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Nino Benvenuti’s Akron Misadventure: A Don Elbaum Production (Natch)
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Nino Benvenuti and Akron, Ohio, were an awkward fit. Benvenuti was something of a Renaissance man, or at least that is how he was portrayed. He was a connoisseur of fine wines, whereas Akron, which led the world in the production of automobile tires, was a blue-collar city where a fellow with an affinity for fine wines was likely to be put down as a sissy. But Benvenuti was certainly no sissy.
In March of 1968, seven months prior to his appearance in Akron, Benvenuti had recaptured the world middleweight title in his third meeting with Emile Griffith. He was 77-2 as a pro and purportedly 110-1 as an amateur, a career climaxed with a dominant 5-0 run to a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics.
Benvenuti, who reputedly enjoyed visiting art museums and loved the opera, wasn’t hurting for money. Back home in Italy, he owned a factory that produced auto parts and a health club. But his career was winding down and the $20,000 he was guaranteed for touching gloves with a local schlub in a non-title fight was too good to pass up.
The presumptive schlub (and he was hardly that) was Doyle Baird.
Born in a little town in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, Baird had grown up in Akron. As a pro he was 21-2, a nice record but devoid of a signature win. A close but unanimous decision over Detroit veteran Ted Wright looked good on his ledger in that Wright was a recognizable name, but the former world-ranked Wright was on the skids, having won only one of his previous nine fights.
In common with many preacher’s kids, Baird in his younger days was quite the hellraiser. “He spent more time in the back seat of a cop car than a police dog,” wrote Akron Beacon Journal sportswriter Tom Melody. He didn’t turn pro until age 28, but his style never wavered much from his days as teenage street fighter. He was a brawler, a man willing to take two or three punches to land one of his own, the antithesis of the classy Benvenuti whose style was that of a man who didn’t like to get his hair messed up.
Benvenuti vs. Baird was a Don Elbaum production. Back in those days, Elbaum was Mr. Boxing in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. He nourished boxing at its roots, promoting shows in armories, community centers, American Legion halls and high school gymnasiums. On occasion, Elbaum the promoter morphed into Elbaum the boxer, subbing for a no-show. Once he successfully impersonated a doctor when the physician failed to show at a weigh-in. One surmises that he kept a stethoscope in the trunk of his car on the off-chance that it might come in handy someday.
Elbaum went whole-hog for the Benvenuti-Baird fight, parking the Oct. 14, 1968 event at Akron’s municipal football stadium, the Rubber Bowl.
To no great surprise, the fight was a messy affair. “For every good punch there was an elbow, for every jab a butt,” said Beacon Journal reporter Jack Patterson. At times. Benvenuti resorted to a headlock to get Baird off his chest.
The fight went the full 10 and at the final bell the referee raised Baird’s hand. The crowd loved it. The local man had accomplished what only two fighters before him had done. The gifted Korean southpaw Ki Soo Kim won a split decision over Benvenuti in Seoul and Emile Griffith had prevailed in the middle fight of their trilogy. Now Doyle Baird, of all people, had joined that elite group. But hold the phone.
The referee had acted before the scorecards were tallied. One of the judges favored Baird by 96-95, but his colleagues each had it a draw, 96-96 and 97-97.
Akron had its own boxing commission. The head honcho was out of town, vacationing in Florida, and the men that he delegated to supervise the show stood around not knowing what their next move should be.
Lester Bromberg, the fine boxing writer of the New York Post, was there and seized the reins. “Listen up here, boys,” he said, or words to that effect. “A man can’t be declared the winner if only one judge favored him. It takes at least two. Do the math and you will see that this fight should be ruled a draw.”
The Associated Press correspondent didn’t wait for the retraction and for many weeks after the fight the story that Baird had won was still circulating. An item about Benvenuti’s forthcoming title fight in Italy with Don Fullmer that ran in dozens of U.S. papers included this line: “Benvenuti may have loafed a bit too much in Akron, Ohio, last Oct. 14 when he dropped a 10-round non-title fight to little-known Doyle Baird.”
The attendance at the Benvenuti-Baird fight was the highest in Akron boxing history: 3,412. But the number included 395 freebies and was well below what Elbaum needed to break even. In addition to the $20,000, he was on the hook for Benvenuti’s expenses which included three round-trip tickets from Italy for the fighter and two of his cohorts.
