Stan Hoffman and Mitchell Rose: Anecdotes from the Pen of a Veteran Boxing Writer

Published

4 years ago

February 14, 2021

Anecdotes.

Everybody who has spent any appreciable amount of time in and around boxing has ’em, personal memories of notable and not-so-notable figures in the sport that are interesting, but not generally included in the obit/tributes of and to those individuals in the immediate aftermath of their taking the eternal 10-count that awaits us all.

Not so very long ago, I regretfully declined an offer by TSS editor Arne K. Lang to do such a story on Pennsylvania promoter Mike Acri, with whom I had some dealings, because I have authored so many farewell pieces for this site and had, quite frankly, tired of writing about death. But life inevitably goes on and then ends for everyone, and as we are now in the second year of the global pandemic that seemingly has accelerated the exit process, I have been asked again by Arne to provide a couple of personal anecdotes about manager Stan Hoffman, who was 89 when he passed away on Feb. 8, and former heavyweight Mitchell “The Cigarette Man” Rose, just 51 when he breathed his last on Feb. 12.

Hoffman, a native of Brooklyn – the New York borough that has birthed so many fight fixtures, and even more anecdotes – spent nearly 50 years as a manager and adviser, during which time he worked with 38 future, then-current or past world champions, James Toney, Iran Barkley, Hasim Rahman, Michael Bentt and Hasim Rahman among the most notable.

But the Stan story that has always stuck with me involves one of his fighters, former WBO middleweight champion Doug DeWitt, who was to defend that title against Canadian knockout artist Matthew Hilton on Jan. 15, 1990, the primary lead-in to a card topped by the ballyhooed “Geezers at Caesars” heavyweight matchup of George Foreman and Gerry Cooney in Atlantic City’s Convention Center (now Boardwalk Hall).

On Jan. 11, I was in town to do an advance on DeWitt-Hilton and was in the gym after DeWitt, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, who had relocated to Yonkers, N.Y., finished his workout. “The Cobra’s” most obvious physical characteristic was a nose so flattened into his face that I observed it was “crumpled in, like an aluminum can that someone had stepped on.”

Um, what about that misshapen proboscis?

“So many people say, `Oh, Doug, you used to be so good-looking,’” said DeWitt, then 27, who had traded punches with nearly every tough guy in the 160-pound weight class in a blue-collar career that had risen to a new level when he won the vacant WBO title on a 12-round split decision over Robbie Sims, Marvin Hagler’s half-brother, on April 18, 1989, also in Atlantic City. “That kind of talk (snide remarks about his nose) bothers me sometimes. I mean, I’m human. I care about how I look. Not that I’m ugly now, but my nose definitely hinders my appearance.

“Coming out of high school my nose was straight. I was handsome. I walk around with this nose now, and it bothers me. The day I retire, I’m getting it fixed.”

While DeWitt didn’t much care for the condition of his nose then, given his intention to have it eventually restored, at least one fighter considered it a badge of distinction and courage.

“You know, it’s funny,” Hoffman told me. “This junior welterweight, Ricky Meyers, and I were at one of Dougie’s workouts this week and (Meyers) said, `Stan, I’m a fighter and I really want to look and feel like a fighter. Do you think someone could remove the cartilage from my nose so I can look just like Doug?’

“I guess that just goes to show you that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”

DeWitt, in his one and only successful title defense, was ahead on all three official scorecards when he registered what many believed to be at least a minor upset as Hilton, both his eyes nearly swollen shut, did not come out for the 12^th round. The Cobra was dethroned in his next outing, on an eighth-round stoppage by England’s Nigel Benn, on April 29, 1990. He would fight three more times, going 1-1-1, his final bout a sixth-round stoppage loss to, ironically, James Toney, my other most memorable anecdotal link to Hoffman, on Dec. 5, 1992.

