The Hauser Report: Boxing Through Young Eyes

Published

3 years ago

November 1, 2021

The Hauser Report: Boxing Through Young Eyes

My uncle died in early-October. As per his request, he was cremated and the family converged in New York at the end of the month for the interment of his remains. Reece Chapman (my 13-year-old great-nephew) lives in Montana and was here for the ceremony.

There was a time when boxing was a bonding force between generations. Fathers and sons sat down in front of a television set and watched Gillette Friday Night Fights together. The first fight I went to was the 1965 bout between Floyd Patterson and George Chuvalo at the “old” Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. Patterson was on the comeback trail after consecutive first-round knockout losses to Sonny Liston and beat Chuvalo on an 8-4, 7-5, 6-5-1 decision.

My uncle took me to that fight.

Reece’s three favorite sports to watch on television are football, basketball, boxing. The closest he’d been to a live professional fight was when I brought him to Gleason’s Gym before the pandemic and he saw two fighters sparring.

Not much of what Top Rank has accomplished over the decades is on Reece’s radar screen. He watches their shows regularly on ESPN. But the fact that Bob Arum has promoted more than two thousand fight cards in more than three hundred cities around the globe (including 675 world title fights) is ancient history to him.

On October 30, Top Rank promoted an eight-bout card at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden. Reece had never been to a fight. I decided to bring him.

Not many people who go to a fight sit close enough to the ring that they can see the anger, fear, hurt, and other emotions that cross fighters’ eyes. Television cosmeticizes the violence. Sitting in the press section, there’s no filter. Either a person is drawn to the spectacle or repulsed by it.

Reece is a people-person with empathy for others. I wondered how he’d process the reality of boxing. I asked Top Rank media relations director Evan Korn if Reece could be credentialed for the October 30 fight card. Evan said yes, and event access manager Katie Neff helped implement the plan.

Reece and I arrived at Madison Square Garden on fight night at 6:40 PM. Our seats were second row center in the ringside press section. The arena was virtually empty. Most of the eight bouts had a clear favorite. Top Rank has two matchmakers – Bruce Trampler and Brad Goodman – who are on the short list of best matchmakers ever. I explained to Reece that a big part of their job is to select opponents for fighters that Top Rank is trying to build. Each fight should be a learning experience for the favorite and end with a “W” on his record. Some fighters are handled with more care than others. Some need less protection than others.

Reece took his status as a credentialed member of the media seriously. Over the next four-and-a-half hours, he would fill an old spiral-bound HBO Boxing notebook I’d given him with eleven pages of notes.

The lights went on and rap music played as the first boxers made their way to the ring. Viewed from our vantage point, the ring ropes seemed suddenly evocative to me of horizontal prison bars.

At 7:10 PM, the bell for round one sounded. Kasir Goldston (3-0, 1 KO) vs. Marc Misiura (2-1, 1 KO). Misiura’s two wins had come against opponents with 1 win in 13 fights. Against Goldston, he was aggressive until he got hit, at which point he opted for a less confrontational strategy. Later in the fight, he got chippy and lost a point for an intentional head butt. The judges’ scores were 40-35, 40-35, 40-35 in Goldston’s favor.

Fight #2 – Ray Cuadrado (1-0, 1 KO) vs. Michael Land (1-3-1, 1 KO). Land was game but didn’t have the skills to compete. Cuadrado won a 40-36, 39-37, 39-37 decision.

Fight #3 – Jahi Tucker (4-0, 2 KOs) vs. Jorge Rodrigo Sosa (3-2, 3 KOs). Sosa was tough. But tough is different from good. In round two, Tucker started putting a beating on him. Sosa was taking too many clean punches and getting hurt. At 2;18 of the stanza, referee Shawn Clark stopped it.

Reece’s first knockout. Three fights down, each one ending as expected.

Now the arena was filling up. The crowd was becoming part of the drama.

Fight #4 – Pablo Valdez (4-0, 4 KOs) vs. Alejandro Martinez (2-1-1, 2 KOs). How did Martinez get to 2-1-1? His previous opponents had compiled a composite ring record of 6 wins, 70 losses, and 1 draw. That’s how.

Valdez was a heavy favorite. But as Lennox Lewis once observed, “A punch in the face; that changes everything. All the things you practiced can suddenly stop working.”