Doyle Baird, for all of his hard work, earned nothing. He was down for a percentage of the net profits. In fact, Baird actually lost money. He took two weeks off without pay from his job at a foundry to prepare for the fight.
There was a heartwarming postscript. Akron was a strong union town and the notion of a man toiling without compensation struck many as inhumane. It was as if Doyle Baird, one of their own, was being ripped off twice.
A fellow in the nearby town of Barberton who had attended the fight wrote a letter to the sports editor of the Beacon Journal and enclosed a $5 bill with instructions that it be passed along to the fighter. “I’m just a working guy with a wife and four growing children,” he wrote. “We need our money like anybody else, but my wife and I both agreed that this was something we wanted to do.”
The sports editor published his letter and then more money poured in, just little drips and drabs, but likely enough for Baird to catch up with the bills that went unpaid while he was chasing his dream. The paper reported that he was embarrassed to accept it but his wife had no such qualms.
More money would come Baird’s way two years later when he ventured to Bari, Italy, for another non-title fight with Nino Benvenuti who stopped him in the 10th round. There was no way that the rematch would transpire in Akron. Before leaving the Ohio city, Benvenuti had bad-mouthed the community with all the English curse words that he knew.
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Benvenuti’s victory over Baird in their second encounter would prove to be the final “W” of Nino’s career. He had three more fights, two against the great Carlos Monzon who sheared away his title in the 1970 “Fight of the Year” and then defeated him more decisively in their rematch. In retirement he dabbled as a movie actor and set up a charitable trust for his great rival Emile Griffith who had fallen on hard times. Into his eighties he reportedly still attracted a crowd when he walked the streets of Rome.
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The craggy-faced Don Elbaum, who bears a strong resemblance to the movie actor Harvey Keitel, was undaunted by the financial bath that he took at the Rubber Bowl. Fifty-three years have elapsed since he introduced Nino Benvenuti to Akron and the erstwhile “Boy Promoter” is still with us.
Elbaum would have long runs as the matchmaker at the Tropicana in Atlantic City and at the storied Blue Horizon in Philadelphia, but at heart he was always something of a nomad, the “king of wandering fistic minstrels” in the words of the late Scranton, Pennsylvania, sportswriter Chick Feldman. Elbaum has had his fingers in important fights in important cities around the world but was always most comfortable hustling in the boondocks where a wildcat promoter is less fettered by rules and regulations. And it is here in the boondocks where boxing is often the Theater of the Absurd.
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Doyle Baird left the sport with a record of 34-7-1. After leaving his job at the foundry he drove a delivery truck for the Beacon Journal. In his spare time, he trained young boxers. “He was a stand-up guy who didn’t have an ounce of guile,” recollected longtime Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler who was in the audience — Trampler was then a sophomore in college — at the Benvenuti-Baird fight.
Doyle Baird passed away earlier this month at age eighty-three. His wife of 51 years preceded him. He was survived by five children, seven grandchildren, and a great grandson. May he rest in peace.
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Cain Sandoval KOs Mark Bernaldez in the Featured Bout at Santa Ynez
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Northern California’s Cain Sandoval remained undefeated with a knockout win over Mark Bernaldez in a super lightweight battle on Friday on a 360 Promotions card.
Sandoval (15-0, 13 KOs) of Sacramento needed four rounds to figure out tough Filipino fighter Bernaldez (25-7, 14 KOs) in front of a packed crowd at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
Bernaldez had gone eight rounds against Mexico’s very tough Oscar Duarte. He showed no fear for Sandoval’s reputed power and both fired bombs at each other from the second round on.
Things turned in favor of Sandoval when he targeted the body and soon had Bernaldez in retreat. It was apparent Sandoval had discovered a weakness.
In the beginning of the fourth Sandoval fired a stiff jab to the body that buckled Bernaldez but he did not go down. And when both resumed in firing position Sandoval connected with an overhand right and down went the Filipino fighter. He was counted out by referee Rudy Barragan at 34 seconds of the round.
“I’m surprised he took my jab to the body. I respect that. I have a knockout and I’m happy about that,” Sandoval said.
