Lou Nova vs Max Baer, Boxing’s Seminal TV Fight, Opened a Pandora’s Box

Published

3 years ago

December 8, 2020

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According to crackerjack publicist Madelyn Flax, the June 1, 1939 fight at Yankee Stadium between Lou Nova and Max Baer has the distinction of being the first fight on television. The bout aired on NBC.

Ms. Flax includes this bit of trivia in her correspondence with the boxing media on behalf of her client Ring City USA. Boxing’s newest promotional entity, Ring City launched a series of twice-monthly shows on Nov. 19. Currently anchored at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles, the club-level cards air on Thursdays on the NBC Sports network.

Ms. Flax is correct. The Nova-Baer fight did air on NBC and it was a trailblazing event that ushered in a new era of boxing. However, this information begs for historical context.

The TV signal, short-waved from Yankee Stadium to a transmitter atop the Empire State building, reached a 50-mile radius of midtown Manhattan, give or take a few miles depending on the weather. NBC estimated that 20,000 people watched the fight on 8-by-10 screens, a dubious assertion as the TV hadn’t yet become an object of curiosity in a department store’s picture window. Even allowing for the fact that TV owners invited friends and neighbors over to watch the fight, 20,000 is a number that strains credibility.

Because the signal reached into parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, the telecast was technically illegal. The 1912 federal law prohibiting the interstate transportation of fight films, the “Jack Johnson law” as it was informally known, was still on the books.

Sam Taub, a columnist for The Ring magazine, did the blow-by-blow. Taub, who lived into his nineties, would estimate that he broadcast more than 7,000 fights on radio or television before he turned the reins over to a younger man.

Before the year was out, Taub was promoting a series of televised shows on Saturday nights from the Ridgewood Grove, an intimate 2,500-seat nightclub that sat on the border of Brooklyn and Queens. These were the first indoor televised fights in the United States. Taub’s first show, on Oct. 21, 1939, featured an 8-round contest between journeymen light welterweights Tony Marteliano and Bobby McIntire.

Before the Nova-Baer experiment aired, NBC did several walk-throughs of various kinds, including a three-round exhibition between Lou Nova and one of his sparring partners, Patsy Perroni. The ring was pitched in a room on the third floor of the Radio City building. Invited guests watched the fight on the sixth floor.

When it comes to new technologies, us Yankees like to think that we were in the vanguard, but in point of fact when it came to televised boxing, the Brits beat us to the punch. On Feb. 23, 1939, the British lightweight title fight between Eric Boon and Arthur Danahar at North London’s Harringay Arena was beamed to three cinemas in London, each of which paid $1,000 for the privilege of showing the fight.

The mass production of televisions was stalled by the war. In 1948, RCA’s cheapest model sold for $395. That’s the equivalent of $10,400 today. But the price came down in a hurry and the felt need to own one begat a feverish rush unmatched until the introduction of the cell phone, that handy little gizmo that fits so neatly in our hip pocket. A 1958 survey showed that there were more televisions in American homes than telephones or bathtubs. And by then, boxing was all over the TV dial, not that there was much competition as few folks had access to more than four channels.

The TV honchos loved boxing. It was a sport played on a small “playing field” with only two contestants who were usually at arm’s length. Little furbishing of the staging area was needed other than brighter illumination and tinting the canvas a darker shade to reduce glare, keeping production costs low. The expedient of requiring one boxer to wear white trunks and the other black enabled the viewer to keep them apart. Multi-colored ring apparel awaited the introduction of the color television.

TV brought new money into the sport, but there was a big downside. Neighborhood fight clubs – and there were hundreds of them across the country – folded at an alarming rate as legions of fight fans stayed home to get their boxing fix. There were other factors at work such as suburbanization, but TV was the main culprit. Dan Parker, the syndicated boxing writer for the New York Daily Mirror, was prescient when he predicted in a 1939 story that TV would eventually make the grass-roots boxing promoter almost extinct. Parker cited the example of vaudeville which was clubbed into antiquity by the movies.

Dan Parker would later recommend a one-year moratorium on televised fights “to nourish boxing’s withering roots.”

Sam Taub, by the way, was no fan of television although he was quick to embrace the new medium. Taub once said, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that the TV set was a device invented by the devil. He felt that way because it stifled his creativity; his freedom to improvise.

In boxing lore there is a yarn about an out-of-town fight manager who took ill after coming to New York to see a match at the old Madison Square Garden and thought it prudent to catch the fight on radio in his room at his hotel located a stone’s throw from the arena. The first two rounds, as narrated by Sam Taub, were so full of action that the ailing fight manager was roused to go see it, not wishing to miss the entirety of a fight shaping up as an all-time classic.

When he rushed into Madison Square Garden, the lobby was jammed with fight fans who had left their seats. The bout was such a stinker that they couldn’t bear to watch any more of it.

Taub, by the way, was no fan of Howard Cosell who became nationally prominent covering Muhammad Ali before he became identified with Monday Night Football. He would have numbered Cosell among the noxious effects of television.

Taub didn’t like the man but was too diplomatic to bad-mouth him. Asked if he had ever met the bombastic sportscaster, Taub had a stock reply: “Yes, I have met him,” he would say, “but I never loaned him any money.”

—-

The next Ring City show goes Dec. 17. Undefeated super welterweights Charles Conwell (13-0, 10 KOs) and Madiyar Ashkeyev (14-0, 7 KOs) collide in the 10-round main event. Conwell, 23, represented the U.S. in the 2016 Rio Olympics. Ashkeyev, 32, is a native of Kazakhstan and a stablemate of Vasyl Lomachenko. The show airs at 9 pm ET / 6 pm PT on NBCSN.

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Arne K. Lang

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

5 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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