The Roles Have Changed for Caleb Plant Who Isn’t Intimidated by Canelo Alvarez

Published

3 years ago

November 3, 2021

The Roles Have Changed for Caleb Plant Who Isn’t Intimidated by Canelo Alvarez

It seems highly unlikely, almost impossible even, for anyone to see certain parallels between Canelo Alvarez, widely considered to be the finest pound-for-pound boxer in the world, and Mike Lee, described by one veteran observer as a “glorified club fighter” who rose faster and higher than his skill level suggested because of an unusual background that for a time made him something of a media darling.

Not that he has said it in so many words, but it does seem possible that Caleb “Sweet Hands” Plant (21-0, 12KOs), who takes on the heavily favored Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) for the undisputed super middleweight championship of the world Saturday night at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, and who brutally dismissed Lee in an IBF title bout nearly 28 months ago, will draw from the same motivational bubbling well of dislike to achieve the desired result. The only difference is that this time, it is Plant who will be cast in the role of would-be usurper Lee. In some people’s eyes, anyway.

Alvarez’s WBC, WBO, WBA (super) 168-pound belts will be on the line in the PBC on Showtime Pay Per View telecast, as well as Plant’s IBF strap.

Plant, a 29-year-old native of the small town of Ashland, Tenn., who now resides in Las Vegas, considers himself the best super middleweight fighter on the planet, but it is an assertion that can’t and won’t be verified until the 10-to-1 longshot does what no one other than the great Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been able to do, which is to hang a defeat on the hugely popular Mexican national hero. Becoming the first man to hold all four belts in his weight class from the most widely recognized sanctioning bodies should be ample enough reason for both parties to put forth their best effort on fight night, but Plant, not surprisingly, had been nursing a spark of resentment that he has since fanned into a raging bonfire.

It began when negotiations to stage the fight on its originally proposed date, Sept. 18, broke down over contractual issues. Alvarez then seemed set on arranging a fight with WBA (super) light heavyweight champ Dmitry Bivol, but that, too, was scrapped and the Alvarez camp circled back toward Plant. But while an accord was finally reached, hard feelings on both sides had intensified, with Plant and his support crew accusing Canelo and his handlers of not only being difficult at the bargaining table, but of downplaying a history of cheating, a reference to Alvarez having served a six-month suspension in 2018 for testing positive for clenbuterol, a banned substance.

Of the protracted wrangling, Plant said, “We tried to sit down with them. They told me what I would get paid, the opportunity that I had in front of me and I said, `Yeah.’ There wasn’t much haggle room on my end. The opportunity was presented to me, I took it, I wanted it. But they came back asking for even more. I can’t speak for their side for why things fell apart, but it had nothing to do with me. My side had been signed for weeks. When it fell apart, I just tried to be focused on the only thing that I could be in control of, which is making sure I was staying in the gym and doing what I was supposed to be doing. That way, if they came back around or not, I’d still be ready to fight whomever.”

And the charge of being a PEDs abuser Plant leveled at Canelo?

“I haven’t made any false allegations,” Plant said. “Everything I’ve said is factual. Whether he likes it or not, the facts are the facts. Maybe that’s what’s gotten under his skin, because he knows it’s true.”

The potential for some sort of premature skirmish was realized at a Sept. 21 press conference when Alvarez and Plan got nose-to-nose for the obligatory photo-op staredown, which resulted in a brief scuffle which Alvarez initiated with a hard shove to Plant’s chest. Plant came away with a cut below his right eye.

“This is new for me,” Canelo, who in most instances pays at least complimentary lip service to the guy he is about to fight, said later. “I’ve never had as much bad blood with an opponent as this one. Yes, this is the most animosity that I’ve had heading into a big prizefight.”

Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr., who had an up-close-and-personal view of what went down, told me “It does seem that things can get out of hand more now at press conferences and weigh-ins. Staredowns, even intense ones, don’t have to lead to physical confrontations. I’m always pleased when the fighters shake hands and hug after the photos are taken. Boxing is a sport and you’re not supposed to let your focus or emotions out of control then.

