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The Hauser Report: From 9/11 to COVID-19

The Hauser Report: From 9/11 to COVID-19
Felix Trinidad and Bernard Hopkins were supposed to fight at Madison Square Garden on September 15, 2001. Then 9/11 intervened. After Trinidad-Hopkins was postponed, I visited an empty Madison Square Garden on the night that would have been.
“Tonight was a perfect mid-September evening,” I wrote. “Clear skies, temperature in the low sixties, a hint of autumn in the air. No events were listed on the Garden marquee; just the digital image of an American flag at half-mast. This was to have been ‘ground zero’ tonight. Bernard Hopkins versus Felix Trinidad for the undisputed middleweight championship of the world. Screaming partisans had been expected to turn Madison Square Garden into a sea of red, white, and blue flags. Puerto Rican flags. A half-dozen uniformed New York City cops stood outside the employees entrance at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street. Other cops were sprinkled in and around Penn Station, which lies beneath the Garden. The main arena was dimly lit, its floor still covered with ice put in place for New York Rangers practices earlier this week. Eventually, things will return to normal in America, although the definition of ‘normal’ will change.”
I thought about that night this week. Fight cards were scheduled to be promoted by Top Rank at Madison Square Garden on March 14 and March 17. The first of these was to have featured U.S. Olympian Shakur Stevenson. The second – a St. Patrick’s Day special – would have been headlined by Irish Olympian Michael Conlan. Then COVID-19 (an acronym for “coronavirus disease 2019”) intervened.
The 1918 influenza pandemic, commonly referred to as the Spanish flu, infected an estimated 500 million people (roughly 25 percent of the world population at that time). No firm numbers are available, but it’s estimated that the illness was responsible for 50 million deaths.
The population of the United States in 1918 was 106 million. An estimated 670,000 Americans died as a consequence of contracting the Spanish flu. That’s equivalent to 2.1 million deaths in the United States today.
Most fatalities from influenza occur in infants under the age of two and adults over age 70. The Spanish flu was unique in that almost half of the 670,000 deaths in the United States were of men and women between the ages of 20 and 40.
Most viruses abate during the warm summer months. The 1918 Spanish flu came in two waves. The second wave, which swept over America in October, was deadlier than the first.
The first cases of COVID-19 were traced to China in November 2019. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally classified the spread of the disease as a “pandemic.” As of this writing (March 14), more than 145,000 cases in 130 countries resulting in 5,400 deaths have been confirmed. That’s a death rate of 3.7 percent as compared to the one-tenth of one percent death rate for more common forms of influenza.
There have been more than 2,600 confirmed cases of COVID-19 resulting in 56 deaths in the United States.
All of these numbers are expected to rise.
Efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in travel restrictions, the quarantine of geographic regions, event cancellations, and the shutdown of businesses. Schools and other institutions have closed their doors. Religious services have been canceled. Millions upon millions of people have changed their habits. Many are now working from home.
This is the new normal.
The sports world has ground to a halt.
Team rosters in baseball and other sports were depleted during World War II but the games went on. Champions like Joe Louis reported for military duty but professional boxing continued.
This is different.
On March 11, the National Basketball Association announced that it was canceling all games until further notice. That same day, the NCAA announced that the men’s and women’s basketball championship tournaments would be played with no one other than essential personnel allowed in the arenas. One day later, the NCAA announced that “March Madness” and all other NCAA winter and spring championship events had been canceled in their entirety.
On March 12, Major League Baseball announced that it was canceling all remaining spring training games and delaying the start of the regular season (scheduled for March 26) by at least two weeks.
On March 13, officials at Augusta National Golf Club announced that The Masters, scheduled for April 9 through April 12, had been postponed.
When the NBA, “March Madness,” Major League Baseball, and The Masters shut down, people pay attention.
Boxing matches in the United States and around the world have been canceled.
On March 11, governor Gavin Newsom announced that California public health officials had advised him that, until at least the end of March, gatherings of more than 250 people should be postponed. One day later, the California State Athletic Commission announced that all combat sports events in the state through the end of March had been canceled.
