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Thomas Hauser’s Foreword to ‘Sporting Blood,’ Carlos Acevedo’s New Book

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The Internet has changed sportswriting, particularly when it comes to writing about boxing. Very few newspapers or magazines now have a writer on staff who understands the sport and business of boxing. Meanwhile, the number of websites devoted to the sweet science keeps growing. Some of these websites are quite good. Others are awful. Reprinting a press release with a new lead is not journalism. Simply voicing an opinion without more is not journalism.

As Carlos Acevedo – the author of Sporting Blood – wrote in another forum, “Boxing is immune to critical consensus because of the number of fanboys who pretend to be journalists. No other sport has such an unsophisticated mediascape covering it.”

Acevedo was born in the Bronx in 1972 and now lives in Brooklyn. He was drawn to boxing as a boy, grew up reading The Ring, and recalls being captivated by Larry Holmes, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, and Marvin Johnson. Decades later, when the Internet gave a platform to anyone with a computer and modem, he decided to write about the sweet science.

Acevedo’s journey as a boxing writer began in 2007. Two years later, he founded a website called The Cruelest Sport. Since then, he has written for numerous print publications and websites including Hannibal Boxing (his current primary outlet), MaxBoxing, Undisputed Champion Network, Boxing Digest, Boxing World, Remezcla, and Esquina Boxeo.

“I love the fights and the narrative that comes with them,” Carlos says. “Each fight is a story unto itself; a drama that exposes character and offers the ideal of self-determination.”

I’m not sure when I first became aware of Acevedo’s writing. I do remember laughing out loud years ago while reading his description of promoter Gary Shaw, who Carlos opined “deserves credit for tenacity, like certain insects that become immune over time to Raid and Black Flag.” I first quoted him in my own writing in 2011 in conjunction with less-than-stellar refereeing by Russell Mora and Joe Cortez.

“Incompetence is usually the answer for most of the riddles in boxing,” Acevedo wrote of Mora’s overseeing Abner Mares vs. Joseph Agbeko. “But Mora was a quantum leap removed from mere ineptitude. He was clearly biased in favor of Mares and, worse than that, seemed to enter the ring with a predetermined notion of what he was going to do. Mares had carte blanche to whack Agbeko below the belt as often as he wanted.”

As for Cortez’s refereeing in Floyd Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz, Acevedo proclaimed, “Cortez, whose incompetence has been steadily growing, is now one of the perpetual black clouds of boxing. Why let Cortez, whose reverse Midas touch has marred more than one big fight recently, in the building at all on Saturday night?”

Acevedo doesn’t have a big platform. He doesn’t have a wealth of contacts in the boxing industry or one-on-one access to big names. In part, that’s because he has never compromised his writing to curry favor or ingratiate himself to the powers that be in an effort to gain access or ensure that he receives press credentials for a fight.

But Carlos has several very important things going for him: (1) He appreciates and understands boxing history; (2) He has an intuitive feel for the sport and business of boxing; and (3) He’s a provocative thinker and a good writer who puts thoughts together clearly and logically.

Look at the “Contents” page of Sporting Blood and you’ll see essays (in order) on Carlos Negron, Jack Johnson, Roberto Duran, Esteban De Jesus, Aaron Pryor, Don Jordan, Joe Frazier, Johnny Saxton, Wilfredo Gomez, Lupe Pintor, Davey Moore, Johnny Tapia, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Bert Cooper, Sonny Liston, Jake LaMotta, Ad Wolgast, Tony Ayala Jr, Al Singer, Michael Dokes, Eddie Machen, Mike Quarry, and Muhammad Ali.

That’s an eclectic mix. But each essay goes beyond the name of the fighter attached to it to underscore a fundamental truth about, and capture the essence of, boxing.

Acevedo calls boxing “a dark art.” Phrases like “the hard logic of the ring” characterize the gritty realism of his writing. Some of the thoughts in Sporting Blood that captured my attention include:

*         “Sadism, whether one admits it or not, is an essential part of boxing. So is masochism.”

*         “Nothing can take away from the terrible symmetry boxing gives its practitioners: a hardscrabble life, followed by a hardscrabble profession, followed by a hardscrabble retirement.”