To this day, I still haven’t found out if Doug DeWitt followed up on his vow to himself to get his nose fixed, as was the case with Leon Spinks, the former heavyweight champion who was 67 when he died on Feb. 5. The older of boxing’s two champion Spinks brothers (the other being Michael) was best known for his title-annexing upset of Muhammad Ali and, just a bit less so, for his gap-toothed smile. “Neon Leon,” tired of all the jokes made about the yawning, empty space in his top row of teeth, did later undergo dental surgery that provided him with a full set of chompers.

Toney had had some ups and downs, in and out of the ring, when, sometime in the early 1990s, I went to Las Vegas to cover a fight involving, I think, Mike Tyson, although I can’t recall the specific bout. In any case, a select few writers, including me, were invited to a private workout by Toney, who was not on the card we had come to see, but during which “Lights Out” would presumably demonstrate how he was new and improved.

The gym was insufferably hot, so high was the heat turned up, but the volume of the gangsta rap to which Toney went through his drills was even higher, jet-aircraft-taking-off, eardrum-bursting high. The one thing I do remember is that the lyrics were frequently punctuated with screamed variations of the f-word, so much so that the constant barrage seemed excessive even to this Marine Corps veteran. I thought it interesting that James’ mother, who owned and operated a bakery in Ann Arbor, Mich., sat off to the side during her son’s training session, reading a book or something, seemingly oblivious to the profane clatter.

When the workout was over, Stan invited the writers to meet with Toney in the relative privacy of a side office – other fighters were continuing to train in the gym, to music, still very loud, of their preference. Some questions were asked by us and answered by Toney, who at one point made a reference to an “effing” something or other. He actually said “effing,” not the actual word.

When I inquired about that, Stan interjected, “James is trying to clean up his vocabulary,” to which I said, “Yeah, but what about the tape that was playing during his workout with his mom sitting there?”

Now, about Mitchell Rose, another Brooklyn native whose youthful success as a New York Golden Gloves boxer didn’t translate to his pro career, which was hindered by a disinclination to train with any appreciable degree of dedication or enthusiasm. Rose (pictured on the left) retired with a 2-11-1 record with two knockout wins and five losses inside the distance.

mitchell

Seldom, however, has any fighter with such a nondescript record milked more notoriety out of a single victory. Largely because he had demonstrated little or none of his Golden Gloves promise, Rose was penciled in to provide the low-risk opposition to Top Rank’s novelty act heavyweight Eric “Butterbean” Esch, the erstwhile “King of the Four-Rounders,” on Dec. 15, 1995, for a show headlined by WBO lightweight champ Oscar De La Hoya’s second-round stoppage of Jesse James Leija at Madison Square Garden. Butterbean came in at 15-0 with 10 KOs, Rose at 1-7-1 with one KO and four defeats in abbreviated fashion.

But in a low-rent version of how Buster Douglas ascended to a career peak by knocking out Mike Tyson, in no small part because he had dedicated that fight to the memory of his recently deceased mother, Lula Mae, Rose – with an uncommonly long five weeks (for him) to train – showed a flash or two of his old GG form in stopping Butterbean 48 seconds into the second round, which was definitely not the result Top Rank founder Bob Arum wanted. The fight almost certainly was legit, but no pairing needs to be fixed for an outcome to be semi-preordained. Major favorites matched soft can and do lose occasionally.

Interestingly, I saw a very forlorn Butterbean at Pennsylvania Station the next day as I prepared to take a train back to Philadelphia and The Bean to wherever it was that he was headed. Maybe because he had become so accustomed to winning easily and quickly, he felt he had let a lot of people down, even if he had entered the ring the night before, he said, a bit under the weather.

Butterbean, however, would rebound nicely and went on to continue his unlikely advance to stardom of sorts as a bald and blubbery blaster. In his only non-four-rounder, he lost on points to former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, a matchup that legitimized his credentials as much or more than all the whackings of the steady stream of palookas he had become accustomed to. For historical perspective, it hardly seemed to matter that the “Easton Assassin” was 52 years old and, at 254 pounds, had love handles nearly as ample as Butterbean’s lapping over his waistband.

“Here I am, feeling sorry for myself, when this man comes over and asks if I would say hello to his kid, who was in a wheelchair,” Butter said of the early-morning New York hours after he had tasted his first pro defeat. “I go over and meet the kid, who is really in a bad way. But he seemed so happy to see me.

