Forged by Longtime Coach Al Mitchell, Mikaela Mayer Seems Destined for Stardom

Published

4 years ago

June 18, 2021

Forged-by-Longtime-Coach-Al-Mitchell-Mikaela-Mayer-Seems-Destined-for-Stardom

Mikaela Mayer makes the first defense of her WBO 130-pound world title on Saturday at the Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas against her toughest opponent yet in Argentine veteran Erica Anabella Farias. A win by Mayer would be another feather in the cap of her 77-year-old trainer Al Mitchell who is one of boxing’s most interesting personalities.

One of the bedrocks of amateur boxing in America, Al Mitchell grew up in Philadelphia in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. “Most of the kids on my block would eventually go to prison,” says Mitchell.

Some of them spent time in prison with Mitchell who got caught up in the street life as a teenager and was remanded to the city’s Holmesburg Prison whose alumni would come to include Bernard Hopkins. When he got out, he went back to the recreation center where he had learned to box but rather than resuming his amateur career, he found coaching more to his liking.

In 1988, Mitchell took a team of boxers to a Junior Olympics tournament at the Olympic Education Center in Marquette, Michigan. Founded in 1985, the center was designed for the purpose of allowing elite athletes to continue their education while providing them with the resources to maximize their athletic potential. Athletes of college age attend classes tuition-free at Northern Michigan University and reside with their younger cohorts in the school’s dorms. For many years, NMU was home to the National Junior Olympics Tournament.

In an oft-told story, when Mitchell was returning with his team to Philadelphia, he came across a 15-year-old boxer from Georgia who was stranded at the airport. Mitchell called the kid’s mother and promised her that he would see that her son got home safely and let his Philadelphia team go on ahead without him.

The 15-year-old boxer was Vernon Forrest who would turn pro under Mitchell’s tutelage and go on to win world titles in two weight classes.

The honchos at the training center were impressed with Mitchell’s compassion and with the tools displayed by the young boxers he brought there. The coaching position was vacant and they induced Mitchell to take the job. He arrived in Marquette in the summer of 1989. He reckoned that he would only be there for a few months.

From a ‘hood in Philadelphia to a sleepy college town in Michigan’s Northern Peninsula is quite a transition. Marquette is white; not predominantly white, just white. And then there’s the weather. Arriving in the summer, Mitchell didn’t appreciate how cold it would get when winter set in. In December, January, and February, the average daily HIGH temperature in Marquette is below freezing.

Mitchell acknowledges that he almost left several times. His boxers, notably Vernon Forrest and Ricky Ray Taylor, a Golden Gloves champion from the Mississippi Gulf Coast who never turned pro and currently trains boxers in New York, talked him out of it. In time, however, Mitchell settled in. When the weather is nice, he says, Marquette is the most beautiful town in the world. And the locals were more than welcoming.

After three years in the NIU dorm where he lived on the same floor as his boxers, Mitchell, who is divorced, purchased a home. It’s four blocks from the shoreline of Lake Superior and one-and-a-half blocks from the college. When he is gone for any length of time, he can count on his neighbors to mow his lawn.

“My neighbors all have the keys to my house,” he says. “In Philadelphia that would never happen. Around here, if I hear bang, bang, bang, I know that it’s just a car backfiring.”

Mitchell was never shot, but he was brutally attacked by robbers during the time that he owned a North Philadelphia bodega, a place where most walk-ins came to turn in their numbers, i.e., their selections in the daily lottery-type game that was once a staple of community life in America’s ghettos.

The assailants got him when he was closing up for the day and left him in such bad shape that he spent five days in a coma during a lengthy hospital stay. He bears a souvenir of the incident, a plate in his head.

Mitchell was named the head coach of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team that included Floyd Mayweather, David Reid, Fernando Vargas, and Antonio Tarver, and was a consultant to the 2004 and 2012 squads, the latter of which was the first to include women.

The greatest U.S. Olympic team was the 1976 edition that won seven medals (five gold) in Montreal. They set the benchmark against which future squads would be unfairly compared.

There were 11 weight divisions in 1976, a number that would grow to 12 and currently sits at eight for boxers with male chromosomes. A boxer faces more hurdles today as there are more boxing federations which has given rise to more international qualification tournaments. Back in the days of Sugar Ray Leonard and the Spinks brothers, notes Mitchell, a U.S. Olympic boxer who made it all the way to the finals wouldn’t have faced more than one Russian. “Today he may face three.”

