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The Top Ten Super-Middleweights of the Decade: 2010-2019
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The Top Ten Super-Middleweights of the Decade: 2010-2019
Super-middleweight offers a surprisingly shallow decadal well with a top two written in stone, no defined number ten and a fuzzy nine through six, although, as always, meetings between some of those fighters helped straighten a few things out.
That the 168lb Super Six tournament, the inaugural super series, was mid-flow on January 1st 2010 means that not all of those results are considered, which hits some harder than others. It took some time for a new generation to traverse the rubble left behind by the monstrous divisional number one and two, but when they did they flooded the top five, usurping men like Mikkel Kessler who left the best part of his career behind in the 00s.
The picture is complicated and often the differences between fighters are small but it made for a fascinating if under-whelming 168lb decade.
10 – David Benavidez
Peak Ranking: 2 Record for the Decade: 22-0 Ranked For: 32% of the Decade
A surprising inclusion, David Benavidez makes it in at ten based, in all honesty, upon the total absence of an outstanding candidate.
Lucian Bute was the early runner, and at the dawn of the decade it would have been hard to imagine him not making a list like this; a final paper record for the decade of 7-5 all but excludes him though and his best win being over a collapsing Glen Johnson is the final nail in that particular fistic coffin. Andre Dirrell ran him close but actually achieved surprisingly little between his controversial 2009 loss to Froch and his 2015 defeat to James DeGale. It’s not clear-cut, but Benavidez is the right choice.
He survived a startling gut-check in 2017 when dropped by Romanian tough Ronald Gavril in the final frame of his first twelve round contest in a fight he won by the narrowest of margins. Benavidez proved the value of such lessons in an immediate rematch, winning almost every round in a near-shutout of high caliber.
As 2019 came to an end and with this list (then only thought of) completely bereft of a tenth entry, Benavidez stopped Anthony Dirrell, then the number four contender, to seal the low spot. It was an impressive performance as he out-hustled and out-jabbed a faster-handed fighter, a layered offense built of two-handed attacks to body and head barracking severe pressure. Benavidez has a bright future, here he is lauded for his fledgling past.
09 – Arthur Abraham
Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 16-6 Ranked For: 66% of the Decade
Arthur Abraham lost majority of his big fights in the 2010s; by disqualification to Andre Dirrell; by shutout against Carl Froch; by outclass against Andre Ward: even against elite prospects once he had limped past his prime.
The two things that speak for him here are his dogged commitment to the weight-class, which he inhabited from 2010 until his retirement in 2018 and his series victory over Robert Stieglitz. Stieglitz, himself a contender himself for this list, was a highly ranked and formidable fighter who prioritized a regional rivalry with Abraham above all other things. Abraham, out of Armenia, had relocated to Germany, just as Stieglitz had done from Russia; the German yard seemed big enough for only one super-middleweight.
Abraham puts me in mind of a less dangerous Huck, which is perhaps damning with faint praise. Nevertheless, it is hard not to see the similarities in the first fight between Abraham and Stieglitz as Abraham overcame a relative paucity of activity to surge from the ropes and win key sections of key rounds and a narrow decision. The fight was so close (I scored it a draw) that a rematch was inevitable, and Abraham lost that rematch, his left eye closed by an unerring Stieglitz right hand which saw him stopped in three one-sided and foul-filled rounds. In the third fight, by which time Stieglitz was being favored, the men were sharing a purse of over $3m; Abraham, viewed, perhaps, as sliding, was as good in the second half of this fight as he had ever been. In a chaotic, filthy match his punching was consistently cleaner, his footwork markedly better even in the exhausted twelfth round in which he received a beating for more than two minutes before countering with a gorgeous uppercut to seal the victory with a knockdown. In the fourth and final fight, Abraham was at last able to see off his great rival in a sixth-round stoppage.
This series is the bedrock of Abraham’s ranking in the 10s, his biggest wins over Jermaine Taylor and Edison Miranda all coming in the 00s.
08 – Gilberto Ramirez
Peak Ranking: 2 Record for the Decade: 34-0 Ranked For: 49% of the Decade
The inclusion here of Gilberto Ramirez may raise some eyebrows but in truth, leaving him out is next to impossible. He defeated Arthur Abraham after all, and so clinically that only Andre Ward and perhaps Carl Froch can claim to have matched him.