“Right then, I decided I had no problems. So what if I lost a fight? My feeling was that I’d just go out and win the next one.”

As for Rose, he wrote two self-published books, one of which was titled The Man That Beat Butterbean, which played fast and loose with the truth. It might be accurate that Rose describes his takedown of Eric Esch’s alter ego as “the highlight of my life, my version of the Thrilla in Manila.” Many of his other assertions, however, would appear to be pure flights of fantasy.

Rose would later claim he had refused a $5,000 bribe to go into the tank against Butterbean, and that he was subsequently blacklisted for the audacity of winning a fight he was supposed to lose. I’m not sure either statement comes close to passing any credible sniff test. He did say his purse for the Butterbean fight was $1,500, which might be accurate, but he also said the corpulent crusher received $750,000. For an undercard four-rounder! That figure is so patently false as to be laughable.

Stan Hoffman and Mitchell Rose – Leon Spinks, too – have crossed over onto the other side of the great divide that separates heaven and earth. Maybe only absolute truth matters over there, but maybe celestial anecdotes are just as much cause for fun and lively discussion as they are here, in the land of the living.

A New Orleans native, Bernard Fernandez retired in 2012 after a 43-year career as a newspaper sports writer, the last 28 years with the Philadelphia Daily News. A former five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Fernandez won the BWAA’s Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism in 1998 and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service in 2015. In December of 2019, Fernandez was accorded the highest honor for a boxing writer when he was named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the Class of 2020. Last year, Fernandez’s anthology, “Championship Rounds,” was released by RKMA Publishing.

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Fighting on His Home Turf, Galal Yafai Pulverizes Sunny Edwards

Published

1 day ago

November 30, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Fighting-on-His-Home-Turf-Galal-Yafai-Pulverizes-Sunny-Edwards

The Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England, was the site of tonight’s Matchroom Promotions card featuring flyweights Galal Yafai and Sunny Edwards in the main event. Yafai went to post a short underdog in what on paper was a 50/50 fight, but it was a rout from the start.

Yafai got right into Edwards’ grill in the opening round and never let up. Although there were no knockdowns, it was complete domination by the Birmingham southpaw until the referee stepped in and waived it off at the 1:10 mark of round six.

“Bloodline” was the tagline of the match-up. Sunny’s brother Charlie Edwards, now competing as a bantamweight, is a former flyweight world title-holder. Galal, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, is the third member of his family to make his mark as a prizefighter. Brother Kal, also a former Olympian, once held a world title at 115 and brother Gamal was a Commonwealth champion as a bantamweight.

Edwards and Galal Yafai were well-acquainted. They had fought as amateurs and had shared the ring on many occasions as sparring partners. Although Galal was 31 years old, he had only eight pro fights under his belt and was meeting a veteran of six world title fights whose only loss in 22 starts came the hands of the brilliant Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.

But that loss to Rodriguez in Arizona (Edwards’ corner pulled him out after nine frames) was of the kind that shortens careers. Although Sunny won a tune-up fight since that setback, tonight he had the appearance of a boxer who had grown old overnight. In fact, after the second round, he was heard saying to his corner “I really don’t want to be here.”

Edwards wanted out, but he dutifully answered the bell for the next four rounds. After the bout, he indicated that he had planned to retire after this fight, win, or lose, or draw.

The contest was billed as a WBC “eliminator” which positions Galal Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) for a match with Japanese veteran Kenshiro Teraji, the long-reigning light flyweight title-holder who moved up in weight last month and captured the WBC flyweight title at the expense of Cristofer Rosales.

Other Bouts of Note

Welterweight Conah Walker, from the Birmingham bedroom community of Wolverhampton, won a clear-cut 10-round decision over Lewis Ritson, winning by scores of 98-93 and 97-93 twice.

A former British lightweight champion, Ritson (23-5) lost for the fourth time in his last six starts, but was game to the core. At various times he appeared on the verge of being stopped, but he may have won the final round when he got the best of several exchanges. Walker, a heavy favorite, improved to 14-3-1 (6).