“There’s so much of this now. And let’s be honest; it does sell tickets if something outlandish takes place. With Canelo and Plant, ticket sales definitely went up after that happened. But I don’t feel that was forced or staged. There was a lot of tension going on then, words were exchanged and it just got out of hand. So, yeah, it sure felt real.”

Not that the lead-up to Plant-Lee prior to their July 20, 2019, bout, the first defense of the IBF belt Plant had won on a 12-round unanimous decision over Venezuela’s Jose Uzcategui six months earlier, was any less confrontational on the part of the obviously miffed champion. To Plant’s way of thinking, Lee was a manufactured contender who, after logging 21 victorious bouts as a light heavyweight against middling opposition, was awarded a title shot in his first pro outing as a super middle because he was portrayed as unique because of factors that had little or nothing to do with the difficult road trod by most up-by-their-bootstraps fighters. An all-conference linebacker at his parochial high school, Lee began his college career at the University of Missouri before transferring to Notre Dame as a sophomore. While there, he won three consecutive Bengal Bouts intramural championships in addition to graduating with a 3.8 grade-point average in business. He reportedly had job offers from Wall Street which he put on hold to try his hand at boxing, in which he must have seemed like a wayward adventurer temporarily traipsing through a rough trade largely populated by rough customers like Plant.

The media, of course, was quickly drawn to the improbable tale of the personable, well-educated son of privilege who had spent part of his senior year at Notre Dame in Bangladesh, where he taught English and mathematics in addition to raising more than $100,000 that went toward the building of schools and health-care facilities in the Third-World country.

If anything could transform Lee into a prepackaged star upon his return to the U.S., it was the always-whirling Top Rank hype machine. After signing with TR founder Bob Arum, Lee compiled an 11-0 record before his contract expired, but even then he continued to remain firmly in the public eye as the result of his being one of several sports-world endorsers of the Subway sandwich-shop chain, a group that then included, among others, NFL stars Michael Strahan, Ndamukong Suh and fellow Notre Dame alum Justin Tuck, Olympic swimming gold medalist Michael Stewart, baseball slugger Ryan Howard, NBA standout Tony Parker and NASCAR driver Tony Stewart. He even was featured in a Subway ad that was seen by tens of millions of television viewers during Super Bowl Sunday in 2013.

In comparison to Subway’s other lineup of star pitchmen, Lee, who to that point had accomplished little of note, must have seemed famous mostly for being famous. In short order grumblers, Plant among them, intimidated that Lee had come onto the scene from Notre Dame’s Golden Dome with a silver spoon of caviar stuck in his mouth. The prevailing opinion was that boxing was his hobby, not his vocation, and he would step away from it whenever he decided it finally was time for him to take advantage of his degree, put on expensively tailored suits and head to work every morning carrying an expensive leather briefcase rather than a gym bag.

For his part, Lee tried to depict himself as much the same as other fighters. Yeah, his family had become well-off in monetary terms, but it had not always been so. And he said his paved and seemingly obstacle-free path to success had been marked by years of debilitating pain. His progress in boxing, he noted, was dramatically slowed when he began suffering constant back and joint pain. Eventually he was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease known as ankylosing spondylitis.

“I was told that I would never box again,” Lee said. “That really infuriated me because every time someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to do it twice. Doctors are smart and know what they are doing. I knew, though, that they didn’t know what I had in my heart and I was a different human being. I told them they were wrong, and I would figure it out and get back in the ring.”

Eighteen months later, in April 2014, Lee stopped Peter Lewis in six rounds, the start of a 10-fight win streak that got him his shot at Plant.

