Berlanga’s KO1 Streak Looking More Like Valero’s Than Brunson’s

Published

3 years ago

April 21, 2021

Berlanga's-KO1-Streak-Looking-More-Like-Valero's-Than-Brunson's

It isn’t exactly a news flash that most fight fans are mesmerized by power-punchers, maybe even more than usual if a particular knockout artist has demonstrated an affinity for swift, percussive put-aways. That being the case, it well could be that super middleweight Edgar Berlanga’s scheduled eight-rounder with Demond Nicholson, supposedly the co-feature in support of WBO featherweight champion Emanuel Navarrete’s defense against Christopher Diaz Saturday night in Kissimmee, Fla., will be more scrutinized than the main event.

Those bouts will be televised by ESPN/ESPN+.

Nicknamed the “Chosen One,” the Brooklyn-born Berlanga, who turns 24 on May 18, has won all 16 of his professional bouts on first-round knockouts. If he can extend his streak of never having had to answer the bell for the second round, hardly a gimme given that Nicholson (23-3-1, 20 KOs) arguably poses his sternest test to date, Berlanga’s bandwagon, which is already taking on lots of riders, is apt to soon become standing-room-only.

“When we say the phrase `heavy hands,’ Exhibit A is Edgar Berlanga,” ESPN blow-by-blow commentator Joe Tessitore said after Berlanga, who is of Puerto Rican descent and hopes to follow in the footsteps of his island idols, Felix Trinidad and Miguel Cotto, rang up No. 16 with a swift stoppage of another credible opponent, Ulises Sierra, on Dec. 20 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.

Some records are less legitimate than others, and such would appear to be the case with Yemeni flyweight Ali Raymi’s mark of 21 one-round KOs at the outset of his career. Although Raymi, whose last bout was in 2015, won each of his 25 pro fights inside the distance, they all took place in his home country and against less-than-stellar competition. Also highly suspect is Tyrone Brunson’s next-best mark of 19 consecutive one-round KOs. The still-active Brunson, a Philadelphian who has fought as a junior middleweight, middleweight and super middleweight, technically defeated five undefeated opponents during his KO1 run, but all five of those victims were making their pro debuts and four of them never fought again. Now 28-8-2 with 25 KOs, Brunson is just 9-8-2 with six wins and five losses by KO since his opening spree of quickies.

In a story I authored for The Sweet Science on April 16, 2015, titled When the Grandmothers Stopped Falling for Tyson Brunson, Brunson’s then-promoter, Carlos Linas, explained why and how the bogus record was orchestrated.

“Even if you fought 19 grandmothers in a row, it’s still kind of notable to get all of them out of there in the first round,” Linas rationalized.

“Look, I know Tyrone has been moved slow. There have been bumps along the way. But we’re on the way now. I’ve seen him spar with guys like Kassim Ouma, Ronald Hearns (Tommy’s son), Kermit Citron and Andy Lee, and more often than not he walks through them. I saw him flatten Hearns in the gym.

“In retrospect, maybe it was a mistake to bring Tyrone along so slow. I tried to do what’s best. It (the one-round KO streak) was kind of an angle that we all came up with and tried to achieve. We believed in Tyrone’s talent, and still do, but perhaps we should have groomed him better along the way. I guess we’re still trying to reinvent the wheel. It didn’t work out. As he stepped up in competition, things got a little tough.”

For more than a century, the accepted record for one-round knockouts at the start of a pro career was held by Arthur Susskind, who, billed as Young Otto, strung together 16 such wins, a run that ended in 1905. By all accounts, Young Otto was a better than decent puncher, with 44 first-round KOs reportedly to his credit. But his record would be eclipsed by an even more devastating force of nature, Venezuelan southpaw Edwin Valero, a two-division world champion who won all 27 of his pro bouts by knockout, the first 18 in the opening round.

The WBA super featherweight and then WBC lightweight ruler, Valero, who was 28 when he committed suicide on April 19, 2010, a day after he was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife, likely would have been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame were it not for the unwelcome notoriety that attached itself to him while he was still an active fighter. Less than two weeks before his wife’s death and his subsequent taking of his own life (using his pants for a noose, he hung himself in his jail cell the day after his arrest), Valero had vacated his WBC lightweight title in expectation of moving up to junior welterweight and a bid for a championship in a third weight class.

What, you say long-reigning middleweight champion and Argentine legend Carlos Monzon is enshrined in the IBHOF and was actually convicted of murdering his second wife? Monzon, 52 when he died in a car crash while on furlough from prison, was a member of the IBHOF’s charter class of inductees in 1990. It might seem that the heavy out-of-the-ring baggage carried by Monzon was at least similar to Valero’s, but to date El Inca Dinamita has never appeared on the ballot.

Whether or not he ever will be officially immortalized with a plaque in Canastota, N.Y., several of those who saw Valero in action believe he would not only be competitive with a likely future Hall of Famer, he’d have won.

Eric Gomez, president of Golden Boy Promotions (for whom Valero fought from the mid-point of his career on), picked him to defeat Vasiliy Lomachenko in a speculative story I did for TSS, Fantasy Fisticuffs: The Late Edwin Valero vs. Vasyl Lomachenko. Who Wins?, which was posted on Jan. 9, 2018.

“Oh, it wouldn’t be that competitive a fight,” Gomez said. “Valero would knock Lomachenko out. Valero was a truly special fighter, a special talent. He was very, very strong. He had raw power, incredible power, and in both hands. If he hit you, you were out of there, and he hit everybody. Every fight a win, every fight a knockout.”

So, with apologies to Raymi and Brunson, let’s set the unofficial but more palatable record for one-round knockouts out of the gate to Valero. Should Berlanga make Nicholson the 17^th addition to his collection, he’d need just one more blitz to match a standard that seemingly would earn anyone’s seal of approval. During his 18-fight equivalents of a speedway drag race, Valero’s victims were a collective 155-102-17 going into their matchups with him, with 77 KO wins and 53 such losses. Berlanga’s comparative mark as of now stands at 166-67-12, with the vanquished compiling 89 KO victories to just 25 defeats.

It should be interesting to see whether Berlanga feels any pressure to throw everything he has at Nicholson from the jump. But even if he has to satisfy himself with a somewhat delayed win by stoppage, or even a triumph on points, the drum beat of support for him is likely to grow louder if he continues to be a source of explosive power in a sport that dotes on such displays.

If Berlanga again does his thing in the manner to which he and his supporters have become accustomed, Navarrete (33-1, 28 KOs) and Diaz (26-2, 16 KOs) might find they have a tough act to follow.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams for Top Rank via Getty Images

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

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

4 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

6 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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