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Errol Spence Jr. is Back, and His Priority Should Be Terence Crawford
Perhaps the most prescient point made by analyst Lennox Lewis during Saturday night’s pay-per-view telecast of unified welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr.’s comeback victory over two-division former titlist Danny Garcia had nothing to do with either of the main event participants. But in a way, it did.
Now 55 and retired for these past 17½ years, Lewis, the two-time heavyweight champion and 2009 inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, still is in a snit that as a pro he never got a chance to reprise his stoppage of Riddick Bowe in their gold medal super heavyweight bout of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Nor is Lewis, who blames that glaringly blank space on his resume to Bowe and his manager, Rock Newman, alone in decrying a woulda, coulda, shoulda megafight that never advanced beyond the theoretical.
Lewis and his fellow commentators for the Premier Boxing Champions/Fox Sports PPV showdown at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, were in agreement that Spence, who had not fought since being involved in a potentially fatal car crash on October 10, 2019, if not completely back to his previous elite level, was at least mostly so.
“Errol Spence has been consistent, and persistent, with his punches,” Lewis correctly assessed after the unified IBF and WBC welterweight champion registered a clear-cut, unanimous decision over the well-regarded challenger.
“He just looked physically, mentally, like the same champion he was 15 months ago,” said Brian Kenny.
And this, from Joe Goossen: “Errol Spence has been a machine against a really, really good counterpuncher – a smart, high-IQ fighter in Danny Garcia. He’s really taken away all of his best tools from Garcia with his pressure, his relentlessness and his combination punching. Errol Spence is back.”
Ah, but back to what? Another conga line of expected victories against very good-to-excellent fighters, such as Garcia, Shawn Porter, Mikey Garcia, Lamont Peterson and Kell Brook? Or to the kind of Armageddon brawl for it all that happens all too seldom in boxing, where petty squabbles and an aversion to risk-taking can keep the most alluring of matchups forever on the drawing board?
In a very real sense, the most important figure for Spence’s ascertainment of proof that he is still the best (or maybe second best) 147-pound fighter on the planet is WBO welterweight king Terence “Bud” Crawford, the figurative Bowe to Spence’s Lewis, or maybe the other way around. A pairing of Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) and Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) could be an updated version of the early 1980s first clashes of Sugar Ray Leonard with Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran, which would be the kind of adrenaline jolt that the fight game periodically requires for maximum revitalization. It also could be a relative letdown, as was the case when Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad squared off in 1999 in a unification showdown that promised so much but delivered something less. But, hey, one never knows until the posturing ends and the punching begins.
With the possible exception of middleweight/super middleweight straddler Canelo Alvarez, a majority of the No. 1 designations atop those pound-for-pound lists everyone is so hot to put together go to Crawford, who obviously has ample support as the finest 147-pound fighter on the planet. Spence, on the other hand, was and is a top five P4P type who is rated as the division’s best by The Ring magazine, just ahead of Crawford. Along with a full unification heavyweight showdown of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, Spence-Crawford is a guaranteed blockbuster that would harken back to that glorious heyday of the ’80s when certain fight nights captivated global interest.
The primary roadblock thus far to getting Spence and Crawford inside the ropes together has been the intransigence of Top Rank founder Bob Arum, who is aligned with ESPN and holds paper on Crawford, and Al Haymon, under whose PBC banner Spence toils. But the growing rift between Arum and Crawford suggests movement toward some sort of resolution.
Following Crawford’s relatively routine dismissal of Kell Brook via fourth-round TKO on November 14 in the Bubble at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, Arum ripped into his fighter with words that stung Crawford more than Brooks’ punches had.
“He’s got to promote like (Teofimo) Lopez does,” Arum, whose contract with Crawford extends for two more bouts. “He’s got to promote like Shakur (Stevenson) does. Like (Floyd) Mayweather did. Like (Manny) Pacquiao did. If he doesn’t, who the f— needs him? He may be the greatest fighter in the word, but, hey, I ain’t going bankrupt promoting him … I’m no longer in the business of losing money on Terence Crawford.”
