Carbajal vs ‘Chiquita’ Gonzalez was Magical. Can Estrada vs Roman Gonzalez Measure Up?

Published

4 years ago

March 13, 2021

Carbajal-vs-Chiquita-Gonzalez-was-Magical-Can-Estrada-vs-Roman-Gonzalez-Measure-up?

On this day twenty-eight years ago, mighty-mites Michael Carbajal and Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez engaged in a fight for the ages at the Las Vegas Hilton. It was the opening chapter of a trilogy. Oddly, tonight’s eagerly-anticipated rematch between mighty-mites Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez is bubbling forth on the same day in the same month. This struck us as the perfect time to re-visit Bernard Fernandez’s look-back at that stupendous battle in 1993. His story ran in these pages on March 12, 2018 under the title, “25 Years Ago, Carbajal-Gonzalez I Made Ounce-for-Ounce Magic.” Here it is, a TSS CLASSIC…

Pound-for-pound? How about ounce-for-ounce? On March 13, 1993, two exceptionally talented and courageous light flyweights, Michael “Little Hands of Stone” Carbajal and Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez – with a combined weight of 214½ pounds, or a quarter-pound less than WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder came in at for his most recent defense against Luis Ortiz – demonstrated that a really big fight need not require the participation of even moderately large men.

In adding Gonzalez’s WBC 108-pound title to the IBF strap he already possessed, Carbajal roared back from knockdowns in the second (not exactly flash, but close) and fifth (he was legitimately buzzed) rounds to drop the even tinier (5-foot-1 to the winner’s 5-6) Mexican standout with a textbook-perfect left hook in the seventh round in the Showtime-televised bout at the Las Vegas Hilton. Chiquita, who was leading by four points on all three official scorecards at the time, collapsed onto his right shoulder before rolling over onto his back, where he was counted out by referee Mills Lane. The elapsed time was 2 minutes, 59 seconds.

“I knew that if I knocked him down he wouldn’t get back up,” a jubilant Carbajal told Showtime commentator Al Bernstein minutes after he had struck the decisive blow. “The way he went down, I knew he wasn’t going to get up.”

Carbajal’s confidence, if indeed he was as sure of the eventual outcome as he professed, was not universally shared. Although Gonzalez suffered a nasty cut above his left eye in the third round, a gash that would continue to worsen with each succeeding round, the switch-hitting whirlwind – ostensibly an orthodox fighter, he switched to and from a southpaw stance early and often – succeeded at taking the fight right to Carbajal, where he frequently got the better of the furious inside exchanges. Had Gonzalez not been stopped at some point because of the severity of the cut, he might have put himself beyond reach of a Carbajal victory on points had he just continued to do what he had been doing from the opening bell.

“One of the main differences here is simple: Carbajal is not hurting Gonzalez with his big power punches,” Bernstein noted as the seventh round began. “Gonzalez is hurting him.” But Chiquita, who had been advised by his trainer, Justo Sanchez, before the fateful seventh stanza that Carbajal was “very tired” and primed to be taken out, soon was reintroduced to an immutable truth of boxing: some fighters, like wild animals, are most dangerous when their back is against the wall. Michael Carbajal, like Matthew Saad Muhammad, Arturo Gatti and any number of others who consistently found a way to escape the danger zone as often as they found themselves in it, proved that night that he was a card-carrying member of the club.

It wasn’t very long after hostilities commenced that the seemingly reasonable fight plan laid out by Carbajal’s older brother and trainer, Danny – lots of movement and extensive use of the jab – was scrapped, the result of Gonzalez’s incessant pressure, effective and borderline illegal body attack (he twice was warned by Lane for low blows) and, truth be told, Michael’s own determination to stand and trade.

“They don’t want Carbajal on the inside all the time with Gonzalez … I don’t care how many times they tell Carbajal to jab in this fight, I don’t know that he’s going to do it,” Bernstein opined. “I think he wants to slug it out with Gonzalez, and I think he’s going to do it no matter what.”

Not that punch statistics are the most accurate gauge of any fight’s ebb and flow, but CompuBox statistics substantiated what everyone in the arena and in the Showtime viewing audience already knew. This opening act of a soon-to-be-legendary trilogy was an instant classic, one for the record books and memory banks, with Gonzalez landing 206 of 456 for an exceptionally high 45 percent accuracy rate while Carbajal connecting on 167 of 326, an even higher 51 percent. Had Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa gone at it with comparable physical dimensions, this would have been the result.