In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and New York Philharmonic Orchestra announced temporary closures. Broadway shows were suspended through at least April 12. For the first time since its inception 258 years ago, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade was postponed.
As for the Shakur Stevenson and Michael Conlan fight cards . . . On March 12, Top Rank issued a press release that read in part, “Due to the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure the health and safety of boxing fans and the fight participants, the March 14 and March 17 events at Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden will proceed without spectators. The only individuals granted access to the events will be essential production and support staff in addition to fighters and necessary team members and credentialed media. Both events will still be shown live on their respective ESPN platforms.”
The plan to hold the fights without spectators in the arena evoked the memory of baseball great Willie Keeler who, when asked for the secret of his success as a batter, replied, “Hit ’em where they ain’t.”
But on a more serious note; fighters risk their lives every time they step into the ring. State athletic commission inspectors and others who work in close proximity with fighters and their camps on fight night shouldn’t.
Moreover, COVID-19 has been taking a toll on hospital emergency rooms, which would make treatment for a fighter who is seriously injured during a fight even more problematic. Thus, on the night of March 12, Top Rank announced, “After close consultation with the New York State Athletic Commission, it has been determined that Saturdayâs and Tuesdayâs events cannot proceed in light of the ongoing Coronavirus crisis.”
Dozens of future fight cards have been canceled. Events like Daniel Dubois vs. Joe Joyce in London on April 11, Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders in Las Vegas on May 2, and Anthony Joshua vs. Kubrat Pulev in London on June 20 are in limbo.
Sports will recover. There was no World Series in 1994 due to a rift between management and the Major League Baseball Players Association. Baseball survived and came back strong. More recently, NBA and NFL seasons have been shortened by labor unrest with no longterm damage to either league.
As for now; the immediate message is, “This is serious. This is not a time for games.”
9/11 was a blow to most Americans. But after the initial attacks, it didn’t directly threaten their lives. COVID-19 does. And it’s not a Democratic or Republican virus. It’s not a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim virus. It’s a not a straight, gay, or transsexual virus.
Medicine is far more advanced now that it was in 1918. But medicine can’t cure every malady (think cancer). And even under the best of circumstances, medical treatments take time to develop. As famed scientist Wernher von Braun noted, “Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.”
It’s likely that, no matter how devastating COVID-19 becomes, someday it will be looked upon as little more than a blip in the timeline of history. That’s how the 1918 pandemic appears to us now. But for those who live (and die) through the present crisis, the immediate consequences are very real. The 1918 pandemic seems less distant and more real in our minds now than it did a month ago.
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book â A Dangerous Journey: Another Year Inside Boxing â was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. On June 14, 2020, he will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke

Avila Perspective, Chap. 326: Top Rank and San Diego Smoke
Years ago, I worked at a newsstand in the Beverly Hills area. It was a 24-hour a day version and the people that dropped by were very colorful and unique.
One elderly woman Eva, who bordered on homeless but pridefully wore lipstick, would stop by the newsstand weekly to purchase a pack of menthol cigarettes. On one occasion, she asked if I had ever been to San Diego?
I answered âyes, many times.â
She countered âyou need to watch out for San Diego Smoke.â
This Saturday, Top Rank brings its brand of prizefighting to San Diego or what could be called San Diego Smoke. Leading the fight card is Mexicoâs Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1, 32 KOs) defending the WBO super feather title against undefeated Filipino Charly Suarez (18-0, 10 KOs) at Pechanga Arena. ESPN will televise.
This is Navarreteâs fourth defense of the super feather title.
The last time Navarrete stepped in the boxing ring he needed six rounds to dismantle the very capable Oscar Valdez in their rematch. One thing about Mexico Cityâs Navarrete is he always brings âthe smoke.â
Also, on the same card is Fontana, Californiaâs Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) vying for the interim IBF lightweight title against Russiaâs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1, 12 KOs) on the co-main event.
Abdullaev has only fought once before in the USA and was handily defeated by Devin Haney back in 2019. But that was six years ago and since then he has knocked off various contenders.
Muratalla is a slick fighting lightweight who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy now in Moreno Valley, Calif. Itâs a virtual boot camp with many of the top fighters on the West Coast available to spar on a daily basis. If you need someone bigger or smaller, stronger or faster someone can match those needs.
