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Avila Perspective, Chap. 160: Jaime Munguia vs Gabe Rosado and Adventures in Las Vegas

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Philadelphia-born Puerto Rican Gabe Rosado has had a lengthy and rather successful career as a prizefighter. Now he faces a young killer with an adamantium steel chin and power to spare in Mexico’s Jaime Munguia.

“It’s a fight the fans want,” said Rosado.

Undefeated Munguia (37-0, 30 KOs) puts his perfect record up against Rosado (26-13-1, 15 KOs) the wrecker of perfect records on Saturday Nov. 13, at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card.

Rosado seems to be the banana peel for top rated contenders. In his last forays he tripped up Bektemir Melikuziev by knockout and nearly toppled former world champion Daniel Jacobs. He’s no cupcake.

“Freddie and I are coming off of some good momentum,” said Rosado who is trained by Freddie Roach in Los Angeles.

Munguia trains with former great Erik “El Terrible” Morales in Tijuana. The former super welterweight world titlist moved up in weight and likes the middleweight division.

“I feel like moving up to 160lbs was good for me, my body feels stronger and I feel better,” Munguia said during a press conference on Thursday. “I think teaming up with Erik has improved my technique, we have made a great team, and I have learned a lot from him. And I think this Saturday we will show off everything we have worked for and have learned.”

It’s a loaded card especially if you like women’s boxing.

Former flyweight world champion Arely Mucino (29-3-2, 10 KOs) of Mexico meets fellow Mexican Jacky Calvo (14-6-2) in a flyweight clash set for 10 three-minute rounds.

Mucino, 32, is the only Mexican to claim world titles with the WBA, WBO, WBC and IBF organizations. She fought last March and won by decision. It was her first fight after two years. She was derailed by a leg injury and then the death of her father.

Calvo, 25, has two draws against current WBC light flyweight titlist Yesenia Gomez and two split decision losses to current WBC super flyweight titlist Lourdes Juarez. Calvo can really fight.

Also on the card are Alexis Rocha looking to rebound from his first loss and Diego De La Hoya.

Doors open at 3 p.m. Bring vaccination cards or proof of a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of the event.

Adventures in Las Vegas

Wow. Las Vegas.

They call this desert resort of immense proportions “Sin City” because of its lustful invitations to the seven sins. But whenever the “big fight” occurs it becomes heaven for the boxing faithful. A gathering of lovers of the art.

This time back-to-back nights of world championship prizefighting lured thousands to Las Vegas. First, Mikaela Mayer in a unification fight with Maiva Hamadouche on Friday, then Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a clash with Caleb Plant for undisputed status on Saturday.

Las Vegas was sizzling and crowds were busting the city’s seams wide open.

Driving through the desert landscape for countless times in the past 40 years the changes are slight. Back in the 70s whenever I drove my candy apple blue 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner with its 426 hemi engine, the biggest danger was running over Jackrabbits.

Those damn rabbits were everywhere until some smart person put up rabbit fences to keep them off the highway. Now, in 2021, the only critter I saw was a coyote that wisely waited until I passed it at 70 miles an hour.

However, the city of Las Vegas changes every year. New buildings are erected and old monuments are taken down like the Riviera Hotel, gone. Even the Stratosphere is now called the Strat. Too many syllables I guess.

Once I entered the city it was apparent many changes had taken place including the erection of Allegiant Stadium where the Las Vegas Raiders NFL team calls home. The black themed monolith now welcomes visitors into the inner sanctum of the casino city.

Big fight week means reporters from all over the world were flying in from the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan, Philippines, Australia, Mexico, Argentina and New York.

Devin and Jojo

One of the first New Yorkers I saw was Paulie Malignaggi at an early press conference in the Venetian Hotel and Casino for Las Vegas fighter Devin Haney and Southern California’s Jojo Diaz. The British promotion company Matchroom Boxing staged an early morning gathering to announce this lightweight world title fight that takes place next month on December 4, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Malignaggi now works for Bluemoonfight.tv and interviewed both Diaz and Haney for their upcoming event. Few can handle an interview like Malignaggi. He’s cat-quick with an interview whether answering or asking. The former two-division world champion has always been one of the good guys of the sport. Just don’t cross him. Great as a fighter too. A very underrated prizefighter in my estimation.