What most impressed me about Ramirez, who fought Abraham on the undercard of the Manny-Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley rematch from 2016, was how he handled the veteran’s tempo. Abraham had been fighting at title level for as long as Ramirez had been fighting and he ceded the tempo of the fight to the younger man early, allowing him to force the pace. Ramirez eschewed the classic mistake of pushing too hard. He accepted responsibility as the general and then boxed at his own steady rate, deploying a beautiful right hook to the body, moving well but not excessively, jabbing the Abraham high guard to keep him occupied, finding what gaps there were.
It was a beautiful performance.
Abraham, it might be argued, was past prime – it is worth reminding the reader though that he had just turned in two of his career’s best in 2014 and 2015 against Stieglitz. That was the Abraham Ramirez faced.
Ramirez spent almost the entire decade fighting at the poundage and his raw numbers are impressive. It’s jarring to see him at number eight, and perhaps revealing of 168lbs strength in depth, but he’s unquestionably a special fighter and arguably has the best signature win of anyone outside the top six.
A quick word for Andre Dirrell, who also holds a win over Abraham from 2010 but doesn’t make the list. Fairly or unfairly (and it’s unfair as Dirrell was clearly winning the fight at the time of the stoppage), a victory by disqualification is less impressive than a wide UD, so Dirrell misses out.
07 – James DeGale
Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 20-3-1 Ranked For: 56% of the Decade
The most instructive fight of James DeGale’s career, and perhaps his best, is his 2015 points victory over Andre Dirrell. DeGale, slightly out-sped, was clearly uncomfortable in the very early moments of the round, Dirrell’s quick jab and a gorgeous counter-uppercut giving him pause for thought. A beautiful left hand from a stance neither southpaw nor orthodox but somewhere in between (DeGale switched), changed the direction the fight seemed to be taking. DeGale took over.
Then, in the seventh, he gassed. It was clear and it was sad, a fighter gone from close control fostered by deep combinations to walking in wide circles with low hands, pot-shotting. He clearly lost the seventh, eighth, ninth and then the tenth. It made his heart-fuelled rally in the eleventh and twelfth all the more thrilling.
A Rolls-Royce with a scooter’s gas-tank, DeGale’s great flaw made him a much more interesting fighter, drawing him into thrillers where a man of his talents probably would otherwise have coasted. It cost him dearly in legacy, however – every blip on DeGale’s record owes something to his stamina issues.
Dirrell was clearly his best win and to be frank it is troubling to me that his second is likely Caleb Truax – but Truax was only highly ranked as a super-middleweight because he had previously beaten DeGale in one of his most pronounced fades; he was barely able to avoid a repeat in the rematch.
That said, he could have taken a victory in his hairline defeat to early nemesis George Groves, sending him off on a different trajectory. Having looked carefully at him here, however, I’m struck by the idea that given his very real limitations, DeGale squeezed almost everything he could have from his rather fascinating career.
06 – Mikkel Kessler
Peak Ranking: 2 Record for the Decade: 4-1 Ranked For: 38% of the Decade
At first I thought Kessler’s decadal legacy may be the weakest of all the divisional number sixes we will run into. A wonderful fighter, he threw punches in anger just five times at the beginning of the decade and never ranked higher than #2. His inclusion here stands upon what is likely the single best 168lb performance of the decade not executed by Andre Ward, the April 2010 clash between he and Carl Froch.
Prime Kessler was such a rare sight. No fighter of the era struggled so desperately with injuries – back, eye, and especially elbow troubles tormented him; but on that April night in Denmark you saw the closest thing we ever saw to Kesslerian perfection.
Not that he had it all his own way; the fight was thrilling, brutal, accompanied by some horrible facial injuries and some violent punches. Technically superior to Froch and sporting arguably the best traditional one-two punch in the sport at that time, Kessler survived one of Froch’s patented late surges to pull out the final rounds on my card and win a desperately narrow decision. It was a thing of savage beauty.
He lost the rematch but in between did some fine work, including an unprecedented three round destruction of Brian Magee and a crushing knockout of super-six competitor Allan Green. So on second thoughts, Kessler is just about good for this spot, not an outstanding number six but probably not a problematic one.