Other Bouts
Popular female fighter Lupe Medina (9-0) remained undefeated with a solid victory over the determined Agustina Vazquez (4-3-2) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a minimumweight fight between Southern Californians.
Early on Vazquez gave Medina trouble disrupting her patter with solid jabs. And when Medina overloaded with combination punches, she was laced with counters from Vazquez during the first four rounds.
Things turned around in the fifth round as Medina used a jab to keep Vazquez at a preferred distance. And when she attacked it was no more than two-punch combination and maintaining a distance.
Vazquez proved determined but discovered clinching was not a good idea as Medina took advantage and overran her with blows. Still, Vazquez looked solid. All three judges saw it 79-73 for Medina.
A battle between Southern Californian’s saw Compton’s Christopher Rios (11-2) put on the pressure all eight rounds against Eastvale’s Daniel Barrera (8-1-1) and emerged the winner by majority decision in a flyweight battle.
It was Barrera’s first loss as a pro. He never could discover how to stay off the ropes and that proved his downfall. Neither fighter was knocked down but one judge saw it 76-76, and two others 79-73 for Rios.
In a welterweight fight Gor Yeritsyan (20-1,16 KOs) scorched Luis Ramos (23-7) with a 12-punch combination the sent him to the mat in the second round. After Ramos beat the count he was met with an eight punch volley and the fight was stopped at 2:11 of the second round by knockout.
Super feather prospect Abel Mejia (7-0, 5 KOs) floored Alfredo Diaz (9-12) in the fifth round but found the Mexican fighter to be very durable in their six-round fight. Mejia caught Diaz with a left hook in the fifth round for a knockdown. But the fight resumed with all three judges scoring it 60-53 for Mejia who fights out of El Modena, Calif.
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The Return of David Alaverdian
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By TSS Special Correspondent David Harazduk — After David Alaverdian (8-0-1, 6 KOs) scored a gritty victory against a tough Nicaraguan journeyman named Enrique Irias, his plans suddenly changed. The flashy flyweight from Nahariya, Israel hoped to face even tougher opposition and then challenge for a world title within a year or so. But a prolonged illness forced David to rip up the script.
The Irias fight was over 22 months ago. On Saturday, Feb. 22, Alaverdian will be making his first appearance in the ring since that win when he faces veteran road warrior Josue “Zurdo” Morales (31-16-4, 13 KOs) at the Westgate Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It’s the fifth promotion by Las Vegas attorney Stephen Reid whose inaugural card was at this venue on Feb. 13, 2020.
“I’m excited to come back,” Alaverdian declared.
During his preparation for Irias two years ago, Alaverdian felt fatigue after a routine six-round sparring session. “It was on April 1, 2023, about ten days before my fight. It felt like an April Fool’s joke,” he said. He came down with a sore throat, a headache, and congestion. He soon developed trouble breathing. At first, he thought his seasonal asthma had flared up, but his condition soon worsened. No matter what he did, Alaverdian could no longer take deep breaths. Fatigue continued to plague him. His heart constantly raced. Instead of breathing from his diaphragm, he was breathing from his chest. He sought out numerous doctors in the United States and in Israel.
His symptoms were finally diagnosed as Dysfunctional Breathing (DB). DB is a condition that can stem from stress and is often misdiagnosed. Its symptoms include dyspnea and tachycardia, both of which David experienced.
While receiving treatment, the Vegas-based pro went back to Israel where he coached aspiring fighters. “David’s influence on Israeli boxing is amazing, because he shows we can succeed in a big business even though we come from a small country,” said another undefeated Israeli flyweight, 20-year-old Yonatan Landman (7-0, 7 KOs). “A lot more Israelis are going to dare to succeed.”
Landman was able to work with Alaverdian during David’s return to Israel. “He is a great guy and a friend,” Landman said. “He has a lot of willingness to help, share his knowledge, and help you move forward.”
Alaverdian finally started to feel like he could compete again eight months ago. He won last year’s Israeli national amateur championship and competed in Olympic qualifiers. Now, he’s preparing to fight as a professional once again. “He doesn’t mention anything about [his breathing issues] like he did before,” his coach Cedric Ferguson said about this camp. “He’s been working like there’s no issue at all.”
