Featured Articles
Catching Up with Jonnie Rice as He Prepares for His Rematch with Michael Coffie
Catching Up with Jonnie Rice as He Prepares for His Rematch with Michael Coffie
There are different kinds of upsets. Some of the most storied upsets in American sports annals were actually quite mundane when measured against the betting line. The bigger the stage, the greater the shared element of surprise when an underdog brings home the bacon. Then there are upsets that are purely numerical. The magnitude isn’t measured by whether it provokes a great yammering, but simply by the odds displayed on a wagering board.
By this second barometer, Jonnie Rice may have forged the biggest upset of 2021 when he stopped Michael Coffie in the fifth round at Newark, New Jersey, on July 31. Coffie was chalked a 25/1 favorite at several off-shore sports books. Factoring in the straddle, a wager on Rice would have returned $15 for every dollar that was wagered.
Michael Coffie, an ex-Marine, was 12-0 heading in and was coming off a brutal third round knockout of Darmani Rock, a well-regarded 24-year-old prospect from Philadelphia with a 17-0 pro record and a strong amateur pedigree. True, Coffie was relatively untested, but on the surface it was hard to fancy Rice who was 13-6-1, hadn’t defeated anyone of note, and had taken the fight on short notice when Coffie’s original opponent Gerald Washington flunked his COVID test.
With the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, however, it’s plain that the bet-takers didn’t do their homework. Five of Rice’s six defeats had come at the hands of opponents that were undefeated. He had gone the distance with Tony Yoka and Efe Ajagba and had lasted into the seventh round against fearsome Arslanbek Makhmudov who has 10 first-round knockouts to his credit in only 13 pro starts.
Rice was battle-tested in the gym. He had worked in the camps of Filip Hrgovic and Joe Joyce and had sparred many rounds with Luis Ortiz, Tyson Fury and Mike Hunter. Michael Coffie had worked with Deontay Wilder, Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller and Adam Kownacki, but Rice’s sparring partners were certainly a more formidable lot.
In all sports, including boxing, “strength of schedule” is a salient variable in the handicapping equation.
During the COVID era, promoters have taken to keeping an alternate on standby in case of a late scratch. Against Coffie, Jonnie Rice was not your conventional late sub. He knew that he might be summoned out of the bullpen, so to speak, and never stopped training.
His trainers Rodney Crisler and Bones Adams felt that Jonnie had become too defense-oriented. Against Ajagba, he had been reluctant to let his hands go until late in the fight and then he had more than held his own with the highly-touted Nigerian. It was as if he had fallen into the rut so common to “B-side” fighters whereby they feel pressure to perform in the manner expected of them by the promoter/matchmaker that is paying their rent.
Against Michael Coffie, Rice promised to be more offense-minded and proved to be a man of his word. He took the fight to Coffie from the opening bell. According to CompuBox, Rice out-landed Coffie 68-40 with a 54-26 edge in power punches. In the fifth round, with Coffie pawing at his left eye which was nearly shut and offering little resistance, the ref waived it off.
Now Jonnie Rice must prove that it was no fluke. In case you missed it, he and Coffie will be locking horns again on New Year’s Day as part of an all-heavyweight FOX Sports pay-per-view extravaganza in primetime from the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Luis “King Kong” Ortiz squares off against Charles Martin in the main go. (The telecast goes head-to-head against the Sugar Bowl which isn’t on the National Championship docket this year.)
Getting to Know Jonnie Rice
Jonathan Micah “Jonnie” Rice turned 34 in February. He was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of a Baptist minister who passed away when Jonnie was 15.
Rice has a versatile sports background. He played some hoops at Winthrop, a D-1 school in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and played semi-pro football. And he’s not the only athlete in his extended family. The man he grew up calling Uncle Ed is none other than Jim Rice, more formally James Edward Rice, the former star outfielder for the Boston Red Sox who is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Repeating what his dad told him, Jonnie says that Jim Rice sharpened his batting eye as a young boy hitting pebbles with a broomstick.)
There is an international data bank for athletes of various stripes; a digital warehouse for scouts. Michael King found him there.
Fourteen years ago, Michael King had an epiphany. It struck him that there were a lot of great college athletes who just weren’t quite good enough to make the NFL or the NBA and that the next heavyweight champion could be culled from this rich talent pool. To this end, King founded a company named “All American Heavyweights” and built a mammoth, state-of-the-art training facility in Carson, a city in Los Angeles County. He called it The Rock.