A miffed Crawford fired back at Arum, saying, “If he feels that way, he can release me now. You don’t have to wait until after a Spence fight. Release me now and you don’t have to lose any money if I am such a loss, a headache.”
Spence had too much respect for the gallant but not-quite-good-enough Garcia (36-3, 21 KOs) to ruminate about the 800-pound elephant in AT&T Stadium, namely the continuing specter of Crawford. The native of DeSoto, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, recently purchased a ranch and Spence figures he owes himself another half-year-or-so break from the ring wars so that he can mosey on over to his new spread and tend to his livestock.
“Be patient with me,” he advised fans during a post-fight interview. “I had to shake off a few cobwebs. This was a comeback fight for me, but I’ll definitely be 120% come my next fight.
“I’m gonna chill on my ranch. I have a couple of horses. I’m gonna get some more horses, get some chickens, some more cows. I need to rest a little bit.”
The bickering between Arum and Crawford aside, the likelihood is that Crawford is too valuable a TR asset to simply be cut loose before the end of his servitude. If Spence-Crawford is to happen, it may be 2022 or even later, if at all. Considering that Crawford is now 33 and Spence 30, indefinitely keeping something that seems so inevitable on the back burner could carry it past its optimal expiration date or, worse, into the perpetual limbo into which Lewis-Bowe (or Bowe-Mike Tyson, for that matter) was consigned. That would not only be a disservice to fight fans, but a dark spot on the legacies of Hall of Fame-quality fighters who should loudly demand that they settle, once and for all, who really is the contemporary king of the welterweight hill.
There is a familiar proverb, “He who hesitates is lost,” generally attributed to 18th century British essayist and poet Joseph Addison. It seems as true now as it did three centuries ago.
Photo credit: Frank Micelotta / FOX Sports
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Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
Bygone Days: The Largest Crowd Ever at Madison Square Garden Sees Zivic TKO Armstrong
There’s not much happening on the boxing front this month. That’s consistent with the historical pattern.
Fight promoters of yesteryear tended to pull back after the Christmas and New Year holidays on the assumption that fight fans had less discretionary income at their disposal. Weather was a contributing factor. In olden days, more boxing cards were staged outdoors and the most attractive match-ups tended to be summertime events.
There were exceptions, of course. On Jan. 17, 1941, an SRO crowd of 23,180 filled Madison Square Garden to the rafters to witness the welterweight title fight between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. (This was the third Madison Square Garden, situated at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue, roughly 17 blocks north of the current Garden which sits atop Pennsylvania Station. The first two arenas to take this name were situated farther south adjacent to Madison Square Park).
This was a rematch. They had fought here in October of the previous year. In a shocker, Zivic won a 15-round decision. The fight was close on the scorecards. Referee Arthur Donovan and one of the judges had it even after 14 rounds, but Zivic had won his rounds more decisively and he punctuated his well-earned triumph by knocking Armstrong face-first to the canvas as the final bell sounded.
This was a huge upset.
Armstrong had a rocky beginning to his pro career, but he came on like gangbusters after trainer/manager Eddie Mead acquired his contract with backing from Broadway and Hollywood star Al Jolson. Heading into his first match with Zivic – the nineteenth defense of the title he won from Barney Ross – Hammerin’ Henry had suffered only one defeat in his previous 60 fights, that coming in his second meeting with Lou Ambers, a controversial decision.
Shirley Povich, the nationally-known sports columnist for the Washington Post, conducted an informal survey of boxing insiders and found only person who gave Zivic a chance. The dissident was Chris Dundee (then far more well-known than his younger brother Angelo). “Zivic knows all the tricks,” said Dundee. “He’ll butt Armstrong with his head, gouge him with his thumbs and hit him just as low as Armstrong [who had five points deducted for low blows in his bout with Ambers].”