It has been a whirlwind week for the 31-year-old Alaverdian. In addition to putting the finishing touches on his preparation ahead of Saturday’s comeback fight, David got married on Tuesday. His mom came over from Israel for the wedding and will stay for the fight. “It’s a good distraction,” David said of this week’s significant events. “It helps me. That way I don’t have to focus on the fight all day.”
Josue Morales, a 32 year old from Houston, hopes to play spoiler on Saturday. The crafty southpaw has never been stopped during his 52-fight career. “He’s a seasoned guy with a lot of experience,” Alaverdian said of Morales. “He knows how to move around the ring and is more of a technical boxer. He’s a tough opponent for someone who has been out of the ring for two years.”
A win Saturday night would complete a monumental week for David Alaverdian, both in and out of the ring, repairing the once-shredded script.
Doors open at the Westgate fight arena at 6:30 pm. The first bout goes at 7:00. Seven fights are scheduled including an 8-round female fight between Las Vegas light flyweight Yadira Bustillos and Argentine veteran Tamara Demarco.
NOTE: Author David Harazduk has run The Jewish Boxing Blog since 2010. You can find him at Twitter/X @JewishBoxing and Instagram.
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
Saturday’s fight card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, topped by the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol for undisputed light heavyweight supremacy, was being hyped as the greatest boxing card ever. That was before Daniel Dubois took ill and had to pull out of his IBF world heavyweight title defense against Joseph Parker, yielding his slot to last-minute replacement Martin Bakole.
The view from here is that the card remains in the running for the best fight card ever, top to bottom. The public didn’t view Dubois as the legitimate heavyweight champion. That distinction goes to Oleksandr Usyk.
Terms like “greatest” are, of course, subjective. Are we referring to the most attractive match-ups or the greatest array of talent, or the card that gives the most satisfaction by churning out a multiplicity of entertaining fights?
We won’t know how satisfying this card is until after the fact. We won’t know whether the talent on display was the greatest ever assembled on one night until many years have passed. Contestants such as Shakur Stevenson, Vergil Ortiz Jr, and Hamzah Sheeraz are still in their twenties (Stevenson is the oldest of the three at age 27) and it’s too soon to gauge if they will leave the sport with a great legacy.
As for which fight card in history had the deepest pool of attractive match-ups, this is a query that is amenable to an operational definition. Betting lines are a useful tool for informing us whether or not a fight warrants our attention if the likelihood of witnessing a closely-contested bout is our primary consideration.
Based on these factors, I would submit that the current leader in the race for the best card ever assembled goes to Don King’s May 7, 1994 promotion at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Six future Hall of Famers – Julio Cesar Chavez, Ricardo Lopez, Azumah Nelson, Terry Norris, Julian Jackson, and Christy Martin — were on that card, an 11-fight, eight-hour marathon with five WBC world title fights, four of which were rematches.
These were the five title fights:
140 pounds: Julio Cesar Chavez (89-1-1, 77 KOs) vs. Frankie Randall (49-2-1, 39 KOs)
Odds: Chavez 3/1 (minus-300)
154 pounds: Terry Norris (37-4, 23 KOs) vs. Simon Brown (41-2, 30 KOs)
Odds: even (11/10 and take your pick)
160 pounds: Gerald McClellan (30-2, 28 KOs) vs. Julian Jackson (48-2, 45 KOs)
Odds: McClellan 7/2 (minus-350)
130 pounds: Azumah Nelson (37-2-2, 26 KOs) vs. Jesse James Leija (27-0-2, 13 KOs)
Odds: Nelson 17/10 (minus-170)
105 pounds: Ricardo Lopez (36-0, 27 KOs) vs. Kermin Guardia (21-0, 14 KOs)
Odds: none
Results
Chavez-Randall — Julio Cesar Chavez avenged his loss to Frankie Randall, but not without controversy. An accidental clash of heads in the eighth round left Chavez with a bad gash on his forehead. Ring physician Flip Homansky would have allowed the bout to continue if that had been Chavez’s preference, but El Gran Campeon wasn’t so inclined. A WBC rule specified that in the event of a significant injury accruing from an accidental head butt, the less-damaged fighter is penalized a point. The fight went to the scorecards where Chavez won a split decision that would have been a draw without the point deduction. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Chavez, but the big bets were mostly on Randall and the odds got nicked down on the day of the fight.