King had the resources to pull it off. He was the President of King World, a company founded by his father. King World syndicated Oprah Winfrey’s talk show and the iconic game shows “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy.” Michael King was rolling in dough.
King passed away in 2015 at age sixty-seven. He never came anywhere close to earning back his investment in boxing. The only heavyweights of note to emerge from The Rock were two-time world title challenger Dominic Breazeale and the aforementioned Charles Martin who had a cup of coffee as a world title-holder. His reign lasted only 85 days.
Although it certainly must be considered a longshot, perhaps Jonnie Rice will come to be seen as the best of Michael King’s “All American” alumni.
Rice prepared for the Makhmudov fight in Las Vegas and decided that this was where he needed to be to make headway in his career. He left behind his girlfriend in Los Angeles, a Swedish exchange student at Cal State-Northridge.
Absence, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder. But reconnecting with her was complicated. After Jonnie put down roots in Las Vegas, she returned to Sweden.
Rice spent the bulk of his purse from the Coffie fight on what would prove to be something of a wild goose chase. He spent an entire month in Sweden, returning without her, cognizant that he might never see her again. He hurt in a way that made Tyson Fury’s punches pin-pricks by comparison.
Jonnie Rice is a big bear of a man. He carries about 270 pounds on his six-foot-five frame. If one were to encounter him for the first time in a dark alley, one would make a quick U-turn. But that wouldn’t be necessary. It has been observed that many prizefighters have a tender side; an attribute more striking because of their violent profession. Jonnie Rice has a tender side.
Unlike career women, men don’t have biological clocks that begin to tick as they approach the end of their child-bearing years. But many men, as they slip into their mid-thirties, feel a pull to settle down and start a family. It’s not something that men readily talk about, but Jonnie Rice doesn’t shrink from acknowledging that he yearns to find the right woman and become a father.
There’s a certain irony there in that Rice is whelmed by voluptuous women at work. In common with many MMA fighters based in Las Vegas, he works the night shift as a bouncer/doorman at a so-called gentleman’s club. He doesn’t have the luxury of giving boxing his full attention.
Jonnie Rice picked the right moment to come out of the shadows. His bout with Michael Coffie was the main event of a show nationally televised on FOX. As such, viewers got to see more of him than just the fisticuffs. A scene in his dressing room before the fight undoubtedly turned many people off. Looking straight into the camera, Jonnie took a bunch of bills out of his wallet and made it rain in a Mayweather-ish fashion.
“I wasn’t expecting the camera crew to barge in like that,” says Rice. “At the time, I was getting text messages from friends and I was very nervous. I decided I would give them a show because I knew that’s what they wanted.”
He may have lost some potential fans with that display, but he gained new fans in his post-fight interview. Standing in the center of the ring, his body dripping with sweat, Rice gave an extemporaneous speech that would have been the envy of any motivational speaker. “The whole key to life is getting better every day you walk this earth…I didn’t let my past dictate my future,” he told Heidi Androl. “I’m always looking to learn from the greats as well as my peers…I’ve got a great team around me that believe in me. But I have to believe in me too and you have to believe in you to be successful…{What I learned tonight} is that if I do the work, I will see the results; I will reap what I sow and that’s a universal rule for everybody.”
“I spoke from the heart,” says Rice, re-visiting that moment.
Now comes the hard part, proving to himself and others that he isn’t a one-trick pony. The day of judgment comes on Jan. 1 in Florida. And if he comes up short, that would be insignificant in the larger scheme of things if he satisfies his yearning to become a good father.
Check out more boxing news on video at the Boxing Channel
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Remembering the Macho Man, Hector Camacho, a Great Sporting Character
Twelve years ago tomorrow, on Nov. 24, 2012, Hector Camacho was officially declared dead. He was effectively dead before then, having suffered a heart attack in the hospital after his spinal cord had been severed by a bullet, but his attendants at the hospital in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, waited until his mother had arrived from New York to remove him from life support.
At the age of 50, one of the most charismatic personalities in the sporting life of America was silenced forever.
