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Odds and Ends: Studio Fights, Mayweather Gym notes, Adrien Broner and More
Odds and Ends: Studio Fights, Mayweather Gym notes, Adrien Broner and More
Back in the day when folks watched boxing on little black-and-white TVs and boxing aired in primetime several nights a week, Nat Fleischer said he could envision the day when fights were held in a TV studio without a live audience. Small fight clubs were then falling by the wayside, attendance was plummeting at the larger arenas, and everyone blamed television for giving away the product for free.
Itâs turns out that Fleischer, who died in 1972, was prophetic. However, he certainly didnât foresee the circumstances that may rumple boxing into a studio sport during these trying times.
In a conversation with the hosts of a daily boxing show on SiriusXM radio, Bob Arum acknowledged that he has been talking to the Nevada Athletic Commission about staging fights in a studio. For this to happen, said Arum, everyone allowed on the premises â the fighters, cornermen, officials, TV production crew, etc. â would first have to be tested for the coronavirus.
ESPN, noted Arum, would be amenable because at the moment the network is in desperate need of content. And boxing, more than any other major sport (and we donât count snooker or darts, both popular in the UK) can be squeezed into a very small space such as a TV studio.
One fight that may be âstudio-izedâ is the match between IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev and mandatory IBF challenger Fanlong Meng. Scheduled for March 28 on ESPN, the bout was headed to Quebec City, Canada, but orphaned when the provincial government instituted a temporary ban on gatherings of over 250 people. Meng is from China, but has been training in New Jersey and hasn’t been back to his homeland since the epidemic hit.
The April 25 fight between IBF/WBA bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue and WBO title-holder Jphn Riel Casimero may also be studio-bound if things havenât loosened up by then. The Top Rank promotion was announced for Mandalay Bay, an MGM property on the Las Vegas Strip. (There is a TV studio in the new state-of-the-art UFC headquarters in Las Vegas. Whether the organization would rent it to Top Rank is another story; Arum and Dana White havenât been on the best of terms.)
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The Mayweather Gym was unusually quiet when we peeked in on Friday afternoon. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are the days set aside for sparring and these are usually the busiest days of the week.
We also looked in on Thursday and when we were there Floyd Mayweather Sr. was working the pads with a cute little girl that I guessed to be about nine years old. She was delivering fast combinations and her punches had some mustard behind them.
Layla McCarter was also there working the speed bag. She had a date vs. TBA for promoter Steve Forbes at the Clackamas Armory outside Portland, Oregon, on April 5 but that event has been scrapped by gubernatorial decree. McCarter last fought in January of last year. Finding opponents has been tough. Despite her advancing age, none of the good boxers from 135 to 147 want to get in the ring with her.
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While weâre on the subject of womenâs boxing, there was a big upset on Saturday at an Olympic qualifying tournament in London. Belgiumâs Delfine Persoon (44-2 as a pro) lost a close decision to Nikoleta Pita of Greece.
Persoon fought Katie Taylor last June at Madison Square Garden underneath Joshua-Ruiz I. All four meaningful belts in the lightweight division were at stake. Persoon out-landed Taylor in a humdinger of a fight but came out on the short end of a majority decision. In many quarters and especially in Belgium, the verdict was viewed as a heist.
Persoon started slowly against the unheralded, 22-year-old Pita and it cost her. Pita won the first two rounds on four of the five scorecards and won a 4-1 decision. Persoon will get another chance to secure a berth in Tokyo at the Last Chance tournament scheduled for May 13 in Paris.
By the way, the 35-year-old Persoon isnât the oldest woman in the tournament. That honor goes to Finlandâs Mira Potkonen, a 39-year-old mother of two who won bronze at the 2016 Games. Potkonen, a lightweight, will be in action Tuesday against Caroline Dubois, the 19-year-old sister of fast-rising heavyweight contender Daniel Dubois. Caroline has never lost, but this is her first tournament at the senior level.