Also at the same press conference was Seniesa Estrada who recently grabbed a second division world title by defeating Tsunami Tenkai in a riveting light flyweight match last July. The speed and ferocity shown by those two warriors was incredible. On this morning Seniesa the model showed up. She had a photo shoot with one of the sponsors.

Born and raised in East L.A. she was there to support her former sparring partner Jojo Diaz. They used to trade blows as kids in Hollenbeck Gym in Boyle Heights. Now, they are both world champions. Diaz will be trying to pass Estrada who has two division world titles. He’s looking to add a third division world title as a lightweight.

Haney says that’s not going to happen.

Diaz says we shall see.

Haney and Diaz sparred verbally on social media. Now it’s real. They will fight each other and both are very happy about the confrontation. It’s a sizzling matchup. Their styles should mesh like mash potatoes and gravy.

Who is going to mash and who’s going to be gravy?

Jake and Company

Jake Paul staged a press conference at the brand new Resorts World Las Vegas. The mammoth casino resort right next to Circus Circus and dwarfs the old casino hotel.

Jake Paul and a giant Robot man hosted a press conference at the RedTail inside the new resort on Saturday morning, but Tommy Fury, the relative of Tyson Fury was a no- show due to a family emergency. Paul and Fury will be fighting each other on Dec. 18 in Tampa, Florida. Showtime pay-per-view will televise their fight along with the great Amanda Serrano facing Spain’s Miriam Gutierrez.

Also present at the press conference was undisputed super lightweight champion Josh Taylor of the United Kingdom. The cat is unbelievably tall for 140-pound fighter.

Taylor chatted with me and another reporter Raymundo Dioses about his recent operation to mend his leg. It makes sense for the Scottish fighter to heal properly before embarking on upcoming defenses and possibly moving up to welterweight.

Soon after, the giant robot and his rather fetching assistant asked me to take a few photos of them in front of the bar. I took a few and shot a selfie of me with them. Might as well.

After the press conference we headed back to the MGM Grand to collect my press credential for the Canelo/Plant fight. The casino was packed wall to wall with mostly Mexican fans. The last time I saw this many Mexican fans in Las Vegas was when Oscar De La Hoya fought Ricardo Mayorga way back on May 6, 2006. That was a crazy night too.

In front of the media center thousands of fans stood around the front door waiting for their hero to show up. It was a mad house.

A few hundred reporters were already inside the media center though it was many hours before the fight card would commence.

Three years had passed since I had attended a big Las Vegas fight card. The pandemic has taken the lives of a lot of my former colleagues. Inside I saw many who I had not seen in years. It was good to see all of them.

My old friends Lee Samuels and Bill Caplan are two that I’ve known since 1993 when I first began covering major fight cards as a reporter for the LA Times. I had not seen them face to face for almost three years.

Lee Samuels formerly worked as a news reporter in Philadelphia and has worked with Top Rank for three decades. He’s seen all the great fighters come and go like Marvelous Marvin Hagler, James “Lights Out” Toney and Manny Pacquiao.

Bill Caplan worked for Top Rank, Golden Boy Promotions and now the WBC. He’s a good friend of heavyweight great George Foreman and has seen boxing since the days of Joe Louis. Everybody in the boxing world knows Caplan. He’s a legend and like Samuels two of the best human beings on the planet.

Only in boxing can you find people like Lee Samuels and Bill Caplan. They are two of the reasons I love boxing.

I also chatted a bit with writers Dylan Hernandez, Lance Pugmire, Norm Frauenheim and Felipe Leon inside the media room. Also inside were champions like Teofimo Lopez and Seniesa Estrada doing interviews with the many radio and podcast shows.

That night Saul “Canelo” Alvarez defeated Caleb Plant by knockout and 16,000-plus fans roared loud enough to bring down the walls. I had not heard a sound like that since Juan Manuel Marquez shockingly knocked out Manny Pacquiao in 2012. It’s a unique roar.

You never forget the sound of boxing.

Fights to Watch

Sat. DAZN 11 a.m. Kid Galahad (28-1) vs Kiko Martinez (42-10-2), Terri Harper (11-0-1) vs Alycia Baumgardner (10-1).

Sat. DAZN 6 p.m. Jaime Munguia (37-0) vs Gabriel Rosado (26-13-1).