Not surprisingly, The Ring named Carbajal-Gonzalez as its 1993 Fight of the Year. The epic clash might have won the magazine’s triple crown, had it also garnered nods as Knockout of the Year and the sensational fifth as Round of the Year. Those designations, respectively, instead went to Gerald McClellan’s fifth-round stoppage of Julian Jackson and the second round of the Terry Norris-Troy Waters fight. But the repercussions of Carbajal-Gonzalez I would be felt for years to come, on several levels.

Perhaps most notably and most fittingly, Carbajal (who posted a 49-4 career record that included 33 knockouts) and Gonzalez (42-3, 31 KOs), who won the succeeding segments of their rivalry on split and majority decisions, each were inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 5, 2006. Theirs was a three-act passion play that was a replication in miniature of Johansson-Patterson, Ali-Frazier, Bowe-Holyfield and Gatti-Ward, and it offered conclusive proof that jockey-sized fighters could cut it at the box office in the United States, a vast, mostly unexplored frontier that previously had not been welcoming to them. Carbajal-Gonzalez II became the first fight in which men their size earned seven-figure purses, and the fact it happened on American soil (on Feb. 19, 1994, in Inglewood, Calif.) made the achievement all the more significant.

But the milestones they achieved, separately and in tandem, owed in no small part to another little guy, former WBA bantamweight champ Richie Sandoval, being insistent that his boss, Top Rank founder and CEO Bob Arum, take a flier on Carbajal, the Phoenix, Ariz., resident who was a silver medalist for the U.S. at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Despite his status as an Olympic medalist (Carbajal should have come home with a gold, failing to do so only because of a scandalously unfair decision that went to Bulgaria’s Ivalio Hristov in the final), no major U.S. promoter viewed Carbajal as a potential valuable addition to his stable. The old adage that good things come in small packages might refer to rings, but not the kind that are roped off and occupied by two fighters and a referee.

“When Richie Sandoval brought Michael to my office, I thought he was out of his mind,” Arum said in May 2006 prior to Carbajal’s induction into the IBHOF. “I had seen Michael in the Olympics, but he was, like, 106 pounds. What the hell were we going to do with someone that little? But there was something about Michael that intrigued Richie, and he pleaded for me to take Michael on.

“The more I listened to Richie make his case, the more I came around. Finally, I said, `I don’t know if we can make this work, but what the heck, I’m going to give it a try.’”

It was a leap not only of faith, but of hope and charity. American fight fans have always been infatuated with heavyweights, and their enthusiasm for any division south of lightweight has tended to drop off precipitously. Carbajal could fight all right, but, physically, he was what he was. There was no way he could eat, stretch or contort himself into something bigger, if not necessarily better.

“The first fight we put him into was a four-rounder, in Atlantic City, against this kid, Will Grigsby, who went on to win a world championship and probably was the second-best 108-pounder in the United States,” Arum recalled. “Some matchmaking, huh? But we didn’t know what to do with a 108-pound fighter. We had never handled anyone that small before.

“But gradually we worked our way into it. I remember one night in Phoenix when (heavyweight) Tommy Morrison was on the card with Carbajal. This casino executive, who shall remain forever nameless, came to the fight to check out Morrison. He was sitting right near me and he said, when they introduced the Carbajal fight, `You ought to be ashamed of yourself, promoting midgets.’ I’ll never forget that.”

Arum was right; it was difficult finding quality opponents for American fighters Carbajal’s size. But, as Arum noted 13 years ago, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. There are a lot of great Thai fighters, Filipino fighters, Japanese fighters and Mexican fighters at 108 pounds. We found them. And, of course, Chiquita came later.”

Perhaps, because of the Michael Carbajal experiment that paid major dividends, Top Rank has continued to plumb the lower weight classes, from which it imported such precious gems of more recent vintage as Manny Pacquiao and Vasiliy Lomachenko. Many credible pound-for-pound lists nowadays include super flyweight titlists Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (WBC) and Naoya Inoue (WBO), with Thailand’s Sor Rungvisai establishing himself with U.S. audiences on the basis of his two victories over Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and another over Juan Francisco Estrada.

Given the trend that he helped create, you’d think that Carbajal, now 50, would be basking in the glow of his status as a Hall of Fame pioneer. But not every mostly happy story has a feel-good ending, and the “Little Hands of Stone” story serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen when a fighter places too much trust in the wrong person.

Most of the $7 million Carbajal earned during his professional career is gone, siphoned by the very man he so often credited with facilitating his success. Older brother Danny Carbajal was released from an Arizona prison in August 2011 after serving 3½ years for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement and property accounts from his estranged (and then murdered) wife, Sally. Although there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the 2005 murders of Sally and her then-boyfriend Gerry Best, Danny’s greed led him not only to rip off Michael for millions, but to order the eviction of their mother from a house whose deed was in Danny’s name.

