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Logic in Boxing is an Oxymoron

Logic in Boxing is an Oxymoron
In 1996, David Tua KOed future world champion John Ruiz in 19 seconds with a left hook from hell. In 2002, he dispatched former world champion Michael Moorer in 30 seconds with an explosive straight right. A prime Tua was a heavy load for anyone.
After losing to Chris Byrd in 2001, he went on an undefeated streak of 14 including the aforementioned blow-out of Moorer and a slaughter of countryman Shane Cameron, the Mountain Warrior, in a 2009 fight billed as the âFight of the Centuryâ in New Zealand. Tua came into the fight in the best shape of his career having lost a significant amount of weight.
In the first round, Tua hurt and decked Cameron twice with a crushing and accurate attack and even hit him while he was on the canvas. He ended matters 20 seconds into round two with 13 consecutive heavy and accurate blows, all to Cameronâs head. This ending was not for the squeamish or faint of heart.
After beating Friday Ahunanya, the âTerminatorâ was then held to an upset draw by a fading Monte â2Gunzâ Barrett (34-9 coming in) in Atlantic City, NJ. It appeared that Davidâs great run was coming to an end, especially since Barrett came into the fight having lost six of his last nine.
A year later in 2011, Barrett, now 40 years old, beat a sluggish Tua by a clear UD and in New Zealand no less. Tua lost for the first time since being out-classed by Chris Byrd 10 years earlier. Sadly, Tua also told the press that he was broke and homeless and that he was uncertain about his boxing future. He stepped aside from boxing with a myriad of personal issues including depression and a divorce.
Meanwhile, Barrett was scheduled to fight Shane Cameron in July 2012 though he badly wanted a third fight with local hero Tua because he knew it would be a bigger draw. He also resented accusations that he had taken steroids (accusations that never panned out because of procedural irregularities).
Monte was stung by these accusations and lashed out at Tua. âAfter I beat up on Shane,â he said, âIâm going to give Tua one more chance to whip his fat arse into shape and get his act togetherâŠFor me, itâs that or nothing. I want David to take my last fight. After his wife finished pounding on him with their divorce I donât know if heâll have enough for me. I hope he will.â
âDavid doesnât do anyone proud,â continued the vengeful Barrett. âHeâs an embarrassment to New Zealand. Heâs a lazy, fat slob. He doesnât apply himself. He can die a loser and never get a chance to redeem himself or be a man. The first fight his shoulder was hurt and the gloves were too bigâŠ.The second fight he claimed I was taking steroids. Whatâs his excuse for the third fight? I know New Zealand wants to see itâŠ.He will probably make every excuse because heâs a coward. I used to have a lot of respect for David. But he doesnât appreciate the status he has and realize the whole country is behind him.â
Shane Cameron, meanwhile, seemed to be lost in the shuffle, but he remained Monte Barrettâs stepping stone to a lucrative payday. Barrett, a resident of Bayonne, New Jersey, would be risking the WBO Asia and WBO Oriental heavyweight belts that he won when he defeated David Tua, belts formerly held by Cameron.
Barrett vs. Cameron
Cameron won the first three rounds which were uneventful. Early in the fourth, both threw monster right hands simultaneously. Cameronâs got there first, rendering 2Gunz unconscious and producing a very scary moment for everyone at ringside.
This frightening result afformed that Monte had been shot for some time but further certified that David Tua was even more shot. And yet, Tua was able to crush Cameron who in turn crushed Monte Barrett.
Go figure. There was absolutely no logic in what transpired here.
Many more examples would follow. Ricardo Mayorga, for example, scored two wins over Vernon Forrest who owned two wins over Shane Mosley, but Mosley KOed Mayorga twice. Expecting logic to exist in boxing is something one does at his or her peril.
Ted Sares can be reached at tedsares@roadrunner.com
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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseballâs most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, âCurmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.â
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmelâs stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop oneâs latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sportâs top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a fatherâs unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. âFloyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,â says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floydâs ear. âThis kid is special,â they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of âThe Money Team.â In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception â Gervonta âTankâ Davis, now one of boxingâs top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. âI felt ready,â he said, âI knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.â
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Motonâs boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. âI grew up watching Floyd, so itâs natural I have some similarities to him,â says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac âPitbullâ Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. Itâs not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmelâs presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmelâs first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 œ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road itâs reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. â[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,â he said without hesitation,â great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.â
Itâs notable that there isnât a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldnât bet against it.
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Arneâs Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New Yorkâs Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of Americaâs largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writersâ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isnât a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the eventâs organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasnât a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New Yorkâs charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. âJimmyâ Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. âBoxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,â said hizzoner. âSo I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesnât belong in this town or in your game.â (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldnât have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the cityâs top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew âmore than 200â according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New Yorkâs newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischerâs baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isnât necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a âtalkieâ has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put  words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexicoâs Marilyn Badilloâs elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.
Will it be her last flyweight defense?
Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.
Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.
The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.
Mexicoâs Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.
Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.
âShe was kind of doing her ducking thing,â said Fundora describing Badilloâs defensive tactics. âI just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didnât give her that break.â
The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.
In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighterâs corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.
Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.
Perez Beats Conwell.
Mexicoâs Jorge âChinoâ Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.
It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.
Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.
Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perezâs busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.
It was Conwellâs first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.
Other Bouts
Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.
It was very close.
Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.
Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.
One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.
Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.
Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.
Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Ricoâs Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.
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