddy DeMarco, Wallace “Bud” Smith, Gil Turner and Chico Vejar. He was 22-5-1 during a brief four-year career. At age 84 in Saginaw.

Jan. 13 – ADOLPH PRUITT – Born in Mississippi, Pruitt fought extensively in Honolulu where he had 21 of his 60 fights. During a 12-year career that began in 1961, he compiled a 46-12-2 record. A three-time world title challenger who competed at 140 and 147 pounds, he defeated such notables as Ernie “Indian Red” Lopez, Oscar “Shotgun” Albarado and Hedgemon Lewis. At age 79 in St. Louis.

Jan. 21 – JAN de BRUIN – A Dutchman, de Bruin was 54-10-6 in a 12-year career that began in 1942. He fought such notables as Dave Sands (L 10), Randy Turpin (L TKO 6), and Sugar Ray Robinson (L TKO 8) during Robinson’s second European tour. At age 95 in his birthplace of Rotterdam.

Jan. 24 – HUGH McILVANNEY – A ringside witness to all of the most celebrated fights during the last four decades of the 20^th century, McIlvanney’s prose drew comparisons to A.J. Liebling, the highest compliment one can pay a boxing writer. The Scotland-born McIlvanney was voted Great Britain’s Sports Journalist of the Year seven times and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2009. At age 84 from cancer.

Feb. 7 – ROCKY LOCKRIDGE – Lockridge won the lineal 130-pound title in 1984 with a spectacular one-punch knockout of Roger Mayweather. During his career he fought a host of great fighters, finishing 44-9 with 36 knockouts. In retirement he battled substance abuse and became homeless, a story chronicled on the reality TV series “Intervention.” A series of strokes preceded his death at age 60 in his caregiver’s home in Camden, New Jersey.

Feb. 19 – JOSE “CHIQUILIN” GARCIA – An iconic Los Angeles sports photographer who was on a first name basis with athletes from sundry sports, “Chiquilin” covered hundreds of West Coast fights, big and small, and played a central role in developing La Opinion into one of America’s foremost Spanish-language newspapers. At age 78 in Huntington Park, CA.

MARCH 1 – EUSEBIO PEDROZA – Active from 1973 to 1986 (with a brief comeback in the early 1990s), Pedroza won the WBA featherweight title in 1978 with a 13^th round TKO of Spain’s Cecilio Lastra and held the title for seven years and two months, during which he set a division record with 19 successful defenses. Inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1999, Pedroza was 62 when he succumbed to pancreatic cancer in his native Panama City.

March 8 – FREEDA FOREMAN – The daughter of Big George Foreman, Freeda was working for UPS in South Carolina when she was lured into boxing by the promise of big money fights with Laila Ali and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, both of whom had recently turned pro in the footsteps of their famous fathers. But Freeda’s heart wasn’t in it and she retired after only six pro fights, having won five. At age 52 in her Houston-area home, a suicide.

March 10 – DANNY ROMERO SR – Many of Albuquerque’s best boxers learned the craft at Romero’s Hideout Boxing Club gym. Johnny Tapia trained here during his early days, but Romero’s prize prospect was his namesake son who won world titles in two weight divisions and fought crosstown rival Tapia in a big 115-pound unification fight in in 1997, losing a unanimous decision in Las Vegas. The elder Romero, who had a liver transplant in 2005, was 63 when he passed in Albuquerque.

March 20 – JAIME RIOS – A Panamanian, Rios won the inaugural WBA 108-pound world title in 1975 with a 15-round decision over Venezuela’s Rigoberto Marcano, but lost the belt 11 months later to Juan Antonio Guzman. He finished his career with a record of 22-5-1. At age 65 in Panama City.

March 20 – PETE TORO – One of boxing’s greatest spoilers, Toro twice defeated Bobby Cassidy and also forged upsets of Ted Whitfield and Rodrigo Valdes. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Bronx, Toro, an Army veteran, was 28-13-3 in a 13-year career that began in 1960. He was 82 when he passed away in Florida.