In a 12-round middleweight match, Kieron Conway won his fourth straight, advancing to 22-3-1 (6) with a split decision over a local product, Ryan Kelly (19-5-1). Kelly got the nod on one of the cards (115-114), but was out-voted by his colleagues who had it 116-112 and 115-113 for Conway.

While the decision was fair, this was a lackluster performance by Conway who had fought much stiffer competition and entered the ring a 6/1 favorite.

Twenty-two-year-old junior welterweight Cameron Vuong, a stablemate of Jack Catterall, stepped up in class and improved to 7-0 (3) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Gavin Gwynne. The judges had it 97-94, 96-94, and 96-95.

Vuong, who is half Vietnamese, out-boxed Gwynne from the outside but was far from impressive. A 34-year-old Welshman and veteran of eight domestic title fights, Gwynne (17-4-1) was the aggressor throughout and there were scattered boos when the decision was announced.

In a scheduled 8-rounder that wasn’t part of the main card, Liverpool’s Callum Smith (30-2, 22 KOs) wacked out Colombian trial horse Carlos Galvan in the fifth round. Smith, whose only defeats came at the hands of future Hall of Famers Canelo Alvarez (L 12) and Artur Beterbiev (L TKO 7), knocked Galvan down in the fourth and then twice more in the fifth with body punches before the match was halted. Galvan declined to 20-15-2.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal

Published

3 days ago

November 29, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal

With most of America in a turkey coma, all boxing eyes should be pointed toward England this weekend.

Former world titlist Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) challenges the fast-rising Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) for a regional flyweight on Saturday, Nov. 30, at Resorts World Arena in Birmingham. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.

Without the fast-talking and dare-to-be-great Edwards, the flyweight division and super flyweight divisions would be in a blanket of invisibility. He’s the kind of personality the lower weight classes need.

The London kid loves to talk and loves to fight even more.

Edwards was calling out Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez when the San Antonio fighter was blasting out feared Thai slugger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and dismantling Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras. And he did this in front of a worldwide audience.

Of course, he fell short of defeating the young superstar but he kick-started the weight division with new life. And here he is again enticing more eyes on the flyweights as he challenges another potential star.

“I was happy and proud of Galal when he won the Olympic gold medal,” said Edwards who has sparred Yafai many times. “When me and Galal get in a small space, it’s fireworks.”

Yafai, a 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, only has eight pro fights but at age 31 doesn’t have time to walk through the stages of careful preparation. But with blazing speed to go along with big power in his southpaw punches, it’s time for the Birmingham native to claim his spot on the world stage.

Is he ready?

“It’s a massive fight, it speaks for itself. Sunny is a great fighter, a former world champion, a good name and we’ve got history as well,” Yafai said at the press conference.” I’ve got to be a bit smarter, but I know Sunny inside-out.”

Both have blazing speed. Yafai has the power, but Edwards has the experience of pro-style competition.

Promoter Eddie Hearn calls this one of the top fights in British boxing.

“Sunny doesn’t care, he wants to be in great fights, he believes in himself and he is rolling the dice again on Saturday night, as is Galal. An Olympic gold medalist from Birmingham with just a handful of fights really, and already stepping up to take on one of the top, top flyweights in the world,” said Hearns.

Ryan Garcia in Beverly Hills

The budding Southern California superstar Ryan Garcia met the boxing media in Beverly Hills to announce an exhibition match against Japan’s kickboxing star Rukiya Anpo on December 30 in Tokyo. FANMIO pay-per-view will show the match if it takes place.

Garcia is still under contract with Golden Boy Promotions and according to the promotion company an agreement has not been established. But with Garcia under suspension for PED use following his last fight against Devin Haney back in April, an opportunity for the popular fighter to make a living will probably be allowed.

As long as everyone gets their cut.

Now 26, Garcia seeks to get back in the prize ring and do what he does best and that’s fire left hooks in machine gun fashion.

