Wilder vs. Fury: What History Tells Us About the Boxer and the Puncher

Published

5 years ago

February 19, 2020

Wilder vs. Fury: What History Tells Us About the Boxer and the Puncher

Jack Dempsey was “so badly out-boxed and out-classed” according to pre-eminent newspaper man Damon Runyon “he seemed more of a third-rater than one of the greatest champions that ever lived.”

“Gene Tunney is the best man I ever fought,” said Dempsey himself. “But if we ever meet again, I’ll beat him. There’s no maybe about that, either. He’s a grand man and a great fighter, but I know I can stop him.”

“Time after time,” wrote ringside reporter David Avila of the first Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury fight, “Wilder’s windmill rights hit air.” But here the Dempsey-Tunney comparisons end. Wilder did find Fury, dropping him “hard and seemingly for good” in the twelfth, Fury undertook his miracle recovery and the unsatisfactory draw was rendered.

What about this Saturday’s rematch? And what about the Tunney-Dempsey rematch? And what about other heavyweight rematches where the puncher and the boxer met for a second time, and what do they tell us about the upcoming meeting between the best and second-best heavyweight on the planet?

The first months of boxer Gene Tunney’s heavyweight championship reign were troubled. He incurred the wrath of New York’s press and public who preferred their champions humble and brutal. Tunney was neither and was actually booed in Madison Square Garden when presented to the crowd two weeks after his triumph. Dempsey was subjected to a two-minute standing ovation that same night, a new experience for him.

Dempsey, the puncher, wrestled with uncertainty about his fistic future before matching the mercurial Jack Sharkey, who was immediately installed as an 8-5 favorite. Here parallels begin to emerge between Dempsey and Wilder who both elected to meet serious opposition behind their nightmare encounter with pure boxers, although Wilder certainly wasn’t an underdog for his November 2019 encounter with Luis Ortiz. Ortiz, like Sharkey, was technically superb and more skilled than his respective punching opponent. Just as Ortiz was able to outbox Wilder throughout their contest, Sharkey set all kinds of problems for Dempsey who struggled to impose himself despite Sharkey’s determination to fight him in the pocket.

And like Ortiz, Sharkey fell victim to a brutal knockout though Dempsey’s victory was awash with controversy and the accusation of a finishing low blow that even modern analysis of fight footage cannot settle. Each man was rescued by his power in a significant fight staged before their respective rematches. But how did Dempsey fare with Tunney second time around?

What was both different and exciting about the second fight was Tunney’s overwhelming confidence in meeting Dempsey’s fire with fire. He didn’t seek a brawl, but he did seek to smother Dempsey’s work on the inside while sharing space with him. Tunney had experienced Dempsey and found him wanting; he dominated their first fight so completely that he feels, now, that he can take certain liberties with his man.

Fury talks like this may be his own thinking. He feels, and is right in my view, that his dominance in the first fight was legitimate, for all that he found himself on the ground looking up. He now talks openly about knocking Wilder out. There is a certain kind of consistency in his thinking; he ruled before and so can rule more directly now. He’s also hyping a fight though, and we all know how that works.

Fury should note that Tunney went straight back to the box-and-move strategy that brought him success in the first fight; he should also note that Tunney was able to hurt Dempsey by bringing him on to accurate punches he himself was sitting down on, especially in the fourth. Finally, it’s worth noting that after ten hot rounds it was Dempsey, not Tunney, who was struggling to reach the final bell despite the latter’s trip to the canvas in the seventh. Just like Fury, Tunney climbed from the canvas and by the end of the round was out-boxing the puncher.

In summary, Tunney became a little over-confident, much to the disgust of his cornerman Jimmy Bronson who repeatedly warned him that he was becoming neglectful of the Dempsey left. For Dempsey, there appears to be no secured advantage from having previously boxed ten rounds with Tunney. He drew a comparable blank to his first effort, despite the knockdown.

Billy Conn was unable to recreate Gene Tunney’s success against the even more fearsome Joe Louis in the 1946 rematch of their legendary 1941 encounter. In that first fight, Conn, contrary to the popular retelling, hadn’t so much hit and run as stayed in the champion’s wheelhouse and tried to stay on him, a declared strategy but one Conn surprised everyone by following through on. In the second fight, Conn froze: “this is going to be the worst fight ever” he told his father-in-law minutes before the ringwalk. Here the balance of power shifted in favor of the puncher mainly due to the ravages of time and the excessive toll they take on the boxer’s legs as opposed to the puncher’s power; Conn substituted his fighting retreat of five years before with a straight-up retreat and was dusted off in eight.