At the final prefight press conference, Plant listened to Lee’s tales of being an everyman who had had endured much in pursuing his boxing dream, and then it was the champion’s turn to speak. He immediately made it clear that he was not impressed by anything he had heard. Plant was dedicating the Lee fight to the memory of his late daughter, Alia, who died at 19 months old of an unknown illness which caused seizures, as well as to his mother, Beth Plant, who was shot and killed by a police officer for allegedly brandishing a knife in March 2019. Basically, he was saying, `OK, you just put your headaches and various aches and pain into the pot, so now I’m raising you two deaths in my immediate family.’

“You may have a financial degree, but in boxing I have a Ph.D.,” Plant, addressing Lee, said at the final press conference. “And that’s something you don’t know anything about.

“I’ve been doing this for 18 years straight – no breaks, no distractions and no Plan B. I commend you for doing this, but there’s no college degree for me. No high school sports, no acting gigs, no Subway commercials. Just boxing day in, day out, rain, sleet or snow.”

The fight, what there was of it, went as most had expected. Plant floored the overmatched Lee three times officially (four if you include another trip to the canvas perhaps incorrectly ruled a slip by referee Robert Byrd), the last knockdown convincing Byrd there was no need to proceed further. The end came after an elapsed time of one minute, 29 seconds into round three.

Mike Lee has not fought since.

So now Caleb Plant, the honest workman, is back at the same old stand, except that the guy in the other corner on Saturday night is so much more like him than Lee had been. Canelo Alvarez, now 31, turned pro at 15 and also came up the hard way, beating grown men with boundless talent and determination. Maybe he wasn’t always this dominant, but he had the potential to be so, and he would someday fulfill his destiny because boxing is not and never has been a hobby for him. He is who and what he is because he took his considerable skills and honed them to a razor’s edge, which he is again intent on displaying against someone with a like mindset.

“The media’s job is to make (Canelo) seem unbeatable,” Plant said. “That’s what they’re doing. But anyone who knows boxing and has seen him in with some of these high-level fighters – I’m talking about Triple G (Gennadiy Golovikin), I’m talking about (Erislandy) Lara, even Austin Trout – know he was beatable in those fights. There are things those guys were able to capitalize on, and I feel I possess a lot of those same skills, except I’m a full-fledged super middleweight. I’m not a 154-pounder, I’m not a middleweight. I’ve been fighting at this weight for a really long time. There are things I feel like – I know – I can capitalize on. On Nov. 6, that’s what I plan on doing.”

Asked for his final thoughts on Mike Lee, Plant said it’s not enough to have the benefit of good publicity. No spin doctor can help anyone inside the ropes, where truth is always there to be seen for what it is. “Not only was the media building him up, he was building himself up,” Plant opined. “I wanted to show him he wasn’t the real deal, that I’m the real deal. But that’s not just for him; it goes for any fighter that gets in there with me. I feel that way against anybody that’s in front of me. When the bell rings, all the talk stops. Who’s going to impose his will on the other man?

“I plan on imposing my will on Canelo and becoming the undisputed super middleweight champion.”

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, published in paperback, can be ordered through Amazon.com and other book-selling websites and outlets.

Check out more boxing news on video at the Boxing Channel

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bernard Fernandez

Up Next

The Newsboy Boxer: Remnant of a Bygone Era

Don't Miss

The Hauser Report: Boxing Through Young Eyes

Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-Paul and ‘Boots’ Ennis

Published

6 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Luis A. Cortes III

Philly's-Jesse-Jart-Continues-His-Quest-plus-Thoughts-on-Yuson-Paul-and-Boots-Ennis

Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured with his friend and training partner Joey Dawejko).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way. So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

—

Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.” What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

Published

2 days ago

November 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Boxing-Odds-and-Ends-Oscar-Collazo-Reimagining-The-Ring-Magazine-and-More

With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era. Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

—

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

—

Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

Published

4 days ago

November 17, 2024

Thomas Hauser

The-Hauser-Report-Some-Thoughts-on-Mike-Tyson-v-Jake-Paul

Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

—

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!