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AIBA Confirms Corruption at 2016 Rio Olympics; in Other News, Water is Wet

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It has been said that it’s difficult, almost impossible even, to refute something you see with your own eyes. But the validity of the eye test carried little to no weight during the scandal-soiled boxing competition at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where what everyone saw was not always what everyone got. Two prime examples of the proof that corruption in Olympic boxing rings was again rampant were the gold medal that was awarded to Russian heavyweight Evengy Tischenko over far more deserving Vassiliy Levit of Kazakhstan and a hotly disputed early-round decision that went to another Russian, Vladimir Tikitin, over top-seeded bantamweight Michael Conlan of Ireland. Tikitin eventually came away with a bronze medal, but an enraged Conlan’s Olympic journey ended in bitterness.

“They’re cheating bastards,” Conlan, who reacted to his announced defeat by flashing one-finger salutes to offending ringside officials assigned by the International Boxing Association (AIBA), the much-maligned governing body for Olympic boxing. “They’re paying everybody. They’ve always been cheats. It’s a shambles, to be honest. Today just showed how corrupt this organization is.”

In indignant reaction to the complaints of Levit, Conlan and others who seemingly had had their bouts judged by officials who either were incompetent or complicit in skullduggery, the AIBA issued a statement that read: With regard to corruption, we would like to strongly restate that unless tangible proof is put forward, not rumors, we will continue to use any means, including legal or disciplinary actions, to protect our sport and its R&J (Referees and Judges) community, whose integrity is constantly put into question. The organization will not be deterred by subjective judgments made by discontented parties.

Five years later, some measure of delayed justice for wronged parties in Rio, who had ample reason to be discontented, was delivered in what was termed an independent report authored by Western Ontario University law professor Richard McLaren. The prof’s company had been hired by AIBA to ascertain, as best it could, whether what appeared to be an overflowing toilet of malfeasance needed to be spiffed up with a Tidy Bowl tablet and a bit of air freshener. Not that any forthcoming adjustments will alter the results of Rio 2016 for Levit, Conlan and other victims in the Legion of the Screwed. Those outcomes are in the books and forever confirmed for posterity’s sake, all eye tests to the contrary notwithstanding.

Owning up to one Olympiad’s worth of rotten officiating, the AIBA issued another statement, this one conceding that the McLaren group’s findings were being viewed “with concern” and that “extensive reforms have been implemented to ensure sporting integrity at current AIBA competitions.” It went on to state that McLaren will probe “not only the 2016 Rio boxing tournament but also all key events until now to reach full transparency.”

It is commendable that AIBA is finally shining an unfavorable light upon itself, but it is akin to opening the barn door after a raging fire has burned down the remainder of the structure. The International Olympic Committee, which has a few skeletons in its own closet, removed AIBA’s governance of the boxing tournament at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (actually staged this year because of COVID-19 concerns) amid all the bad vibes that seemed to be intensifying. It can be argued that AIBA, its absolute control of Olympic boxing slip-sliding away, has been dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing on the premise that some of whatever validity it once had might be salvageable going forward.

But it might be a case of too little and too late, and that is even if there is some degree of certainty that the current top administrators of AIBA – Russia’s Umar Kremlev has been its president since 2020 – can pump out the flooded areas of a ship that, in some astute observers’ estimation, has been incrementally sinking at least since the 1988 Seoul Olympics. There is a school of thought that the IOC might simply excise a problem sport that has been a part of the Olympic movement since the 2004 St. Louis Olympics prior to the 2024 Paris Games.

Legendary trainer Emanuel Steward, who was 68 when he died on Oct. 25, 2012, spent only one dissatisfying year as USA Boxing’s director of coaching before he stepped down in the early 2000s from what he perceived to be a mostly ornamental position.

“Are we prepared to just walk away? I don’t know,” Steward said of the possibility that the United States might become so disillusioned with the Olympics, or at least Olympic boxing, that the country might simply step away from the quadrennial event. “I do know that Olympic boxing is not what it used to be, and nobody in America is in agreement on what they want to do.

“To me, it’s been steadily declining since 1988. I don’t even have my amateur kids today pointing toward the Olympics. When I started coaching in 1961, that was everyone’s dream. It was my dream to make the Olympic team in 1964. Your first thought was trying to go to the Olympics, then you worried about turning professional.”