*         “Disillusion is as much a part of boxing as the jab is.”

*         “In boxing, the enemies of promise are numerous: entourages, managers, promoters, injuries, other fighters. But self-destruction ranks up there with the best of the worst.”

*         “There is very little afterlife for a fighter who has failed to succeed.”

Acevedo has an economical writing style that leads readers to the intended destination without unnecessary verbiage or digressions. Consider his description of Aaron Pryor’s origins, a fighter who Carlos describes as “one of the most exciting fighters during an era when action was a prerequisite for fame.”

After noting that Pryor “matched his unbridled style in the ring with an apocalyptic personal life that kept him in boldface for over a decade,” Acevedo explains, “Aaron Pryor was an at-risk youth before the term came into vogue. Dysfunction was in his DNA. He was born out of wedlock in 1955 to an alcoholic mother whose moodiness could lead to impromptu gunplay. Sarah Pryor, who gave birth to seven children from five different fathers, occasionally whipped out the nickel-plated hardware when some of her brood became unruly. Years later, she wound up shooting her husband five times in the kind of supercharged domestic dispute in which the Pryor clan excelled.”

“Pryor,” Acevedo continues, “had a family tree whose branches were gnarled by tragedy. Its roots were blood-soaked. One of his brothers, Lorenzo, was a career criminal who eventually wound up doing hard time for an armed robbery conviction in Ohio. Another brother, David, became a transsexual hooker. His half-brother was shot and paralyzed by his father. His sister, Catherine, stabbed her lover to death. As if to solidify the epigenetics involved in the Pryor family – and to concretize the symbolism of the phrase ‘vicious cycle’ – Sarah Pryor had seen her own mother shot and murdered by a boyfriend when Sarah was a child.”

Want more?

“As an eight-year-old already at sea in chaotic surroundings,” Acevedo notes, “Pryor was molested by a minister.”

There . . . In a little more than two hundred words, Acevedo has painted a portrait. Do you still wonder why Aaron Pryor had trouble conforming to the norms that society expected of him?

In a chilling profile of Tony Ayala Jr, Acevedo writes, “In the ring, he was hemmed in by the ropes. For more than half his life, he was trapped behind bars. The rest of the time? He was locked inside himself.”

Ayala spent two decades in prison in conjunction with multiple convictions for brutal sexual assaults against women. Acevedo sets up the parallel between Ayala’s misogynist conduct and his ring savagery with a quote from the fighter himself about boxing.

“It’s the closest thing to being like God – to control somebody else,” Ayala declared. “I hit a guy and it’s like, I can do anything I want to you. I own you. Your life is mine, and I will do with it what I please. It’s a really sadistic mentality, but that’s what goes on in my mind. It’s really evil. There’s no other way to put it. I step into that dark, most evil part of me and I physically destroy somebody else, and I will do with them what I want.”

Acevedo also has a gift for dramatically recreating the action in classic ring battles. After recounting the carnage that Ad Wolgast and Battling Nelson visited upon each other on February 22, 1910, he observes, “What Wolgast and Nelson produced was not, in retrospect a sporting event, but a gruesome reminder of how often the line between a blood sport and bloodlust was crossed during an era when mercy was an underdeveloped concept in boxing.”

A vivid description of the December 3, 1982, title bout between Wilfredo Gomez and Lupe Pintor is followed by the observation, “At the core of these apocalyptic fights, where two men take turns punishing each other from round to round, lies the question of motivation. Not in the sporting sense; that is, not in the careerist sense or anything so mundane as competition, but in an existential sense. And while boxing lends itself far too often to an intellectual clam chowder (common ingredients: social Darwinism, atavism, gladiatorial analogies, talk of warriors), the fact remains that what Gomez and Pintor did to each other, under the socially-sanctioned auspices of entertainment, bordered on madness.”

This is powerful writing. Enjoy it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Reproduced by permission of Thomas Hauser and Hamilcar Publications, the book publishing arm of Hannibal Boxing Media, LLC.  Learn more about Sporting Blood and how to purchase it here: https://hamilcarpubs.com/books/sporting-blood-tales-from-the-dark-side-of-boxing/

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – A Dangerous Journey: Another Year Inside Boxing – 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. He will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the Class of 2020.