05 – George Groves
Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 21-4 Ranked For: 77% of the Decade
When George Groves met James DeGale in 2011 their combined record was 22-0, prospects foolishly but gloriously jumping the gun to settle a domestic rivalry that hadn’t even had the proper time to coagulate.
DeGale was favored; Groves won, a fascinating and tension-filled combat, unexpectedly boxing off the back foot to out-squabble and counter his way to the narrowest of victories. It was not undisputed by ringsiders.
Groves and DeGale never met again and their respective careers plunged in and out of the choppy 168lbs waters, now one pre-eminent, now the other. Both achieved the number one contender’s spot, both won straps, neither lifted the undisputed, legitimate championship of the world and here, in the end, I have Groves edging him out in terms of legacy.
Groves made his mark, but he did it the hard way, with grit, gumption, heart and nerve. People forget how close he was to retirement after his loss to Badou Jack and how much his status within the fight game was propped up by his two exciting losses to Carl Froch. Exciting losses are fine, perhaps, for gathering cash but are worth very little in the cold eyes of history.
It was important for Groves to carry on after the loss to Jack because his two most important wins, over Martin Murray and Chris Eubank, came after that night. This hardly makes for an impenetrable top-five resume for the decade, but as we’ve seen, competition is a little sparse and so his determination to fight on where so many may have slung in the towel scrambles him over the line.
04 – Callum Smith
Peak Ranking: Ch Record for the Decade: 27-0 Ranked For: 38% of the Decade
So, Groves becomes the gatekeeper to the decade’s true elite. Numbers four, three and two all defeated him and for each of them he was a win of major importance, none more so than Callum Smith.
This is true for two reasons. Firstly, Groves was nothing less than the world’s number one contender, and with no true champion on the throne, the most important fighter at the poundage. For all that he was sliding, he had also summitted. The man to knock him off his perch was always going to benefit, and that man was Smith.
Secondly, Smith only arrived as a major force taking significant scalps at the decade’s end. The Groves fight, in 2018, was his first of any true global significance. After this he mercilessly buried contender Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam in just three rounds before running into the diminutive John Ryder where he was arguably lucky to get a unanimous nod in a close fight.
Against Groves though, he had been dominating, imperious. Groves, who scored his two most meaningful career wins in the previous eighteen months, had only ever been stopped by Carl Froch, but this was something else again. There was a sense of overlapping generations, even eras, as Smith, who looked bigger, stronger, flat-out healthier, faster and more powerful, countered and battered Groves around the ring. It felt like the emergence of someone a little special.
His shaky performance against Ryder has since cast doubt upon that perception, but not upon his placement here. Smith is locked into the top five.
03 – Badou Jack
Peak Ranking: 2 Record for the Decade: 18-3-3 Ranked For: 48% of the Decade
Badou Jack’s 168lb career is fascinating and scoring his cornerstone fights is fascinating. Jack met Anthony Dirrell (W, MD), George Groves (W, SD), Lucian Bute (Draw, later changed to a DQ after Bute tested positive for drugs) and James DeGale (D). All fights that were called controversial for one source of another and all back to back. We don’t have the space here to deep-dive each but a brief summary is called for.
His fascinating tussle with Dirrell is one of my favorite lo-fi combats of the decade and sees Jack slowly take over from his more highly ranked opponent, finally going to work on him on the ropes to take a justified decision in a fight that seemed at times contested in the proverbial phone-booth, yet somehow rambled across the whole ring. Against Groves, in another fine fight, Jack started faster, scoring a knockdown with a pair of flashing right hands in the first, and finished the stronger, rattling his man with that same punch in the twelfth. Once more, the fight was close, but the scoring was justifiable. Against Bute, Jack was unlucky to see the official scorecards a draw, but this wrong was righted when Bute was unfortunately busted for performance enhancing drugs, the fight now listed a win for Jack. Finally, against DeGale, a justifiable draw was rendered, but given that he threw more punches and landed at a higher rate and came reasonably close to a stoppage in the twelfth, he can probably count himself a little unlucky here.
Jack’s appearance at number three may be unexpected to some, but it shouldn’t be. He mixed it at the highest level and for the most part he came off best. His single loss at the weight, a bizarre first round defeat to the little-known Derek Edwards should arguably relegate him to the fourth spot, but Smith arrived just one fight too late to overhaul him for me.