In round two, Martinez staggered Valdez and had him holding on. Thereafter, Martinez was the hunter and Valdez was the hunted. At the end of round four, the ropes kept Valdez from going down, but referee Eddie Claudio failed to call a knockdown. Claudio also warned Valdez about holding multiple times but failed to take a point away long after a deduction seemed warranted. If Claudio’s work left something to be desired, the scoring of the judges was even more dubious – a 59-55, 59-55, 57-57 majority decision in Valdez’s favor.

“What?” Reece said in disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

In other words, a thirteen-year-old attending his first fight card ever saw Valdez-Martinez more clearly than the judges.

Now Reece was into the scene.

“It’s really cool,” he told me. “The lights; how fast the fighters’ hands are; how focused they are; the way they move around the ring.”

Fight #5 – Mathew Gonzalez (12-0, 8 KOs) vs. Dakota Linger (12-5-2, 8 KOs). All of Linger’s wins had come in West Virginia or North Carolina. In the previous three years, he’d won twice and suffered five losses. The wins came against DeWayne Wisdom (1 win in his last 38 fights) and Darel Harris (2 wins in his last 23 outings).

12-0 from New York City vs. 12-5-2 from Buckhannon, West Virginia. Guess who won?

Wrong.

Linger came out throwing punches with the sophistication of a toughman contestant and kept throwing. Everyone in the arena could see the punches coming except Gonzalez.

When a young fighter is pressured, either he forgets what he has learned about boxing or he uses it. Gonzalez forgot. The result was a totally entertaining, all-action brawl between a boxer and a toughman in what devolved into the equivalent of a toughman contest. The crowd cheered loudly for much of the bout and was on its feet at the end. The judges ruled it a majority draw – a reasonable verdict although the nod could have gone to Linger.

Once in a while, boxing fans get lucky.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Reece said. “This is really really cool.”

Fight #6 – Jonathan Guzman (24-1, 23 KOs) vs. Carlos Jackson (17-1, 11 KOs) brought the fans back to earth. Eight technically-fought rounds. Guzman was the more passive of the two. Jackson tried periodically to pick up the pace, but Guzman had the skills to blunt his attack. When it was over, Jackson was on the long end of a 78-74, 77-75, 75-77 decision.

Then came the co-feature bout – Carlos Caraballo (14-0, 14 KOs) vs. Jonas Sultan (17-5, 11 KOs). Things got interesting in a hurry when Sultan (a decided underdog) knocked Caraballo down with a right uppercut in round two (Reece’s first official knockdown). He did it again in round three but was badly hurt himself in round four.

The action got even better from there. It was a sensational, brutal, back-and-forth fight. By round eight, Caraballo was unloading, landing shot after shot to Sultan’s head. The carnage continued in round nine with cries of “stop the fight” reverberating through the air. Then, out of nowhere, Sultan dropped Caraballo again with a left hook.

All told, Caraballo was knocked down four times and Sultan once. Each man suffered more damage than a fighter should. It was a legitimate fight of the year candidate with all three judges scoring the bout 94-93 in Sultan’s favor.

“WOW!” Reece said. “WOW! WOW! WOW!”

The last fight of the evening – Jose Zepeda (34-2, 26 KOs) vs. Josue Vargas (19-1, 9 KOs) – was memorable in its own way. Zepeda has come up short in two previous title opportunities and is best known for a fifth-round knockout of Ivan Baranchyk in an exciting slugfest that was the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2020 “fight of the year.” Vargas was stepping up his own level of competition to take the bout. At the Friday weigh-in, the fighters’ camps had gotten into one of those stupid shoving matches with punches thrown at the close of the staredown. Now it was time to fight for real.

Midway through round one, Zepeda smashed Vargas to the canvas with a perfectly-timed overhand left that landed flush. Vargas rose on wobbly legs, and Zepeda finished him off at the 1:45 mark of the stanza.

Maybe someday, years from now, Reece will remember that I took him to his first pro fight.

—

When Shakespeare wrote, “The first thing we do, let us kill all the lawyers,” he wasn’t thinking about Mike Heitner.

Mike represented Top Rank for decades and was as good as any contract lawyer in the business. Hundreds of championship fights bore his imprint. He was also one of the nicest people in boxing.

One of pleasures that came with going to a Top Rank press conference or a Top Rank fight was the opportunity to sit and chat with Mike. He died suddenly in his sleep on October 19 at age 82. A lot of people who were at Madison Square Garden this week missed him. I was one of them.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – Broken Dreams: Another Year Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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

Published

2 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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

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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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

2 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

Published

3 days ago

March 28, 2025

David A. Avila

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Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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