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel 

To comment on this story in The Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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The Hauser Report: What’s Going On With Premier Boxing Champions?

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Eight years ago, Al Haymon unveiled what many thought would be the future of boxing. The boxing community had been awash in rumors for months. Haymon was amassing a war chest totaling hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of a venture capital fund in an effort to take over the sport . . . Haymon was signing hundreds of fighters to managerial and advisory contracts . . . Haymon was planning some sort of TV series . . . Time-buys on multiple networks for an entity called Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) were confirmed.

On March 7, 2015, Haymon began the rollout of his plan when NBC televised the inaugural PBC offering – a fight card featuring Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner in separate bouts. Free boxing. On network television.

But the plan fell short of expectations. Advertisers didn’t come onboard. DAZN and then Saudi Arabia became the flavor of the month. Now PBC is seeking to reassert itself through an alliance with Amazon. The first “PBC on Prime Video” offering will be a pay-per-view event on March 30 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But PBC isn’t the power it once was. No one talks about Al Haymon taking over boxing anymore.

Amazon will distribute the PBC show. It wants to build a live pay-per-view platform for multiple events, and this is an early foray into that realm. It has no interest in playing the sort of role that HBO and Showtime played in boxing. Amazon (like In Demand) will take and distribute the product it’s given.

The PBC pay-per-view events that are streamed on Prime Video will also be available to viewers through other streaming platforms like PPV.com as well as linear-TV cable and satellite PPV distributors.

In addition, Prime Video has said that it will stream a series of “free” (with a subscription to Amazon Prime) PBC Championship Boxing events in the United States and other designated countries on an exclusive basis.

The degree to which Amazon will provide a marketing push for PBC’s shows is unclear at the present time.

Four fights will be on the March 30 PPV stream. The main event was to have matched Keith Thurman vs. Tim Tszyu. Eight years ago when he headlined PBC’s inaugural telecast on NBC, Thurman was young and fresh. Now he’s 35 years old and has won only one fight in the preceding five years (a ten-round decision over Mario Barrios). Tszyu (the son of Kostya Tszyu) was eased into the WBO 154-pound title through an “interim” portal and is being groomed for a big-money fight down the road.

Then, earlier today (March 18), it was reported that Thurman had been injured in training camp and Sebastian Fundora (who’d been slated to fight Serheii Bohachuk on the undercard) will likely face Tszyu. Fundora was speeding along a fast track until his most recent fight which saw him pitching a shutout against Brian Mendoza when a one-punch knockout in round seven derailed his dream.

Sebastian Fundora

Sebastian Fundora

The primary supporting bouts on the pay-per-view stream are expected to be Erislandy Lara vs. Michael Zerafa and Rolly Romero vs. Isaac Cruz.

Lara is forty years old. During the past five years, he has fought Ramon Alvarez, Greg Vendetti, Thomas LaManna, and Gary O’Sullivan (which somehow enabled him to claim the WBA 160-pound belt). Zerafa’s primary qualification seems to be that (like Tszyu) he’s from Australia.

Romero is a tiresome loudmouth who often fails to back up his talk. He was knocked out by Gervonta Davis and was trailing Ismael Barroso on all three judges’ scorecards when a premature stoppage by referee Tony Weeks gifted him the WBA 140-pound belt. Cruz went the distance in a losing effort against Davis.

Former Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza has been consulted with regard to production on the March 30 PPV stream. As of this writing, the commentating team hasn’t been announced (which is odd since the event is less than two weeks away).

Meanwhile, the rest of the sports landscape is rapidly changing.

On January 23, it was announced that Netflix (Prime Video’s most formidable competitor with 247 million subscribers) had signed a deal to stream WWE’s flagship wrestling show – Raw. The ten-year deal will cost Netflix roughly five billion dollars. Netflix can opt out of the deal after five years or, if it chooses, extend it for another ten years.

Then, on March 7, Netflix furthered its commitment to “trash sports” when it announced that Mike Tyson and Jake Paul will meet in the ring in Texas on July 20 in an encounter to be streamed live on Netflix. It’s unclear whether the encounter will be a “fight” or a glorified sparring session.