Indeed, Pittsburgh’s Ferdinand “Fritzie” Zivic, the youngest and best of five fighting sons of a Croatian immigrant steelworker (Fritzie’s two oldest brothers represented the U.S. at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics) would attract a cult following because of his facility for bending the rules. It would be said that no one was more adept at using his thumbs to blind an opponent or using the laces of his gloves as an anti-coagulant, undoing the work of a fighter’s cut man.
Although it was generally understood that at age 28 his best days were behind him, Henry Armstrong was chalked the favorite in the rematch (albeit a very short favorite) a tribute to his body of work. Although he had mastered Armstrong in their first encounter, most boxing insiders considered Fritzie little more than a high-class journeyman and he hadn’t looked sharp in his most recent fight, a 10-round non-title affair with lightweight champion Lew Jenkins who had the best of it in the eyes of most observers although the match was declared a draw.
The Jan. 17 rematch was a one-sided affair. Veteran New York Times scribe James P. Dawson gave Armstrong only two rounds before referee Donovan pulled the plug at the 52-second mark of the twelfth round. Armstrong, boxing’s great perpetual motion machine, a world title-holder in three weight classes, repaired to his dressing room bleeding from his nose and his mouth and with both eyes swollen nearly shut. But his effort could not have been more courageous.
At the conclusion of the 10th frame, Donovan went to Armstrong’s corner and said something to the effect, “you will have to show me something, Henry, or I will have to stop it.” What followed was Armstrong’s best round.
“[Armstrong] pulled the crowd to its feet in as glorious a rally as this observer has seen in twenty-five years of attendance at these ring battles,” wrote Dawson. But Armstrong, who had been stopped only once previously, that coming in his pro debut, had punched himself out and had nothing left.
Armstrong retired after this fight, siting his worsening eyesight, but he returned in the summer of the following year, soldiering on for 46 more fights, winning 37 to finish 149-21-10. During this run, he was reacquainted with Fritzie Zivic. Their third encounter was fought in San Francisco before a near-capacity crowd of 8,000 at the Civic Auditorium and Armstrong got his revenge, setting the pace and working the body effectively to win a 10-round decision. By then the welterweight title had passed into the hands of Freddie Cochran.
Hammerin’ Henry (aka Homicide Hank) Armstrong was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990. Fritzie Zivic followed him into the Hall three years later.
Active from 1931 to 1949, Zivic lost 65 of his 231 fights – the most of anyone in the Hall of Fame, a dubious distinction – but there was yet little controversy when he was named to the Canastota shrine because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had fought a tougher schedule. Aside from Armstrong and Jenkins, he had four fights with Jake LaMotta, four with Kid Azteca, three with Charley Burley, two with Sugar Ray Robinson, two with Beau Jack, and singles with the likes of Billy Conn, Lou Ambers, and Bob Montgomery. Of the aforementioned, only Azteca, in their final meeting in Mexico City, and Sugar Ray, in their second encounter, were able to win inside the distance.
By the way, it has been written that no event of any kind at any of the four Madison Square Gardens ever drew a larger crowd than the crowd that turned out on Jan. 17, 1941, to see the rematch between Fritzie Zivic and Henry Armstrong. Needless to say, prizefighting was big in those days.
A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.
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Jai Opetaia Brutally KOs David Nyika, Cementing his Status as the World’s Top Cruiserweight
In his fifth title defense, lineal cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) successfully defended his belt with a brutal fourth-round stoppage of former sparring partner David Nyika. The bout was contested in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia where Opetaia won the IBF title in 2022 with a hard-earned decision over Maris Briedis with Nyika on the undercard. Both fighters reside in the general area although Nyika, a former Olympic bronze medalist, hails from New Zealand.