By that he means that in the old days, fighters from such countries as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan would have been classified as Russians. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, those countries became separate entities. And they have mirrored the Russians and Cubans by investing heavily in their amateur athletes with stipends and other perks that encourage their boxers to delay or forego their entrance into the professional ranks.

Mitchell has proposed moving the Olympic boxing competition from the summer to the winter. With a less cluttered cast of athletes, dispersed over fewer sports, there would theoretically be room for the International Olympic Committee to reinstate the discarded weight divisions. In the United States, this would inevitably translate into more ink for the boxing team, raising the profile of a sport that many no longer consider mainstream.

Mitchell’s proposal fell on deaf ears.

As for the U.S. delegation in Tokyo — five male and four female – Mitchell says it’s a solid team with the women likely to out-perform the men because they have stayed in the program longer. Two of the four women – Ginny Fuchs and Naomi Graham – are in their thirties. On the men’s side, Duke Ragan is the granddaddy at age 24.

The last American to win a gold medal was Andre Ward who accomplished the feat at the 2004 Games in Athens. Ward has morphed into a color commentator for ESPN Boxing where he has impressed knowledgeable fans with his insightfulness.

Al Mitchell, who worked extensively with Ward before he turned pro, isn’t surprised. “Ward and Floyd Mayweather, who was on my 1976 team, had the highest ring IQs of all the boxers that I have coached. When I first worked with Andre, I thought this kid doesn’t punch hard enough to go very far. But he had great anticipation and no one was better at processing what his opponent had and making the right adjustments. I had no doubt that he would perform better against Kovalev in their second meeting than he did in their first.”

Mitchell notes that Andre Ward’s sidekick Tim Bradley is also one of his former students. “He also does a great job and I couldn’t be happier for him.”

Mitchell’s style of coaching has been likened to that of a drill sergeant. He would roust his boxers out of bed at 5 am to go running and it made no difference what the weather was like outside. His gruff demeanor when putting his boxers through their paces may have been inherited from his father, a staff sergeant during the Korean War who returned home with PTSD symptoms and died when Al was 16.

Needless to say, many of the boxers who come to Marquette don’t have the fortitude to stay there very long and who can blame them? It’s no picnic, to put it mildly. When Mikaela Mayer first turned up, Mitchell assumed that she would hang around for a few weeks, at most. She fooled him. Asked to identify her chief asset, Mitchell cited her work ethic. The two have been together now for 11 years.

Mitchell had no interest in teaching women how to be better boxers – “My father would turn over in his grave,” he told ESPN’s Mark Kriegel – but with women now eligible to fight in the Olympics, he felt he had little choice. And Mayer owes her success to more than just a good work ethic. Mitchell and his top assistant Kay Koroma have crafted her into a very formidable fighter who, at age 30, perhaps has yet to reach her peak. (And by the way, she’s a lot more attractive than the photo of her that appears in boxrec, whoever that may be; it certainly doesn’t look like her.)

Back in Philadelphia before boxing became all-consuming, Mitchell concedes that he was a hustler. In addition to having his fingers in the illegal numbers game, he ran a speakeasy. He must have been a hard-boiled guy in those days but one wouldn’t know it if meeting him for the first time today. He comes across as a gentle soul although one suspects it wouldn’t be a smart idea to give him any lip.

For her fight with Erica Farias, Mikaela Mayer spent four weeks at Mitchell’s gym in Marquette (which is no longer formally attached to the university which currently supports athletes in only two Olympic summer sports; Greco-Roman wrestling and weightlifting), then three weeks at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, finishing up with a week at the Top Rank Gym in Las Vegas.

Her bout with Farias will be the co-feature of a show headlined by the WBA/IBF bantamweight title fight between Japan’s baby-faced assassin Naoya Inoue and Filipino challenger Michael Dasmarinas. The bouts, and a third fight between Adam Lopez and Isaac Dogboe, air free on ESPN with a start time of 7 pm ET. Undercard action commences at 5 pm ET on ESPN+.

Check out more boxing news on video at the Boxing Channel

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Arne K. Lang

Up Next

Munguia and Rosado Win by Stoppage in El Paso; Rosado in a Spectacular Fashion

Don't Miss

Every Joe Gans Lightweight Title Fight – Part 5: Kid McPartland

Women’s Prizefighting Year End Review: The Best of the Best in 2024

Published

23 hours ago

December 24, 2024

David A. Avila

Women’s Prizefighting Year End Review: The Best of the Best in 2024

It’s the end of the year.

Here are our awards for the best in women’s boxing. But first, a rundown on the state of the sport.

