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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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Fighting on His Home Turf, Galal Yafai Pulverizes Sunny Edwards
The Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England, was the site of tonight’s Matchroom Promotions card featuring flyweights Galal Yafai and Sunny Edwards in the main event. Yafai went to post a short underdog in what on paper was a 50/50 fight, but it was a rout from the start.
Yafai got right into Edwards’ grill in the opening round and never let up. Although there were no knockdowns, it was complete domination by the Birmingham southpaw until the referee stepped in and waived it off at the 1:10 mark of round six.
“Bloodline” was the tagline of the match-up. Sunny’s brother Charlie Edwards, now competing as a bantamweight, is a former flyweight world title-holder. Galal, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, is the third member of his family to make his mark as a prizefighter. Brother Kal, also a former Olympian, once held a world title at 115 and brother Gamal was a Commonwealth champion as a bantamweight.
Edwards and Galal Yafai were well-acquainted. They had fought as amateurs and had shared the ring on many occasions as sparring partners. Although Galal was 31 years old, he had only eight pro fights under his belt and was meeting a veteran of six world title fights whose only loss in 22 starts came the hands of the brilliant Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez.
But that loss to Rodriguez in Arizona (Edwards’ corner pulled him out after nine frames) was of the kind that shortens careers. Although Sunny won a tune-up fight since that setback, tonight he had the appearance of a boxer who had grown old overnight. In fact, after the second round, he was heard saying to his corner “I really don’t want to be here.”
Edwards wanted out, but he dutifully answered the bell for the next four rounds. After the bout, he indicated that he had planned to retire after this fight, win, or lose, or draw.
The contest was billed as a WBC “eliminator” which positions Galal Yafai (9-0, 7 KOs) for a match with Japanese veteran Kenshiro Teraji, the long-reigning light flyweight title-holder who moved up in weight last month and captured the WBC flyweight title at the expense of Cristofer Rosales.
Other Bouts of Note
Welterweight Conah Walker, from the Birmingham bedroom community of Wolverhampton, won a clear-cut 10-round decision over Lewis Ritson, winning by scores of 98-93 and 97-93 twice.
A former British lightweight champion, Ritson (23-5) lost for the fourth time in his last six starts, but was game to the core. At various times he appeared on the verge of being stopped, but he may have won the final round when he got the best of several exchanges. Walker, a heavy favorite, improved to 14-3-1 (6).
In a 12-round middleweight match, Kieron Conway won his fourth straight, advancing to 22-3-1 (6) with a split decision over a local product, Ryan Kelly (19-5-1). Kelly got the nod on one of the cards (115-114), but was out-voted by his colleagues who had it 116-112 and 115-113 for Conway.
While the decision was fair, this was a lackluster performance by Conway who had fought much stiffer competition and entered the ring a 6/1 favorite.
Twenty-two-year-old junior welterweight Cameron Vuong, a stablemate of Jack Catterall, stepped up in class and improved to 7-0 (3) with a 10-round unanimous decision over Gavin Gwynne. The judges had it 97-94, 96-94, and 96-95.
Vuong, who is half Vietnamese, out-boxed Gwynne from the outside but was far from impressive. A 34-year-old Welshman and veteran of eight domestic title fights, Gwynne (17-4-1) was the aggressor throughout and there were scattered boos when the decision was announced.
In a scheduled 8-rounder that wasn’t part of the main card, Liverpool’s Callum Smith (30-2, 22 KOs) wacked out Colombian trial horse Carlos Galvan in the fifth round. Smith, whose only defeats came at the hands of future Hall of Famers Canelo Alvarez (L 12) and Artur Beterbiev (L TKO 7), knocked Galvan down in the fourth and then twice more in the fifth with body punches before the match was halted. Galvan declined to 20-15-2.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal
Avila Perspective, Chap. 306: Flyweight Rumble in England, Ryan Garcia in SoCal
With most of America in a turkey coma, all boxing eyes should be pointed toward England this weekend.
Former world titlist Sunny Edwards (21-1, 4 KOs) challenges the fast-rising Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) for a regional flyweight on Saturday, Nov. 30, at Resorts World Arena in Birmingham. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
Without the fast-talking and dare-to-be-great Edwards, the flyweight division and super flyweight divisions would be in a blanket of invisibility. He’s the kind of personality the lower weight classes need.
The London kid loves to talk and loves to fight even more.
Edwards was calling out Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez when the San Antonio fighter was blasting out feared Thai slugger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and dismantling Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras. And he did this in front of a worldwide audience.
Of course, he fell short of defeating the young superstar but he kick-started the weight division with new life. And here he is again enticing more eyes on the flyweights as he challenges another potential star.
“I was happy and proud of Galal when he won the Olympic gold medal,” said Edwards who has sparred Yafai many times. “When me and Galal get in a small space, it’s fireworks.”