Sat. Showtime 6 p.m. David Benavidez (24-0) vs Kyrone Davis (16-2-1).

Check out more boxing news on video at the Boxing Channel

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The Hauser Report: What’s Going On With Premier Boxing Champions?

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Eight years ago, Al Haymon unveiled what many thought would be the future of boxing. The boxing community had been awash in rumors for months. Haymon was amassing a war chest totaling hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of a venture capital fund in an effort to take over the sport . . . Haymon was signing hundreds of fighters to managerial and advisory contracts . . . Haymon was planning some sort of TV series . . . Time-buys on multiple networks for an entity called Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) were confirmed.

On March 7, 2015, Haymon began the rollout of his plan when NBC televised the inaugural PBC offering – a fight card featuring Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner in separate bouts. Free boxing. On network television.

But the plan fell short of expectations. Advertisers didn’t come onboard. DAZN and then Saudi Arabia became the flavor of the month. Now PBC is seeking to reassert itself through an alliance with Amazon. The first “PBC on Prime Video” offering will be a pay-per-view event on March 30 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But PBC isn’t the power it once was. No one talks about Al Haymon taking over boxing anymore.

Amazon will distribute the PBC show. It wants to build a live pay-per-view platform for multiple events, and this is an early foray into that realm. It has no interest in playing the sort of role that HBO and Showtime played in boxing. Amazon (like In Demand) will take and distribute the product it’s given.

The PBC pay-per-view events that are streamed on Prime Video will also be available to viewers through other streaming platforms like PPV.com as well as linear-TV cable and satellite PPV distributors.

In addition, Prime Video has said that it will stream a series of “free” (with a subscription to Amazon Prime) PBC Championship Boxing events in the United States and other designated countries on an exclusive basis.

The degree to which Amazon will provide a marketing push for PBC’s shows is unclear at the present time.

Four fights will be on the March 30 PPV stream. The main event was to have matched Keith Thurman vs. Tim Tszyu. Eight years ago when he headlined PBC’s inaugural telecast on NBC, Thurman was young and fresh. Now he’s 35 years old and has won only one fight in the preceding five years (a ten-round decision over Mario Barrios). Tszyu (the son of Kostya Tszyu) was eased into the WBO 154-pound title through an “interim” portal and is being groomed for a big-money fight down the road.

Then, earlier today (March 18), it was reported that Thurman had been injured in training camp and Sebastian Fundora (who’d been slated to fight Serheii Bohachuk on the undercard) will likely face Tszyu. Fundora was speeding along a fast track until his most recent fight which saw him pitching a shutout against Brian Mendoza when a one-punch knockout in round seven derailed his dream.

Sebastian Fundora

Sebastian Fundora

The primary supporting bouts on the pay-per-view stream are expected to be Erislandy Lara vs. Michael Zerafa and Rolly Romero vs. Isaac Cruz.

Lara is forty years old. During the past five years, he has fought Ramon Alvarez, Greg Vendetti, Thomas LaManna, and Gary O’Sullivan (which somehow enabled him to claim the WBA 160-pound belt). Zerafa’s primary qualification seems to be that (like Tszyu) he’s from Australia.

Romero is a tiresome loudmouth who often fails to back up his talk. He was knocked out by Gervonta Davis and was trailing Ismael Barroso on all three judges’ scorecards when a premature stoppage by referee Tony Weeks gifted him the WBA 140-pound belt. Cruz went the distance in a losing effort against Davis.

Former Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza has been consulted with regard to production on the March 30 PPV stream. As of this writing, the commentating team hasn’t been announced (which is odd since the event is less than two weeks away).

Meanwhile, the rest of the sports landscape is rapidly changing.

On January 23, it was announced that Netflix (Prime Video’s most formidable competitor with 247 million subscribers) had signed a deal to stream WWE’s flagship wrestling show – Raw. The ten-year deal will cost Netflix roughly five billion dollars. Netflix can opt out of the deal after five years or, if it chooses, extend it for another ten years.

Then, on March 7, Netflix furthered its commitment to “trash sports” when it announced that Mike Tyson and Jake Paul will meet in the ring in Texas on July 20 in an encounter to be streamed live on Netflix. It’s unclear whether the encounter will be a “fight” or a glorified sparring session.

