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A Cut Eye Not Nearly Enough to Deter Marine Veteran Jamel Herring

The cut was in a troublesome spot, in Jamel Herring’s right eyelid, an area that had been bloodied before, in his most recent fight seven months earlier, against Jonathan Oquendo. Jamel Herring did win that fight, via eighth-round disqualification, as referee Tony Weeks had previously determined that the cut had been opened in the fifth round by an illegal head-butt. But Herring, who was well ahead on all three official scorecards and thus came away with a unanimous-decision victory, did not look as sharp as he might have preferred. Now here he was again, nicked up but clearly winning another fight, against two-division former world champion Carl “The Jackal” Frampton, who had to realize that his best chance at victory – maybe his only chance – was to target the area that was dripping crimson into Herring’s field of vision. The difference is that, this time, the cut had been opened by a punch in the fourth round, not a butt. Had Herring not been able to continue before the conclusion of the 12 scheduled rounds, he might have come away with a dispiriting TKO loss, regardless of what the scorecards might indicate.
There are more than a few fighters who have become overly cautious, to their detriment, when cut, especially if the blood flow limited what they could see of a suddenly emboldened opponent. Other fighters similarly affected went the other route, abandoning a sound tactical strategy to go all-in for the knockout, the better to eliminate any possibility of losing via stoppage due to a worsening cut. But Jamel Herring, a Marine Corps veteran of two tours of duty in war-torn Iraq, has seen blood before. Lots and lots of blood in places far more dangerous than the ring. He continued to do what he had been doing so capably since the opening bell, fully utilizing his advantages of five inches in height and seven inches in reach, flooring Frampton twice, in the fifth and the sixth rounds, the second knockdown leaving the clearly buzzed challenger reeling, so much so that his trainer, Jamie Moore, threw in the towel, prompting Italian referee Giustino Di Giovanni to wave things off at the 1:40 mark of the sixth of the ESPN+-televised bout from the Caesars Palace Dubai.
“It was just an emotional roller-coaster just to get here,” the 35-year-old Herring (23-2, 11 KOs) said after he had retained his WBC super featherweight title in impressive fashion. “My last outing wasn’t my best. People doubted me. They called me every name in the book. But even with the cut I wasn’t going to give up. I wasn’t going to quit.”
The disappointing outcome for Frampton, 34, who was attempting to become the first Irishman (he is from Belfast, Northern Ireland) to win world championships in three weight classes, also represented something of an emotional roller-coaster, except that his thrill ride had come to an end. The Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2016 Fighter of the Year, he announced his immediate retirement to spend more time with “my beautiful wife and kids,” in addition to complimenting the man who had just conquered him.
“I said before I would retire if I lost this fight, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Frampton announced with the class and dignity he has always demonstrated throughout his commendable career. “I just got beat by the better man. I really struggled to get inside him. He was sharp, shooting from a distance. A perfect game plan. I just got beat. Zero excuses. I had an amazing camp. I came into this fight to win it.”
So did Herring, who had to patiently mark time through two postponements, both owing to his testing positive for COVID-19. But they say all good things come to those who wait, some having nothing to do with his current occupation.
“Some of the criticism of Jamel Herring going into the fight was warranted,” offered two-division former world champ Andre Ward, one of the commentators for the ESPN+ telecast. “You’re only as good as your last performance, and his last performance against Jonathan Oquendo was not great. He didn’t respond the right way. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t respond the right way tonight. He did, and he deserves everything that’s coming his way.”
What could be coming next for Herring is a unification showdown with Mexico’s Oscar Valdez (29-0, 23 KOs), the WBC and lineal super featherweight ruler. It might be a move up to lightweight, which seems reasonable for someone of his elongated physical dimensions (5’10”, 72-inch reach) for a 130-pounder. But whatever awaits him, it has to be less harrowing than the path he already has followed to get to this point in a life marked by exhilarating highs and plunging lows.