02 – Carl Froch
Peak Ranking: 1 Record for the Decade: 7-2 Ranked For: 50% of the Decade
I did no analysis at all before installing Carl Froch at number two and I’m glad that this decision has been borne out by the review. Nobody came close to usurping him and the gap between two and three is probably bigger than the gap between three and nine.
Froch lost twice. In 2011, he was outclassed by one of the best super-middleweights in history, our number one, and the year before he was pipped by Mikkel Kessler in a thriller. The rematch, too, would be thrilling and is among the most fascinating I have seen in terms of adjustment and counter-adjustment deciding the outcome. Froch was “basic” according to Antonio Tarver and so many others, but in fact he was layered and thoughtful. If the Kessler performance doesn’t persuade you, the Arthur Abraham one certainly will. Froch turned pure-boxer that night, in his ungainly way, to all but shut Abraham out on the cards. Whether he was throwing over a thousand punches (Kessler II) or fighting in staged raids against a supposedly superior opponent (Lucian Bute), Froch tended to find a way to win.
And he did so against a glorious level of opposition, taking more ranked scalps than anyone on this list outside of Ward while actually doing slightly more damage to the top five. Froch squeezed every single drop out of his potential during a run (2008-2014) held to be the most difficult ever traversed by a British fighter. Had Andre Ward never been born, Froch would be the clear number one for the decade.
01 – Andre Ward
Peak Ranking: Ch. Record for the Decade: 11-0 Ranked For: 47% of the Decade
Andre Ward was born, however, and stands as a number one even more unassailable than Oleksandr Usyk who seemed so imperious at cruiserweight. In truth, he’s not that far ahead of Froch in terms of his 168lb resume, but the difference maker is his crushing victory over the divisional decadal number two, so one-sided as to be trivial.
Froch, who showed so many adaptions in his career, could do nothing with Ward. He tried the backfoot when Ward outfought him ring center, then he tried those two-handed surges that did so much damage against so many world class opponents. Ward was one step ahead of him at every turn, technically out-matching him with a left-hook stood against his high guard and also matching him for strength, so surprising for those who had not been paying attention; but Ward had done the same in out-classing Mikkel Kessler two years before and was never out-muscled in any fight I ever saw him in. A stinging rather than a hurtful puncher, he was otherwise as complete a fighter as walked the earth.
Why, it was often asked, did nobody just rush him? Ultra-aggressive fighters like Sakio Bika, Arthur Abraham and Froch, why didn’t they just try to boom through him and make him pay? And the answer is that it was really, really hard. Froch got in and threw body punches and tried to rough his man up and was consistently out-fought and out-mauled, it was Ward, not Froch who won these spells. Abraham ended up stacked behind his ear-muffs, being savagely punished to the body. Allan Green, Chad Dawson, Edwin Rodriguez, they all had plans and they all failed utterly.
“I’m bitterly disappointed,” said Froch after Ward demoted him to the era’s number two for all time. “He’s a very tricky, very slick very awkward…very good fighter. Credit to Andre Ward.”
Every man who ever faced Andre Ward ended up similarly disappointed. His was an understated reign of terror. The man brooked no resistance.
Photo credit: Tom Casino / SHOWTIME
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Cain Sandoval KOs Mark Bernaldez in the Featured Bout at Santa Ynez
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Northern California’s Cain Sandoval remained undefeated with a knockout win over Mark Bernaldez in a super lightweight battle on Friday on a 360 Promotions card.
Sandoval (15-0, 13 KOs) of Sacramento needed four rounds to figure out tough Filipino fighter Bernaldez (25-7, 14 KOs) in front of a packed crowd at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
Bernaldez had gone eight rounds against Mexico’s very tough Oscar Duarte. He showed no fear for Sandoval’s reputed power and both fired bombs at each other from the second round on.
Things turned in favor of Sandoval when he targeted the body and soon had Bernaldez in retreat. It was apparent Sandoval had discovered a weakness.
In the beginning of the fourth Sandoval fired a stiff jab to the body that buckled Bernaldez but he did not go down. And when both resumed in firing position Sandoval connected with an overhand right and down went the Filipino fighter. He was counted out by referee Rudy Barragan at 34 seconds of the round.