The London qualifying tournament is an 11-day event, but what are the odds that it will be allowed to run its course? The Americas qualifying tournament, which would have included Team USA and the always formidable Cuban team, was called off. It was slated to begin in Buenos Aires on March 26.
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Has any boxer ever had a more apt nickname than Adrien âThe Problemâ Broner?
More details have emerged regarding Bronerâs arrest this past Friday evening in Miami Beach. According to TMZ, which received a copy of the police report, Broner was found passed out behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce SUV which was stalled in a traffic lane with the engine running. The boxer failed a field sobriety test and was arrested for DUI.
Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing ChannelÂ
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 308: SoCal Rivals Rocha and Curiel Rumble and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 308: SoCal Rivals Rocha and Curiel Rumble and More
Decades ago, battles between regional warriors were as common as freeway traffic in Los Angeles during rush hour.
Bobby Chacon repped San Fernando Valley, Mando Ramos came from the docks of San Pedro, Danny âLittle Redâ Lopez lived in Alhambra and Ruben âMaravilla Kidâ Navarro hailed from East L.A. And they rumbled repeatedly with each other.
The boxing sphere in California has grown much larger despite the closure of boxing palaces such as the Olympic Auditorium, Hollywood Legion Stadium, Great Western Forum, the L.A. Coliseum and Wrigley Field.
Those were classic venues.
Today in the 21st century boxing continues to grow.
Golden Boy Promotions presents SoCal regional rivals Santa Anaâs Alexis Rocha (25-2, 16 KOs) facing Hollywoodâs Raul Curiel (15-0,13 KOs) in a welterweight clash on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif. DAZN will stream the main card and YouTube.com the remainder.
Ontario is located in the Inland Empire known as the I.E.
Rocha, 27, has grown into a crowd favorite with a crowd-pleasing style developed by Orange County boxing trainer Hector Lopez. I remember his pro debut at Belasco Theater in downtown L.A. He obliterated his foe in three rounds and the small venue erupted with applause.
Wherever Rocha goes to fight, his fans follow.
âAnyone I face is trying to take food away from my family,â said Rocha.
Curiel, 29, has traveled a different road. As a former Mexican Olympian he took the slower road toward adapting to the professional style. Freddie Roach has refined the Mexican fighterâs style and so far, he remains unbeaten with a 10-fight knockout streak.
âI want to fight the best in the division,â said Curiel who is originally from Guadalajara.
Super welter hitters
Another top-notch fighter on the card is super welterweight Charles Conwell from Cleveland, Ohio. Conwell (20-0, 15 KOs) faces Argentinaâs undefeated Gerardo Vergara (20-0, 13 KOs) in the co-main event.
Conwell may be the best kept secret in boxing and has been dominating foes for the past several years. He has solid defense, good power and is very strong for this weight class. Very Strong.
âI got to go out there and dominate,â said Conwell. âThis is a fight that can lead me to a world championship fight.â
Golden Boy Promotions got lucky in picking up this fighter who could compete with any super welterweight out there. Anyone.
Vergara, 30, is another Argentine product and if you know anything about that South American country, they groom strong fighters with power. Think Marcos Maidana. This will be his first true test.
âI really hope he (Conwell) backs what he is saying,â said Vergara.
Marlen Esparza vs Arely Mucino
Former flyweight world titlists finally meet, but at super flyweight.
Olympic bronze medalist Marlen Esparza fights Mexicoâs Arely Mucino in a fight that should have taken place years ago. Both are both coming off losses in title fights.
Esparza has the âfast handsâ as she said and Mucino the âaggressive styleâ as she mentioned at the press conference on Thursday in Ontario.
Itâs a 10-round affair and could mark the end for the loser.
Friday Night Fights
Undefeated middleweight Sadridden Akhmedov (14-0, 12 KOs) headlines a 360 Promotions and faces Raphael Igbokwe (17-5, 7 KOs) in the main event on Friday, Dec. 13, at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, Calif. UFC Fight Pass will stream the event.