The six-foot-six Nyika, who was undefeated in 10 pro fights with nine KOs, wasn’t afraid to mix it up with Opetaia although had never fought beyond five rounds and took the fight on three weeks’ notice when obscure German campaigner Huseyin Cinkara suffered an ankle injury in training and had to pull out. He wobbled Opetaia in the second round in a fight that was an entertaining slugfest for as long as it lasted.
In round four, the champion but Nyika on the canvas with his patented right uppercut and then finished matters moments later with a combination climaxed with an explosive left hand. Nyika was unconscious before he hit the mat.
Opetaia’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants Opetaia to unify the title and then pursue a match with Oleksandr Usyk. Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, a Golden Boy Promotions fighter, holds the WBA and WBO versions of the title and is expected to be Opetaia’s next opponent. The WBC diadem is in the hands of grizzled Badou Jack.
Other Fights of Note
Brisbane heavyweight Justis Huni (12-0, 7 KOs) wacked out overmatched South African import Shaun Potgieter (10-2), ending the contest at the 33-second mark of the second round. The 25-year-old, six-foot-four Huni turned pro in 2020 after losing a 3-round decision to two-time Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov. There’s talk of matching him with England’s 20-year-old sensation Moses Itauma which would be a delicious pairing.
Eddie Hearn’s newest signee Teremoana Junior won his match even quicker, needing less than a minute to dismiss Osasu Otobo, a German heavyweight of Nigerian descent.
The six-foot-six Teremoana, who akin to Huni hails from Brisbane and turned pro after losing to the formidable Jalolov, has won all six of his pro fights by knockout while answering the bell for only eight rounds. He has an interesting lineage; his father is from the Cook Islands.
Rising 20-year-old Max “Money” McIntyre, a six-foot-three super middleweight, scored three knockdowns en route to a sixth-round stoppage of Abdulselam Saman, advancing his record to 7-0 (6 KOs). As one can surmise, McIntyre is a big fan of Floyd Mayweather.
The Opetaia-Nyika fight card aired on DAZN pay-per-view (39.99) in the Antipodes and just plain DAZN elsewhere.
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R.I.P. Paul Bamba (1989-2024): The Story Behind the Story
Paul Bamba, a cruiserweight, passed away at age 35 on Dec. 27 six days after defeating Rogelio Medina before a few hundred fans on a boxing card at a performing arts center in Carteret, New Jersey. No cause of death has been forthcoming, leading to rampant speculation. Was it suicide, or perhaps a brain injury, and if the latter was it triggered by a pre-existing condition?
Fuel for the latter comes in the form of a letter that surfaced after his death. Dated July 25, 2023, it was written by Dr. Alina Sharinn, a board-certified neurologist licensed in New York and Florida.
“Mr. Bamba has suffered a concussion and an episode of traumatic diplopia within the past year and now presents with increasing headaches. His MRI of the brain revealed white matter changes in both frontal lobes,” wrote Bamba’s doctor.
Her recommendation was that he stop boxing temporarily while also avoiding any other activity at which he was at risk of head trauma.
Dr. Sherinn’s letter was written three months after Bamba was defeated by Chris Avila in a 4-round contest in New Orleans. He lost all four rounds on all three scorecards, reducing his record to 5-3.
Bamba took a break from boxing after fighting Avila. Eight months would elapse before he returned to the ring. His next four fights were in Santa Marta, Colombia, against opponents who were collectively 4-23 at the time that he fought them. The most experienced of the quartet, Victor Coronado, was 38 years old.
He won all four inside the distance and ten more knockouts would follow, the last against Medina in a bout sanctioned by the World Boxing Association for the WBA Gold title. As widely reported, the stoppage, his 14th, broke Mike Tyson’s record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year. That would have been a nice feather in his cap if only it were true.
Born in Puerto Rico, Paul Bamba was a former U.S. Marine who spent time in Iraq as an infantry machine gunner. In interviews on social media platforms, he is well-spoken and introspective without a trace of the boastfulness that many prizefighters exhibit when talking to an outsider. Interviewed in a corridor of the arena after stopping Medina, he was almost apologetic, acknowledging that he still had a lot to learn.