“He fooled me more than anybody,” Michael said of the love and trust he once unwaveringly gave to a brother who proved undeserving of such devotion.

But nothing and no one can take away Michael Carbajal’s legacy, or the doors he helped open for little fighters with big talent, or the night when he went to hell and back with Chiquita Gonzalez and had the satisfaction of having his hand raised.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More

Published

19 hours ago

November 1, 2024

David A. Avila

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Those lightweights.

Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.

Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.

Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.

Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.

“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.

Even in Las Vegas.

Verona, New York

Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.

Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.

“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.

Foster disagrees.

“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.

Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).

Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.

“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.

Muratalla likes challenges too.

“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.

Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship

WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.

Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.

But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.

“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.

In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.

Bad choice for Mucino.

Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.

Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.

Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.

Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.

“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.

It should be exciting.

Fights to Watch

Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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Bakhram Murtalaziev was the Fighter of the Month in October

Published

2 days ago

October 31, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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As we close the book on October, let’s look back at the month’s stellar performances. Kenshiro Teraji added another exclamation point to his brilliant career with an 11^th-round stoppage of Cristofer Rosales. England’s Jack Catterall, considered no more than a decent domestic-level talent for most of his career, showed that he had been underrated with a comprehensive 12-round decision over declining Regis Prograis. But the top performance, by a landslide, was delivered by Bakhram Murtalaziev who annihilated Tim Tszyu on Oct. 19 in Orlando, Florida.

Murtalaziev was undefeated (22-0, 16 KOs) and the reigning IBF junior middleweight champion, but he was the underdog and the “B” side. As champions go, and there are roughly five dozen across the 17 weight divisions, the California-based Russian ranked among the least well-known. He had won his title in Berlin with an 11^th-round stoppage of an unexceptional 38-year-old German-Ecuadorian campaigner, Jack Culcay, and he would be making his first defense.

Managed by Egis Klimas who also handles Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, among others, Bakhram Murtalaziev came from a good barn in the vernacular of a horseplayer, but on paper that alone was insufficient to get him over the hump against Tim Tszyu who a few short months earlier was widely considered the best 154-pound boxer in the world.

That was before he met up with Sebastian Fundora who blemished his record, but that setback could have been written off as a fluke.

As we recall, Tszyu was scheduled to fight Keith Thurman in the initial PBC offering on Amazon Prime Video, but Thurman suffered a biceps injury in training and Fundora was bumped up from the undercard to fill the breach. With only 12 days’ notice, Tim Tszyu went from fighting a five-foot-seven fighter who fights out of an orthodox stance to fighting a southpaw who stood almost a full foot taller. The “Towering Inferno” has his limitations, but poses a special problem to anyone, let alone an opponent with little time to formulate a good game plan.

Tszyu was hampered in the Fundora fight by a gash on his hairline that hampered his vision. The injury happened in the second round when he ducked under Fundora and walked into an elbow. The gash bled copiously throughout the fight and yet the best that Fundora could do was win a split (albeit fair) decision.

To say that Tszyu failed to rebound from the Fundora misadventure would be putting it mildly. Murtalaziev steamrolled him, knocking him to the canvas four times in all before Tszyu’s corner tossed in the towel at the 1:55 mark of the third stanza. It was painful to watch. Referee Chris Young was faulted for allowing the match to continue as long as it did. Compounding Tszyu’s misery, his celebrated father, a first ballot Hall of Famer, was ringside. Kostya Tszyu hadn’t seen his oldest son fight in the flesh since Tim’s pro debut in 2016.

Although the dichotomy is imperfect, Tim Tszyu, who turns 30 on Saturday, is more of a puncher than a boxer. That may work against him so far as clawing his way back to a position of prominence. The noted boxing coach Stephen “Breadman” Edwards, a keen student of the history of boxing in the modern era, expressed this sentiment in a Q and A story for Boxing Scene. “Destructive fighters usually don’t come back to full capacity after bad KO losses,” he said, citing John Mugabi, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, and Naseem Hamed to illustrate his point. Moreover, added Edwards, “No one will ever be afraid of him again.”

But there were two stories that emerged from the Murtalaziev-Tszyu fight. Tim Tszyu crashed, but Bakhram Murtalaziev emerged from obscurity, announcing his presence (pardon the cliché) as a force to be reckoned with. As for his next assignment, the best guess is that it will come against Sebastian Fundora or Errol Spence Jr. who are expected to meet early next year. And based on Murtalaziev’s stunning performance in Orlando, it will be impossible to bet against him.