Hector “Macho” Camacho, the Macho Man, was flamboyant – boy was he ever – but he was also a great talent. A three-time New York City Golden Gloves champion, reputedly 96-4 as an amateur, he was undefeated in 31 bouts at 135 pounds and below and went on to conquer some of the sport’s biggest names – Boom Boom Mancini, Vinny Pazienza, Roberto Duran (twice), Sugar Ray Leonard – before the sun set on his long career.
Camacho was born in Bayamon but grew up in Spanish Harlem where his mother moved when he was four. He was 21 years old and 21-0 as a junior lightweight when he was first profiled in Sports Illustrated, then the best medium for enhancing the marketability of a young athlete. At this juncture in his life, Hector, who became a father at age 17, was still living in a Spanish Harlem housing project, sharing an apartment with his 38-year-old mother, his stepfather, three siblings, a niece and a nephew.
By then he had already been expelled from six schools and was no stranger to the legal system, having spent 3 ½ months at New York’s notorious Rikers Island for — as Pat Putnam phrased it — borrowing other people’s automobiles without their permission.
The story in S.I. noted that Camacho’s reflexes were so quick that he could play two video games at once. Among his many physical attributes, it was his hand speed that attracted the most attention. When he ramped up his offense, his fists were a blur. But eventually, when folks thought of Camacho, what they remembered was his choirboy face with the spit curl in the middle of his forehead and his outrageous ring costumes which ran the gamut from a loincloth to a dress.
Hot-dogging came natural to Hector Camacho; it was embedded in his DNA. And in common with Muhammad Ali, he could be arrogant without coming across as arrogant. There was an impish quality to his bravado. He was fun to be around and, in his own words, could light up a room like a Christmas tree.
What Camacho lacked was any capacity for embarrassment.
Former WBA super bantamweight champion Clarence “Bones” Adams, who is now the proprietor of a Las Vegas gym that bears his name, became fast friends with the Macho Man when both trained in Las Vegas, the host city for their most lucrative fights. Mention Camacho’s name to Adams and a smile creases his face if he doesn’t burst out laughing.
“One day after Hector and I had gone jogging,” recollects Adams, “we drove over to the old White Cross Drugs [on the north Strip near the Stratosphere] to grab a bite to eat at their lunch counter. When we left and were standing outside by the car, Hector said, ‘Hold on a minute, I have to go pee.’ I said I’ll wait for you but then I noticed he was already peeing. Some cars honked as they passed by.
“Greg Hannely, my manager at the time, and I went to Detroit in 2000 to support Hector who was on the undercard of a show featuring Thomas Hearns. At the weigh-in, Hector wore a long shirt with nothing underneath it. This wasn’t apparent until he stepped off the scale and started doing jumping jacks.
“Hector,” continues Adams, “once had a Ferrari that he misplaced; he couldn’t remember where he parked it. He never did recover that car, but he wasn’t too bothered by it. His attitude was, ‘there’s always more where it came from.’” (Presumably this was the same Ferrari that Camacho was driving when he was ticketed for driving too slow with a suspended license on a Florida highway while being pleasured by a woman sitting astride him.)
Historians would compartmentalize Camacho’s career into two segments. Part One ended with his successful lightweight title defense against Edwin Rosario at Madison Square Garden on June 13, 1986.
Camacho kept his undefeated record intact, prevailing on a split decision, but ended the fight looking as if he had taken all the worst of it. Badly hurt in the fifth round and again in the 11th, he repaired to his dressing room with a swollen nose and two black eyes.
This fight, reads a story in a Canadian paper, “persuaded him to scale back his ultra-aggressive style in favor of a more cerebral, defensive approach.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying that Camacho devolved into a runner.
In his next fight, Camacho proved too clever for Cornelius Boza-Edwards, winning a unanimous decision, but the crowd didn’t like it when Hector spent the last two rounds on his bicycle and there were boos aplenty as the match wended to its conclusion. This would be the Macho Man’s final fight as a lightweight. He moved up to 140 where a slew of attractive match-ups awaited, notably a showdown with Julio Cesar Chavez.
Camacho and Chavez touched gloves in Las Vegas on Sept. 13, 1992, before an announced crowd of 19,100 at the UNLV basketball arena in what reportedly was the fastest sellout in Las Vegas boxing history up to that date. Chavez, widely seen as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, advanced his record to 82-0 with a lopsided decision, winning all 12 rounds on the card of one of the judges. The Macho Man, who had avenged his lone defeat to Greg Haugen, declined to 41-2.
