The Top Ten Cruiserweights of the Decade 2010-2019

Published

5 years ago

February 2, 2020

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The decade of 2010-2019 was a great one for the cruiserweights and it is quite possible that in this divisional rundown of the ten best in each weight class, 200lbs will not be bettered. It was two eras, really, with one or two of the giants from the first throwing wild hooks at giants from the second as the decade roared to an end. Multiple lineal champions, quality contenders of varied styles and proclivities made it the finest decade for fights and fighters in the division’s short history.

Rankings are by Ring Magazine until the inception of the TBRB in October of 2012.

10 – Ola Afolabi

Peak Ranking: 3 Record for the Decade: 8-4-1 Ranked For: 58% of the Decade

I suspect Ola Afolabi will be something of a controversial pick.

He shouldn’t be. This man defined the term “road warrior” after the retirement of light-heavyweight Glen Johnson. British, born to Nigerian parents, he was a fighter who trained out of California but came out swinging in places as far flung as Argentina, Russia, and many spots in between. A chin hewn of titanium and an underrated jab saw him do damage on four different continents. That story began in earnest in 2009 when he got his first of four shots at cruiserweight Don Marco Huck and dropped the narrowest of decisions in an excellent fight. Treading water through the early part of the decade, he was re-matched with Huck in 2012.

That fight was probably the best of the year and among the best of the decade; Huck-Afolabi II was a heart-fueled war fought tight by two men made of granite. They may have delivered the best twelfth round of the century.

The wider context here is the result of the fight as seen by the judges, which was both gratifying and surprising in Huck’s adopted German stronghold: a draw. Anything close would have been reasonable but Afolabi earned his share, the best result he would achieve against the Serbian tough in four attempts.

That draw and the fact that Afolabi over-achieved away from home is enough to get him to #10 here. It may sound thin but thin is enough; Afolabi’s best cruiserweight win is over Rakhim Chakhkiev, a victory from an Indian summer interrupting what was at times a bizarre final act in his career. It objectively puts him alongside the likes of Tony Bellew and Steve Cunningham (who did most of his good work in the decade before) so that precious draw with Huck makes Afolabi one of the ten most accomplished cruiserweights of the decade.

09 – Krzysztof Wlodarczyk

Peak Ranking: 2 Record for the Decade: 16-2 Ranked For: 70% of the Decade

Diablo (“Devil)” was at the vanguard of the European assault on the cruiserweight division in the early part of the decade, a clever, adaptable fighter who was well tooled but battled physical limitations while establishing himself at the top of the division.

Neither particularly fast, strong, nor powerful, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk isn’t even an elite counterpuncher in the truest sense of the word, rather he uses baiting footwork to invite opposition to pressure his space whereupon he launches left-hand heavy attacks led by the jab and a well-disguised hook. His underused right became something of a surprise weapon for him, almost by default. It rescued him against the likes of Danny Green, thousands of miles from home and behind on the scorecards. Diablo had some layers.

What he does not have is a deep resume for the decade, his best win a breakdown of Giacobbe Fragomeni in 2010. Fragomeni had been the recipient of a gift in the form of a draw the year before and in the rematch the Pole seemed determined to robe the judges of their responsibilities. In a signature performance he dominated with mobility and jab before introducing hurtful punches which had a terminal cumulative effect. Disciplined and controlled and only allowing himself to fight with more commitment when he had his opponent off balance or out of step, Wlodarczyk stepped up the pain and the pressure in the seventh to earn his stoppage win.

2013 was his prime year and included a curbstomp of anointed prospect Rakhim Chakhkiev but he could not stem the tide; Grigory Drozd and then Murat Gassiev found him, forcing him to make way for a new generation. He is still active though – and well-handled prospects still give him a wide-berth.

08 – Yuniel Dorticos

Peak Ranking: 2 Record for the Decade: 22-1 Ranked For: 34% of the Decade

Here then is the first entry from the second era of the decade, Cuban puncher Yuniel Dorticos, although it should be noted that he started boxing professionally way back in 2009. It’s been a long and winding road for the Miami resident who has taken a relaxed route to the top but whose patience is now revealing the counterpunch. He meets Mairis Briedis in March to determine who is the first best cruiser of the new decade in a fight that is not to be missed.