Akhmedov hails from Kazakhstan and if you remember legendary Gennady âTriple Gâ Golovkin also hails from that region. Tom Loeffler the head of 360 Promotions worked with GGG too among other legends.
Is Akhmedov the real deal?
Former American Olympian Carlos Balderas (14-2) is also on the card and fights veteran Cesar Villarraga (11-10-1) who has been known to upset favorites in the past.
Fights to Watch
Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Sadridden Akhmedov (14-0) vs Raphael Igbokwe (17-5).
Sat. DAZN 10:30 a.m. Murodjon Akhmadaliev (12-1) vs Ricardo Espinoza (30-4).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Alexis Rocha (25-2) vs Raul Curiel (15-0); Charles Conwell (20-0) vs Gerardo Vergara (20-0); Marlen Esparza (14-2) vs Arely Mucino (32-4-2).
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Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
The final ShoBox event of 2025 played out tonight at the companyâs regular staging ground in Plant City, Florida. When the smoke cleared, the âA-sideâ fighters in the featured bouts were 3-0 in step-up fights vs. battle-tested veterans, two of whom were former world title challengers. However, the victors in none of the three fights, with the arguable exception of lanky bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi, made any great gain in public esteem.
In the main event, a lightweight affair, Jonhatan Cardoso, a 25-year-old Brazilian, earned a hard-fought, 10-round unanimous decision over Los Mochis, Mexico southpaw Eduardo Ramirez. Â The decision would have been acceptable to most neutral observers if it had been deemed a draw, but the Brazilian won by scores of 97-93 and 96-94 twice.
Cardoso, now 18-1 (15), had the crowd in his corner., This was his fourth straight appearance in Plant City. Ramirez, disadvantaged by being the smaller man with a shorter reach, declined to 28-5-3.
Co-Feature
In a 10-round featherweight fight that had no indelible moments, Luis Reynaldo Nunez advanced to 20-0 (13) with a workmanlike 10-round unanimous decision over Mexicoâs Leonardo Baez. The judges had it 99-91 and 98-92 twice.
Nunez, from the Dominican Republic, is an economical fighter who fights behind a tight guard. Reputedly 85-5 as an amateur, he is managed by Sampson Lewkowicz who handles David Benavidez among others and trained by Bob Santos. Baez (22-5) was returning to the ring after a two-year hiatus.
Also
In a contest slated for â10,â ever-improving bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi improved to 12-0 (3 KOs) with a sixth-round stoppage of Filipino import Aston Palicte (28-7-1). Akitsugi caught Palicte against the ropes and unleashed a flurry of punches climaxed by a right hook. Palicte went down and was unable to beat the count. The official time was 1:07 of round six.
This was the third straight win by stoppage for Akitsugi, a 27-year-old southpaw who trains at Freddie Roachâs Wild Card gym in LA under Roachâs assistant Eddie Hernandez. Palicte, who had been out of the ring for 16 months, is a former two-time world title challenger at superflyweight (115).
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Introducing Jaylan Phillips, Boxingâs Palindrome Man
On Thursday, Nov. 28, as Americans hunkered down at the dinner table with family and friends for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast, junior welterweight Jaylan Phillips and his trainer Kevin Henry were up in the sky flying from Las Vegas to Rochester, New York. For their Thanksgiving repast, they were offered a tiny bag of peanuts.
Phillips would not have eaten too much had the opportunity presented itself. The next day was the weigh-in. On Saturday, the 30th, he would compete in the 6-round main event of a small club show.
Phillips wasnât brought to Rochester to win. His opponent, Wilfredo Flores, had a checkered career but he had once held a regional title and he lived in the general area. In boxing parlance, Jaylan Phillips was the âBâ side. His role, from the promoterâs standpoint, was to fatten the record of the house fighter.