Maybe its my imagination but it seems that fewer female fights of magnitude took place in 2024 than in previous years.

A few promoters like 360 Promotions increased their involvement in women’s boxing while others such as Matchroom Boxing and Golden Boy Promotions seem stagnant. They are still staging female bouts but are not signing new additions.

American-based promotion company Top Rank, actually lost 50 percent of their female fighter roster when Seniesa Estrada, the undisputed minimumweight champion, retired recently. They still have Mikaela Mayer.

A promotion company making headlines and creating sparks in the boxing world is Most Valuable Promotions led by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian. They signed Amanda Serrano and have invested in staging other female fights

This year, the top streaming company Netflix gambled on sponsoring Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson, along with Amanda Serrano versus Katie Taylor and hit a monster home run. According to Netflix metrics an estimated 74 million viewers watched the event that took place on Nov. 16 at Arlington, Texas.

“Breaking records like this is exactly what MVP was built to do – bring the biggest, most electrifying events to fans worldwide,” said Nakisa Bidarian co-founder of MVP.

History was made in viewership and at the gate where more than 70,000 fans packed AT&T Stadium for a record-setting $17.8 million in ticket sales outside of Las Vegas. It was the grand finale moment of the year.

Here are the major contributors to women’s boxing in 2024.

Fighter of the Year: Amanda Serrano

Other candidates: Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields, Franchon Crews, Dina Thorslund, and Yesica Nery Plata.

Amanda Serrano was chosen for not only taking part in the most viewed female title fight in history, but also for willingly sacrificing the health of her eye after suffering a massive cut during her brutal war with Taylor. She could have quit, walked away with tons of money and be given the technical decision after four rounds. She was ahead on the scorecards at that moment.

Instead, Serrano took more punches, more head butts and slugged her way through 10 magnificent and brilliant rounds against the great Taylor. Fans worldwide were captivated by their performance. Many women who had never watched a female fight were mesmerized and inspired.

Serrano once again proved that she would die in the ring rather than quit. Women and men were awed by her performance and grit. It was a moment blazed in the memories of millions.

Amanda Serrano is the Fighter of the Year.

Best Fight of the Year – Amanda Serrano versus Katie Taylor 2

Their first fight that took place two years ago in Madison Square Garden was the greatest female fight I had ever witnessed. The second fight surpassed it.

When you have two of the best warriors in the world willing to showcase their talent for entertainment regardless of the outcome, it’s like rubbing two sticks of dynamite together.

Serrano jumped on Taylor immediately and for about 20 seconds it looked like the Irish fighter would not make the end of the first round. Not quite. Taylor rallied behind her stubborn determination and pulled out every tool in her possession: elbows, head butts, low blows, whatever was needed to survive, Taylor used.

It reminded me of an old world title fight in 2005 between Jose Luis Castillo a master of fighting dirty and Julio Diaz. I asked about the dirty tactics by Castillo and Diaz simply said, “It’s a fight. It’s not chess. You do what you have to do.”

Taylor did what she had to do to win and the world saw a magnificent fight.

Other candidates: Seniesa Estrada versus Yokasta Valle, Mikaela Mayer versus Sandy Ryan, and Ginny Fuchs vs Adelaida Ruiz.

KO of the Year – Lauren Price KO3 Bexcy Mateus.

Dec. 14, in Liverpool, England.

The IBO welterweight titlist lowered the boom on Bexcy Mateus sending her to the floor thrice. She ended the fight with a one-two combination that left Mateus frozen while standing along the ropes. Another left cross rocket blasted her to the ground. Devastating.

Other candidates: Claressa Shields KO of Vanessa LePage-Joanisse, Gabriela Fundora KO of Gabriela Alaniz, Dina Thorslund vs Mary Romero, Amanda Serrano KO of Stevie Morgan.

Pro’s Pro Award – Jessica Camara

Jessica Camara defeated Hyun Mi Choi in South Korea to win the WBA gold title on April 27, 2024. The match took place in Suwon where Canada’s Camara defeated Choi by split decision after 10 rounds.

Camara, who is managed by Brian Cohen, has fought numerous champions including Kali Reis, Heather Hardy and Melissa St. Vil. She has become a pro fighter that you know will be involved in a good and entertaining fight and is always in search of elite competition. She eagerly accepted the fight in South Korea against Choi. Few fighters are willing to do that.

Next up for Camara is WBC titlist Caroline Dubois set for Jan. 11, in Sheffield, England.