Louis excelled in rematches. Lee Ramage made it to the eighth in their first contest but seemed near death such was the destruction of the knockout he suffered in just two rounds of their rematch. Max Schmeling, famously, out-boxed and out-thought the great Brown Bomber in their first fight in 1936 but was summarily executed in a single round of their rematch. Bob Pastor made Louis “look silly” according to some, and even managed to win a couple of rounds of their 1937 contest; Louis became the first man to stop him in their 1939 rematch. Godoy, Simon, Buddy Baer, all suffered terribly in rematches for one reason: Louis had learned how they moved.

This is the real disaster for any box mover and although he excelled in rematches against all styles, Louis is the ultimate example of this. He may have struggled to find his man on occasion, but once he did, he had found him forever.

Most famously of all, this fate befell Joe Walcott, who extended Louis the full fifteen in the first fight but was brutally dispatched in the rematch. Walcott was a master boxer, a man so smooth he seemed to have been poured rather than born, but he was as susceptible to the heatseeking puncher as the next man. He bedeviled Rocky Marciano in 1952, seemed ahead of him at every turn until, finally, caught by the Rock in the thirteenth he was undone. In the second fight, the puncher found the boxer in just a single round, Walcott decoded by Marciano just as he had been by Louis.

What about Wilder? Does he have that kind of fighting IQ? Can he unravel a boxer of Tyson Fury’s quality having put a serious glove on him twice in the first fight?

It’s a confused picture, but there is data: Wilder has boxed two interesting rematches. The first was against Bermane Stiverne in 2017, having previously handily out-boxed him in 2015. As a promotional prospect it hardly set the grass alight, but in fairness, Stiverne had remained ranked and fought in one of Wilder’s more reasonable title defenses. The fight itself was butchery, and if it were to be analyzed as a part of a pattern it wall fall firmly onto the Louis side of the equation: Wilder learned about Stiverne in the first fight and crushed him in the second fight.

Wilder’s more recent rematch with Ortiz contradicts that notion. It ended, once again, in a savage knockout for Wilder, and that, once again, hints at his having unlocked his man, but in fact Ortiz was once more completely out-boxing Wilder at the time of the stoppage. Wilder, I thought, was even beginning to become a little uncertain.

By the time of the second Stiverne fight Stiverne was on the slide having last won a meaningful fight nearly four years previously, and but one more fight and loss from retirement. Wilder had also improved, and some of his gliding offense belied his reputation at times. The combination is what makes Wilder’s destruction of Stiverne look so Louis-like, I think.

In the second fight with Ortiz, we saw a truer Wilder. Tyson Fury has named him “a seven-year-old with an AK-47.” This sounds a little like Furybabble, but it’s actually rather succinct. Wilder is indeed over-armed relative to his technique and he throws punches that are wildly under-schooled. But that is a part of what makes him so dangerous.

Re-watching him in the second Ortiz fight I was struck by the notion of a wind-up toy rather than a child, a persistent and vitally dangerous one. Wilder didn’t so much decode his opposition as deploy himself with consistent venom and opportunism. It’s a fundamental and sinister combination that clearly makes him difficult to face but I don’t think he’s learning in the way Louis or Marciano learned. I think he’s “just” improving, and a heinous puncher.

What that means for the Wilder-Fury rematch is that the specific nature of the contest will be decided by Fury. It will be he who decides whether to try to out-box the puncher while moving as we saw in Dempsey-Tunney, smother and out-fight the puncher as we saw in Louis-Conn I, or even duel the puncher, something like what we saw Archie Moore try with Marciano. Fury decides. Wilder will just be Wilder.

It all comes down then to Fury’s choice and to each man’s relative preparedness for it. Has Wilder guessed right? And has Fury? A poor selection on strategy would be disastrous.

Lastly, have I got this wrong? If Wilder decoded Stiverne for the devastating second knockout, if he decoded Ortiz thereby stopping him sooner, if he’s channeling Joe Louis in seeing more the second time around, I think there is only one possible winner, whatever version of Tyson Fury shows.

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel

To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Matt McGrain

Up Next

Wilder, Fury Both Believe Providence is on Their Side

Don't Miss

The Javan ‘Sugar’ Hill Factor, a Wild Card in the Fury-Wilder Rematch

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

Published

1 day ago

November 23, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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

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.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

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

Published

2 days ago

November 22, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-304-A-Year-of-Transformation-in-Boxing-and-More

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

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

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

Published

3 days ago

November 21, 2024

Luis A. Cortes III

Philly's-Jesse-Jart-Continues-His-Quest-plus-Thoughts-on-Yuson-Paul-and-Boots-Ennis

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.

—

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.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!