Adding to the mix; Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers announced on February 6 that they will launch a joint subscription streaming service later this year that will bundle sports content from ESPN and affiliated networks (such as ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS), the Warner Brothers’ Discovery networks that showcase sports (TNT, TBS, TruTV), and Fox (the Fox broadcast network in addition to FS1, FS2 and BTN).

But back to PBC on Prime Video. If the March 30 fight card were streamed as part of the Amazon Prime membership package, it would be a plus for boxing fans. But it won’t be. It’s a pay-per-view event. And even before Thurman’s injury, it wasn’t pay-per-view-worthy as that term was once understood.

You get only one chance to make a first impression. This isn’t a good first impression for PBC on Prime Video.

***

On December 17, I posted a column in which I urged that Gerry Cooney and Cedric Kushner be included on the ballot for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There’s another, more obvious omission that I’d like to address.

Al Haymon has been at the center of the boxing universe for two decades. He built his power through a series of alliances with HBO (his point person was Kery Davis), Golden Boy (Richard Schaefer), and investors (Waddell & Reed) and maintained it through dealings with Showtime (Stephen Espinoza) and various other networks. There were times when it seemed as though he was on the verge of “taking over boxing.” Now Saudi Arabian oil money is the dominant force. But Haymon is breaking new ground through an association between Premier Boxing Champions and Amazon Video.

Haymon likes to style himself as an “advisor” or “manager.” In reality, he functions as a promoter. But labels are irrelevant. The bottom line is that no one has had a greater influence on boxing over the past twenty years than Al Haymon. He belongs in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and the first step toward that end is to put his name on the ballot for induction.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book — “MY MOTHER and me” — is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press this spring and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. https://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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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

Tomorrow (Monday) is a national holiday in Ireland which is always the case whenever Saint Patrick’s Day happens to fall on a Sunday. That explains why today’s fight card in the County Mayo town of Castlebar is being staged on a Sunday. After the show, the attendees with regular jobs can stay up late quaffing down a few pints at their favorite pub knowing they can sleep-in tomorrow. (And they likely needed a few pints to wash away the pain of paying good money to see this craphole show.)

All of the A-Side fighters were Irishmen including the headliner Dillian Whyte, a Londoner of Jamaican extraction who claims that one of his grandparents was born in Ireland. The “Body Snatcher” was matched against German-Romanian slug Christian Hammer.

Whyte, who turns 36 next month, last fought in November of 2022 when he won a lackluster decision over Jermaine Franklin. His rematch with Anthony Joshua in August of last year fell out when an “adverse analytical finding” turned up in his VADA test. Whyte bellowed loudly that he was innocent, but there was the presumption of guilt because he had served a two-year ban for illegal substances earlier in his career. But lo and behold, in a curious development, Whyte was cleared this month when a forensics expert associated with the Texas Boxing Commission asserted that the adverse result was caused by a nutritional supplement that contained a contaminent that wasn’t disclosed on the supplement’s list of ingredients. (Whyte was training in the United States and licensed to fight in Texas when the random drug test was administered.)

Hammer brought a 27-10 (17) record but had been stopped five times, most recently by Joe Joyce who blew him away in four rounds. He was in Castlebar just for the payday and retired on his stool after three frames. He was never down in the fight, but was tattooed with a bunch of punches on his flabby midsection. (The weights were not announced.)

With the win, Dillian Whyte advanced his record to 30-3 (20 KOs). More relevantly, he is back in the mix in the heavyweight picture. His American trainer Buddy McGirt hopes to have him back in the ring in a couple of months.

Other Bouts of Note

Roy Moylette, a 33-year-old junior welterweight from the nearby town of Islandeady, made the locals happy when he got off the deck to win the decision in an 8-round bout with Argentine journeyman Requen Facundo (17-15-2). Moylette (14-2-1) entered the pro ranks with a wealth of international amateur experience, but his pro career never took off. Heading into this match, he announced it would be his farewell fight.

The Argentine, a late sub who had begun his pro career as a featherweight, had Moylette on the canvas in the second round but couldn’t sustain the momentum. The referee, who had the unusual but unmistakably Irish name of Padraig O’Reachtagain, scored it 76-75.