Electric Fighters Club

These are women who never fail to provide excitement and drama when they step in the prize ring. When you only have two-minute rounds there’s no time to run around the boxing ring.

Here are some of the fighters that take advantage of every second and they do it with skill:

Gabriela Fundora, Mizuki Hiruta, Ellie Scotney, Lauren Price, Clara Lescurat, Adelaida Ruiz, Ginny Fuchs, Mikaela Mayer, Yokasta Valle, Sandy Ryan, Chantelle Cameron, Ebanie Bridges, Tsunami Tenkai, Dina Thorslund, Evelin Bermudez, Gabriela Alaniz, Caroline Dubois, Beatriz Ferreira, and LeAnna Cruz.

Claressa Shields Movie and More

A motion picture based on Claressa Shields titled “The Fire Inside” debuts on Wednesday, Dec. 25, nationwide. Most boxing fans know that Shields has world titles in various weight divisions. But they don’t know about her childhood and how she rose to fame.

Also, Shields (15-0, 3 KOs) will be fighting Danielle Perkins (5-0, 2 KOs) for the undisputed heavyweight world championship on Sunday Feb. 2, at Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan. DAZN will stream the Salita Promotions fight card.

“Claressa Shields is shining a spotlight on Flint – first on the big screen and then in the ring on Sunday, February 2,” said event promoter Dmitriy Salita, president of Salita Promotions. “Claressa leads by example. She is a trailblazer and has been an advocate for equality since she was a young lady. This event promises to be one of the most significant sporting and cultural events of the year. You don’t want to miss it, either live, in person or live on DAZN.”

Shields is only 29 years old and turns 30 next March. What more can she accomplish?

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Lucas Bahdi Forged the TSS 2024 Knockout of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 23, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Lucas-Bahdi-Forged-he-RSS-2024-Knockout-of-the-Year

A Knockout of the Year doesn’t have to be a one-punch knockout, but it must arrive with the suddenness of a thunderclap on a clear day and the punch or punches must be so harsh as to obviate the need for a “10-count.” And, if rendered by an underdog, that makes the KO resonate more loudly.

Within these parameters, Lucas Bahdi’s knockout of Ashton “H2O” Sylva still jumped off the page. The thunderclap happened on July 20 in Tampa, Florida, on a show promoted by Jake Paul with Paul and the great Amanda Serrano sharing the bill against soft opponents in the featured bouts.

The 30-year-old Bahdi (16-0, 14 KOs) and the 20-year-old Sylva (11-0, 9 KOs) were both undefeated, but Bahdi was accorded scant chance of defeating Jake Paul’s house fighter.

Sylva was 18 years old and had seven pro fights under his belt, winning all inside the distance, when he signed with Paul’s company, Most Valuable Promotions, in 2022. “We believe that Ashton has that talent, that flashiness, that style, that knockout power, that charisma to really be a massive, massive, superstar…” said the “Problem Child” when announcing that Sylva had signed with his company.

Jake Paul was so confident that his protege would accomplish big things that he matched Sylva with Floyd “Kid Austin” Schofield. Currently 18-0 and ranked #2 by the WBA, Schofield was further along than Sylva in the pantheon of hot lightweight prospects. But Schofield backed out, alleging an injury, opening the door to a substitute.

Enter Lucas Bahdi who despite his eye-catching record was a virtual unknown. This would be his first outing on U.S. soil. All of his previous bouts were staged in Mexico or in Canada, mostly in his native Ontario province. “My opponent may have changed,” said Sylva who hails from Long Beach, California, “but the result will be the same, I will get the W and continue my path to greatness.”

The first five rounds were all Sylva. The Canadian had no antidote for Sylva’s speed and quickness. He was outclassed.

Then, in round six, it all came unglued for the precocious California. Out of the blue, Bahdi stiffened him with a hard right hand. Another right quickly followed, knocking Sylva unconscious. A third punch, a sweeping left, was superfluous. Jake Paul’s phenom was already out cold.

Sylva landed face-first on the canvas. He lay still as his handlers and medics rushed to his aid. It was scarifying. “May God restore him,” said ring announcer Joe Martinez as he was being stretchered out of the ring.