March 21 – FRANCO WANYAMA – From Kampala, Uganda, Wanyama represented his homeland in the Seoul Olympics before turning pro in Belgium. In the paid ranks, he defeated future world cruiserweight titlists Carl Thompson and Johnny Nelson and scored a decision over ranked heavyweight Jimmy Thunder who outweighed him by 31 pounds. He finished 20-7-2. At age 51 of a heart attack in Rugby, England.

April 1 – KEITH KOZLIN – A super middleweight who competed from 2008 to 2012, finishing 7-3-1, Kozlin was a well-known personality on the New England boxing scene. At age 37 in his hometown of West Warwick, R.I., a suicide.

April 6 – OLLI MAKI – A baker by trade, born in Kokkola, Finland, Maki appeared in the first world title fight in Scandinavia, opposing featherweight champion Davey Moore at Helsinki in 1962. It was Maki’s 12^th pro fight and he had no business in the same ring with Moore, but 18 months later, fighting at his more natural weight, he captured the European 140-pound title. Maki made a cameo appearance in the boxing love story “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki,” an award winner at the 2016 Cannes film festival. At age 82 in a Helsinki nursing home.

April 12 – RAY JUTRAS – A lifelong resident of Lowell, Massachusetts, Jutras, who stood only 5-feet tall, turned pro and compiled a 29-6 record after winning the 1962 National Golden Gloves title at 118 pounds. At age 82 of a sudden heart attack.

April 18 – PAT DWYER – A hard punching middleweight who knocked out one of his opponents in 16 seconds, Dwyer, a Liverpudlian, compiled a 38-11-2 record during an 8-year career in which he fought such notables as Pierre Fourie, Kevin Finnegan, and Alan Minter. In retirement he ran a gym and promoted small boxing shows in Liverpool. At age 72 of undisclosed causes.

April 25 – HAL CARROLL – Born Horace Carroll in South Carolina, Carroll, who fought out of Syracuse, NY, was knocked out by light heavyweight champion Bob Foster in 1971 in a bid for Foster’s world title. He finished with a record of 31-10-1, the draw coming against heavily favored Mike Quarry. At age 78 from complications of a stroke in Syracuse where he owned an auto body shop.

April 26 – OLIVER HARRISON — A well-known boxing personality in Manchester, England, Harrison, born in Jamaica, had only 10 pro fights, winning six, but stayed in the game as a trainer. He was with Amir Khan through Khan’s first 17 pro fights and also worked with such notables as Martin Murray and Rocky Fielding. At age 59 in Manchester from cancer.

May 10 – BERT COOPER – A slugger who slugged it out with many of the era’s top heavyweights, Cooper, who patterned his style after his mentor Joe Frazier, was 38-25 (31 KOs) in a career that began as an 18-year-old cruiserweight. In 1991, as a late sub, he threw a scare into defending heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield before succumbing in the 7^th frame. He battled alcohol and drug problems, but his death at age 53 in Philadelphia came as a result of pancreatic cancer.

May 11 – HAROLD LEDERMAN – A third-generation pharmacist, born in the Bronx, the perpetually cheerful Lederman was called boxing’s greatest roving ambassador; his love of the sport was infectious. He judged hundreds of fights, including many world title fights, before joining the HBO Boxing broadcast team as the “unofficial scorer” in 1986. At age 79 from cancer with his family by his side at a hospice in Rockland County, NY.

May 22 – JESSE LEIJA – A featherweight, Leija was the first fighter from San Antonio to reach the finals of the National Golden Gloves tournament and was 16-11-1 as a pro, but is best remembered as the father and trainer of former WBC 130-pound world champion Jesse James Leija. The elder Leija was 80 when he died in San Antonio after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

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Arne K. Lang

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

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

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

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

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

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

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

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

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

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

Shields doesn’t lose.

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

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

Don’t get Shields mad.

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

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

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

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

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

Fights to Watch

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

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

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

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

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

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

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

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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