Brown-Norris — In their first meeting in December of the previous year, Simon Brown dominated Terry Norris from the opening bell before stopping him in the fourth round. It was a massive upset. Norris was in the conversation for the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. In the rematch, Norris opened a slight favorite, but the late money was on Brown. And, once again, the so-called “sharps” were on the wrong side. Terry Norris, the would-be avenger, won a comfortable decision.
McClellan-Jackson — A murderous puncher, Gerald McClellan bombed out Julian Jackson in 83 seconds, or four rounds quicker than in their first engagement. Jackson was also a murderous puncher and attracted money in the sports books, lowering the price on the victorious McClellan who yet remained a solid favorite.
Nelson-Leija – WBC President Jose Sulaiman mandated this rematch after the first meeting ended in a draw after an error was found in the tabulation of one of the scorecards, overturning the original verdict which had Nelson retaining his title on a split decision. Leija thought he was robbed and was the rightful winner in the do-over, outworking Nelson to win a unanimous decision. At age 35, Azumah was getting long in the tooth.
Lopez-Guardia – Before the digital age, bookmakers didn’t trifle to post lines on bouts that on paper were egregious mismatches, save perhaps a fight of great magnitude. Guardia, the Colombian challenger, overachieved by lasting the distance in a fight with no knockdowns, but “Finito” won a lopsided decision.
A Note on Odds
Betting lines serve a useful purpose for boxing historians; they quantify the magnitude of an upset. However, quoting odds is tricky because they are fluid and vary somewhat from place to place. What this means is that two journalists can quote different odds on the same event and they both can get it right – unless there is a significant disparity. The odds quoted above are the closing lines at the MGM Grand or, at the very least, a very close approximation.
Saturday in Riyadh
One reason why tomorrow’s fight card is the best ever, said the tub-thumpers, is that the card (in its original conformation) included seven world title fights. But that’s no big deal There are so many title fights nowadays that the term “world title” has been trivialized. And what wasn’t acknowledged is that three of the title fights were of the “interim” stripe.
However – and this is a big deal — a glance at the odds informs us that tomorrow’s card is chock-full of competitive match-ups (at least on paper) and from that aspect, a blend of quality and quantity, it is a doozy of a boxing card.
The greatest boxing linemaker of my generation, now deceased, once told me that any fight where the “chalk” was less than a 3/1 favorite is essentially a “pick-‘em” fight. Yes, I know that makes no sense mathematically. However, I know what he was getting at. In a baseball game, for example, it’s very rare to find a team favored by odds of more than 3/1. In boxing, where self-serving promoters are constantly feeding us King Kong vs. Mickey Mouse, odds higher than 3/1 are the norm.
As this is being written, there are six fights on Saturday’s card where one could play the favorite without laying more than 3/1. I believe this is unprecedented. Moreover, the main event and a fascinating match-up on the undercard, Vergil Ortiz Jr vs Israil Madrimov, are virtual toss-ups with the favorites, Beterbiev and Ortiz, currently available at 5/4 (minus-125). Another very intriguing fight is the heavyweight contest between late bloomers Agit Kabayel and Zhilei Zhang which finds the less-heralded Kabayel cloaked as a small favorite. And kudos to Joseph Parker for accepting Martin Bakole when he could have held out for a lesser opponent. If Bakole is in shape (a big “if”), he will be a handful.
And so, where does tomorrow’s card rank on the list of best boxing cards ever? Right up there near the top, we would argue, and, if the bouts in large part are memorably entertaining, we would push it ahead of Don King’s May 7, 1994 extravaganza.
That’s the view from here. Feel free to dissent.
Postscript: If you plan to watch the entire card ($25.99 on DAZN for U.S. buyers), it would help to stock up on some munchies. The first fight (Joshua Buatsi vs. Callum Smith) is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 a.m. for us viewers in the Pacific Time Zone / 11:45 a.m. ET. If the show adheres tight to its schedule (no guarantee), Beterbiev and Bivol are expected to enter the ring at 3:00 p.m. PT/6:00 p.m. ET.
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