Yafai, a 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, only has eight pro fights but at age 31 doesn’t have time to walk through the stages of careful preparation. But with blazing speed to go along with big power in his southpaw punches, it’s time for the Birmingham native to claim his spot on the world stage.
Is he ready?
“It’s a massive fight, it speaks for itself. Sunny is a great fighter, a former world champion, a good name and we’ve got history as well,” Yafai said at the press conference.” I’ve got to be a bit smarter, but I know Sunny inside-out.”
Both have blazing speed. Yafai has the power, but Edwards has the experience of pro-style competition.
Promoter Eddie Hearn calls this one of the top fights in British boxing.
“Sunny doesn’t care, he wants to be in great fights, he believes in himself and he is rolling the dice again on Saturday night, as is Galal. An Olympic gold medalist from Birmingham with just a handful of fights really, and already stepping up to take on one of the top, top flyweights in the world,” said Hearns.
Ryan Garcia in Beverly Hills
The budding Southern California superstar Ryan Garcia met the boxing media in Beverly Hills to announce an exhibition match against Japan’s kickboxing star Rukiya Anpo on December 30 in Tokyo. FANMIO pay-per-view will show the match if it takes place.
Garcia is still under contract with Golden Boy Promotions and according to the promotion company an agreement has not been established. But with Garcia under suspension for PED use following his last fight against Devin Haney back in April, an opportunity for the popular fighter to make a living will probably be allowed.
As long as everyone gets their cut.
Now 26, Garcia seeks to get back in the prize ring and do what he does best and that’s fire left hooks in machine gun fashion.
“He tried to knock out Manny Pacquiao and it pissed me off,” said Garcia on his reasons for accepting an exhibition match with the bigger in size Anpo. “That rubbed me the wrong way and now I’m here to show him someone in his prime with speed and power.”
Anpo wants a knockout and nothing else.
“I regret that I couldn’t finish Manny Pacquiao,” said Anpo who met Pacquiao in an exhibition this past summer in Tokyo. “That’s what we train to do in every fight. I have even more motivation this time and I will knock him out and finish Ryan Garcia as a professional.”
Following the press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 26, an e-mail by Golden Boy was sent to the media and stated: “Golden Boy Promotions has exclusive rights to Ryan Garcia’s fights. The organizers of this event (Garcia vs. Anpo) have acknowledged as such and have agreed in writing that our sign-off is needed for this event to occur. As no such sign-off has been given, as of today there is no event with Ryan Garcia.”
Simply said, they get their cut or no fight.
The potential money-making fight has a strong possibility to occur.
Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom
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The Noted Trainer Kevin Henry, Lucky to Be Alive, Reflects on Devin Haney and More
This past summer, on July 21, Las Vegas boxing trainer Kevin Henry almost died. He was on the Las Vegas Strip, walking north from Caesars Palace, when he was the victim of an auto-pedestrian accident, hit by a careless uber driver exiting the Treasure Island casino after dropping off a passenger.
Henry suffered two broken bones in his neck, shoulder and hip displacements, lost two teeth, and had facial injuries that required plastic surgery. He spent three months in the hospital, the first 20 days in ICU and the final month at an in-patient rehabilitation facility.
The good news is that the pain has subsided and Kevin Henry is back in the gym mentoring boxers and enjoying the camaraderie of his peers.
Kevin, 55, grew up around the sport. His father, the late Norman Henry, was a fixture on the Philadelphia boxing scene going back to the late 1940s when he was Bob Montgomery’s Man Friday. The elder Henry co-managed Jeff Chandler and others and had a long association with Don King where he defined his role as that of a troubleshooter. Kevin was born in Philadelphia, spent several years in the LA area during the days when his father was a matchmaker for Harold Smith’s MAPS (an acronym for Muhammad Ali Professional Sports), and has been a full-time resident of Las Vegas since 1992.
“When I was 16, maybe 17, I was the youngest licensed second in New Jersey” says Henry. “In Philadelphia, I got to hang with great old-school trainers like George Benton. In LA, my home away from home was the Hoover Street Gym. Jackie McCoy, Eddie Futch, and Jesse Reid trained fighters there. A young trainer couldn’t ask for a better schoolhouse.
“The old-school trainers liked me because I was organized. If a kid said to me, oops, I forgot my gym bag or I can’t spar because I forgot my mouthpiece – and this happened a lot – I’d say, no you didn’t, I have it right here. And the kids knew if they went out and did something they shouldn’t have, that I wasn’t going to tattle-tale.”
When Henry moved to Las Vegas, the local heavyweight scene was percolating. Michael Dokes was here as were Oliver McCall and Michael Hunter Sr. The latter two fought each other as they were climbing the ladder and eventually became fast friends.