His life story is inspirational.
His early years were spent in foster homes. He was homeless for a time after returning to civilian life. Speaking with Boxing Scene’s Lucas Ketelle, Bamba said, “I didn’t have any direction after leaving the Marine corps. I hit rock bottom, couldn’t afford a place to stay…I was renting a mattress that was shoved behind someone’s sofa.”
He turned his life around when he ventured into the Morris Park Boxing Gym in the Bronx where he learned the rudiments of boxing under the tutelage of former WBA welterweight champion Aaron “Superman” Davis. “I love boxing,” he would say. “The confidence it gives you permeates into other aspects of your life.”
Bamba’s newfound confidence allowed him to carve out a successful career as a personal trainer. His most famous client was the Grammy Award winning R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo who signed Bamba to his new sports management company late in the boxer’s Knockout skein. Bamba was with Ne-Yo in Atlanta when he passed away. Ne-Yo broke the news on his Instagram platform.
Paul Bamba had been pursuing a fight with Jake Paul. Winning the WBA Gold belt opened up other potentially lucrative options. In theory, the holder of the belt is one step removed from a world title fight. Next comes an eliminator and, if he wins that one, a true title fight attached to a hefty purse will follow…in theory.
Rogelio “Porky” Medina, who brought a 42-10 record, had competed against some top-shelf guys, e.g., Zurdo Ramirez, Badou Jack, James DeGale, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant; going the distance with DeGale and Plant. However, only two of his 42 wins had come in fights outside Mexico, at age 36 he was over the hill, and his best work had come as a super middleweight.
Thirteen months ago, Medina carried 168 ½ pounds for a match in New Zealand in which he was knocked out in the first round. He came in more than 30 pounds heavier, specifically 202 ¼, for his match with Paul Bamba. In between, he knocked out a 54-year-old man in Guadalajara to infuse his ledger with a little brighter sheen.
Why did the WBA see fit to sanction the Bamba-Medina match as a title fight? That’s a rhetorical question. And for the record, the record for the most consecutive knockouts within a calendar year wasn’t previously held by Mike Tyson. LaMar Clark, a heavyweight from Cedar City, Utah, scored 29 consecutive knockouts in 1958 after opening the year by winning a 6-round decision. (If you are inclined to believe that all or most of those knockouts were legitimate, then perhaps I can interest you in buying the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Clark was being primped for a fight with a good purse which came when he was dispatched to Louisville to fight a fellow who was fairly new to the professional boxing scene, a former U.S. Olympian then known as Cassius Clay who knocked him out in the second round in what proved to be Clark’s final fight.
Paul Bamba was a much better fighter than LaMar Clark, of that I am quite certain. However, if Paul Bamba had gone on to meet one of the world’s elite cruiserweights, a similar outcome would have undoubtedly ensued.
One can summon up the Bamba-Medina fight on the internet although the video isn’t great – it was obviously filmed on a smart phone – and pieces of it are missing. Bamba was winning with his higher workrate when Medina took his unexpected leave, but one doesn’t have to be a boxing savant to see that Paul’s hand and foot speed were slow and that there were big holes in his defense.
This isn’t meant to be a knock on the decedent. Being able to box even four rounds at a fast clip and still be fresh is one of the most underrated achievements in all of human endurance sports. Bamba’s life story is indeed inspirational. When he talked about the importance of “giving back,” he was sincere. In an early interview, he mentioned having helped out at a Harlem food pantry.
Paul Bamba had to die to become well-known within the fight fraternity, let alone in the larger society. One hopes that his death will inspire the sport’s regulators to be more vigilant in assaying a boxer’s medical history and, if somehow his untimely death leads to the dissolution of the fetid World Boxing Association, his legacy would be even greater.
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