Adding to the mix; Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers announced on February 6 that they will launch a joint subscription streaming service later this year that will bundle sports content from ESPN and affiliated networks (such as ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS), the Warner Brothers’ Discovery networks that showcase sports (TNT, TBS, TruTV), and Fox (the Fox broadcast network in addition to FS1, FS2 and BTN).

But back to PBC on Prime Video. If the March 30 fight card were streamed as part of the Amazon Prime membership package, it would be a plus for boxing fans. But it won’t be. It’s a pay-per-view event. And even before Thurman’s injury, it wasn’t pay-per-view-worthy as that term was once understood.

You get only one chance to make a first impression. This isn’t a good first impression for PBC on Prime Video.

***

On December 17, I posted a column in which I urged that Gerry Cooney and Cedric Kushner be included on the ballot for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There’s another, more obvious omission that I’d like to address.

Al Haymon has been at the center of the boxing universe for two decades. He built his power through a series of alliances with HBO (his point person was Kery Davis), Golden Boy (Richard Schaefer), and investors (Waddell & Reed) and maintained it through dealings with Showtime (Stephen Espinoza) and various other networks. There were times when it seemed as though he was on the verge of “taking over boxing.” Now Saudi Arabian oil money is the dominant force. But Haymon is breaking new ground through an association between Premier Boxing Champions and Amazon Video.

Haymon likes to style himself as an “advisor” or “manager.” In reality, he functions as a promoter. But labels are irrelevant. The bottom line is that no one has had a greater influence on boxing over the past twenty years than Al Haymon. He belongs in the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and the first step toward that end is to put his name on the ballot for induction.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book — “MY MOTHER and me” — is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press this spring and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. https://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.

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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

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Dillian Whyte Returns from Purgatory and Brushes Away a Wimpy Opponent in Ireland

Tomorrow (Monday) is a national holiday in Ireland which is always the case whenever Saint Patrick’s Day happens to fall on a Sunday. That explains why today’s fight card in the County Mayo town of Castlebar is being staged on a Sunday. After the show, the attendees with regular jobs can stay up late quaffing down a few pints at their favorite pub knowing they can sleep-in tomorrow. (And they likely needed a few pints to wash away the pain of paying good money to see this craphole show.)

All of the A-Side fighters were Irishmen including the headliner Dillian Whyte, a Londoner of Jamaican extraction who claims that one of his grandparents was born in Ireland. The “Body Snatcher” was matched against German-Romanian slug Christian Hammer.

Whyte, who turns 36 next month, last fought in November of 2022 when he won a lackluster decision over Jermaine Franklin. His rematch with Anthony Joshua in August of last year fell out when an “adverse analytical finding” turned up in his VADA test. Whyte bellowed loudly that he was innocent, but there was the presumption of guilt because he had served a two-year ban for illegal substances earlier in his career. But lo and behold, in a curious development, Whyte was cleared this month when a forensics expert associated with the Texas Boxing Commission asserted that the adverse result was caused by a nutritional supplement that contained a contaminent that wasn’t disclosed on the supplement’s list of ingredients. (Whyte was training in the United States and licensed to fight in Texas when the random drug test was administered.)

Hammer brought a 27-10 (17) record but had been stopped five times, most recently by Joe Joyce who blew him away in four rounds. He was in Castlebar just for the payday and retired on his stool after three frames. He was never down in the fight, but was tattooed with a bunch of punches on his flabby midsection. (The weights were not announced.)

With the win, Dillian Whyte advanced his record to 30-3 (20 KOs). More relevantly, he is back in the mix in the heavyweight picture. His American trainer Buddy McGirt hopes to have him back in the ring in a couple of months.

Other Bouts of Note

Roy Moylette, a 33-year-old junior welterweight from the nearby town of Islandeady, made the locals happy when he got off the deck to win the decision in an 8-round bout with Argentine journeyman Requen Facundo (17-15-2). Moylette (14-2-1) entered the pro ranks with a wealth of international amateur experience, but his pro career never took off. Heading into this match, he announced it would be his farewell fight.

The Argentine, a late sub who had begun his pro career as a featherweight, had Moylette on the canvas in the second round but couldn’t sustain the momentum. The referee, who had the unusual but unmistakably Irish name of Padraig O’Reachtagain, scored it 76-75.

