For Whom the Bell Tolled: 2019 Boxing Obituaries PART TWO

Published

5 years ago

December 31, 2019

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

The second half of 2019 was mottled by a particularly sorrowful July during which two fighters died from ring injuries suffered in fights staged one day apart. We pay tribute to them here in our annual year-end obituary page and toast the memory of other boxing personalities that left us this year. This is a continuation of Part One which covered January through May.

June 1 – J.T. ROSS – A World War II combat veteran, Ross, a tall middleweight, crammed 47 fights into a pro career that consumed less than five full years. He fought almost exclusively in central and northern California, but had his farewell fight in Madison Square Garden where he was stopped by Eugene “Silent” Hairston, reducing his final record to 41-5-2. At age 94 in Gilroy, CA.

June 8 – BILLY JOINER – He won the 1962 National Golden Gloves and AAU tournaments as a light heavyweight before turning pro under the management of George Gainford who also handled Sugar Ray Robinson. A small heavyweight, Joiner was only 12-13-3 as a pro, but he was matched tough, opposing Sonny Liston twice, Larry Holmes, and Oscar Bonavena in what would be Bonavena’s final fight. At age 81 in Springdale, OH.

June 22 – WILLIE MONROE – “Willie the Worm,” who turned pro at the Blue Horizon, stood tall in an era when Philadelphia was a hornet’s next of talented middleweights. In 1976 he outpointed Marvin Hagler and although Hagler would avenge that loss twice, Monroe would remain the only man to defeat Marvelous Marvin non-controversially. He finished 40-10-1 (26 KOs). At age 73 from complications of Alzheimer’s in the Philadelphia suburb of Sicklerville, NJ.

June 22 – EARL LARGE – The New Mexico featherweight was a regional attraction in the southwest and in Northern Mexico during a 12-year career in which he was 39-17-2. Before turning pro, Large, whose nickname was Soul Brother, was a national AAU and national Golden Gloves champion. At age 72 in Clovis, New Mexico.

July 14 – PERNELL WHITAKER – “Sweet Pea” breezed through the lightweight competition at the 1984 LA Olympics and went on to win world titles in four weight classes. One of the greatest defensive fighters in the annals of the sport, the crafty southpaw was 40-1-1 through his first 42 fights with both blemishes assailed as rip-offs. He was 55 when he was struck and killed by a vehicle while walking across a busy intersection in Virginia Beach, VA.

July 23 – MAXIM DADASHEV – A stablemate of Vasyl Lomachenko, Dadashev faced fellow unbeaten Subriel Matias at the MGM Grand National Harbor in Maryland on July 19 in a match billed for a 140-pound title eliminator. After 11 rounds, Dadashev insisted that he wanted to keep going but was overruled by his trainer Buddy McGirt who pulled him out. He left the arena in an ambulance and died four days later following emergency brain surgery. Laid to rest in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Russia, Dadashev was 28.

July 25 – HUGO ALFREDO SANTILLAN – The Argentine lightweight battled Uruguay’s Eduardo Abreu to a 10-round draw on July 20. As he was awaiting the decision, he passed out in the ring, fell into a coma, and died three days later at a hospital in Buenos Aires. A former South American super featherweight champion, Santillan (19-6-2) was 23 years old.

July 31 – BEAU WILLIFORD – A heavyweight, Williford didn’t go far as fighter, but became an important cog in the boxing apparatus — amateur and pro — from his base in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he ran the Ragin Cajun Boxing Club. He promoted dozens of small-budget shows up and down the Gulf Coast and into Oklahoma and was one of the most well-liked people in the industry. At age 69 (some say 72) in Lafayette.

Aug. 3 – JEAN CLAUDE BOUTTIER – A major celebrity in France during his boxing heyday, Bouttier compiled a record of 64-7-1 (43 KOs) during a 10-year career that began in 1965. He went 27 rounds with Carlos Monzon in two futile stabs at Monzon’s world middleweight title. In retirement, Bouttier worked as a movie actor and TV sports commentator. At age 74 in Gourney-sur-Marne, France.