Did Frampton say something about how Herring was “shooting from a distance”? How ironic that remark is, considering his two deployments to Iraq. Herring has seen fellow Marines killed or seriously wounded. He knows what it’s like to have RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) whiz over his head, to cringe when an IED (improvised explosive device) blew up the Humvee just ahead of the one in which he was the gunner, an exposed position that left him especially vulnerable to snipers with high-powered rifles that could cut him down from hundreds of yards away.
To have lived through that and twice to have come home whole, at least physically, reflects no small amount of good fortune. But that is not to say that Herring was not damaged in ways that are not readily discernible. He is the father of six children, one of whom, daughter Ariyanah, was only two months old when she died unexpectedly and without warning of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Her loss left a hole in her father’s heart that has yet to fully heal.
There are other unseen wounds to veterans of armed conflicts that never appear on X-rays or medical charts.
“Sniper fire. That was my biggest fear,” Herring said in a 2016 interview with ESPN’s Mark Kriegel. “Whenever we got stopped, I felt like I was a sitting duck, ’cause I’m on top of the Humvee.
“It’s rough over there. You’re deployed for seven, eight months out in the desert and it’s a different world where people are trying to kill you. You have to be watchful at all times.”
Back home and presumably safe, Herring – who had been the team captain of the USA Boxing Team at the 2012 London Olympics – had to cope with the death of his baby daughter and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). He began to drink heavily, and even now feels the need to sit in restaurants with his back to a wall with a view of all entrances. Some might call that a form of paranoia, but it is what it is. But, fortunately, Herring’s strong and controlled performance against Frampton offers proof, and hope, that the worst is increasingly behind him.
The story of Jamel Herring could easily be adapted into a feature-length or made-for-TV movie, but then isn’t that the case with so many fighters who dealt with issues that supersede anything they may have encountered inside the ropes? Boxing has always provided Hollywood with rich veins of material to be mined, from Jim Corbett to James J. Braddock to Rocky Graziano to Micky Ward to Muhammad Ali. Maybe the tale of Jamel Herring can be put into the future bin of inspirational scripts along with those of Matthew Saad Muhammad, Bernard Hopkins and Arturo Gatti, a select group of life underdogs who rose above their circumstances to achieve a form of glory reserved for those with enough gumption to defy the odds.
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Sam Goodman and Eccentric Harry Garside Score Wins on a Wednesday Card in Sydney

Australian junior featherweight Sam Goodman, ranked #1 by the IBF and #2 by the WBO, returned to the ring today in Sydney, NSW, and advanced his record to 20-0 (8) with a unanimous 10-round decision over Mexican import Cesar Vaca (19-2). This was Goodman’s first fight since July of last year. In the interim, he twice lost out on lucrative dates with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue. Both fell out because of cuts that Goodman suffered in sparring.
Goodman was cut again today and in two places – below his left eye in the eighth and above his right eye in the ninth, the latter the result of an accidental head butt – but by then he had the bout firmly in control, albeit the match wasn’t quite as one-sided as the scores (100-90, 99-91, 99-92) suggested. Vaca, from Guadalajara, was making his first start outside his native country.
Goodman, whose signature win was a split decision over the previously undefeated American fighter Ra’eese Aleem, is handled by the Rose brothers — George, Trent, and Matt — who also handle the Tszyu brothers, Tim and Nikita, and two-time Olympian (and 2021 bronze medalist) Harry Garside who appeared in the semi-wind-up.
Harry Garside

Harry Garside
A junior welterweight from a suburb of Melbourne, Garside, 27, is an interesting character. A plumber by trade who has studied ballet, he occasionally shows up at formal gatherings wearing a dress.
Garside improved to 4-0 (3 KOs) as a pro when the referee stopped his contest with countryman Charlie Bell after five frames, deciding that Bell had taken enough punishment. It was a controversial call although Garside — who fought the last four rounds with a cut over his left eye from a clash of heads in the opening frame – was comfortably ahead on the cards.
