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A Ray to Remember

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Monday, April 6, marks the 33rd anniversary of the storied fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. In 2007, in conjunction with the 20th anniversary, Philadelphia Daily News boxing writer Bernard Fernandez looked back at that event through the eyes of Sugar Ray Leonard with whom he had arranged an exclusive interview. Fernandez’s feature-length story ran under the title “A Ray to Remember.”

With Bernard’s permission, we are re-printing that story in its entirety. A 2020 International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, the multi-decorated Fernandez is the author of “Championship Rounds,” a soon-to-be-published anthology.

A Ray to Remember

The image is one of eternal youth, the impossibly gifted and charismatic young father smiling and cutting up with his giggling tyke of a son.

But the popular soft-drink commercial in which Ray Leonard Sr. and Ray Jr. appeared together aired in 1980, when certain boxers, if not boxing itself, were still seen as having broad enough appeal to sell products to America.

The 2007 vintage Ray Leonard Sr., better known to his many fans as Sugar Ray, remains handsome and charismatic. But, at 50, his working attire now runs more toward tailored suits and tasseled, Italian-made loafers than to satin trunks and tasseled boxing shoes. It has been more than 10 years since he attempted to summon the old magic in a final, futile comeback bid.

But during a luminescent prime in which he transcended his sport as few have, the quick-handed, steel-willed kid from suburban Washington, D.C., gave the public more than a few moments that are indelibly burned into the pages of boxing history. There was the gold medal he won at the 1976 Montreal Olympics; his stirring, late-round comeback in his first showdown with Thomas Hearns; the night he so dominated the great Roberto Duran in their first rematch that the “Hands of Stone” up and quit in the eighth round.

For all those peaks in a Himalayan career, however, perhaps the most towering accomplishment occurred on April 6, 1987, in a temporary outdoor stadium erected on the tennis courts at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. That’s when Leonard emerged from one of several retirements to shock undisputed middleweight champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler, who was widely regarded as near-invincible. In the Vegas sports books, the odds against Leonard were incredibly long for someone of his stature. More than a few members of the media even expressed concern for his immediate and long-term health.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Hagler-Leonard, a prizefight that seized the attention of the entire world, but the years always melt away in the mind of the man who manufactured one of boxing’s most unforgettable upsets. All Leonard has to do is close his eyes for the memories to come flooding back, as warm and vivid as ever.

“I swear, I look at my kids and wonder where the time went,” Leonard said in an exclusive interview with the Daily News recently. “Can it really have been 20 years? One day, you look at your son and he’s a little boy. Before you know it, he’s sprouting facial hair and is three or four inches taller than you. You’re, like, `Wow.’ Ray Jr. is 33 now.

“It’s funny how the good memories stick with you longer. Human nature, I suppose. I could always tell in the dressing room, when I was warming up, if it was going to be a good night or a long night. If you don’t feel like you have it that night, it is the most frightening thing for a fighter. I felt that way against Hector (Camacho, who stopped Leonard in five rounds on March 3, 1997, in Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall, his final bout). I felt the same thing before the first Duran fight, before the second Hearns fight, before the fight with Terry Norris.

“Fighters know when they have it. They know. When I was younger and I had those little moments of doubt, which were rare, I was usually able to overcome them. After Camacho, I knew I never wanted to experience a moment like that again. It’s like you have a vision you’re about to die and you can’t do anything about it.

“But against Hagler, I just felt like I was as ready as I possibly could be.”

Hagler-Leonard, like the first matchup of Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield that was delayed for years, was a long time coming. Leonard had spent a sizable chunk of his career at welterweight, moving up to junior middleweight at around the same time Hagler was establishing himself as one of the finest 160-pound champions of all time. Everyone assumed that Leonard would move up to middleweight and challenge Hagler, probably sooner rather than later.

In the spring of 1982, however, Leonard was inadvertently poked in the left eye by the gloved thumb of a sparring partner The eye immediately reddened and his vision became blurred. The blurring cleared up after a short time, but the spots in his line of vision did not.

A detached retina was diagnosed, and Dr. Ron Michels operated on Leonard’s eye to repair the damage. Although advances in laser technology have made the reattachment of retinas a common surgical procedure, back then the injury was serious enough to end careers.

Although Michels assured him that his left eye was fully healed, Leonard, who had impulsively retired and unretired twice, wrestled with the fear that continuation of his career might leave him sightless. That, and the urging of his first wife, Juanita, edged him toward a momentous decision.

Ever the showman, Leonard rented the Baltimore Civic Center on November 9, 1982, for a black-tie gala attended by 10,000 fans and special guests. Among those on hand was Hagler, who also wore a tuxedo for what he presumed would be the announcement that the fight everyone wanted to see finally was going to be made.

In a ring that had been set up for the occasion, Leonard looked at Hagler and addressed the crowd. “A fight with this great man, with this great champion, would be one of the greatest fights in history,” Leonard said. “Unfortunately, it’ll never happen.”

There was a gasp, followed by stunned silence. Hagler felt, with some justification, he had been sandbagged. This is not what he came to hear.

But even as he was saying the words, Leonard had doubts about their validity in the long term.

“Yeah,” I said, `This is it. I’m done,’ but I’m not sure in my heart I believed it,” Leonard said. “I think I realized I might change my mind later, but I felt pressured to do the logical thing, which was to retire.

“I was, what, 26 years old then? I was a young guy still at the top of my game. But I guess I just wanted to put an end to the questions. My mind told me what to say, but in my heart my competitive fire was still burning.”