Dorticos graduated against Youri Kalenga, an established fighter and a juddering puncher in his own right. Joyfully, Dorticos confirmed himself as a boxer of direct aggression up against top-line opposition just as he was in dusting journeymen; his work also carries a pragmatists streak, however, and he recognizes advantages and actions them accordingly. Dorticos is listed at 6’3” with an 80” reach and so sometimes uses the backfoot.

He moved through the gears after Kalenga and Dmitry Kudryashov (his next opponent) to face Murat Gassiev in what was another wonderful fight but was also a step too far for Dorticos. Gassiev eventually broke the Cuban and sent him spilling through the ropes but not before he had swallowed bomb upon bomb and proven his chin and heart both. Rebounding since that lost with two wins against fighters ranked in the top five (Mateusz Masternak and Andrew Tabiti), Dorticos showed ambition to match that heart and chin.

07 – Krzysztof Glowacki

Peak Ranking: 3 Record for the Decade: 23-2 Ranked For: 37% of the Decade

Krzysztof Glowacki emerged from Poland to replace Wlodarczyk as his country’s premier cruiserweight and soon had overhauled him, becoming one of a stacked division’s preeminent fighters. In a 200lb class stuffed with deluxe brawlers he was, for a time, the best.

He proved it most dramatically by out-thugging Marco Huck, nearing the end, but still venomous in a throwdown, dangerous enough that he held a narrow lead at the opening of the eleventh round. Glowacki, technically unequal to the task of out-fighting Huck, had invested heavily in the body. Gradually, ominously, Huck’s hands began to drop to try to keep those booming hooks from his ribs and gut. Huck had been beaten just once that decade, in a questionable decision up at heavyweight, and to watch the younger, less experienced, but more substantial Glowacki crumble Huck’s battlement was one of the great sights of the decade in any division for those paying attention. There seemed a dreamlike inevitability to it which certainly had not existed at the first bell and when Glowacki landed a delightful little short right traveling up and through the head behind a grazing left-hook it made a strange kind of sense. Huck survived that knockdown – they say the power is the last thing to go, though often it is the heart – but no man would have survived what Glowacki brought behind it. It was a minor upset and a true passing of the torch, from one streetfighter to another.

In his very next fight he devastated another old man, burying Steven Cunningham –39 and confusingly matching a fighter who is the very definition of nightmarish for an ageing warrior – under a barrage of knockdowns and picking up a decision, before running afoul of Oleksander Usyk. There is no shame here but when, after beating number five contender Maksim Vlasov, he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in a rough fight, there was a sense that he had found his level – better than most, but not capable of hanging with the very best.

Hence, number seven.

06 – Mairis Briedis

Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 25-1 Ranked For: 28% of the Decade

That Mairis Briedis is ranked outside the top six is indicative of just how strong this list of ten is. I’ll wager that no other weight division has a number six of this quality.

Briedis is iron-hued. He reportedly took some of Wladimir Klitschko’s finest punches in sparring without giving ground. A stylish and skillful boxer, he has delivered nineteen knockouts for his twenty-six victories and lost just a single contest, a majority decision where Oleksandr Usyk defeated him by a single point.

That, alone, is enough to get him on the shortlist, but Briedis has done fine work. He landed on the division in earnest in 2016, beating up a fellow prospect who had achieved contender status in the shape of Olanrewaju Durodola. It was a performance that oozed confidence and seemingly belied his limited experience although even as he (somewhat controversially) closed the show in a hurtful ninth round, Briedis seemed perhaps a little short of gas.

In light of that fact I was a little surprised to see him matched with Marco Huck little less than a year later. Huck was on his way down the rankings, Briedis on his way up, but if ever there was a veteran possessed of the ability to make an inexperienced fighter short of stamina pay it was Huck. I needn’t have worried. This was the fight where Briedis showed his left hand as directly comparable to that of Usyk, taking a clear decision over his veteran foe all while smothering Huck’s offense and coping with his rougher tactics like a ten-year veteran

Briedis came up short against Usyk of course, barely, but has since dispatched no less a figure than Krzystztof Glowacki in three rounds. That, probably, was Briedis’s best win and it leaves him poised to become the pre-eminent cruiserweight of the next decade should he master Dorticos in March.