Heavyweights
In a slobberknocker being hailed as a shoo-in for the Australian domestic Fight of the Year, 34-year-old bruisers Stevan Ivic and Toese Vousiutu took turns battering each other for 10 brutal rounds. It was a miracle that both were still standing at the final bell. A Brisbane firefighter recognized as the heavyweight champion of Australia, Ivic (7-0-1, 2 KOs) prevailed on scores of 96-94 and 96-93 twice. Melbourne’s Vousiuto falls to 8-2.
Tim Tsyzu.
The oddsmakers have installed Tim Tszyu a small favorite (minus-135ish) to avenge his loss to Sebastian Fundora when they tangle on Sunday, July 20, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Their first meeting took place in this same ring on March 30 of last year. Fundora, subbing for Keith Thurman, saddled Tszyu with his first defeat, taking away the Aussie’s WBO 154-pound world title while adding the vacant WBC belt to his dossier. The verdict was split but fair. Tszyu fought the last 11 rounds with a deep cut on his hairline that bled profusely, the result of an errant elbow.
Since that encounter, Tszyu was demolished in three rounds by Bakhram Murtazaliev in Orlando and rebounded with a fourth-round stoppage of Joey Spencer in Newcastle, NSW. Fundora has been to post one time, successfully defending his belts with a dominant fourth-round stoppage of Chordale Booker.
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Thomas Hauser’s Literary Notes: Johnny Greaves Tells a Sad Tale

Johnny Greaves was a professional loser. He had one hundred professional fights between 2007 and 2013, lost 96 of them, scored one knockout, and was stopped short of the distance twelve times. There was no subtlety in how his role was explained to him: “Look, Johnny; professional boxing works two ways. You’re either a ticket-seller and make money for the promoter, in which case you get to win fights. If you don’t sell tickets but can look after yourself a bit, you become an opponent and you fight to lose.”
By losing, he could make upwards of one thousand pounds for a night‘s work.
Greaves grew up with an alcoholic father who beat his children and wife. Johnny learned how to survive the beatings, which is what his career as a fighter would become. He was a scared, angry, often violent child who was expelled from school and found solace in alcohol and drugs.
The fighters Greaves lost to in the pros ran the gamut from inept local favorites to future champions Liam Walsh, Anthony Crolla, Lee Selby, Gavin Rees, and Jack Catterall. Alcohol and drugs remained constants in his life. He fought after drinking, smoking weed, and snorting cocaine on the night before – and sometimes on the day of – a fight. On multiple occasions, he came close to committing suicide. His goal in boxing ultimately became to have one hundred professional fights.
On rare occasions, two professional losers – “journeymen,” they’re called in The UK – are matched against each other. That was how Greaves got three of the four wins on his ledger. On September 29, 2013, he fought the one hundredth and final fight of his career against Dan Carr in London’s famed York Hall. Carr had a 2-42-2 ring record and would finish his career with three wins in ninety outings. Greaves-Carr was a fight that Johnny could win. He emerged triumphant on a four-round decision.
The Johnny Greaves Story, told by Greaves with the help of Adam Darke (Pitch Publishing) tells the whole sordid tale. Some of Greaves’s thoughts follow:
* “We all knew why we were there, and it wasn’t to win. The home fighters were the guys who had sold all the tickets and were deemed to have some talent. We were the scum. We knew our role. Give some young prospect a bit of a workout, keep out of the way of any big shots, lose on points but take home a wedge of cash, and fight again next week.”
* “If you fought too hard and won, then you wouldn’t get booked for any more shows. If you swung for the trees and got cut or knocked out, then you couldn’t fight for another 28 days. So what were you supposed to do? The answer was to LOOK like you were trying to win but be clever in the process. Slip and move, feint, throw little shots that were rangefinders, hold on, waste time. There was an art to this game, and I was quickly learning what a cynical business it was.”
* “The unknown for the journeyman was always how good your opponent might be. He could be a future world champion. Or he might be some hyped-up nightclub bouncer with a big following who was making lots of money for the promoter.”
