Corrie Sanders’ Upset of Wladimir Klitschko Always Overshadowed by Ali-Frazier

Published

5 years ago

March 6, 2020

Corrie Sanders’ Upset of Wladimir Klitschko Always Overshadowed by Ali-Frazier

There are certain dates in boxing that are so consequential they are remembered annually, with reverence, for their historical significance. Perhaps no date fits that description more than March 8, 1971, the night when Joe Frazier scored a 15^th-round knockdown of Muhammad Ali en route to winning a hard-fought, unanimous decision in Madison Square Garden in the “Fight of the Century.”

The upcoming anniversary of that remarkable event marks 49 years since “The Greatest” and “Smokin’ Joe” made magic together for the first of their three times sharing the ring, and the familiar written and spoken remembrances will again pay homage to arguably the most anticipated boxing match of all time. But the real tsunami of tributes will come in 2021, on the 50^th anniversary of a megafight that seized the world’s attention as none before or since.

But there is another notable heavyweight fight that took place on another March 8, not exactly overlooked by history, but understandably relegated to a lesser place in a pecking order that forever shall reserve the top spot on that date for Ali-Frazier I. Still, Corrie Sanders’ shocking, second-round stoppage of WBO titlist Wladimir Klitschko on March 8, 2003, in Hanover, Germany, merits recognition both as a monumental upset and as a reminder that those who do not learn from history are sometimes obliged to repeat it.

Not exactly on the same elevated plateau as Ali-Frazier I, but not too far below it, is the celebrated date of Feb. 11, 1990, when Buster Douglas, a supposedly no-chance challenger to Mike Tyson’s supposedly invincible heavyweight championship reign, transformed the 42-to-1 odds against himself into the most stunning upset ever in boxing, and maybe in any sport, when he knocked out Tyson in 10 rounds in Tokyo. You say that Tyson went into that bout underprepared and overconfident? That Douglas dared to believe he was more than just another of Iron Mike’s designated victims? All true, but the parallels between Tyson-Douglas and Wlad-Sanders are eerily similar and cannot be dismissed.

Just as Douglas was generally considered to be a talented fighter whose mental lapses and indifferent approach to training made him less than he could have and maybe should have been, so, too, was Sanders, a 37-year-old South African southpaw, viewed as something of an underachiever, despite the 38-2 record with 30 KO victories he brought into his matchup with the younger and arguably more naturally talented of boxing’s Klitschko brothers.

Making the sixth defense of the WBO title he had won on a unanimous decision over slick-boxing southpaw Chris Byrd on Oct. 14, 2000, Klitschko was a huge favorite over Sanders, a Buster-like 40-1 long shot whose lack of peak conditioning for more than a few of his fights had become a recurring theme. When the always-impressively-muscled Wlad, whose intimidating nickname was “Dr. Steelhammer,” looked at Sanders, the fleshy guy bereft of six-pack abs, it must have been much the same as when Tyson made the mistake of writing off Douglas as just another fat impostor who would fall down the first time he got nailed solidly.

“He was what people in boxing call a `bum,’” Klitschko said in 2009 of his impression of Sanders, which soon proved to be incorrect. “I was tired. I’d been busy. I went into the ring thinking I’ll knock this guy out in one round and go home.

“This is the worst way to think. It’s a psychological disaster. You can’t think about vacation when you’re about to step in the ring. In my entire career, nobody ever beat me (like Sanders did).”

Klitschko’s miscalculation was apparent to HBO analyst George Foreman even before Sanders floored the Ukrainian twice in the first round and twice more in the second. Big George noted that Klitschko was “bone-dry” before the opening bell, a sign that he had not warmed up properly in his dressing room before making his way to the ring.

“Wladimir Klitschko seems so perfect, you wonder what’s wrong with him. Can Corrie Sanders find out?” Larry Merchant, another member of the HBO broadcast crew, said of the awe-inspiring man who had come in on a 16-bout winning streak, 15 of those victories coming inside the distance, including put-aways of such quality opponents as Axel Schulz, Monte Barrett, Frans Botha and Ray Mercer.

What was wrong with Wlad was something that had been demonstrated before, in his only pro defeat, an 11^th-round TKO against American journeyman Ross Puritty on Dec. 5, 1998, and would again be demonstrated in losses inside the distance against Lamon Brewster and Anthony Joshua. Even in a unanimous, 12-round conquest of Samuel Peter on Sept. 24, 2005, in Atlantic City, N.J., Klitschko had to overcome three trips to the canvas. For all his obvious strengths, which are sure to gain him first-ballot induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2021, what “Dr. Steelhammer” lacked was a granite jaw. If you caught him just so, he could and would go down.