In what was likely his final pro fight, 39-year-old Cork super middleweight Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan left on a downbeat note, losing an 8-round decision to Sofiane Khati. O’Reachtagain had it 77-76 for the outsider.

O’Sullivan (31-6, 21 KOs) will be remembered as the Irishman who wore a handlebar mustache during his fighting days in Boston, a look that harked to John L. Sullivan who Spike believed to be a distant relative. In his previous bout in May of 2022 he was stopped in eight frames by Erislandy Lara in Brooklyn, his fourth setback inside the distance and third in his last six.

A 31-year-old French-Algerian, Khati improved to 15-4 (5).

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Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser: ‘The Blue Corner’

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Boxing, like all sports, is more fun to watch when the viewer has a rooting interest. That interest can spring from a variety of factors. Some people like or dislike a particular fighter on a personal level. Others – let’s be honest – root for or against a fighter based on ethnicity.

If I don’t know either of the fighters in a fight, I root for the underdog.

That can be dispiriting. Too many fight cards today consist largely of A-side vs. B-side fights. As a general rule, the A-side fighter comes out of the red corner and the B-side fighter is seated in the blue corner. Upsets are few and far between.

Tom Loeffler’s March 15 fight card at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater is a case in point. There are underdogs and then there are hopeless underdogs. I went to the fights hoping something that wasn’t supposed to happen would happen. But a look at the opponents’ records told me that was unlikely.

BoxRec.com is a wonderful tool for scoping out how competitive a fight is likely to be. Here’s what I learned from BoxRec.com before the fights and how things unfolded in the ring.

Fight #1: Giovanni Scuderi (9-0, 4 KOs) vs. Brandon Carmack – Scuderi’s last opponent had 57 losses. And that opponent might have beaten Carmack. I’m sure Brandon could decimate most people in a bar fight. But he lumbered around the ring like a heavybag with feet. Scuderi telegraphs every righthand he throws. But he has a basic jab. The match had the appearance of a picador sticking lances into a slow sluggish bull. W4 for Scuderi.

Fight #2: Nisa Rodriguez (0-0) vs. Jozette Cotton – Rodriguez is a 33-year-old New York City police officer with an extensive amateur background who was making her pro debut. Cotton was winless in four pro fights. Rodriguez fought tentatively. Cotton had a roll of flab around her waist (which spoke to her conditioning) and fought like she didn’t know how to box. W4 for Rodriguez.

Fight #3 Joseph Ward (10-1, 6 KOs) vs. Derrick Webster – Webster is 41 years old and has now won one of six fights since 2018. KO 2 for Ward.

Fight #4: Reshat Mati (14-0, 8 KOs) vs. Irving Macias – Macias has lost three of his last four fights, and the guy he beat during that stretch has 19 losses (including his last seven fights in a row). W8 for Mati.

Fight #5: Cletus Seldin (27-1, 23 KOs) vs. Jose Angulo – Angulo has lost six of his last eight fights, including four KOs by. W8 for Seldin, Here, I should note that, after the fight, Seldin took the ring announcer’s microphone, dropped to one knee, opened a small box containing a diamond engagement ring, and asked one Jessica Ostrowski to marry him. The future Mrs. Seldin (who was clad in black leather) said yes, and the happy couple paraded around the ring together.

Fight #6: Feargal McCrory (15-0, 7 KOs) vs. Carlos Carlson –  Carlson has had ten fights since 2016 and lost seven of them. The three guys he beat during that stretch have 92 losses between them. And he hadn’t fought in more than two years. Referee David Fields did the fans a favor by stopping the bout prematurely in round three. If Carlson had fought as vigorously during the fight as he complained about the stoppage afterward, it would have been a better fight.

Fight #7: The main event matched Callum Walsh (9-0, 7 KOs) against Dauren Yeleussinov. Walsh is a 23-year-old junior-middleweight who UFC CEO Dana White is trying to build as a boxing version of Conor McGregor. Yeleussinov has lost three of his last four fights (including a first-round KO by). And the opponent Dauren beat during that stretch has 22 losses (including a current losing streak of 19 a row). Yeleussinov was tailor-made for Walsh – slow on his feet with slow hands and not much of a punch. Callum got off first all night. KO 9.