Aug. 16 – JOSE NAPOLES – They said Napoles was as smooth as butter, hence his nickname, Mantequilla. He left Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power and came to the fore in Mexico City. Napoles was 15-2 in world welterweight title fights during an era when there were only two reputable sanctioning bodies. He finished his career with a mark of 81-7 (54 KOs) and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. At age 79 (or thereabouts) in Mexico City from complications of diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Aug. 24 – ARTHUR RAMALHO – He was called the patriarch of pugilism in Lowell, Massachusetts, a town with a rich boxing tradition. Ramalho’s West End Gym, which he opened in 1973, spawned numerous New England Golden Gloves champions and was featured in the movie “The Fighter,” wherein Mark Wahlberg portrayed Lowell boxing legend Micky Ward. At age 84 of lung cancer.

Oct. 9 – PADDY GRAHAM – Belfast’s Graham was 33-19-1 over the course of a 10-year career that began in 1953. A lightweight who matured into a welterweight, Graham’s opponents included Willie Toweel and future world title challenger Ted Wight. At age 87 of kidney failure in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Oct. 11 – ELOY PEREZ – Born in Mexico, Perez came to the U.S. as a toddler and grew up in largely rural Thurston County in the state of Washington. He suffered his lone defeat in what would be his final pro fight when he was stopped in the fourth round by defending WBO 130-pound champion Adrien Broner, finishing 23-1-2. Following a series of legal problems, he was deported to Mexico, dying in Tijuana at age 32. Some say a suicide and others say he was murdered.

Oct. 16 – PATRICK DAY – A 2012 U.S. Olympic Team alternate, Day suffered a traumatic head injury during the 10^th round of a 10-round fight in Chicago with 2016 Olympian Charles Conwell and died four days later without regaining consciousness. Raised in a comfortable middle class home in Freeport, New York (his father was a physician), the extremely well-liked Day was 27 years old at the time of his passing.

Patrick Day

Oct. 30 – DON FRASER – “Dandy Don,” who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, was a major cog on the Southern California boxing scene for parts of eight decades during which he wore many hats, e.g., publicist, matchmaker, promoter. At age 92 of a sudden brain aneurism at his home in Toluca Lake, CA.

Nov. 9 – DWIGHT RITCHIE – An indigenous Australian from the state of Victoria, nicknamed the Fighting Cowboy, he collapsed after absorbing a body punch in a routine sparring session with Jack Brubaker and could not be revived. He finished 19-2 after coming up short vs Tim Tszyu in a ballyhooed fight for Australian 154-pound supremacy. Ritchie was 27.

Nov. 9 – ALAN RODRIGUES – After purchasing the Silver Nugget, a small North Las Vegas casino, Rodrigues converted the basement into a boxing pavilion and juiced up the club scene with shows featuring local talent such as a past-his-prime Roger Mayweather. He would later serve time in a federal correctional institution for telemarketing scams. At age 60 in Henderson, NV.

Nov. 13 – JAMES J. BEATTIE – The six-foot-nine Beattie, whose middle name was actually William, attracted a lot of buzz early in his career but a second loss to James J. Woody sent his stock plummeting. He finished with a mark of 40-10 (32 KOs) that included losses to world title challengers Buster Mathis, Leroy Jones, and Gopher State rival Scott LeDoux. Beattie portrayed Jess Willard in the movie “The Great White Hope.” At age 77 in New Brighton, Minnesota.

Dec. 17 – SAOUL MAMBY – Mamby, who grew up in the Bronx and served a tour of duty in Viet Nam, won the WBC super lightweight title in 1979 in Korea and successfully defended it five times, but would be best remembered as the greyest of boxing’s greybeards, having had his last pro fight at age 61. In a career that spanned five decades, Mamby was routinely matched tough, opposing 12 former or future world champions while building a record of 45-34-6. At age 72. Details are vague.

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Arne K. Lang

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Published

24 hours ago

May 9, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Years ago, I worked at a newsstand in the Beverly Hills area. It was a 24-hour a day version and the people that dropped by were very colorful and unique.

One elderly woman Eva, who bordered on homeless but pridefully wore lipstick, would stop by the newsstand weekly to purchase a pack of menthol cigarettes. On one occasion, she asked if I had ever been to San Diego?

I answered “yes, many times.”

She countered “you need to watch out for San Diego Smoke.”

This Saturday, Top Rank brings its brand of prizefighting to San Diego or what could be called San Diego Smoke. Leading the fight card is Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs) defending the WBO super feather title against undefeated Filipino Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) at Pechanga Arena. ESPN will televise.