When you have that kind of preparation available, itâs tough to beat. Still, you have to fight the fight. You never know what can happen inside the prize ring.
Another fighter to watch is Perla Bazaldua, 19, a young and very talented female fighter out of the Los Angeles area. She is trained by Manny Robles who is building a small army of top female fighters.
Bazaldua (1-0, 1 KO) meets Mona Ward (0-1) in a super flyweight match on the preliminary portion of the Top Rank card. Top Rank does not sign many female fighters so you know that they believe in her talent.
Others on the Top Rank card in San Diego include Giovani Santillan, Andres Cortes, Albert Gonzalez, Sebastian Gonzalez and others.
They all will bring a lot of smoke to San Diego.
Probox TV
A strong card led by Erickson âThe Hammerâ Lubin (26-2, 18 KOs) facing Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0, 6 KOs) in a super welterweight clash between southpaws takes place on Saturday at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. PROBOX TV will stream the fight card.
Ardreal has rocketed up the standings and now faces veteran Lubin whose only losses came against world titlists Sebastian Fundora and Jermell Charlo. Itâs a great match to decide who deserves a world title fight next.
Another juicy match pits Argentinaâs Nazarena Romero (14-0-2) against Mexicoâs Mayelli Flores (12-1-1) in a female super bantamweight contest.
Nottingham, England
Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KOs) defends the IBO super featherweight title against Leigh Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) in Woodâs hometown on Saturday at Nottingham Arena in Nottingham, England. DAZN will stream the Queensberry Promotions card.
Irelandâs Cacace seems to have the odds against him. But he is no stranger to dancing in the enemyâs lair or on foreign territory. He formerly defeated Josh Warrington in London and Joe Cordina in Riyadh in IBO title defenses.
Lampley at Wild Card
Boxing telecaster Jim Lampley will be signing his new book It Happened! at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday, May 10, beginning at 2 p.m. Lampley has been a large part of many of the greatest boxing events in the past 40 years. He and Freddie Roach will be at the signing.
Fights to Watch (All times Pacific Time)
Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Anthony Cacace (23-1) vs Leigh Wood (28-3).
Sat. PROBOX.tv 3 p.m. Erickson Lubin (26-2) vs Ardreal Holmes Jr. (17-0).
Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Emanuel Navarrete (39-2-1) vs Charly Suarez (18-0); Raymond Muratalla (22-0) vs Zaur Abdullaev (20-1).
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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âBreadmanâ Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen âBreadmanâ Edwardsâ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
Itâs true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian âJ Rockâ Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurdâs hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwardsâ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at âBoxing Sceneâ in a column where he answers questions from readers.
Itâs an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isnât to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
âFighters are constantly mislabled,â he says. âEveryone talks about Joe Louisâs right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and itâs more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.â
Stephen âBreadmanâ Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwardsâ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie âCornbread, Earl and Me,â starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didnât stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so itâs no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadmanâs estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the âFour Kingsâ with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonardâs three-time rival Roberto Duran. âI once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duranâs title defenses on it,â says Edwards. âThis was a back before the days of YouTube.â
But Edwardsâ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the âPittsburgh Windmillâ Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
âGreb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,â says Breadman, âbut there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?â
Edwards notes that in Harry Grebâs heyday, he wasnât talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. âBody punching is a lost art,â he once wrote. â[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.â
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesnât seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. âTerence is older,â he says, âbut has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.â That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Caneloâs performance against William Scull: âCaneloâs legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.â
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plantâs last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, heâs at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, heâs back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. Thatâs assuming he can stay awake.
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Arneâs Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arneâs Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
Itâs old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. Thatâs according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night â knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of âCat on a Hot Tin Roofâ â no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
****
Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment â entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoterâs dream. Itâs no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter â and by an overwhelming margin — is âKid.â
And that partly explains Naoya Inoueâs charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, âWill-o’-the Wispâ Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archerâs style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didnât have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasnât quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, Â a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joeyâs trainer and manager late in Joeyâs career.
May he rest in peace.
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