In what was likely his final pro fight, 39-year-old Cork super middleweight Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan left on a downbeat note, losing an 8-round decision to Sofiane Khati. O’Reachtagain had it 77-76 for the outsider.

O’Sullivan (31-6, 21 KOs) will be remembered as the Irishman who wore a handlebar mustache during his fighting days in Boston, a look that harked to John L. Sullivan who Spike believed to be a distant relative. In his previous bout in May of 2022 he was stopped in eight frames by Erislandy Lara in Brooklyn, his fourth setback inside the distance and third in his last six.

A 31-year-old French-Algerian, Khati improved to 15-4 (5).

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Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: ‘The Blue Corner’

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Boxing, like all sports, is more fun to watch when the viewer has a rooting interest. That interest can spring from a variety of factors. Some people like or dislike a particular fighter on a personal level. Others – let’s be honest – root for or against a fighter based on ethnicity.

If I don’t know either of the fighters in a fight, I root for the underdog.

That can be dispiriting. Too many fight cards today consist largely of A-side vs. B-side fights. As a general rule, the A-side fighter comes out of the red corner and the B-side fighter is seated in the blue corner. Upsets are few and far between.

Tom Loeffler’s March 15 fight card at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater is a case in point. There are underdogs and then there are hopeless underdogs. I went to the fights hoping something that wasn’t supposed to happen would happen. But a look at the opponents’ records told me that was unlikely.

BoxRec.com is a wonderful tool for scoping out how competitive a fight is likely to be. Here’s what I learned from BoxRec.com before the fights and how things unfolded in the ring.

Fight #1: Giovanni Scuderi (9-0, 4 KOs) vs. Brandon Carmack – Scuderi’s last opponent had 57 losses. And that opponent might have beaten Carmack. I’m sure Brandon could decimate most people in a bar fight. But he lumbered around the ring like a heavybag with feet. Scuderi telegraphs every righthand he throws. But he has a basic jab. The match had the appearance of a picador sticking lances into a slow sluggish bull. W4 for Scuderi.

Fight #2: Nisa Rodriguez (0-0) vs. Jozette Cotton – Rodriguez is a 33-year-old New York City police officer with an extensive amateur background who was making her pro debut. Cotton was winless in four pro fights. Rodriguez fought tentatively. Cotton had a roll of flab around her waist (which spoke to her conditioning) and fought like she didn’t know how to box. W4 for Rodriguez.

Fight #3 Joseph Ward (10-1, 6 KOs) vs. Derrick Webster – Webster is 41 years old and has now won one of six fights since 2018. KO 2 for Ward.

Fight #4: Reshat Mati (14-0, 8 KOs) vs. Irving Macias – Macias has lost three of his last four fights, and the guy he beat during that stretch has 19 losses (including his last seven fights in a row). W8 for Mati.

Fight #5: Cletus Seldin (27-1, 23 KOs) vs. Jose Angulo – Angulo has lost six of his last eight fights, including four KOs by. W8 for Seldin, Here, I should note that, after the fight, Seldin took the ring announcer’s microphone, dropped to one knee, opened a small box containing a diamond engagement ring, and asked one Jessica Ostrowski to marry him. The future Mrs. Seldin (who was clad in black leather) said yes, and the happy couple paraded around the ring together.

Fight #6: Feargal McCrory (15-0, 7 KOs) vs. Carlos Carlson –  Carlson has had ten fights since 2016 and lost seven of them. The three guys he beat during that stretch have 92 losses between them. And he hadn’t fought in more than two years. Referee David Fields did the fans a favor by stopping the bout prematurely in round three. If Carlson had fought as vigorously during the fight as he complained about the stoppage afterward, it would have been a better fight.

Fight #7: The main event matched Callum Walsh (9-0, 7 KOs) against Dauren Yeleussinov. Walsh is a 23-year-old junior-middleweight who UFC CEO Dana White is trying to build as a boxing version of Conor McGregor. Yeleussinov has lost three of his last four fights (including a first-round KO by). And the opponent Dauren beat during that stretch has 22 losses (including a current losing streak of 19 a row). Yeleussinov was tailor-made for Walsh – slow on his feet with slow hands and not much of a punch. Callum got off first all night. KO 9.

