Loma Batters Nakatani Even If it Was Teofimo’s Face He Was Seeing

Published

4 years ago

June 27, 2021

Loma Batters Nakatani Even If it Was Teofimo’s Face He Was Seeing

Two pretty fair boxers, James Toney and Fernando Vargas, stoked their inner fires by imagining they were seeing the faces of the biological fathers who abandoned them and their mothers instead of those of their opponents on fight night. As motivational tools, imagination and hatred can be useful for those who feel a compulsive need to channel their rage at just the right moment. More than a few especially savage beatdowns were administered by Toney and Vargas to guys who probably didn’t realize they were stand-ins for those detested, deserting daddies.

That mental ploy, of course, could never work for three-division former world champion Vasiliy Lomachenko. His papa, Anatoly Lomachenko, not only is his trainer and chief second but a man whose tough love in and out of the ring Vasiliy credits with making him the indisputably great fighter he long had been recognized as, and could, at 33, again be on the verge of being so acclaimed.

So, no, it was not some hazy apparition of an uncaring and absent parent that Lomachenko saw on the soon-to-be-battered visage of his Saturday night foe, Japan’s Masayoshi Nakatani, in the ESPN+-televised main event from the Theater at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. But there is at least a possibility that the unfortunate Nakatani somehow resembled undisputed lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez, at least in the mind of Loma, who has thought of little else other than his quest for revenge for the bitter upset loss he was tagged with by Teo on May 30 of last year.

However Nakatani looked before the opening bell rang, be it as himself or as someone wearing an otherwise invisible Teofimo Lopez mask to suit Lomachenko’s purpose, his facial features were significantly rearranged by the time referee Celestino Ruiz, either on his own accord or at the behest of Nakatani’s concerned trainer, halted the ongoing massacre with 1 minute, 12 seconds remaining in the ninth round. As Nakatani, who was floored in the fifth round, slid to the canvas in Ruiz’s arms, his right eye was bloody and swollen shut and he also was bleeding from the mouth. Courageous to a fault, Nakatani bore the look of someone who had just taken a frightful battering.

“And it’s over!” ESPN+ blow-by-blow announcer Joe Tessitore yelped when what long had seemed inevitable was finalized. “Loma is back!”

Although Lomachenko remained on most knowledgeable observers’ top 10 pound-for-pound lists after his setback to Lopez, he no longer was viewed as the consensus No. 1, nor was he accepting of the one-sided decision – the judges’ scorecards had him far behind by margins 119-109, 117-111 and 116-112. He had continued to insist that he had fought well enough to at least have salvaged a draw, and that his performance in any case had been hindered by a sore right shoulder that had bothered him for some time beforehand during training and would again require surgery, as had been the case in 2018.

If his protestations sounded like sour grapes, it wouldn’t be the first time that a losing fighter – particularly a favored losing fighter – had rattled off a string of excuses. But Lomachenko’s second operation on his balky shoulder raised legitimate questions as to whether he was at his best against Lopez, and over the past eight months he made it a point to proclaim that in a do-over he would demonstrate that he was indeed the better of the two. Toward that end, even after the bout with Nakatani was announced, he spoke more about Lopez than he did of the taller, rangier Japanese rival who had gone the 12-round distance in losing to Teo on July 19, 2019, in Oxon Hill, Md.

The ESPN+ broadcast crew – Tessitore was joined by analysts Andre Ward and Tim Bradley Jr. – had hinted that Lomachenko could be making a mistake by apparently mentioning Lopez more than the man that would be in the opposite corner on Saturday night, who not only was world-rated and coming in with a 19-1 record, but sported advantages of 4½ inches in height and 5½ inches in reach.

But Nakatoni was selected for a reason, and that reason was for Lomachenko to prove to the world, and maybe to himself, that he could and would defeat him more impressively than Lopez had. If that was the objective, the Ukrainian southpaw, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, passed the test with flying colors. At the time of the stoppage, Loma led on the scorecards by margins 80-71 (twice) and 78-73.

Negating Nakatoni’s superior height and reach with ridiculous ease, Lomachenko (15-2, 11 KOs) utilized dips and quick pivots to get inside and land big shots. CompuBox statistics showed him connecting on 104 of 214 total punches, an inordinately high 48.6 percent (Nakatani was 29 of 250, 11.6 percent), but he was on target with 89 of 152 power shots, a staggering 58.6 percent.

Perhaps in answer to a lot of fight fans’ prayers, Teofimo Lopez Sr., who trains his son, was in the house and he said he would be only too glad to recommend that Teo Jr. (16-0, 12 KOs) proceed to a rematch with Loma once he gets past his title defense against Australia’s George Kambosos (19-0,10 KOs). That bout was to have taken place on June 5, but was postponed when Lopez tested positive for COVID-19. It was rescheduled for Aug. 14 but is expected to be pushed back into September.

“After this performance (by Loma), I think the public wants to see this fight,” the elder Lopez said of a second matchup that must take place shortly after his son’s date with Kambosos, as Teo Jr. is planning a move up to junior welterweight early in 2022. Lopez-Lomachenko II no doubt would be a huge attraction, made more so by both fighters’ absolute confidence in themselves to seize the moment.

“Maybe next year, beginning of the year,” Lomachenko said of his timetable for getting it on again with Lopez. “December, January, February. I am waiting.”

So are fight fans everywhere.

Alimkhanuly Dominates Brant

In the co-featured bout in Vegas, Kazakhstan middleweight Zhanibek “Janibek” Alimkhanuly (10-0, 6 KOs) almost toyed with former WBA titlist Rob Brant (26-3, 18 KOs) before referee Michael Ortega, at the request of Brant’s trainer, Brian McIntyre, waved off the one-sided fight at the end of the eighth round.

“That’s it, man,” said McIntyre, best known for his work with – welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford. “I can’t let you get hurt.”

Known as a high-volume puncher, Brant was tentative almost from the start against Alimkhanuly, a southpaw who scored repeatedly with stiff blows that discouraged his opponent from engaging too recklessly. In the fourth round, analyst Tim Bradley Jr. said of the Kazakh, a 2016 Olympian, “This is easy. Like taking candy from a baby.”

Nor would Brant fare any better as the bout continued. McIntyre had seen enough through eight and it was pointless to proceed with the final two rounds of an unwinnable fight.

The takeaway for Alimkhanuly, who is ranked No. 2 by the WBO, No. 6 by the WBC and No. 9 by the IBF, is that his status as an emerging threat in the 160-pound weight class continues to be confirmed.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank via Getty Images

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!

Bernard Fernandez

Up Next

Morrell Starches Cazares on an Entertaining Show Studded With Upsets

Don't Miss

‘Tank’ Davis KOs Mario Barrios for WBA Title

Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal

Published

3 hours ago

April 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-322-Super-Welter-Week-in-SoCal

Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.

One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.

Take your pick.

The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.

Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.

If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.

He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.

During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.

Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.

Fundora

Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.

Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.

Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.

Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.

Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?

When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.

This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.

Commerce Casino

Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.

Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.

It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.

Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?

That’s a question for another day.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).

Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

TSS-Salutes-Thomas-Hauser-and-his-Bernie-Award-Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!