05 – Yoan Pablo Hernandez

Peak Ranking: Ch. Record for the Decade: 9-0 Ranked For: 43% of the Decade

In a sense, Yoan Pablo Hernandez was the decade’s big disappointment. A product of the Cuban amateur system and German professional promotion, he was a strange mix of schooled and staid in style, borrowing from both boxing cultures and his southpaw right jab was a noted punch.

Lineal champion in the first part of the decade, Hernandez suffered badly with injuries and even illness. Plagued by knee and elbow problems he spent the best part of a year sat out and plotting his comeback after a rather flat 2014 win over Firat Arslan. It would be his last. He never returned to the ring.

He had been dazzling, however, against Steve Cunningham in 2011 with the legitimate cruiserweight title on the line. A consummate boxer, Cunningham sought to move his way through that fight but Hernandez controlled him with superb footwork, keeping his toe outside of Cunningham’s left foot almost throughout while dropping an excellent jab to the body.

In his rematch with the deposed champion, he staged the best performance of his career and one of the finest in the divisional decade, battering Cunningham to a virtual standstill in the fourth and coming within a hair’s breadth of stopping him, the star punches a right hook to the body and a two-piece built from a jab and uppercut.

Hernandez’s resume for the decade isn’t particularly deep with victories over Troy Ross and Firat Aslan probably his next best; he wasn’t always as glittering as he was that second night against Cunningham either and it seemed for every such performance there was a Steve Helerius where he remained in control but perhaps not imperious.

Still, he was the lineal champion and a very good fighter. It is hard to picture the top five without him.

04 – Denis Lebedev

Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 13-3 Ranked For: 88% of the Decade

Denis Lebedev is arguably the definitive cruiserweight puncher for the decade and is certainly the definitive survivor. No man was ranked for more weeks than the Russian, who managed to hang on for nearly nine of the ten years at hand, something both unusual and impressive.

He has been around long enough to have beaten up an injured James Toney and obliterated an out-gunned Roy Jones in 2011 but also to have staged a failed comeback attempt against current #8 contender Thabiso Mchunu just last year. In the trunk of his career he lost two fights: in 2010 he was unlucky to drop a desperately close split to Marco Huck in his German stronghold. Six years later he met fellow Russian Murat Gassiev, the “new Huck” in many ways and was unlucky once more in receiving the stiff end of the decision.

Lebedev was robbed in neither contest, but I preferred him in both. Huck was given the benefit of the doubt in three close rounds on my scorecard and I saw the result, still, as a draw. Against Gassiev I had it to the older man by a single point despite his being dropped heavily with body punches. These narrow, narrow losses hurt Lebedev. Had he won both, he would have been unbeaten for the decade, that disastrous comeback aside, and would have a case for making the #1 slot; had he won one or the other, he would rank above the defeated man. On such tiny margins do legacies turn.

Still, those close losses speak for him somewhat as do wins over Kalenga, Pawel Kolodziej, Toney, Jones and, best of all, a brutal second round dispatch of Victor Emilio Ramirez.

03 – Marco Huck

Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 14-4-1 Ranked For: 71% of the Decade

Second only to Denis Lebedev for longevity of relevance, Marco Huck’s name resounds throughout the decade as one that matters.

In honesty though, he needed that decade to build his legacy; Huck has done more than the likes of Briedis but needed twice the time to organize it. His impact in the second part of the decade was very limited. The made men who fell to Huck fell during the first half of the decade when he was in his fearsome prime.

And what a prime it was. Huck’s rambling offense looked disorganized but was anything but and there was no fighter more skilled in the art of the wait. Patience is a commodity much less valuable since the reduction of the championship distance from fifteen to twelve rounds but Huck, from very early his career, had the smarts and the guts to make it work. The benefits were many but chief among them were that he carried his power and his workrate late into fights and his sense of when his opponent was beginning to give was as well developed as his strategic timing. With the possible exception of Usyk, nobody ever had Huck completely and finally beat; there was always the chance he might rally and crush a tiring opponent.

Lebedev was probably the finest scalp Huck took in his pomp, but Afolabi and Firat Arslan both succumbed more than once to Huck’s guile.