“He tried to knock out Manny Pacquiao and it pissed me off,” said Garcia on his reasons for accepting an exhibition match with the bigger in size Anpo. “That rubbed me the wrong way and now I’m here to show him someone in his prime with speed and power.”

Anpo wants a knockout and nothing else.

“I regret that I couldn’t finish Manny Pacquiao,” said Anpo who met Pacquiao in an exhibition this past summer in Tokyo. “That’s what we train to do in every fight. I have even more motivation this time and I will knock him out and finish Ryan Garcia as a professional.”

Following the press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 26, an e-mail by Golden Boy was sent to the media and stated: “Golden Boy Promotions has exclusive rights to Ryan Garcia’s fights. The organizers of this event (Garcia vs. Anpo) have acknowledged as such and have agreed in writing that our sign-off is needed for this event to occur. As no such sign-off has been given, as of today there is no event with Ryan Garcia.”

Simply said, they get their cut or no fight.

The potential money-making fight has a strong possibility to occur.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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The Noted Trainer Kevin Henry, Lucky to Be Alive, Reflects on Devin Haney and More

Published

5 days ago

November 27, 2024

Arne K. Lang

The-Noted-Trainer-Kevin-Henry-Lucky-to-be-Alive-Reflects-on-Devin-Haney-and-More

This past summer, on July 21, Las Vegas boxing trainer Kevin Henry almost died. He was on the Las Vegas Strip, walking north from Caesars Palace, when he was the victim of an auto-pedestrian accident, hit by a careless uber driver exiting the Treasure Island casino after dropping off a passenger.

Henry suffered two broken bones in his neck, shoulder and hip displacements, lost two teeth, and had facial injuries that required plastic surgery. He spent three months in the hospital, the first 20 days in ICU and the final month at an in-patient rehabilitation facility.

The good news is that the pain has subsided and Kevin Henry is back in the gym mentoring boxers and enjoying the camaraderie of his peers.

Kevin, 55, grew up around the sport. His father, the late Norman Henry, was a fixture on the Philadelphia boxing scene going back to the late 1940s when he was Bob Montgomery’s Man Friday. The elder Henry co-managed Jeff Chandler and others and had a long association with Don King where he defined his role as that of a troubleshooter. Kevin was born in Philadelphia, spent several years in the LA area during the days when his father was a matchmaker for Harold Smith’s MAPS (an acronym for Muhammad Ali Professional Sports), and has been a full-time resident of Las Vegas since 1992.

“When I was 16, maybe 17, I was the youngest licensed second in New Jersey” says Henry. “In Philadelphia, I got to hang with great old-school trainers like George Benton. In LA, my home away from home was the Hoover Street Gym. Jackie McCoy, Eddie Futch, and Jesse Reid trained fighters there. A young trainer couldn’t ask for a better schoolhouse.

“The old-school trainers liked me because I was organized. If a kid said to me, oops, I forgot my gym bag or I can’t spar because I forgot my mouthpiece – and this happened a lot – I’d say, no you didn’t, I have it right here. And the kids knew if they went out and did something they shouldn’t have, that I wasn’t going to tattle-tale.”

When Henry moved to Las Vegas, the local heavyweight scene was percolating. Michael Dokes was here as were Oliver McCall and Michael Hunter Sr. The latter two fought each other as they were climbing the ladder and eventually became fast friends.

The ill-fated Hunter would become a member of the family. He married Kevin Henry’s sister. Michael Hunter Jr, a leading heavyweight contender whose victims include the white-hot Martin Bakole and Michael’s younger brother Keith Hunter, a 15-2 junior welterweight, are Kevin’s nephews.

Discounting Devin Haney’s father Bill, no boxing coach has spent more time in the company of Devin Haney. Henry was in Devin’s corner for the vast majority of his amateur bouts, including five of Devin’s six meetings with his great amateur rival Ryan Garcia, and their tie continued after Devin transitioned into a pro.