The flame might have been set on low, but it never went out. Leonard accepted a position as a boxing analyst for HBO, which allowed him to be at ringside for a number of Hagler’s title defenses.

“Marvin became my friend,” Leonard said. “We’d talk. There was no barrier between us because I was out of it; he didn’t consider me a threat to him. So he told me things that I mentally stored away.

“When he came for the grand opening of a restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, I had a little piece of, we were drinking champagne. He said, `Yeah, man, I’m not motivated. I’m starting to get cut easily.’ It didn’t seem like he was into boxing that much anymore.

“I don’t know how significant that conversation was, but it was one of a lot of factors in my decision to come back.”

Perhaps the most crucial of those factors was Hagler’s performance in a tougher-than-expected, 11th-round knockout of John “The Beast” Mugabi on March 10, 1986.

“It was a cold night in Vegas,” Leonard recalled. “I saw Mugabi outjabbing and outboxing Hagler. It was a bad, bad night for Marvin, even though he won. It took a toll on him physically. It also seemed to me that he wasn’t focused.”

Leonard – who had had only one bout since February 1982, a ninth-round stoppage of Philadelphia journeyman Kevin Howard on May 11, 1984, in which Leonard was floored himself – made another announcement. He was back, and he was going after Hagler.

“When I said I was coming out of retirement, the reporters wanted to know who my tuneup fight was going to be against,” Leonard said. “I said, `No tuneup. I’m going straight to Marvin.’ Even my brother Roger thought I had lost it. There was no one, besides my father, who believed I had a prayer.

“Well, there was my father and Mike Trainer (Leonard’s longtime attorney/adviser). I talked to Mike after I came back from watching Hagler-Mugabi. I said, `Michael, me and Hagler, who wins?’ He looked me right in the eye and said, `Ray Leonard can’t beat Hagler. But Sugar Ray Leonard can.’

“When he said that, I didn’t understand at first. Looking back at it now, it made sense. He was saying Ray Leonard – the civilian, the businessman, the media personality – couldn’t win a fight like that. But if I could get back to being Sugar Ray, I could win.”

The buildup to the fight was of Super Bowl proportions. Hundreds of media from around the world converged on Las Vegas, not so much to cover a competitive event as to chronicle Leonard’s seemingly doomed quest.

But Leonard soaked up the skepticism and fed off it, all the while employing every psychological ploy he could think of.

“I worked Hagler from Day 1, even before I had the slightest imagination of fighting him,” Leonard said. “I studied this man day in and day out. I guess I did it subconsciously, when I was commentating for HBO. I’d study his mannerisms.

“Then, when Mike Trainer and I were negotiating (with Hagler’s manager-trainers, Goody and Pat Petronelli), we played angles. We’d give them this, take back that. To Hagler and his people,  none of it was relevant. All they saw was the dollar signs. They never even considered the possibility that Hagler might lose.

“Look, Hagler made a ton of money. I made a ton, too. Both parties were satisfied. It wasn’t until after the fact that they were dissatisfied. They complained that we got to pick the brand of gloves that were used, the number of rounds the fight was scheduled for.”

As was the case with Muhammad Ali’s “Rope-a-Dope” strategy against George Foreman,  Leonard concocted a plan to steal rounds with flurries in the last half-minute of close ones. It proved a stroke of genius.

“I told (cornerman) Ollie Dunlap in the dressing room, `30 seconds before the end of the round, yell. Let me know,” Leonard said. “He did that, and I’d flurry. It won rounds for me, no question.”

It also helped that Hagler, a southpaw, came out in an orthodox posture for the first two rounds.

“When the bell rang for the first round, I was all nervous energy,” Leonard said. “I might have talked the trash, but now it was time to put up or shut up. I really didn’t know if I still had it. I hoped it was there. But when Hagler came out fighting righthanded, it gave me an opportunity to get settled.”

Hagler, who maintains to this day that he deserved to win, was so enraged by the split decision against him – judges JoJo Guerra and Dave Moretti scored it 118-110 and 115-113 for Leonard, while Lou Fillippo had Hagler ahead, 115-113 – that he never fought again. The Brockton, Massachusetts, native lives in Milan, Italy, where he is a part-time actor.

“Hagler didn’t want to be around me for a while, which I can understand,” Leonard said. “But when we see each other now we’re cordial. I was in Vegas for Oscar (De La Hoya) and Felix (Trinidad). Marvin was there. He asked to see me. We shook hands and spoke.

“After the fight, which Oscar lost, I saw Marvin the next morning before I went to the airport. I said, `Can you believe that decision? No way Oscar lost.’ He said, `Yeah, I believe it. It happened to me.’”

Leonard was 2-2-1 in his five fights after Hagler, retiring at the age of 40. These days he enjoys the company of his second wife, Bernadette, and the youngest of his four children, Camille, 10, and Daniel, 6. He plays some golf, skis and has a prominent role with The Contender reality boxing series on ESPN.

“There’s no void that needs to be filled,” Leonard insisted. “There’s a fullness, a direction, to what I do. I am not in a hurry to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to stay creative and stimulated. I’m reconnecting with my older kids (including son Jerrell, 23). I feel good about where I’ve been, who I am now and where I’m going.

“Hagler and I had great, illustrious careers. We’re living our lives. You can’t hold onto the past forever. You have to move on.”

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

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Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured with his friend and training partner Joey Dawejko).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way.  So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

**

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.”  What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

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With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era.  Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

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The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

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Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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