The second half of the decade though, overall, was not a success. Glowacki cracked him in eleven rounds, devastating his mystique; a relatively unimpressed Briedis outpointed him by distance; then Usyk put a bitter beating upon him.

Huck was my first choice for the second slot but a closer look gave me a feeling, despite his longevity as a contender that he was making up the numbers from around 2015. Still, a powerfully impressive first half of the decade secures him the number three slot.

02 – Murat Gassiev

Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 26-1 Ranked For: 29% of the Decade

Murat Gassiev was ranked for a fraction of the time that Huck was ranked for, but only once could he have been considered a true underdog. Gassiev was Huck plus, patient in the stalk but both more powerful and precise in the punch.

The year after his razor-thin defeat of Lebedev, Gassiev found himself in the ring with another veteran in the shape of Wlodarczyk, still clinging on to a top ten ranking and still respected enough to command a berth in the cruiserweight World Boxing Super Series tournament. As detailed above, Wlodarczyk, like Lebedev, like Huck, had all the necessary qualities to torture a less experienced foe. Gassiev steam-rolled him. He was thoughtful about it; he felt his man out – but in the end, he just bombed through him. The body punch that ended matters was hard enough to end all resistance but casual enough to strike fear into the hearts of lesser men.

Yunier Dorticos though, didn’t box scared against Gassiev when the two met early in 2018 but Gassiev sat down on his work in the second half of the fight and finally dumped his game opponent out of the ring and onto the apron in the dying seconds of the twelfth. He had turned in two winning performances against two elite cruisers in back-to-back contests and when the match with Usyk was made that summer the boxing world appeared to have the fight it most wanted to see.

In fact, it proved a mismatch. Usyk summited to greatness that night and Gassiev found himself scrambling around in the foothills seeking survival rather than victory. Injury has since robbed him of heavyweight riches.

Nevertheless, he was a prestigious puncher at the 200lb limit and seemingly impervious to the violent attentions of elite opposition. Gassiev isn’t locked at number two, and Huck, certainly, has a very reasonable case for being ranked above him, but in the end I’ve been more forgiving of Gassiev’s failure to beat Usyk in his prime than Huck’s failure to beat Glowacki, Briedis and Usyk just past his.

01 – Oleksandr Usyk

Peak Ranking: Ch. Record for the Decade: 17-0 Ranked For: 46% of the Decade

I’m unsure how many undisputed decadal number ones we will run into in the course of this series, but I do know that Oleksandr Usyk is one.

Marco Huck, ranked number three here, made the bad mistake of making things personal with Usyk in the run-up to their September 2017 contest. That is the Usyk fight to watch or re-watch if you want to see him at his most vicious. Not a noted puncher but one who hit often and hard enough to mix his man’s mind, Uysk is happy with a decision as a general rule but it was clear in the case of Huck that he coveted the stoppage. So motivated, he turned the trick more quickly than the brute Glowacki, taking him out in ten, faster than any other fighter. Tony Bellew, too, who returned from his adventures at heavyweight late in 2018 to confront Usyk, felt the full wrath of Usyk’s most full-blooded shots, succumbing in eight.

But it is as a boxer, not a puncher, that he has most excelled in the second half of this stacked decade, most of all (and in doing so proving his indisputable supremacy over the field) in his defeat of decadal number two Gassiev. Usyk completely outclassed Gassiev, turned his stalking style against him with deluxe footwork of the highest order that saw the division’s premier puncher reaching for nothing.

Briedis stretched him further with that cultured left-hand and smarts on defense closing the gap but dropped a decision, nonetheless. Throw in wins that had something of a routine feeling over divisional strongmen like Huck and Glowacki and two things become clear: Usyk is clearly the best cruiserweight of the decade and must be named among the very best fighters of the decade.

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Remembering the Macho Man, Hector Camacho, a Great Sporting Character

Published

13 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Twelve years ago tomorrow, on Nov. 24, 2012, Hector Camacho was officially declared dead. He was effectively dead before then, having suffered a heart attack in the hospital after his spinal cord had been severed by a bullet, but his attendants at the hospital in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, waited until his mother had arrived from New York to remove him from life support.

