Catching Up with Jonnie Rice as He Prepares for His Rematch with Michael Coffie

Published

2 years ago

November 19, 2021

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.

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Arne K. Lang

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

5 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to liver the from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round time. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

4 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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