In six of the seven fights, the underdog lost every round.

I’m tired of fighters who talk tough and posture at press conferences but won’t fight an opponent who’s remotely competitive. And yes; I know that prospects can’t go in tough every time out. But a prospect’s opponent should pose some kind of challenge.

And let’s be honest; most of the fighters on the March 15 card were there because they were local ticket-sellers, not prospects. Only Walsh has world-class potential. He’s 23 years old with skills and is getting better. Right now, he’s a very good club fighter. Let’s see if he becomes something more.

*        *        *

One moment from promoter Larry Goldberg’s March 7 club-fight card at Sony Hall in New York stands out in my mind.

In the second fight of the evening, Jason Castanon and Luis Rivera-Reyes squared off against one another in a scheduled four-round junior-welterweight bout. Each man was making his pro debut. Castanon’s opponent had pulled out the previous week, leaving matchmaker Eric Bottjer scrambling for a new opponent. Rivera-Reyes had been scheduled to fight on the undercard of a show in Puerto Rico but his opponent had also fallen out, so he was available.

Bottjer thought that Castanon vs. Rivera-Reyes would be a competitive fight. Each man was old for a boxer making his pro debut. Castano is 30; Rivera-Reyes is 35. But they had comparable amateur backgrounds.

Rivera-Reyes held his own in round one. But Castanon was the stronger, better-schooled fighter. In round two, Luis started getting beaten up. The punishment mounted in round three. Rivera-Reyes was still trying to win but it was a futile effort. With seconds left in the third stanza, a righthand staggered Luis and a second righthand put him down hard. He rose through an incredible act of will because that’s what real fighters do. But he was badly hurt and on wobbly legs. Referee Eddie Claudio asked if he wanted to continue.

Rivera-Reyes shook his head. No.

Afterward, an uncharitable observer said that Luis “quit.”

I think that Luis acted with honor. Sitting several feet from the ring, I had a perfect view of the pain and despair etched on his face as he confronted the reality that he was a beaten man. He didn’t jump to his feet at the count of ten-and-a-half, pretending that he was ready to keep fighting. He didn’t ignore the referee’s question and feign outrage when the fight was stopped. He acknowledged that he had given his all and was beaten. Fighters aren’t video-game figures. They get hurt. And sometimes they just can’t take anymore.

The moment reminded me of the 1983 rematch between Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor. Pryor had won their classic first encounter with a brutal knockout that left Arguello unconscious on the ring canvas. In round ten of Pryor-Arguello II, Alexis found himself on the canvas again. He was a warrior, one of the greatest fighters of all time. He could have gotten up. But he didn’t. He had done the best he could and realized that it was over. He sat with tears streaming down his face and later acknowledged. “It’s hard to accept, but it’s good to accept. I did it with grace and just accepted that the guy beat me. Even though I did my best, in the tenth round I accepted it right there. I said, ‘This is too much. I won’t take it. I‘ll just sit and watch Richard Steele count to ten.'”The look in Luis Rivera-Reyes’s eyes when he shook his head will stay with me for a long time. He had been beaten into submission in his first pro fight. And I wondered, how long will he hold onto the dream.

*          *          *

A nod to “March Madness” which begins this week . . .

College basketball has a problem – court storming.

It’s now in vogue for fans of the home team to surge onto the court after a big win. Tearing down the goal posts in football endangers fans who are tearing down the goal posts. Court storming endangers the players.

On January 21, Caitlin Clark (Iowa’s superstar guard) was knocked to the floor when Ohio State fans stormed the court after a big win.

On February 24, Kyle Fitzpatrick (Duke’s All-American center) injured his knee when Wake Forest fans stormed the court after a dramatic upset.

To date, the NCAA has done nothing about the problem. Several conferences have taken action on their own, the most notable example being the SEC which instituted an escalating fine that begins at $100,000 for the first incident. By contrast, the ACC has no penalty for court-storming; the Big Ten has no penalty until the third incident; and the Big East penalizes offending schools the paltry sum of $5,000.

It shouldn’t be hard to end court storming.

The NCAA should institute a rule – and fans should be advised late in each contest – that court storming will result in forfeiture of the game.

***

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press on April 2 and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.https://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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