At the age of 50, one of the most charismatic personalities in the sporting life of America was silenced forever.

Hector “Macho” Camacho, the Macho Man, was flamboyant – boy was he ever – but he was also a great talent. A three-time New York City Golden Gloves champion, reputedly 96-4 as an amateur, he was undefeated in 31 bouts at 135 pounds and below and went on to conquer some of the sport’s biggest names – Boom Boom Mancini, Vinny Pazienza, Roberto Duran (twice), Sugar Ray Leonard – before the sun set on his long career.

Camacho was born in Bayamon but grew up in Spanish Harlem where his mother moved when he was four. He was 21 years old and 21-0 as a junior lightweight when he was first profiled in Sports Illustrated, then the best medium for enhancing the marketability of a young athlete. At this juncture in his life, Hector, who became a father at age 17, was still living in a Spanish Harlem housing project, sharing an apartment with his 38-year-old mother, his stepfather, three siblings, a niece and a nephew.

By then he had already been expelled from six schools and was no stranger to the legal system, having spent 3 ½ months at New York’s notorious Rikers Island for — as Pat Putnam phrased it — borrowing other people’s automobiles without their permission.

The story in S.I. noted that Camacho’s reflexes were so quick that he could play two video games at once. Among his many physical attributes, it was his hand speed that attracted the most attention. When he ramped up his offense, his fists were a blur. But eventually, when folks thought of Camacho, what they remembered was his choirboy face with the spit curl in the middle of his forehead and his outrageous ring costumes which ran the gamut from a loincloth to a dress.

Hot-dogging came natural to Hector Camacho; it was embedded in his DNA. And in common with Muhammad Ali, he could be arrogant without coming across as arrogant. There was an impish quality to his bravado. He was fun to be around and, in his own words, could light up a room like a Christmas tree.

What Camacho lacked was any capacity for embarrassment.

Former WBA super bantamweight champion Clarence “Bones” Adams, who is now the proprietor of a Las Vegas gym that bears his name, became fast friends with the Macho Man when both trained in Las Vegas, the host city for their most lucrative fights. Mention Camacho’s name to Adams and a smile creases his face if he doesn’t burst out laughing.

“One day after Hector and I had gone jogging,” recollects Adams, “we drove over to the old White Cross Drugs [on the north Strip near the Stratosphere] to grab a bite to eat at their lunch counter. When we left and were standing outside by the car, Hector said, ‘Hold on a minute, I have to go pee.’ I said I’ll wait for you but then I noticed he was already peeing. Some cars honked as they passed by.

“Greg Hannely, my manager at the time, and I went to Detroit in 2000 to support Hector who was on the undercard of a show featuring Thomas Hearns. At the weigh-in, Hector wore a long shirt with nothing underneath it. This wasn’t apparent until he stepped off the scale and started doing jumping jacks.

“Hector,” continues Adams, “once had a Ferrari that he misplaced; he couldn’t remember where he parked it. He never did recover that car, but he wasn’t too bothered by it. His attitude was, ‘there’s always more where it came from.’” (Presumably this was the same Ferrari that Camacho was driving when he was ticketed for driving too slow with a suspended license on a Florida highway while being pleasured by a woman sitting astride him.)

Historians would compartmentalize Camacho’s career into two segments. Part One ended with his successful lightweight title defense against Edwin Rosario at Madison Square Garden on June 13, 1986.

Camacho kept his undefeated record intact, prevailing on a split decision, but ended the fight looking as if he had taken all the worst of it. Badly hurt in the fifth round and again in the 11^th, he repaired to his dressing room with a swollen nose and two black eyes.

This fight, reads a story in a Canadian paper, “persuaded him to scale back his ultra-aggressive style in favor of a more cerebral, defensive approach.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying that Camacho devolved into a runner.

In his next fight, Camacho proved too clever for Cornelius Boza-Edwards, winning a unanimous decision, but the crowd didn’t like it when Hector spent the last two rounds on his bicycle and there were boos aplenty as the match wended to its conclusion. This would be the Macho Man’s final fight as a lightweight. He moved up to 140 where a slew of attractive match-ups awaited, notably a showdown with Julio Cesar Chavez.