The ill-fated Hunter would become a member of the family. He married Kevin Henry’s sister. Michael Hunter Jr, a leading heavyweight contender whose victims include the white-hot Martin Bakole and Michael’s younger brother Keith Hunter, a 15-2 junior welterweight, are Kevin’s nephews.
Discounting Devin Haney’s father Bill, no boxing coach has spent more time in the company of Devin Haney. Henry was in Devin’s corner for the vast majority of his amateur bouts, including five of Devin’s six meetings with his great amateur rival Ryan Garcia, and their tie continued after Devin transitioned into a pro.
“He was like a little brother to me,” says Henry. “I remember the first day I saw him. It was at the old Round One gym which isn’t here anymore. A Rolls Royce pulled up out front. Derrick Harmon, who fought Roy Jones, was there with me. We figured that the person in the car was probably some famous professional athlete who had come to work up a sweat. But it was Bill Haney with his nine-year-old son. Neither Bill nor his kid knew anything about boxing; Bill wanted someone to teach Devin how to box. The boy was a blank canvas.
“Bill left and when he came back, he said, ‘how did he do?’ He was so proud when we told him his kid was a natural. Derrick and I couldn’t believe that the boy had never been in the gym before. We were amazed.”
The precocious Haney, who turned pro in Mexico at age 16, proved to be as good as advertised. He won the WBC world lightweight title in his twenty-fourth pro fight, pitching a shutout over previously undefeated Alfredo Santiago, went on to unify the title with wins over George Kambosos and Vasyl Lomachenko, and pitched another shutout in his first venture at 140, whitewashing Regis Prograis to capture another world title belt.
Kevin Henry was there for some of these fights and was lost in the shuffle at others. It remains a sore spot.
No active boxer has been looked-over by as many prominent trainers as Devin Haney. Bill Haney, who would be a finalist for both the 2023 BWAA Trainer of the Year and Manager of the Year, winning the latter, operated on the assumption that all had something useful to contribute and that from their inputs he could build something that was greater than the sum of its parts. He was bucking several bromides including the chestnut that too many chefs spoil the broth and that brings us to the night of April 20, 2024, when Bill Haney’s son caught up with his old amateur rival Ryan Garcia at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
In a memorable fight, Garcia buzzed Haney in the opening minute of the match with his patented left hook and would then go on to dominate the second half of the fight, putting Haney on the canvas three times – in rounds 7, 10, and 11 – en route to a scorching upset.
As we know, Garcia, who came in three pounds overweight, would have the “W” stripped from him when his urine samples revealed the presence of a performance-enhancing drug, ostarine. The New York State Athletic Commission changed the result to a no-contest and that is how it appears at boxrec, the sport’s official record-keeper.
Devin Haney remains undefeated (31-0, 1 NC) but Ryan Garcia knocked the mystique out of him.
In part because of his tender age – he turned 26 earlier this month – Haney was considered a threat to break Floyd Mayweather’s 50-0 record. No one talks about that anymore and if it should happen, it would command an asterisk.
Kevin Henry was there at the Haney-Garcia fight but, in a sense, he wasn’t there.
“They never put my name on the comp list ” he says, “so there was no ticket or pass waiting for me when I got to the arena. I was actually on the subway heading back to my hotel when Devin called me. He said, ‘where you at ‘bro.’ When I explained the situation to him, he said ‘turn around and come back and go to security.’
“Devin arranged to have a ticket waiting for me. My seat was directly behind his corner. The undercard was already in progress when I got back.
“This will sound arrogant, but I am certain the outcome would have been different if Devin had a different corner. The most experienced guy in his corner that night was Bob Ware, and Bob isn’t a trainer; he’s a cutman. When Devin faced adversity for the first time in his life, there was no experienced head there to get him turned around.
“In preparation for Garcia, we spent 3-4 weeks at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym. I actually suggested to Bill that he use Freddie in the corner. Freddie sees things that other trainers don’t see, even me, and Freddie would have known what adjustments to make. But Bill said no. He didn’t want to cede his authority.”
Kevin Henry’s admiration for Devin Haney, as a boxer and a person, hasn’t waned. “Ryan Garcia came in overweight at the weigh-in and you can just imagine how much weight he put on after he rehydrated. When they stood at center ring to get the referee’s instructions, Garcia looked like a middleweight to me. Devin dug deep and fought a great fight against a guy who was bigger and on steroids. One of the judges even had it a draw.” (True. Veteran arbiter Max DeLuca scored it 112-112. The other judges had Garcia winning by 4 and 6 points.)
As to what to expect from Devin when he returns, Henry says, “I worry about the mental part; some boxers don’t take losing well.” There are no such concerns about Kevin Henry who lost none of his mental acuity in that terrible accident and is back in his comfort zone.
Haney-Garcia photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions
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