Steward’s mention of 1988 as the possible genesis of what has become a downward spiral is telling. It was at the Seoul Olympics that year that America’s 156-pound representative, Roy Jones Jr. – you might have heard of him – was on the short end of what arguably has been the most egregiously unjust result in the history of Olympic boxing. Jones battered his South Korean opponent, Park Si-Hun, from pillar to post from the opening bell to the end of the scheduled three-rounder, only to be stunned when the judges voted 3-2 that the gold medal should go to the home-nation fighter. That result continues to stand, although a consolation prize, the Val Barker Trophy as the Seoul Olympics’ “most outstanding boxer,” went to Jones.

If the shafting of Jones is the most obvious example of any funny business being done in ’88, succeeding Olympics offered evidence of the increasing brazenness of AIBA presidents Dr. Anwar Chowdhry of Pakistan (now deceased) and Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu of Chinese Taipei. Chowdhry remained in the top spot for a quarter-century until being voted out and replaced by Wu, who promised sweeping reforms, in 2006. If there were such reforms made, however, they were not evident to Teddy Atlas, who was the analyst for NBC’s coverage of four Olympiads (2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012). The unapologetically blunt Atlas was not retained in that position in 2016, possibly because he tends to speak the truth as he sees it and is not disposed to gloss over controversies.

Prior to the London Olympics, there had been a British Broadcasting Corporation report the previous September that Azerbaijan, an oil- and mineral-rich satellite country of the old Soviet Union, was prepared to pay millions of dollars to “buy” two gold medals in boxing. The BBC report found documents showing that a $9 million bank transfer, funneled through Switzerland, where AIBA is headquartered, went to a boxing organization owned by AIBA. Atlas mentioned the existence of the report to the American TV audience, but did not state whether it had validity since no certifiably provable links to wrongdoing had been established.

But if anyone needed a large mound of circumstantial evidence to ascertain that something indeed was amiss, it was presented when Atlas and broadcasting partner Bob Papa were calling a match during which a Japanese boxer, Satoshi Shimisu, knocked down Azerbaijan’s Magomed Abdulhamidev seven times, but amazingly, “the Azerbaijan guy’s point total kept going up!,” Atlas said for a 5,000-word story I did for this site that first appeared online on Aug. 25, 2016. “Bob and I were, like, `Can they really be this arrogant? This cold, this uncaring? Don’t these people have any sense of right and wrong, that they can do this before the entire world?’” It hardly seemed to matter much that Japan’s protest on Shimisu’s behalf was upheld in the face of vehement and widespread public outrage.

Fixing Olympic boxing, and maybe even the Olympics as a whole, may require more than a squeegee and a bucket of soapy water. The McLaren Report indicated its investigation focused primarily on Rio in 2016 (there also were signs the 2012 London Olympiad was affected) and any international tournaments since, but to appreciate the full scope of all that was subverted requires a longer, more thorough look at the multiple stains accumulated at least since 1988, and maybe even before then. There is a reason why Olympic boxing, the sport that first brought such luminaries as Cassius Clay, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Oscar De La Hoya and others to prominence, no longer merits prime-time exposure on NBC, instead being shuttled off to alternative, little-viewed TV outlets. There is also a reason why more and more young fighters, not just Americans, are turning pro earlier instead of hanging around to pursue Olympic dreams that are no longer quite so enticing.

“Key personnel decided that the rules did not apply to them,” McLaren determined, adding that there was a “culture of fear, intimidation and obedience in the ranks of referees and judges.” He further noted that senior AIBA officials used their power to select referees and judges and turned the commission, which was supposed to ensure they were assigned fairly, into “a mere rubber stamp … to ensure the manipulation of outcomes.”

Perhaps the current AIBA president, Kremlev, will have the resources and will to cleanse all or most of his organization’s blight. Not that anyone’s nationality should be held against them, but being a Russian might not be construed as a positive now insofar as the Olympics and particularly AIBA are concerned. The 2014 Winter Olympics, President Vladimir Putin’s pet project, were staged in Sochi, Russia, and were the costliest ever with a price tag of $51 billion. It later was ascertained that nearly every Russian competitor in Sochi had benefited from the administering of state-sanctioned performance enhancing drugs. Make of that what you will, or that Putin and his “good friend,” IOC President Thomas Bach of Germany, were seated together at ringside for Tischenko’s gift decision over Levit in Rio, a miscarriage of justice almost on the level of Si-Hun over Jones in 1988. Neither man seemed surprised nor concerned about the dubious outcome.