Camacho and Chavez touched gloves in Las Vegas on Sept. 13, 1992, before an announced crowd of 19,100 at the UNLV basketball arena in what reportedly was the fastest sellout in Las Vegas boxing history up to that date. Chavez, widely seen as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, advanced his record to 82-0 with a lopsided decision, winning all 12 rounds on the card of one of the judges. The Macho Man, who had avenged his lone defeat to Greg Haugen, declined to 41-2.

This wasn’t a milquetoast performance by Camacho. He simply couldn’t deal with Chavez’s unrelenting pressure. LA Times scribe Alan Malamud wrote that Hector showed unexpected grit by trading with Chavez after his legs were gone, thereby reducing him to a stationary target. But more brickbats came Camacho’s way following setbacks to Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. He lasted the distance in both bouts but was roundly out-pointed. By the third round of the De La Hoya fight, wrote Kevin Iole, it was a foregone conclusion that De La Hoya would win.

Between the Trinidad and De La Hoya fights, staged 44 months apart, Camacho had 21 fights and won them all. His victims were mostly journeyman with two notable exceptions. On June 22, 1996, he scored a 12-round unanimous decision over 45-year-old Roberto Duran. Eight months later, he defeated another faded legend when he stopped Sugar Ray Leonard in the fifth round. Leonard, who had been out of the ring for six years, was forever retiring and unretiring and Camacho retired him for good. Both bouts were in Atlantic City.

A wag wrote that Sugar Ray was 40 years old going on 41 and that Camacho was 35 years old going on puberty.

Camacho’s advisors kept him busy to keep his name in the news and Hector did his part by making the news for bad behavior outside the ring. In January of 2005, he was arrested for the November 2004 burglary of a computer store in Gulfport, Mississippi. He went there to retrieve a laptop that was being repaired but entered the property after hours by way of the ceiling. An illegal drug, ecstasy, was found in his hotel room when he was placed under arrest.

After serving five months in jail, Camacho was released with the understanding that he would be placed under house arrest for one year when he returned to Puerto Rico but, by all accounts, the authorities in Puerto Rico were never notified of this arrangement.

Camacho’s frequent misdeeds, once seen as the amusing antics of a fun-loving man-child, came to be seen in a different light as he grew older; as a pattern of behavior that betrayed a dark side in his personality.

In a 1985 conversation with New York Times boxing writer Michael Katz, Camacho’s estranged manager Billy Giles said, “someday he’ll wind up like Tyrone Everett, maybe worse,” the reference to a talented junior lightweight from Philadelphia who was murdered under sordid circumstances.

That proved to be eerily prophetic.

Camacho had 20 more fights after his hollow performance against Oscar De La Hoya, ending his career as a bloated middleweight. His only noteworthy opponent during this final phase of his boxing career was Duran who was then 50 years old when they clashed in Denver. In a bout that echoed their first meeting, Hector won a unanimous decision. This was Roberto Duran’s farewell fight. Camacho soldiered on for eight more bouts, winning five.

In November of 2012, thirty months after his last ring assignment, Hector Camacho and a companion were ambushed as they sat in a car in the darkened parking lot of a Bayamon, Puerto Rico bar. The companion died instantly in the hail of bullets. Police found nine packets of cocaine on the decedent and an open packet of cocaine in the car.

Camacho’’s funeral was held at Harlem’s landmark Saint Cecilia’s Church. Hundreds of mourners stood in the cold outside the church as his casket was being placed in the funeral car. They cheered and shouted Camacho’s battle cry, “Macho Time,” as the hearse pulled away.

They say you shouldn’t speak bad about the dead, so we will let Bones Adams have the last word. “Hector had his demons,” says Adams, “but he was a great friend, a nice, kind, and caring guy.”

—

Editor’s note: For more on Hector Camacho, check out Christian Giudice’s biography, “Macho Time: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of Hector Camacho,” published by Hamilcar in 2020.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 304: A Year of Transformation in Boxing and More

Published

1 day ago

November 22, 2024

David A. Avila

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A subtle transformation in professional boxing is taking place with the biggest fights no longer placed in Las Vegas, New York or Los Angeles. Instead, they are heading to the Middle East.