* “No matter how well I fought, I wasn’t going to be getting any decisions. These fights weren’t scored fairly. The referees and judges understood who the paymasters were and they played the game. What was the point of having a go and being the best version of you if nobody was going to recognize or reward it?”
* “When I first stepped into the professional arena, I believed I was tough. believed that nobody could stop me. But fight by fight, those ideas were being challenged and broken down. Once you know that you can be hurt, dropped and knocked out, you’re never quite the same fighter.”
* “I had started off with a dream, an idea of what boxing was and what it would do for me. It was going to be a place where I could prove my toughness. A place that I could escape to and be someone else for a while. For a while, boxing was that place. But it wore me down to the point that I stopped caring. I’d grown sick and tired of it all. I wished that I could feel pride at what I’d achieved. But most of the time, I just felt like a loser.”
* “The fights were getting much more difficult, the damage to my body and my psyche taking longer and longer to repair after each defeat. I was putting myself in more and more danger with each passing fight. I was getting hurt more often and stopped more regularly. Even with the 28-day [suspensions], I didn’t have time to heal. I was staggering from one fight to the next and picking up more injuries along the way.”
* “I was losing my toughness and resilience. When that’s all you’ve ever had, it’s a hard thing to accept. Drink and drugs had always been present in my life. But now they became a regular part of my pre-fight preparation. It helped to shut out the fear and quieted the thoughts and worries that I shouldn’t be doing this anymore.”
* “My body was broken. My hands were constantly sore with blisters and cuts. I had early arthritis in my hip and my teeth were a mess. I looked an absolute state and inside I felt worse. But I couldn’t stop fighting yet. Not before the 100.”
* “I had abused myself time after time and stood in front of better men, taking a beating when I could have been sensible and covered up. At the start, I was rarely dropped or stopped. Now it was becoming a regular part of the game. Most of the guys I was facing were a lot better than me. This was mainly about survival.”
* “Was my brain f***ed from taking too many punches? I knew it was, to be honest. I could feel my speech changing and memory going. I was mentally unwell and shouldn’t have been fighting but the promoters didn’t care. Johnny Greaves was still a good booking. Maybe an even better one now that he might get knocked out.”
* “Nobody gave a f*** about me and whether I lived or died. I didn’t care about that much either. But the thought of being humiliated, knocked out in front of all those people; that was worse than the thought of dying. The idea of being exposed for what I was – a nobody.”
* “I was a miserable bastard in real life. A depressive downbeat mouthy little f***er. Everything I’ve done has been to mask the feeling that I’m worthless. That I have no value. The drinks and the drugs just helped me to forget that for a while. I still frighten myself a lot. My thoughts scare me. Do I really want to be here for the next thirty or forty years? I don’t know. If suicide wasn’t so impactful on people around you, I would have taken that leap. I don’t enjoy life and never have.”
So . . . Any questions?
****
Steve Albert was Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator for two decades. But his reach extended far beyond boxing.
Albert’s sojourn through professional sports began in high school when he was a ball boy for the New York Knicks. Over the years, he was behind the microphone for more than a dozen teams in eleven leagues including four NBA franchises.
Putting the length of that trajectory in perspective . . . As a ballboy, Steve handed bottles of water and towels to a Knicks back-up forward named Phil Jackson. Later, they worked together as commentators for the New Jersey Nets. Then Steve provided the soundtrack for some of Jackson’s triumphs when he won eleven NBA championships as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.
It’s also a matter of record that Steve’s oldest brother, Marv, was arguably the greatest play-by-play announcer in NBA history. And brother Al enjoyed a successful career behind the microphone after playing professional hockey.
Now Steve has written a memoir titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Broadcast Booth. Those who know him know that Steve doesn’t like to say bad things about people. And he doesn’t here. Nor does he delve into the inner workings of sports media or the sports dream machine. The book is largely a collection of lighthearted personal recollections, although there are times when the gravity of boxing forces reflection.