Jaylan didnât follow the script. He won a unanimous decision over his 11-3-1 opponent, advancing his record to 4-3-4, and returned to Las Vegas with a new nickname, albeit not one of his own choosing or intended as a permanent accessory. This reporter dubbed him The Palindrome Man.
A palindrome is a word that spells the same backward and forward. Phillipsâ current record is palindrome-ish.
Itâs an odd record. One would be hard-pressed to find other active boxers with a slew of draws inside a small window of fights. It harks to the days, circa 1900, when some journeymen boxers accumulated as many draws as wins and losses combined.
A boxer with a 4-3-4 record would seem to be an unlikely candidate for a feature story, but the affable Jaylan Phillips is not your run-of-the-mill prizefighter.
Boxers, as we know, tend to be city folk, drawn from the black belts and the barrios of Americaâs urban places. Phillips grew up in Ebro, Florida, population 237 per the 2020 U.S. census. Ebro is in the Florida panhandle in the northwestern part of the state in a county that was dry until 2022. It is 23 miles due north of Panama City Beach but a world apart from the seaside Florida resort town and its pricey beachfront condos.
Of those 237 people, only five identified as African-American or black, or so it would be written, but the census-taker was obviously slothful. âThatâs a crazy number,â says Phillips. âThere has to be at least 40 or 50. And the reason I know that is that we are all related.â
âWhat does one do for excitement in Ebro?â we asked him. âHunting, fishing, trapping, that sort of thing,â he said. And what does one trap? âMostly raccoons,â he said, while adding that some of the elders in his extended family consider it a delicacy.
Phillips fought in Rochester, New York, on Saturday and was back in the gym in Las Vegas on Tuesday. He lives alone and does not own a car. His apartment, near UNLV, is three-and-a-half miles from the Top Rank Gym where he does most of his training. He jogs there and then jogs home again, this in a city where the temperature routinely exceeds 100 degrees for much of the year.
During his high school years, Phillips, now 25, concedes that he smoked a lot of weed and it impacted his grades. His interest in boxing was fueled by the exploits of Roy Jones Jr, another fighter with roots in the Florida panhandle. In his spare time, he enjoys watching tapes of old Sugar Ray Robinson fights which can be found on youtube. âHe was the best,â says Phillips of Robinson who has been dead for 35 years, echoing an opinion that hasnât diminished with the passage of time.
In his second pro fight, Phillips was thrust against a baby-faced novice from Cleveland, Abdullah Mason. Although Mason was only 17 years old, the Top Rank matchmaker did Jaylan no favors. He was still standing when the referee waived the fight off in the second round.
About the heavily-hyped Mason, Phillips says, âHeâs a beast, like they say, but I would love to fight him again. I took that fight on two weeksâ notice. Iâm confident the outcome would have been different if I had had a full camp.â
This observation will undoubtedly strike some as a delusion. Pound for pound, the precocious Mason just may be the top pro fighter in the world in his age group. But Jaylan isnât lacking confidence which spills over when he talks about what lies ahead for him. âI will be a world champion,â he says matter-of-factly. And after boxing? âI see myself back home in Ebro living a humble life, hunting and fishing, but with a million dollars in the bank.â
If unswerving dedication and self-confidence are the keys to a successful boxing career, then Jaylan Phillips, notwithstanding his 4-3-4 record, is destined for big things. But hereâs the rub:
âIn boxing, it isnât what you earn, but what you negotiate,â says the esteemed British boxing pundit Steve Bunce alluding to the importance of a well-connected manager. In a perfect world, each win would be stepping-stone to a bigger fight with a commensurately larger purse. But in this chaotic sport, a âB sideâ fighter who scores an upset in a low-level fight may actually be penalized for his âimpertinence.â Promoters may be wary of using him again (the old ârisk/rewardâ encumbrance) and, in a sport where itâs important for an up-and-comer to stay busy, his progress may be stalled.
Phillips doesnât know when his next assignment will materialize, but regardless he will keep plugging along while setting an example that others who aspire to greatness would be wise to emulate.
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