This wasn’t a milquetoast performance by Camacho. He simply couldn’t deal with Chavez’s unrelenting pressure. LA Times scribe Alan Malamud wrote that Hector showed unexpected grit by trading with Chavez after his legs were gone, thereby reducing him to a stationary target. But more brickbats came Camacho’s way following setbacks to Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. He lasted the distance in both bouts but was roundly out-pointed. By the third round of the De La Hoya fight, wrote Kevin Iole, it was a foregone conclusion that De La Hoya would win.
Between the Trinidad and De La Hoya fights, staged 44 months apart, Camacho had 21 fights and won them all. His victims were mostly journeyman with two notable exceptions. On June 22, 1996, he scored a 12-round unanimous decision over 45-year-old Roberto Duran. Eight months later, he defeated another faded legend when he stopped Sugar Ray Leonard in the fifth round. Leonard, who had been out of the ring for six years, was forever retiring and unretiring and Camacho retired him for good. Both bouts were in Atlantic City.
A wag wrote that Sugar Ray was 40 years old going on 41 and that Camacho was 35 years old going on puberty.
Camacho’s advisors kept him busy to keep his name in the news and Hector did his part by making the news for bad behavior outside the ring. In January of 2005, he was arrested for the November 2004 burglary of a computer store in Gulfport, Mississippi. He went there to retrieve a laptop that was being repaired but entered the property after hours by way of the ceiling. An illegal drug, ecstasy, was found in his hotel room when he was placed under arrest.
After serving five months in jail, Camacho was released with the understanding that he would be placed under house arrest for one year when he returned to Puerto Rico but, by all accounts, the authorities in Puerto Rico were never notified of this arrangement.
Camacho’s frequent misdeeds, once seen as the amusing antics of a fun-loving man-child, came to be seen in a different light as he grew older; as a pattern of behavior that betrayed a dark side in his personality.
In a 1985 conversation with New York Times boxing writer Michael Katz, Camacho’s estranged manager Billy Giles said, “someday he’ll wind up like Tyrone Everett, maybe worse,” the reference to a talented junior lightweight from Philadelphia who was murdered under sordid circumstances.
That proved to be eerily prophetic.
Camacho had 20 more fights after his hollow performance against Oscar De La Hoya, ending his career as a bloated middleweight. His only noteworthy opponent during this final phase of his boxing career was Duran who was then 50 years old when they clashed in Denver. In a bout that echoed their first meeting, Hector won a unanimous decision. This was Roberto Duran’s farewell fight. Camacho soldiered on for eight more bouts, winning five.
In November of 2012, thirty months after his last ring assignment, Hector Camacho and a companion were ambushed as they sat in a car in the darkened parking lot of a Bayamon, Puerto Rico bar. The companion died instantly in the hail of bullets. Police found nine packets of cocaine on the decedent and an open packet of cocaine in the car.
Camacho’’s funeral was held at Harlem’s landmark Saint Cecilia’s Church. Hundreds of mourners stood in the cold outside the church as his casket was being placed in the funeral car. They cheered and shouted Camacho’s battle cry, “Macho Time,” as the hearse pulled away.
They say you shouldn’t speak bad about the dead, so we will let Bones Adams have the last word. “Hector had his demons,” says Adams, “but he was a great friend, a nice, kind, and caring guy.”
—
Editor’s note: For more on Hector Camacho, check out Christian Giudice’s biography, “Macho Time: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of Hector Camacho,” published by Hamilcar in 2020.
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Avila Perspective, Chap. 304: A Year of Transformation in Boxing and More
A subtle transformation in professional boxing is taking place with the biggest fights no longer placed in Las Vegas, New York or Los Angeles. Instead, they are heading to the Middle East.
Golden Boy Promotions joined the crowd last week with one of their stronger fight cards taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The main attractions were new unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez of Mexico along with Puerto Rico’s diminutive Oscar Collazo unifying the minimumweight division.
And there is more to come.
Matchroom Boxing seemed to lead the way in this rerouting of major boxing events. It goes as far back as December 2019 when Anthony Joshua fought Andy Ruiz in a rematch for the heavyweight championship in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.
Little by little major fights are being rerouted to Saudi Arabia.