“I’m surprised he took my jab to the body. I respect that. I have a knockout and I’m happy about that,” Sandoval said.
Other Bouts
Popular female fighter Lupe Medina (9-0) remained undefeated with a solid victory over the determined Agustina Vazquez (4-3-2) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a minimumweight fight between Southern Californians.
Early on Vazquez gave Medina trouble disrupting her patter with solid jabs. And when Medina overloaded with combination punches, she was laced with counters from Vazquez during the first four rounds.
Things turned around in the fifth round as Medina used a jab to keep Vazquez at a preferred distance. And when she attacked it was no more than two-punch combination and maintaining a distance.
Vazquez proved determined but discovered clinching was not a good idea as Medina took advantage and overran her with blows. Still, Vazquez looked solid. All three judges saw it 79-73 for Medina.
A battle between Southern Californian’s saw Compton’s Christopher Rios (11-2) put on the pressure all eight rounds against Eastvale’s Daniel Barrera (8-1-1) and emerged the winner by majority decision in a flyweight battle.
It was Barrera’s first loss as a pro. He never could discover how to stay off the ropes and that proved his downfall. Neither fighter was knocked down but one judge saw it 76-76, and two others 79-73 for Rios.
In a welterweight fight Gor Yeritsyan (20-1,16 KOs) scorched Luis Ramos (23-7) with a 12-punch combination the sent him to the mat in the second round. After Ramos beat the count he was met with an eight punch volley and the fight was stopped at 2:11 of the second round by knockout.
Super feather prospect Abel Mejia (7-0, 5 KOs) floored Alfredo Diaz (9-12) in the fifth round but found the Mexican fighter to be very durable in their six-round fight. Mejia caught Diaz with a left hook in the fifth round for a knockdown. But the fight resumed with all three judges scoring it 60-53 for Mejia who fights out of El Modena, Calif.
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The Return of David Alaverdian
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By TSS Special Correspondent David Harazduk — After David Alaverdian (8-0-1, 6 KOs) scored a gritty victory against a tough Nicaraguan journeyman named Enrique Irias, his plans suddenly changed. The flashy flyweight from Nahariya, Israel hoped to face even tougher opposition and then challenge for a world title within a year or so. But a prolonged illness forced David to rip up the script.
The Irias fight was over 22 months ago. On Saturday, Feb. 22, Alaverdian will be making his first appearance in the ring since that win when he faces veteran road warrior Josue “Zurdo” Morales (31-16-4, 13 KOs) at the Westgate Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It’s the fifth promotion by Las Vegas attorney Stephen Reid whose inaugural card was at this venue on Feb. 13, 2020.
“I’m excited to come back,” Alaverdian declared.
During his preparation for Irias two years ago, Alaverdian felt fatigue after a routine six-round sparring session. “It was on April 1, 2023, about ten days before my fight. It felt like an April Fool’s joke,” he said. He came down with a sore throat, a headache, and congestion. He soon developed trouble breathing. At first, he thought his seasonal asthma had flared up, but his condition soon worsened. No matter what he did, Alaverdian could no longer take deep breaths. Fatigue continued to plague him. His heart constantly raced. Instead of breathing from his diaphragm, he was breathing from his chest. He sought out numerous doctors in the United States and in Israel.
His symptoms were finally diagnosed as Dysfunctional Breathing (DB). DB is a condition that can stem from stress and is often misdiagnosed. Its symptoms include dyspnea and tachycardia, both of which David experienced.
While receiving treatment, the Vegas-based pro went back to Israel where he coached aspiring fighters. “David’s influence on Israeli boxing is amazing, because he shows we can succeed in a big business even though we come from a small country,” said another undefeated Israeli flyweight, 20-year-old Yonatan Landman (7-0, 7 KOs). “A lot more Israelis are going to dare to succeed.”
Landman was able to work with Alaverdian during David’s return to Israel. “He is a great guy and a friend,” Landman said. “He has a lot of willingness to help, share his knowledge, and help you move forward.”
Alaverdian finally started to feel like he could compete again eight months ago. He won last year’s Israeli national amateur championship and competed in Olympic qualifiers. Now, he’s preparing to fight as a professional once again. “He doesn’t mention anything about [his breathing issues] like he did before,” his coach Cedric Ferguson said about this camp. “He’s been working like there’s no issue at all.”