In six of the seven fights, the underdog lost every round.

I’m tired of fighters who talk tough and posture at press conferences but won’t fight an opponent who’s remotely competitive. And yes; I know that prospects can’t go in tough every time out. But a prospect’s opponent should pose some kind of challenge.

And let’s be honest; most of the fighters on the March 15 card were there because they were local ticket-sellers, not prospects. Only Walsh has world-class potential. He’s 23 years old with skills and is getting better. Right now, he’s a very good club fighter. Let’s see if he becomes something more.

*        *        *

One moment from promoter Larry Goldberg’s March 7 club-fight card at Sony Hall in New York stands out in my mind.

In the second fight of the evening, Jason Castanon and Luis Rivera-Reyes squared off against one another in a scheduled four-round junior-welterweight bout. Each man was making his pro debut. Castanon’s opponent had pulled out the previous week, leaving matchmaker Eric Bottjer scrambling for a new opponent. Rivera-Reyes had been scheduled to fight on the undercard of a show in Puerto Rico but his opponent had also fallen out, so he was available.

Bottjer thought that Castanon vs. Rivera-Reyes would be a competitive fight. Each man was old for a boxer making his pro debut. Castano is 30; Rivera-Reyes is 35. But they had comparable amateur backgrounds.

Rivera-Reyes held his own in round one. But Castanon was the stronger, better-schooled fighter. In round two, Luis started getting beaten up. The punishment mounted in round three. Rivera-Reyes was still trying to win but it was a futile effort. With seconds left in the third stanza, a righthand staggered Luis and a second righthand put him down hard. He rose through an incredible act of will because that’s what real fighters do. But he was badly hurt and on wobbly legs. Referee Eddie Claudio asked if he wanted to continue.

Rivera-Reyes shook his head. No.

Afterward, an uncharitable observer said that Luis “quit.”

I think that Luis acted with honor. Sitting several feet from the ring, I had a perfect view of the pain and despair etched on his face as he confronted the reality that he was a beaten man. He didn’t jump to his feet at the count of ten-and-a-half, pretending that he was ready to keep fighting. He didn’t ignore the referee’s question and feign outrage when the fight was stopped. He acknowledged that he had given his all and was beaten. Fighters aren’t video-game figures. They get hurt. And sometimes they just can’t take anymore.

The moment reminded me of the 1983 rematch between Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor. Pryor had won their classic first encounter with a brutal knockout that left Arguello unconscious on the ring canvas. In round ten of Pryor-Arguello II, Alexis found himself on the canvas again. He was a warrior, one of the greatest fighters of all time. He could have gotten up. But he didn’t. He had done the best he could and realized that it was over. He sat with tears streaming down his face and later acknowledged. “It’s hard to accept, but it’s good to accept. I did it with grace and just accepted that the guy beat me. Even though I did my best, in the tenth round I accepted it right there. I said, ‘This is too much. I won’t take it. I‘ll just sit and watch Richard Steele count to ten.'”The look in Luis Rivera-Reyes’s eyes when he shook his head will stay with me for a long time. He had been beaten into submission in his first pro fight. And I wondered, how long will he hold onto the dream.

*          *          *

A nod to “March Madness” which begins this week . . .

College basketball has a problem – court storming.

It’s now in vogue for fans of the home team to surge onto the court after a big win. Tearing down the goal posts in football endangers fans who are tearing down the goal posts. Court storming endangers the players.

On January 21, Caitlin Clark (Iowa’s superstar guard) was knocked to the floor when Ohio State fans stormed the court after a big win.

On February 24, Kyle Fitzpatrick (Duke’s All-American center) injured his knee when Wake Forest fans stormed the court after a dramatic upset.

To date, the NCAA has done nothing about the problem. Several conferences have taken action on their own, the most notable example being the SEC which instituted an escalating fine that begins at $100,000 for the first incident. By contrast, the ACC has no penalty for court-storming; the Big Ten has no penalty until the third incident; and the Big East penalizes offending schools the paltry sum of $5,000.

It shouldn’t be hard to end court storming.

The NCAA should institute a rule – and fans should be advised late in each contest – that court storming will result in forfeiture of the game.

***

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir that will be published by Admission Press on April 2 and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.https://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.

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