“AIBA hired Professor McLaren because we have nothing to hide,” Kremlev indicated in a statement. “We will work to incorporate any helpful recommendations that are made. We will also take legal advice with regard to what action is possible against those found to have participated in any manipulation. There should be no place in the AIBA family for anyone who has fixed a fight.”

Encouraging words to be sure, but we have repeatedly heard more or less the same tune in the past. The question is, will Olympic boxing actually be able to dance to it instead of stumbling over its own feet?

Editor’s Note: Bernard Fernandez, named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the class of 2020, was the recipient of numerous awards for writing excellence during his 28-year career as a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News. Fernandez’s first book, “Championship Rounds,” a compendium of previously published material, was released in May of last year. The sequel, “Championship Rounds, Vol. 2,” with a foreword by Jim Lampley, arrives this fall. The book can be ordered through Amazon.com, in hard or soft cover, and other book-selling websites and outlets.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More

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Many of the best female fighters of all time including Christy Martin, Laila Ali and others are gathering in the glitzy lights of Las Vegas this week.

Several hundred fans including current and former world champions are attending the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame ceremony on Friday, April 4 and 5th at the Orleans Casino in Las Vegas.

It’s one of my favorite events.

Where else can you talk to the female pioneers and stars of the 1980s and 1990s?

The last time I attended two years ago, Germany’s super star Regina Halmich spoke to the packed house about her career in boxing. She and Daisy Lang were two female world champions who sold out arenas wherever they fought. The pair of blonde fighters proved that female prizefighting could succeed.

Many times, I debated with promoters who believed women’s boxing could not succeed in the USA. Though it was popular in Germany and Mexico, various organizers felt female boxing was not appealing to the American masses.

Now promoters and media networks know women’s boxing and women’s sports have crowd appeal.

Expected to attend the IWBHOF event at Orleans will be Mexico’s Jessica Chavez and Jackie Nava who will be inducted into the women’s hall of fame along with Vaia Zaganas of Canada among many others.

It’s also a gathering place for many of the top proponents of women’s boxing including the organizers of this event such as Sue Fox whose idea spawned the IWBHOF.

Each event is unique and special.

Many of my favorite people in boxing attend this celebration of women’s boxing. Stop by the Orleans Casino on the second floor. You won’t be disappointed.

Heavyweight prospects

Heavyweights take the forefront this weekend in two pivotal battles in different continents.

In England, a pair of contenders looking to maintain their footing in the heavyweight mountain will clash as Joe Joyce (16-3, 15 KOs) meets Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic (17-1, 14 KOs) at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester. DAZN will stream the event.

Both lost their last match and need a win to remain relevant. Joyce has lost his three of his last four, most recently coming up short in a riveting slugfest with Derek Chisora.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Nevada, two young heavyweights looking to crack contender status clash as undefeated Richard Torrez (12-0,11 KOs) fights Italy’s Guido Vianello (13-2-1,11 KOs) at the Palms Casino.

Both are Olympians who can crack and each can take a blow.

The winner moves up into contention and the other will need to scrape and claw back into relevance.

Coming up

April 12 in Atlantic City: Jarron Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs) vs Eimantis Stanionis (15-0, 9 KOs) IBF welterweight title.

April 12 Albuquerque: Fernando Vargas Jr. (16-0) vs Gonzalo Gaston (23-7); Shane Mosley Jr. (22-4) vs DeAundre Pettus (12-4).

April 19 Oceanside, Calif: Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs). Also, Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs Jorge Garcia (32-4, 26 KOs).

April 26 Tottenham Stadium, London, England; Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) vs Liam Smith (33-4, 20 Kos).

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Joe Joyce (16-3) vs Filip Hrgovic (17-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 2:30 p.m. Richard Torrez (12-0) vs Guido Vianello (13-2-1).

Sat. AMAZON PRIME VIDEO 8:00 8 p.m. Tim Tszyu (24-2) vs. Joey Spencer (19-1)

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History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

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History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

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LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged.  However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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