It has been a whirlwind week for the 31-year-old Alaverdian. In addition to putting the finishing touches on his preparation ahead of Saturday’s comeback fight, David got married on Tuesday. His mom came over from Israel for the wedding and will stay for the fight. “It’s a good distraction,” David said of this week’s significant events. “It helps me. That way I don’t have to focus on the fight all day.”
Josue Morales, a 32 year old from Houston, hopes to play spoiler on Saturday. The crafty southpaw has never been stopped during his 52-fight career. “He’s a seasoned guy with a lot of experience,” Alaverdian said of Morales. “He knows how to move around the ring and is more of a technical boxer. He’s a tough opponent for someone who has been out of the ring for two years.”
A win Saturday night would complete a monumental week for David Alaverdian, both in and out of the ring, repairing the once-shredded script.
Doors open at the Westgate fight arena at 6:30 pm. The first bout goes at 7:00. Seven fights are scheduled including an 8-round female fight between Las Vegas light flyweight Yadira Bustillos and Argentine veteran Tamara Demarco.
NOTE: Author David Harazduk has run The Jewish Boxing Blog since 2010. You can find him at Twitter/X @JewishBoxing and Instagram.
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
Saturday’s fight card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, topped by the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol for undisputed light heavyweight supremacy, was being hyped as the greatest boxing card ever. That was before Daniel Dubois took ill and had to pull out of his IBF world heavyweight title defense against Joseph Parker, yielding his slot to last-minute replacement Martin Bakole.
The view from here is that the card remains in the running for the best fight card ever, top to bottom. The public didn’t view Dubois as the legitimate heavyweight champion. That distinction goes to Oleksandr Usyk.
Terms like “greatest” are, of course, subjective. Are we referring to the most attractive match-ups or the greatest array of talent, or the card that gives the most satisfaction by churning out a multiplicity of entertaining fights?
We won’t know how satisfying this card is until after the fact. We won’t know whether the talent on display was the greatest ever assembled on one night until many years have passed. Contestants such as Shakur Stevenson, Vergil Ortiz Jr, and Hamzah Sheeraz are still in their twenties (Stevenson is the oldest of the three at age 27) and it’s too soon to gauge if they will leave the sport with a great legacy.
As for which fight card in history had the deepest pool of attractive match-ups, this is a query that is amenable to an operational definition. Betting lines are a useful tool for informing us whether or not a fight warrants our attention if the likelihood of witnessing a closely-contested bout is our primary consideration.
Based on these factors, I would submit that the current leader in the race for the best card ever assembled goes to Don King’s May 7, 1994 promotion at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Six future Hall of Famers – Julio Cesar Chavez, Ricardo Lopez, Azumah Nelson, Terry Norris, Julian Jackson, and Christy Martin — were on that card, an 11-fight, eight-hour marathon with five WBC world title fights, four of which were rematches.
These were the five title fights:
140 pounds: Julio Cesar Chavez (89-1-1, 77 KOs) vs. Frankie Randall (49-2-1, 39 KOs)
Odds: Chavez 3/1 (minus-300)
154 pounds: Terry Norris (37-4, 23 KOs) vs. Simon Brown (41-2, 30 KOs)
Odds: even (11/10 and take your pick)
160 pounds: Gerald McClellan (30-2, 28 KOs) vs. Julian Jackson (48-2, 45 KOs)
Odds: McClellan 7/2 (minus-350)
130 pounds: Azumah Nelson (37-2-2, 26 KOs) vs. Jesse James Leija (27-0-2, 13 KOs)
Odds: Nelson 17/10 (minus-170)
105 pounds: Ricardo Lopez (36-0, 27 KOs) vs. Kermin Guardia (21-0, 14 KOs)
Odds: none
Results
Chavez-Randall — Julio Cesar Chavez avenged his loss to Frankie Randall, but not without controversy. An accidental clash of heads in the eighth round left Chavez with a bad gash on his forehead. Ring physician Flip Homansky would have allowed the bout to continue if that had been Chavez’s preference, but El Gran Campeon wasn’t so inclined. A WBC rule specified that in the event of a significant injury accruing from an accidental head butt, the less-damaged fighter is penalized a point. The fight went to the scorecards where Chavez won a split decision that would have been a draw without the point deduction. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Chavez, but the big bets were mostly on Randall and the odds got nicked down on the day of the fight.