Is it a good thing or not?
For promoters looking to cut costs it’s definitely welcomed. But what does it do for the fan base accustomed to saving their money to buy tickets for one or two major events?
Now there is talk of Shakur Stevenson, Devin Haney and Terence Crawford heading to the Middle East to fight on major cards sponsored by “Riyad Spring.” It’s a new avenue for the sport of pro boxing.
This past week Golden Boy and its roster of Latino fighters took its turn and showed off their brand of aggressive fights. Some like Collazo and Arnold Barboza made the best of their moments. And, of course, Zurdo proved he should have moved up in weight years ago. He could be the Comeback Fighter of the Year.
Benavidez vs Morrell
Interim light heavyweight champion David Benavidez accepted a challenge from WBA light heavyweight titlist David Morrell to meet on Feb. 1 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Bad blood between the two tall fighters already exists.
Morrell claims Benavidez is over-rated.
“I’m getting the knockout. 100%. He’s all talk and no bite. He can’t do what he thinks he’s gonna do,” said Morrell. “He has no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s provoking me and now I want to go out there and beat the crap out of him. I’m here now and none of that talk matters.”
Benavidez begs to differ.
“Here we are again. I told you that I was going to give you the fights you want to see, and now we’re here,” Benavidez said while in Los Angeles. “Morrell has been talking about me for a while and disrespecting me. He wanted to make it personal with me, so I’m personally going to break his mouth. That’ll give him something to remember me by.”
Also scheduled to fight on the fight card are Isaac Cruz, Stephen Fulton, Brandon Figueroa and Jesus Ramos Jr.
Netflix
No surprise for me with the massive success of the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson event on the Most Valuable Promotions boxing card last week.
According to Netflix there were 108 million people tuned into the event last Friday that also featured the incredible Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor rematch. Another exciting card was the men’s welterweight clash between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw.
If fans weren’t satisfied with the Paul fight, they certainly got their fulfillment with the world title fights, especially Serrano and Taylor who were estimated to be viewed by more than 72 million people. No female fight in history can touch those numbers.
So, what’s next for Netflix in terms of boxing?
West Coast Blues
Southern California is usually a hotbed for boxing events no matter what time of the year. But this year only a few boxing cards are taking place within a driving distance until the end of the year.
Las Vegas is in slumber and Southern California has a few smaller boxing cards still on schedule. Arizona has a significant Top Rank fight card in a few weeks as does Golden Boy Promotions in the Inland Empire.
Here are some upcoming fight events worth noting:
Dec. 5 – at OC Hangar in Costa Mesa, Calif. Vlad Panin vs Sal Briceno by SOCA Fights.
Dec. 7 – at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Rafael Espinoza vs Robeisy Ramirez and Oscar Valdez vs Emanuel Navarrete by Top Rank.
Dec. 13, at Chumash Casino 360 in Santa Ynez, Calif. Carlos Balderas vs Cesar Villarraga by 360 Promotions.
Dec. 14 at Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif. Alexis Rocha vs Raul Curiel by Golden Boy Promotions.
Turkeys in East L.A.
The 25th annual Turkey Giveaway by Golden Boy takes place on Saturday Nov. 23, at Oscar De La Hoya Animo High School starting at 11 a.m.
It’s incredible that 25 years have passed since the inception of this yearly event. Many current and past fighters for the promotion company will be passing out turkeys and meeting fans. Among those expected to appear are Alexis Rocha, Victor Morales, Joel Iriarte, Bryan Lua and others.
Photo: Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren, and HE Turki Alalshikh at the Joshua-Dubois fight
To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE
Featured Articles
Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-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 on the left).
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
-
Featured Articles6 days ago
The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Omar Trinidad Defeats Argentina’s Hector Sosa and Other Results
-
Featured Articles1 week ago
Avila Perspective, Chap. 304: Mike Tyson Returns; Latino Night in Riyadh
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later
-
Featured Articles4 weeks ago
Coachella Prospects Manny Flores, Grant Flores and Jose Sanchez All Win at Fantasy Springs
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO
-
Featured Articles3 weeks ago
With Olympic Boxing on the Ropes, Three Elite U.S. Amateurs Shine in Colorado
-
Featured Articles2 weeks ago
The Davis Brothers Hit the Trifecta in Their Norfolk Homecoming