“Fighters were unlike any other professional athletes I had ever encountered,” Albert writes. “Many were products of incomprehensible backgrounds, fiercely tough neighborhoods, ghettos and, in some cases, jungles. Some got into the sport because they were bullied as children. For others, boxing was a means of survival. In many cases, it was an escape from a way of life that most people couldn’t even fathom.”
At one point, Steve recounts a ringside ritual that he followed when he was behind the microphone for Showtime Boxing: “I would precisely line up my trio of beverages – coffee, water, soda – on the far edge of the table closest to the ring apron. Perhaps the best advice I ever received from Ferdie [broadcast partner Ferdie Pacheco] was early on in my blow-by-blow career – ‘Always cover your coffee at ringside with an index card unless you like your coffee with cream, sugar, and blood.’”
Writing about the prelude to the infamous Holyfield-Tyson “bite fight,” Albert recalls, “I remember thinking that Tyson was going to do something unusual that night. I had this sinking feeling in my gut that he was going to pull something exceedingly out of the ordinary. His grousing about Holyfield’s head butts in the first fight added to my concern. [But] nobody could have foreseen what actually happened. Had I opened that broadcast with, ‘Folks, tonight I predict that Mike Tyson will bite off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear,’ some fellas in white coats might have approached me and said, ‘Uh, Steve, could you come with us.'”
And then there’s my favorite line in the book: “I once asked a fighter if he was happily married,” Albert recounts. “He said, ‘Yes, but my wife’s not.'”
“All I ever wanted was to be a sportscaster,” Albert says in closing. “I didn’t always get it right, but I tried to do my job with honesty and integrity. For forty-five years, calling games was my life. I think it all worked out.”
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – The Most Honest Sport: Two More Years Inside Boxing – will be published this month and is available for preorder at:
https://www.amazon.com/Most-Honest-Sport-Inside-Boxing/dp/1955836329
In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
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Argentina’s Fernando Martinez Wins His Rematch with Kazuto Ioka

In an excellent fight climaxed by a furious 12th round, Argentina’s Fernando Daniel Martinez came off the deck to win his rematch with Kazuto Ioka and retain his piece of the world 115-pound title. The match was staged at Ioka’s familiar stomping grounds, the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.
In their first meeting on July 7 of last year in Tokyo, Martinez was returned the winner on scores of 117-111, 116-112, and a bizarre 120-108. The rematch was slated for late December, but Martinez took ill a few hours before the weigh-in and the bout was postponed.
The 33-year-old Martinez, who came in sporting a 17-0 (9) record, was a 7-2 favorite to win the sequel, but there were plenty of reasons to favor Ioka, 36, aside from his home field advantage. The first Japanese male fighter to win world titles in four weight classes, Ioka was 3-0 in rematches and his long-time trainer Ismael Salas was on a nice roll. Salas was 2-0 last weekend in Times Square, having handled upset-maker Rolly Romero and Reito Tsutsumi who was making his pro debut.
But the fourth time was not a charm for Ioka (31-4-1) who seemingly pulled the fight out of the fire in round 10 when he pitched the Argentine to the canvas with a pair of left hooks, but then wasn’t able to capitalize on the momentum swing.
Martinez set a fast pace and had Ioka fighting off his back foot for much of the fight. Beginning in round seven, Martinez looked fatigued, but the Argentine was conserving his energy for the championship rounds. In the end, he won the bout on all three cards: 114-113, 116-112, 117-110.
Up next for Fernando Martinez may be a date with fellow unbeaten Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, the lineal champion at 115. San Antonio’s Rodriguez is a huge favorite to keep his title when he defends against South Africa’s obscure Phumelela Cafu on July 19 in Frisco, Texas.
As for Ioka, had he won today’s rematch, that may have gotten him over the hump in so far as making it into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. True, winning titles in four weight classes is no great shakes when the bookends are only 10 pounds apart, but Ioka is still a worthy candidate.
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