Nino Benvenuti’s Akron Misadventure: A Don Elbaum Production (Natch)

Published

3 years ago

September 30, 2021

Nino-Benvenuti's-Akron-Misadventure-A-Don-Elbaum-Production-Natch

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.

akron

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 10^th 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.

—

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.

—

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

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.

—

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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Arne K. Lang

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Don’t call it an upset.

Days after Ryan Garcia proved the experts wrong, those same experts are re-tooling their evaluation processes.

It’s mind-boggling to me that 95 percent thought Garcia had no chance. Hear me out.

First, Garcia and Haney fought six times as amateurs with each winning three. But this time with no head gear and smaller gloves, Garcia had to have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. He is faster and a more powerful puncher.

Facts.

Haney is a wonderful boxer with smooth, almost artistic movements. But history has taught us power and speed like Garcia’s can’t be discounted. Think way back to legendary fighters like Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler. All that excellent defensive skill could not prevent Sadler from beating Pep in three of their four meetings.

Power has always been an equalizer against boxing skill.

Ben Lira, one of the wisest and most experienced trainers in Southern California, always professed knockout power was the greatest equalizer in a fight. “You can be behind for nine rounds and one punch can change the outcome,” he said.

Another weird theory spreading before the fight was that Garcia would quit in the fight. That was a puzzling one. Getting stopped by a perfect body shot is not quitting. And that punch came from Gervonta “Tank” Davis who can really crack.

So how did Garcia do it?

In the opening round Ryan Garcia timed Devin Haney’s jab and countered with a snapping left hook that rattled and wobbled the super lightweight champion. After that, Garcia forced Haney to find another game plan.

Garcia and trainer Derrick James must have worked hours on that move.

I must confess that I first saw Garcia’s ability many years ago when he was around 11 or 12. So I do have an advantage regarding his talent. A few things I noticed even back then were his speed and power. Also, that others resented his talent but respected him. He was the guy with everything: talent and looks.

And that brings resentment.

Recently I saw him and his crew rapping a song on social media. Now he’s got a song. Next thing you know Hollywood will be calling and he’ll be in the movies. It’s happened before with fighters such as Art Aragon, the first Golden Boy in the 50s. He was dating movie stars and getting involved with starlets all over Hollywood.

Is history repeating itself or is Garcia creating a new era for boxing?

Since 2016 people claimed he was just a social media creation. Now, after his win over Devin Haney a former undisputed lightweight champion and the WBC super lightweight titleholder, the boxer from the high desert area of Victorville has become one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

Ryan Garcia has entered a new dimension.

Golden Boy Season

After several down years the Los Angeles-based company Golden Boy Promotions suddenly is cracking the whip in 2024.

Avila

Vergil Ortiz Jr. (20-0, 20 KOs) returns to the ring and faces Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1, 17 KOs) a welterweight gatekeeper who lost to Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis. They meet as super welterweights in the co-main event at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, Calif. on Saturday, April 27. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card live.

It’s a quick return to action for Ortiz who is still adjusting to the new weight division. His last fight three months ago ended in less than one round in Las Vegas. It was cut short by an antsy referee and left Ortiz wanting more after more than a year of inactivity in the prize ring.

Ortiz has all the weapons.

Also, Northern California’s Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1, 18 KOs) meets Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1, 15 KOs) in a welterweight affair set for 12 rounds.

It’s difficult to believe that former super lightweight titlist Ramirez has been written off by fans after only one loss. That was several years ago against Scotland’s Josh Taylor. One loss does not mean the end of a career.

“My goal is to get back on top and to get all those belts back. I still feel like I am one of the best 140-pounders in the division,” said Ramirez who lives in nearby Avenal, Calif.

An added major attraction features Marlen Esparza in a unification rematch against Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz for the WBA, WBC, WBO flyweight titles. Their first fight was

a controversial win by Esparza that saw one judge give her nine of 10 rounds in a very close fight. Those Texas judges.

In a match that could steal the show, Oscar Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs) faces former world champion Jojo Diaz (33-5-1, 15 KOs) in a lightweight match.

Munguia and Canelo

Don’t sleep on this match.

Its current Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia facing former Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a battle between Mexico’s greatest sluggers next week at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 4.

“I think Jaime Munguia is going to do something special in the ring,” said Oscar De La Hoya, the CEO for Golden Boy.

Tijuana’s Munguia showed up at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood where a throng of media from Mexico and the US met him.

Munguia looked confident and happy about his opportunity to fight great Canelo.

“It’s a hard fight,” said Munguia. “Truth is, its big for Mexico and not only for Mexicans but for boxing.”

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 6 p.m. Yoeniz Tellez (7-0) vs Joseph Jackson (19-0).

Sat. DAZN 9:30 a.m. Peter McGrail (8-1) vs Marc Leach (18-3-1); Beatriz Ferreira (4-0) vs Yanina Del Carmen 14-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Vergil Ortiz (20-0) vs Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1); Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1) vs Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1); Marlen Esparza (14-1) vs Gabriela Alaniz (14-1).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

3 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

5 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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