Whether or not Wlad’s falsely inflated sense of confidence for the Sanders fight extended to his trainer, Fritz Sdunek, or older brother Vitali Klitschko, the future WBC heavyweight titlist who also was a member of the corner team on that date, is a matter of conjecture. What is indisputable is that Vitali, clearly upset that referee Genaro Rodriguez had stopped the bout less than a half-minute into the second round, a reasonable action given those four knockdowns in quick succession, angrily confronted Sanders, shouting his intention to gain either revenge or a restoration of family pride, take your pick.

“This belt belongs to us!” Vitali, who had made a promise to his mother to always “protect” his younger brother, yelled at Sanders. “It is family property! You fight me next!”

For his part, Sanders, who figured he had just earned the right to savor his career highlight, felt Vitali’s vitriolic display was an improper intrusion.

“He should have let me have the moment, but he was shouting this and that,” the normally laid-back Sanders said of the tense exchange. “It was me who deserved the belt that night, no one else. He had no right to get into the ring as it was my time and not his. I simply told him, `I’ve beaten your brother and next time I’ll beat you.’”

As things turned out, it was indeed Vitali who got the next crack at Sanders, even though a do-over with Wlad seemingly was made to order for HBO, which, if rumors are correct, hadn’t been all that hot to televise the just-concluded fight, the consensus in the cable giant’s executive offices being that Wlad was so superior that Sanders would put up token resistance at best. But then Sanders vacated his newly won WBO title in December 2003 so that he could concentrate on a challenge for the presumably more prestigious WBC belt, which had become vacant in the wake of Lennox Lewis’ retirement. Lewis had retained his championship in his final fight, a sixth-round stoppage of a badly bleeding Vitali Klitschko on June 21, 2003, but he trailed on all three official scorecards at the time. HBO had no qualms whatsoever in signing off on a pairing of Vitali, known as “Dr. Ironfist,” with Sanders in a pugilistic version of the Hatfields vs. the McCoys.

Vitali avenged Wlad’s defeat by stopping Sanders in eight rounds on April 24, 2004, at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, but it was no cakewalk for the winner. Sanders, an all-around athlete who had played rugby and cricket as a schoolboy and had become so proficient at golf that he considered trying out for the PGA Tour, would go on to win three more bouts, but he called it quits, at 42, when he was TKO’ed in one round by 30-year-old Osborne Machimana on Feb. 2, 2008, for the South African heavyweight title.

The perspective of time has a way of either illuminating or diminishing the careers of certain fighters who are not easily categorized. In retrospect, Cornelius Johannes Sanders was, like Buster Douglas, probably better than what he was given credited for being throughout much of a career played out in relative anonymity. Sanders – who bore an unfortunate facial resemblance to Mark Gastineau, the former New York Jets defensive end who wasn’t nearly as successful a boxer as he was at sacking quarterbacks – had much of life still to live when, on Sept. 23, 2012, he died at 46, a day after being shot by robbers at a restaurant in Brits, South Africa, to celebrate a family member’s 21^st birthday. He died a hero, trying to shield his teenage daughter, Marinique, during the premeditated attack.

Three Zimbabweans, all in their early 20s and first offenders, were convicted of murder, armed robbery and possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition. Each is serving what is tantamount to a 30-year sentence, a penalty not seemingly in keeping with the seriousness of the crimes committed.

“The loss against him changed a side of my character tremendously. It made me tougher and it made me better,” Wlad said upon being informed of Sanders’ death. “Without my experience with Corrie I wouldn’t be the same way.

“The boxing world will remember Corrie as a heavy hitter and a good man. I have nothing bad to say about Corrie at all.”

Was Corrie Sanders a one-hit wonder? Not really. Before his rout of Wlad, he had wins over such recognizable names as Johnny DuPlooy, Al “Ice” Cole, Bobby Czyz, Carlos De Leon and Bert Cooper. Would his status in global boxing been more established had he not been so intent on fighting primarily in South Africa, instead of moving to the United States as had been the case with several of his countrymen, like Botha? Probably. But home is where the heart is, and Corrie Sanders’ heart was forever anchored in the nation of his birth.

“Maybe I loved my country too much,” he once said.

Can’t fault a man for that.

Bernard Fernandez retired in 2012 after a 43-year career as a newspaper sports writer, the last 28 years with the Philadelphia Daily News. A former five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Fernandez won the BWAA’s Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism in 1998 and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service in 2005. On Jun 14, 2020, New Orleans native Fernandez — who now writes exclusively for The Sweet Science — will be formally inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

18 hours ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-First-BWAA-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 York’s 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 America’s 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 writers’ 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 isn’t 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 event’s 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 wasn’t 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 York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” 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. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (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 wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s 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 “more than 200” 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 York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s 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 isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” 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.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

Gabriela-Fundora-KOs-Marilyn-Badillo-and-Perez-Upsets-Conwell-in-Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s 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.

Mexico’s 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.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

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 fighter’s 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.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” 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 Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s 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 Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

2 days ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Krusher-Kovalev-Exits-on-a-Winning-Note-TKOs-Artur-Mann-in-his-Farewell-Fight

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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