“He was like a little brother to me,” says Henry. “I remember the first day I saw him. It was at the old Round One gym which isn’t here anymore. A Rolls Royce pulled up out front. Derrick Harmon, who fought Roy Jones, was there with me. We figured that the person in the car was probably some famous professional athlete who had come to work up a sweat. But it was Bill Haney with his nine-year-old son. Neither Bill nor his kid knew anything about boxing; Bill wanted someone to teach Devin how to box. The boy was a blank canvas.

“Bill left and when he came back, he said, ‘how did he do?’ He was so proud when we told him his kid was a natural. Derrick and I couldn’t believe that the boy had never been in the gym before. We were amazed.”

The precocious Haney, who turned pro in Mexico at age 16, proved to be as good as advertised. He won the WBC world lightweight title in his twenty-fourth pro fight, pitching a shutout over previously undefeated Alfredo Santiago, went on to unify the title with wins over George Kambosos and Vasyl Lomachenko, and pitched another shutout in his first venture at 140, whitewashing Regis Prograis to capture another world title belt.

Kevin Henry was there for some of these fights and was lost in the shuffle at others. It remains a sore spot.

No active boxer has been looked-over by as many prominent trainers as Devin Haney. Bill Haney, who would be a finalist for both the 2023 BWAA Trainer of the Year and Manager of the Year, winning the latter, operated on the assumption that all had something useful to contribute and that from their inputs he could build something that was greater than the sum of its parts. He was bucking several bromides including the chestnut that too many chefs spoil the broth and that brings us to the night of April 20, 2024, when Bill Haney’s son caught up with his old amateur rival Ryan Garcia at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In a memorable fight, Garcia buzzed Haney in the opening minute of the match with his patented left hook and would then go on to dominate the second half of the fight, putting Haney on the canvas three times – in rounds 7, 10, and 11 – en route to a scorching upset.

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As we know, Garcia, who came in three pounds overweight, would have the “W” stripped from him when his urine samples revealed the presence of a performance-enhancing drug, ostarine. The New York State Athletic Commission changed the result to a no-contest and that is how it appears at boxrec, the sport’s official record-keeper.

Devin Haney remains undefeated (31-0, 1 NC) but Ryan Garcia knocked the mystique out of him.

In part because of his tender age – he turned 26 earlier this month – Haney was considered a threat to break Floyd Mayweather’s 50-0 record. No one talks about that anymore and if it should happen, it would command an asterisk.

Kevin Henry was there at the Haney-Garcia fight but, in a sense, he wasn’t there.

“They never put my name on the comp list ” he says, “so there was no ticket or pass waiting for me when I got to the arena. I was actually on the subway heading back to my hotel when Devin called me. He said, ‘where you at ‘bro.’ When I explained the situation to him, he said ‘turn around and come back and go to security.’

“Devin arranged to have a ticket waiting for me. My seat was directly behind his corner. The undercard was already in progress when I got back.

“This will sound arrogant, but I am certain the outcome would have been different if Devin had a different corner. The most experienced guy in his corner that night was Bob Ware, and Bob isn’t a trainer; he’s a cutman. When Devin faced adversity for the first time in his life, there was no experienced head there to get him turned around.

“In preparation for Garcia, we spent 3-4 weeks at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym. I actually suggested to Bill that he use Freddie in the corner. Freddie sees things that other trainers don’t see, even me, and Freddie would have known what adjustments to make. But Bill said no. He didn’t want to cede his authority.”

Kevin Henry’s admiration for Devin Haney, as a boxer and a person, hasn’t waned. “Ryan Garcia came in overweight at the weigh-in and you can just imagine how much weight he put on after he rehydrated. When they stood at center ring to get the referee’s instructions, Garcia looked like a middleweight to me. Devin dug deep and fought a great fight against a guy who was bigger and on steroids. One of the judges even had it a draw.” (True. Veteran arbiter Max DeLuca scored it 112-112. The other judges had Garcia winning by 4 and 6 points.)

As to what to expect from Devin when he returns, Henry says, “I worry about the mental part; some boxers don’t take losing well.” There are no such concerns about Kevin Henry who lost none of his mental acuity in that terrible accident and is back in his comfort zone.

Haney-Garcia photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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