The good news is that Ashton “H2O” Silva will be able to resume his career. He is expected back in the ring as early as February. As for Lucas Bahdi, architect of the Knockout of the Year, he has added one more win to his ledger, winning a 10-round decision on the undercard of the Paul vs Tyson spectacle, and we will presumably be hearing a lot more about him.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh

Published

4 days ago

December 21, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh

Oleksandr Usyk left no doubt that he is the best heavyweight of his generation and one of the greatest boxers of all time with a unanimous decision over Tyson Fury tonight at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But although the Ukrainian won eight rounds on all three scorecards, this was no runaway. To pirate a line from one of the DAZN talking heads, Fury had his moments in every round but Usyk had more moments.

The early rounds were fought at a faster pace than the first meeting back in May. At the mid-point, the fight was even. The next three rounds – the next five to some observers – were all Usyk who threw more punches and landed the cleaner shots.

Fury won the final round in the eyes of this reporter scoring at home, but by then he needed a knockout to pull the match out of the fire.

The last round was an outstanding climax to an entertaining chess match during which both fighters took turns being the pursuer and the pursued.

An Olympic gold medalist and a unified world champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, the amazing Usyk improved his ledger to 23-0 (14). His next fight, more than likely, will come against the winner of the Feb. 22 match in Ridayh between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker which will share the bill with the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.

Fury (34-2-1) may fight Anthony Joshua next. Regardless, no one wants a piece of Moses Itauma right now although the kid is only 19 years old.

Moses Itauma

Raised in London by a Nigerian father and a Slovakian mother, Itauma turned heads once again with another “wow” performance. None of his last seven opponents lasted beyond the second round.

His opponent tonight, 34-year-old Australian Demsey McKean, lasted less than two minutes. Itauma, a southpaw with blazing fast hands, had the Aussie on the deck twice during the 117-second skirmish. The first knockdown was the result of a cuffing punch that landed high on the head; the second knockdown was produced by an overhand left. McKean went down hard as his chief cornerman bounded on to the ring apron to halt the massacre.

Photo (c): Mark Robinson

Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs after going 20-0 as an amateur) is the real deal. It was the second straight loss for McKean (22-2) who lasted into the 10^th round against Filip Hrgovic in his last start.

Bohachuk-Davis

In a fight billed as the co-main although it preceded Itauma-McKean, Serhii Bohachuk, an LA-based Ukrainian, stopped Ishmael Davis whose corner pulled him out after six frames.

Both fighters were coming off a loss in fights that were close on the scorecards, Bohachuk falling to Vergil Ortiz Jr in a Las Vegas barnburner and Davis losing to Josh Kelly.

Davis, who took the fight on short notice, subbing for Ismail Madrimov, declined to 13-2. He landed a few good shots but was on the canvas in the second round, compliments of a short left hook, and the relentless Bohachuk (25-2, 24 KOs) eventually wore him down.

Fisher-Allen

In a messy, 10-round bar brawl masquerading as a boxing match, Johnny Fisher, the Romford Bull, won a split decision over British countryman David Allen. Two judges favored Fisher by 95-94 tallies with the dissenter favoring Allen 96-93. When the scores were announced, there was a chorus of boos and those watching at home were outraged.

Allen was a step up in class for Fisher. The Doncaster man had a decent record (23-5-2 heading in) and had been routinely matched tough (his former opponents included Dillian Whyte, Luis “King Kong” Ortiz and three former Olympians). But Allen was fairly considered no more than a journeyman and Fisher (12-0 with 11 KOs, eight in the opening round) was a huge favorite.

In round five, Allen had Fisher on the canvas twice although only one was ruled a true knockdown. From that point, he landed the harder shots and, at the final bell, he fell to canvas shedding tears of joy, convinced that he had won.

He did not win, but he exposed Johnny Fisher as a fighter too slow to compete with elite heavyweights, a British version of the ponderous Russian-Canadian campaigner Arslanbek Makhmudov.

Other Bouts of Note

In a spirited 10-round featherweight match, Scotland’s Lee McGregor, a former European bantamweight champion and stablemate of former unified 140-pound title-holder Josh Taylor, advanced to 15-1-1 (11) with a unanimous decision over Isaac Lowe (25-3-3). The judges had it 96-92 and 97-91 twice.

A cousin and regular houseguest of Tyson Fury, Lowe fought most of the fight with cuts around both eyes and was twice deducted a point for losing his gumshield.

In a fight between super featherweights that could have gone either way, Liverpool southpaw Peter McGrail improved to 11-1 (6) with a 10-round unanimous decision over late sub Rhys Edwards. The judges had it 96-95 and 96-94 twice.

McGrail, a Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist, fought from the third round on with a cut above his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads. It was the first loss for Edwards (16-1), a 24-year-old Welshman who has another fight booked in three weeks.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!