Brown-Norris — In their first meeting in December of the previous year, Simon Brown dominated Terry Norris from the opening bell before stopping him in the fourth round. It was a massive upset. Norris was in the conversation for the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. In the rematch, Norris opened a slight favorite, but the late money was on Brown. And, once again, the so-called “sharps” were on the wrong side. Terry Norris, the would-be avenger, won a comfortable decision.
McClellan-Jackson — A murderous puncher, Gerald McClellan bombed out Julian Jackson in 83 seconds, or four rounds quicker than in their first engagement. Jackson was also a murderous puncher and attracted money in the sports books, lowering the price on the victorious McClellan who yet remained a solid favorite.
Nelson-Leija – WBC President Jose Sulaiman mandated this rematch after the first meeting ended in a draw after an error was found in the tabulation of one of the scorecards, overturning the original verdict which had Nelson retaining his title on a split decision. Leija thought he was robbed and was the rightful winner in the do-over, outworking Nelson to win a unanimous decision. At age 35, Azumah was getting long in the tooth.
Lopez-Guardia – Before the digital age, bookmakers didn’t trifle to post lines on bouts that on paper were egregious mismatches, save perhaps a fight of great magnitude. Guardia, the Colombian challenger, overachieved by lasting the distance in a fight with no knockdowns, but “Finito” won a lopsided decision.
A Note on Odds
Betting lines serve a useful purpose for boxing historians; they quantify the magnitude of an upset. However, quoting odds is tricky because they are fluid and vary somewhat from place to place. What this means is that two journalists can quote different odds on the same event and they both can get it right – unless there is a significant disparity. The odds quoted above are the closing lines at the MGM Grand or, at the very least, a very close approximation.
Saturday in Riyadh
One reason why tomorrow’s fight card is the best ever, said the tub-thumpers, is that the card (in its original conformation) included seven world title fights. But that’s no big deal There are so many title fights nowadays that the term “world title” has been trivialized. And what wasn’t acknowledged is that three of the title fights were of the “interim” stripe.
However – and this is a big deal — a glance at the odds informs us that tomorrow’s card is chock-full of competitive match-ups (at least on paper) and from that aspect, a blend of quality and quantity, it is a doozy of a boxing card.
The greatest boxing linemaker of my generation, now deceased, once told me that any fight where the “chalk” was less than a 3/1 favorite is essentially a “pick-‘em” fight. Yes, I know that makes no sense mathematically. However, I know what he was getting at. In a baseball game, for example, it’s very rare to find a team favored by odds of more than 3/1. In boxing, where self-serving promoters are constantly feeding us King Kong vs. Mickey Mouse, odds higher than 3/1 are the norm.
As this is being written, there are six fights on Saturday’s card where one could play the favorite without laying more than 3/1. I believe this is unprecedented. Moreover, the main event and a fascinating match-up on the undercard, Vergil Ortiz Jr vs Israil Madrimov, are virtual toss-ups with the favorites, Beterbiev and Ortiz, currently available at 5/4 (minus-125). Another very intriguing fight is the heavyweight contest between late bloomers Agit Kabayel and Zhilei Zhang which finds the less-heralded Kabayel cloaked as a small favorite. And kudos to Joseph Parker for accepting Martin Bakole when he could have held out for a lesser opponent. If Bakole is in shape (a big “if”), he will be a handful.
And so, where does tomorrow’s card rank on the list of best boxing cards ever? Right up there near the top, we would argue, and, if the bouts in large part are memorably entertaining, we would push it ahead of Don King’s May 7, 1994 extravaganza.
That’s the view from here. Feel free to dissent.
Postscript: If you plan to watch the entire card ($25.99 on DAZN for U.S. buyers), it would help to stock up on some munchies. The first fight (Joshua Buatsi vs. Callum Smith) is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 a.m. for us viewers in the Pacific Time Zone / 11:45 a.m. ET. If the show adheres tight to its schedule (no guarantee), Beterbiev and Bivol are expected to enter the ring at 3:00 p.m. PT/6:00 p.m. ET.
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