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Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later

Published

3 days ago

October 30, 2024

The Sweet Science

Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later

By TSS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT JAMIE REBNER — In sports, middle-aged athletes are not supposed to beat opponents who are half their age and in their athletic primes. Only the greatest ones can use guile, technique, and experience to compensate for the dulling of speed, reflexes, and athleticism that have unavoidably eroded with time.

That is why George Foreman’s feat of reclaiming the heavyweight title at 45 is so impressive. It was thirty years ago this coming Tuesday, Nov 5, 1994, that Foreman scored a monumental upset in knocking out Michael Moorer to win back the title he had lost twenty years prior against Muhammad Ali in The Rumble in the Jungle. In doing so, Big George became the oldest heavyweight champion, breaking the record previously held by Jersey Joe Walcott, who had won the title at 38.

When Foreman beat Moorer, he was in the twilight of his second career, a comeback that began in 1987. George had retired in 1977 after losing to Jimmy Young and experiencing a spiritual awakening in his locker room. That led him to become a minister and devote himself to his family and congregation. During his retirement, he opened a youth center in Houston, which required much financial support, prompting him to return to the ring.

After winning 24 straight fights from 1987-1990, Foreman lost his first title shot by decision to Evander Holyfield in 1991. He rebounded from that loss with three more wins before getting a crack at the WBO title against Tommy Morrison in 1993. But his performance against Morrison was disappointing and he lost another decision. After that, Foreman was out of the ring for 17 months before he was gifted another title shot against Moorer.

Foreman got that gift because Moorer, due to his sullen demeanor and curtness with the media, was not a draw with the fans. He was also an unproven champion, having beaten Holyfield for two belts only seven months prior. So. Moorer needed a name opponent who could bring in the crowds for his first title defense. And the other top heavyweights like Oliver McCall (WBC champ), Lennox Lewis, and Riddick Bowe didn’t have close to Foreman’s drawing power. So. deserving or not, Foreman was chosen as the challenger to make a fight that would be worth the public’s attention and pockets.

Even Foreman was surprised by getting selected to fight Moorer. “I never in my wildest imagination thought I’d get a title shot again,” he told Associated Press sports columnist Tim Dahlberg. Still, George was determined to make his third time a charm.

But as motivated as George was, there was an irrefutable gap in speed between himself and the much younger champion. From the opening bell, Moorer used his superior quickness and reflexes to make Foreman look stiff and slow. And although George landed punches early on, he fired them one at a time while Moorer countered with multiple shots. But despite Moorer’s advantage in connects, his trainer Teddy Atlas advised him from the get-go not to stand in front of Foreman and make himself a stationary target for a right-hand bomb.

But Moorer failed to heed that advice as he continued to outwork Foreman in the middle rounds. Although he was winning, Moorer’s overconfidence kept him at close quarters, and he continued to circle unwisely to his left and into Foreman’s dangerous right hand. And despite absorbing many quality shots, Foreman never appeared hurt or discouraged thanks to his granite chin and unyielding resolve. He was determined to win and he was willing to walk through as many flush shots as he needed to do so.

With Moorer content to stay in range, Foreman gladly returned his firepower and he landed some telling right crosses, uppercuts, and plenty of thudding body blows during the battle. And while Moorer continued to pile up points and rounds, as long as George was marching forward and throwing shots, he had a puncher’s chance.

And with a minute to go in round ten, that punch came. After missing a three-punch combination, Foreman scored with a one-two, with the right hand landing on the forehead. He immediately repeated that combination but this time aimed the right hand lower on Moorer’s jaw. That slight adjustment caused his bulldozer right to collide perfectly with Moorer’s chin, sending the champion crashing to the canvas and sprawled onto his back. The champion couldn’t beat the count, and just like that, the fight was over, Moorer’s short-lived title run ending before it ever truly began.

With a single, shattering blow, Foreman etched his name into boxing history. Wearing the same trunks from Zaire 20 years before, he was now heavyweight champion of the world once again. It was a shocking result that defied conventional wisdom since seldom do 45-year-old boxers score knockouts over champions in their athletic primes. But Foreman reminded us that he was anything but your typical quadragenarian. He was special, and he had two distinct heavyweight championship reigns to prove it.

—

About the author:

Jamie Rebner lives in Toronto, Canada. He has been a freelance boxing writer since 2016 and his writing has appeared in The Fight City, Boxing News Online, The Ring, and Ringside Seat magazine. His Substack blog is Fight Fundamental, and he is currently writing a book about George Foreman’s comeback. He is also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @J_NReb.

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