This is Navarrete’s fourth defense of the super feather title.

The last time Navarrete stepped in the boxing ring he needed six rounds to dismantle the very capable Oscar Valdez in their rematch. One thing about Mexico City’s Navarrete is he always brings “the smoke.”

Also, on the same card is Fontana, California’s Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) vying for the interim IBF lightweight title against Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-1, 12 KOs) on the co-main event.

Abdullaev has only fought once before in the USA and was handily defeated by Devin Haney back in 2019. But that was six years ago and since then he has knocked off various contenders.

Muratalla is a slick fighting lightweight who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy now in Moreno Valley, Calif. It’s a virtual boot camp with many of the top fighters on the West Coast available to spar on a daily basis. If you need someone bigger or smaller, stronger or faster someone can match those needs.

When you have that kind of preparation available, it’s tough to beat. Still, you have to fight the fight. You never know what can happen inside the prize ring.

Another fighter to watch is Perla Bazaldua, 19, a young and very talented female fighter out of the Los Angeles area. She is trained by Manny Robles who is building a small army of top female fighters.

Bazaldua (1-0, 1 KO) meets Mona Ward (0-1) in a super flyweight match on the preliminary portion of the Top Rank card. Top Rank does not sign many female fighters so you know that they believe in her talent.

Others on the Top Rank card in San Diego include Giovani Santillan, Andres Cortes, Albert Gonzalez, Sebastian Gonzalez and others.

They all will bring a lot of smoke to San Diego.

Probox TV

A strong card led by Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin (26-2, 18 KOs) facing Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0, 6 KOs) in a super welterweight clash between southpaws takes place on Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. PROBOX TV will stream the fight card.

Ardreal has rocketed up the standings and now faces veteran Lubin whose only losses came against world titlists Sebastian Fundora and Jermell Charlo. It’s a great match to decide who deserves a world title fight next.

Another juicy match pits Argentina’s Nazarena Romero (14-0-2) against Mexico’s Mayelli Flores (12-1-1) in a female super bantamweight contest.

Nottingham, England

Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KOs) defends the IBO super featherweight title against Leigh Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) in Wood’s hometown on Saturday at Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, England. DAZN will stream the Queensberry Promotions card.

Ireland’s Cacace seems to have the odds against him. But he is no stranger to dancing in the enemy’s lair or on foreign territory. He formerly defeated Josh Warrington in London and Joe Cordina in Riyadh in IBO title defenses.

Lampley at Wild Card

Boxing telecaster Jim Lampley will be signing his new book It Happened! at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 2 p.m. Lampley has been a large part of many of the greatest boxing events in the past 40 years. He and Freddie Roach will be at the signing.

Fights to Watch (All times Pacific Time)

Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Anthony Cacace (23-1) vs Leigh Wood (28-3).

Sat. PROBOX.tv 3 p.m. Erickson Lubin (26-2) vs Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1) vs Charly Suarez (18-0); Raymond Muratalla (22-0) vs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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“Breadman” Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Published

2 days ago

May 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Stephen “Breadman” Edwards’ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.

It’s true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian “J Rock” Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurd’s hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.

In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.

Edwards’ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at “Boxing Scene” in a column where he answers questions from readers.

It’s an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isn’t to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.

“Fighters are constantly mislabled,” he says. “Everyone talks about Joe Louis’s right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and it’s more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.”

Stephen “Breadman” Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.

Edwards’ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.

Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didn’t stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.

Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.

We are all a product of our times, so it’s no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadman’s estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the “Four Kings” with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.

Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonard’s three-time rival Roberto Duran. “I once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duran’s title defenses on it,” says Edwards. “This was a back before the days of YouTube.”

But Edwards’ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the “Pittsburgh Windmill” Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.

“Greb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,” says Breadman, “but there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?”

Edwards notes that in Harry Greb’s heyday, he wasn’t talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.

Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. “Body punching is a lost art,” he once wrote. “[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.”

If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38^th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesn’t seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.

Breadman discounts those variables. “Terence is older,” he says, “but has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.” That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Canelo’s performance against William Scull: “Canelo’s legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.”

Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plant’s last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.

Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, he’s at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, he’s back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.

On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. That’s assuming he can stay awake.

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

4 days ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-Good-the-Bad-and-the-(mostly)-Ugly-A-Weeend-Boxing-Recap-and-More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

****

Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

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