Golden Boy Promotions joined the crowd last week with one of their stronger fight cards taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The main attractions were new unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez of Mexico along with Puerto Rico’s diminutive Oscar Collazo unifying the minimumweight division.

And there is more to come.

Matchroom Boxing seemed to lead the way in this rerouting of major boxing events. It goes as far back as December 2019 when Anthony Joshua fought Andy Ruiz in a rematch for the heavyweight championship in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.

Little by little major fights are being rerouted to Saudi Arabia.

Is it a good thing or not?

For promoters looking to cut costs it’s definitely welcomed. But what does it do for the fan base accustomed to saving their money to buy tickets for one or two major events?

Now there is talk of Shakur Stevenson, Devin Haney and Terence Crawford heading to the Middle East to fight on major cards sponsored by “Riyad Spring.” It’s a new avenue for the sport of pro boxing.

This past week Golden Boy and its roster of Latino fighters took its turn and showed off their brand of aggressive fights. Some like Collazo and Arnold Barboza made the best of their moments. And, of course, Zurdo proved he should have moved up in weight years ago. He could be the Comeback Fighter of the Year.

Benavidez vs Morrell

Interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez accepted a challenge from WBA light heavyweight titlist David Morrell to meet on Feb. 1 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Bad blood between the two tall fighters already exists.

Morrell claims Benavidez is over-rated.

“I’m getting the knockout. 100%. He’s all talk and no bite. He can’t do what he thinks he’s gonna do,” said Morrell. “He has no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s provoking me and now I want to go out there and beat the crap out of him. I’m here now and none of that talk matters.”

Benavidez begs to differ.

“Here we are again. I told you that I was going to give you the fights you want to see, and now we’re here,” Benavidez said while in Los Angeles. “Morrell has been talking about me for a while and disrespecting me. He wanted to make it personal with me, so I’m personally going to break his mouth. That’ll give him something to remember me by.”

Also scheduled to fight on the fight card are Isaac Cruz, Stephen Fulton, Brandon Figueroa and Jesus Ramos Jr.

Netflix

No surprise for me with the massive success of the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson event on the Most Valuable Promotions boxing card last week.

According to Netflix there were 108 million people tuned into the event last Friday that also featured the incredible Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor rematch. Another exciting card was the men’s welterweight clash between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw.

If fans weren’t satisfied with the Paul fight, they certainly got their fulfillment with the world title fights, especially Serrano and Taylor who were estimated to be viewed by more than 72 million people. No female fight in history can touch those numbers.

So, what’s next for Netflix in terms of boxing?

West Coast Blues

Southern California is usually a hotbed for boxing events no matter what time of the year. But this year only a few boxing cards are taking place within a driving distance until the end of the year.

Las Vegas is in slumber and Southern California has a few smaller boxing cards still on schedule. Arizona has a significant Top Rank fight card in a few weeks as does Golden Boy Promotions in the Inland Empire.

Here are some upcoming fight events worth noting:

Dec. 5 – at OC Hangar in Costa Mesa, Calif. Vlad Panin vs Sal Briceno by SOCA Fights.

Dec. 7 – at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Rafael Espinoza vs Robeisy Ramirez and Oscar Valdez vs Emanuel Navarrete by Top Rank.

Dec. 13, at Chumash Casino 360 in Santa Ynez, Calif. Carlos Balderas vs Cesar Villarraga by 360 Promotions.

Dec. 14 at Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif. Alexis Rocha vs Raul Curiel by Golden Boy Promotions.

Turkeys in East L.A.

The 25^th annual Turkey Giveaway by Golden Boy takes place on Saturday Nov. 23, at Oscar De La Hoya Animo High School starting at 11 a.m.

It’s incredible that 25 years have passed since the inception of this yearly event. Many current and past fighters for the promotion company will be passing out turkeys and meeting fans. Among those expected to appear are Alexis Rocha, Victor Morales, Joel Iriarte, Bryan Lua and others.

Photo: Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren, and HE Turki Alalshikh at the Joshua-Dubois fight

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Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-Paul and ‘Boots’ Ennis

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2 days ago

November 21, 2024

Luis A. Cortes III

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Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured on the left).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way. So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

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Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.” What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

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