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Boxing Odds and Ends: An Olympic Recap and a Repulsive Scorecard

The boxing competition at the Tokyo Olympics is over and for the fourth straight Olympiad the U.S. team was bereft of a gold medalist. But the U.S. men’s team emerged with three silvers which seemingly bodes well heading into the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. The three U.S. boxers that advanced to the finals were super heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr, lightweight Keyshawn Davis and featherweight Duke Ragan.
Davis and Ragan and middleweight Troy Isley were late additions to the five-member men’s team. When two Olympic qualifying tournaments were cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Olympic Committee Boxing Task Force adapted by concocting a formula that left Team USA no choice but to temporarily lift its rule whereby a boxer was disaffiliated once he or she turned pro. Presto, Davis (3-0 as a pro) Ragan (4-0) and Isley (2-0) were back in good standing. (Isley won his first fight in Tokyo, but lost his second. The other USA entrant, Delante “Tiger” Johnson, got as far as the quarterfinals before he was eliminated.)
In Tokyo, the Cubans reasserted their dominance, winning four gold medals and five medals overall. The Cuban gold medalists were heavyweight Julio la Cruz, light heavyweight Arlen Lopez, welterweight Roniel Iglesias, and lightweight Andy Cruz.
The 32-year-old Iglesias, who turned away Delante Johnson on his road to the finals, was competing in his fourth Olympiad. He won the gold in 2012 but came a cropper in Rio when he was knocked out in the second round by the eventual silver medalist, a fighter from Uzbekistan. The 23-year-old Cruz has been a thorn in the side of Keyshawn Davis who was the most heavily-touted member of the U.S. contingent. In Tokyo, Cruz and Davis were meeting for the fourth time and Davis has yet to beat him. As was true in their first encounter in Nicaragua, Keyshawn was on the wrong end of a split decision.
The big story coming out of the 2016 Games was the performance of the team from Uzbekistan in Rio. The Central Asian nation, home to roughly 32 million, captured seven medals: three gold, two silver, and two bronze.
This time around, only one Uzbek entrant captured a medal, but it was the gold and it was in the most prestigious weight class.
The match between Bakhodir Jalolov (pictured in the red) and Richard Torrez Jr was a rematch. They met in 2019 in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and Jalolov scored a brutal knockout, putting Torrez to sleep in the opening round.
Torrez won the first round of the rematch while sending the bout to the scorecards, but Jalolov, the much bigger man and a southpaw, not to mention undefeated (8-0, 8 KOs) at the professional level, is a beast and he pulled away to cop the decision. It was yet a valiant effort by Torrez Jr whose father advanced to the quarterfinals of the 1984 Olympic Trials while a senior in high school.
Hailing from the town of Tulare in America’s breadbasket, California’s San Joaquin Valley, Torrez Jr, 21, is not your conventional boxing personality. A fan of classical music – he has chosen Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” for his motivational ring walk – Torrez was reportedly the valedictorian of his high school graduation class. (In 2019, we wrote that if Torrez were to win gold in Tokyo, he would command the highest signing bonus to turn pro of any boxer in the history of the sport.)
Heading into the tournament, Jalolov had the shortest odds of any boxer in the “future book.” A total of 276 boxers descended on Tokyo and he was the shortest favorite on the board. Interestingly, he would be the only top seed on the men’s side to win a gold medal. By contrast, all five of the women’s weight classes were won by the #1 seed.
The biggest upset was forged by 23-year-old Brazilian middleweight Hebert Sousa. He brought a 35-14 record to Tokyo per BoxRec and was fortunate to reach the finals after winning his first three matches by split decision. In the gold medal round, he was matched against #1 seed Oleksandr Khyzhniak who was expected to follow in the footsteps of countrymen Wladimir Klitschko, Vasiliy Lomachenko, and Oleksandr Usyk and bring home the gold for the Ukraine (Lomachenko did it twice).
Khyzhniak looked as if he was home free after dominating the first two frames. But midway through the third and final round, Sousa snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a left uppercut that knocked the Ukrainian on the seat of his pants. Khyzhniak arose on unsteady legs and the referee stopped the fight.
Gloria Martinez-Rizzo
Eimantas Stanionis was dominating veteran Luis Collazo on Saturday night in the main event of the PBC show on FOX from the Minneapolis Armory when an accidental head butt terminated the contest in round four, resulting in a “no decision.” But all the talk the next day was about the bizarre decision rendered in the co-feature, a 12-round welterweight match between Gabriel Maestre and Mykal Fox.
Many of those tuning in on TV likely turned off the tube before the decision was announced. PBC’s unofficial scorer Marcos Villegos had it 119-109 for Fox, giving Maestre only one round. Why stick around to hear ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. read the scores when the verdict is a foregone conclusion?
Ah, but as Yogi said, it’s never over until it’s over and, after all, this is boxing. All three judges gave the fight Maestre. They had him winning by scores of 114-113, 115-112, and 117-111. The 117-111 tally was submitted by Florida judge Gloria Martinez-Rizzo.
Prominent boxing writer Scott Christ called her scorecard repulsive. Tom Gray, the managing editor of The Ring magazine, called it one of the worst decisions that he had ever seen. “The verdict was so bad,” said Gray, “that it literally requires government intervention” (while acknowledging that there are more pressing concerns for our government during these messy times).
Martinez-Rizzo, a Miami-based Nicaraguan, has been a licensed boxing judge for 14 years but hasn’t been particularly active. One might ask what were her qualifications for the job.
BWAA vice-president Jake Donovan didn’t ask this question for his follow-up story for Boxing Scene but he provided the answer. Donovan noted that Ms. Martinez-Rizzo is married to longtime Florida fight facilitator Ricardo Rizzo. A google search finds Ricardo Rizzo in Panama City in 2015 paying his respects at the memorial service for WBA president Gilberto Mendoza Sr who had passed away at age 75. Mendoza’s son of the same name inherited his father’s post and still runs the organization. The Mendozas were born in Venezuela and the WBA was headquartered there in Caracas before the firm relocated to Panama City.
About Gabriel Maestre, the recipient of the gift decision: He represented Venezuela in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. Now 34 years old, he was 3-0 as a pro heading into his match with Mykal Fox which was his U.S. debut.
True, Maestre was a two-time Olympian, but a closer look at his amateur record, 75-34 per BoxRec including a 9-8 mark in the semi-pro World Series of Boxing, suggests that he wasn’t going to be all that great as a pro.
So how is it that the WBA had him ranked #4 at welterweight after only three pro fights? Go ask Gilbert Mendoza Jr but be certain to get fumigated after leaving the interview.
P.S. – It’s doubtful that Gloria Martinez-Rizzo will ever judge another fight and that has nothing to do with her actions in Minneapolis. It has been discovered that she has a history of racist tweets including calling former first lady Michelle Obama a “monkey face.” Her twitter page has since been deleted.
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Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.
Will it be her last flyweight defense?
Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.
Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.
The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.
Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.
Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.
“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”
The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.
In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.
Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.
Perez Beats Conwell.
Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.
It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.
Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.
Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.
It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.
Other Bouts
Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.
It was very close.
Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.
Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.
One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.
Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.
Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.
Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.
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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.
Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.
Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.
The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.
Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.
Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.
That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.
Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.
Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.
In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.
Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.
Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.
The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.
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