British Boxing 2021 Year in Review

Published

3 years ago

December 31, 2021

Last year, British boxing was left to sink or swim on its own.

While the British government could not wait to line up lucrative support packages for those sports traditionally beloved by the British upper-classes, including the millionaire’s playground that is horse-racing, boxing, traditionally a working-class pursuit, was left to sink or swim.

It swam, then ran a mile for good measure. British boxing has proven that it has the heart to match its lungs and even the doldrums of the COVID-19 pandemic and the disastrous economic damage that accompanied it could not take its measure.

Here, we will review the year in British boxing that was 2021.

British Fighter of the Year: Josh Taylor

Everybody keeps saying you’re up against an American with Mexican blood…But he’s up against a mad Scotsman. The Romans built a wall to keep us out because we’re mental.

What a year it has been for British fighters. The mighty Tyson Fury cemented his place at the top of boxing’s tree with a thrilling destruction of Deontay Wilder in their third fight, despite being stricken with COVID-19 and personal disaster; flyweight Sunny Edwards dethroned the iconic South African veteran Moruti Mthalane and then defended against the ranked Jason Mama at year’s end; Lawrence Okolie stepped up and thrashed Polish tough Krzysztof Glowacki to establish himself as one of the world’s premier cruiserweights.

Still, I did not have to think for long before selecting Josh Taylor as the British fighter of the year.

This is despite the fact that he only stepped out once in 2021 whereas Edwards and Okolie both managed two fights; if ever there was a clear-cut case of quality over quantity, however, this was it.

Jose Carlos Ramirez was the last hold-out in Taylor’s 140lb backyard, wielding two of the straps handed out by the various ABCs in exchange for cash. It is a sign of a true champion that he will brook no resistance, and so it was for Taylor, who set out for Las Vegas to make his extant number one status definitive.

Josh Taylor won “the fight boxing had been waiting for” but it wasn’t easy. The difference was Taylor’s spite, his innate ability to throw his humanity out of the window and enforce his will on his opponent. He did this by dropping Ramirez twice in middle-rounds, once in the sixth and once in the seventh. Here he married class to spite, stepping back for the first knockdown to bring Ramirez onto a hard southpaw left that dropped him and rattled him but from which he almost immediately recovered. It made the brutal left-uppercut that deposited Ramirez to his backside once more in the seventh more impressive. This time Ramirez was hurt and given Taylor’s finishing credentials, was probably saved by the bell.

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Ramirez fought back hard to make the fight very close, but it was satisfying that these knockdowns were the difference on each of the official scorecards, and to mine, all of which read 114-112 Taylor. The Scotsman now holds victories over both his number one and number two 140lb contenders, his position as the best fighter in this division unassailable.

British Fight of the Year: Troy Williamson vs Ted Cheeseman

Both fought to extreme levels of exhaustion there. You can only watch in awe and applaud. – Tony Bellew.

For the second consecutive year, Ted Cheeseman finds himself in the British fight of the year. Last year, Cheeseman won a thrill-a-minute decision against Sam Eggington; this year he dropped a violent loss that doubles as the British knockout of the year.

The two men met in October for the 154lb British title, a belt that continues to inspire a cult following among fighters and to generate more than its fair share of supercharged domestic combat as a result. Cheeseman, a Londoner, was in possession of the title and Troy Williamson, out of Darlington, wanted it.

Cheeseman (17-3-1) is the everyman here. He has seen everything the British fight game has to offer, good and bad. He has been robbed, afforded more chances than he might deserve but has generated the fandom that comes of delivering on those chances. He is consistently in good fights and sometimes in great fights and is grateful for the opportunity.

Williamson is not those things. 17-0-1, he believes himself better than British level and openly stated it to be the case. Cheeseman bristled and set out in the first round to dominate, to push “the better man” back with hard punches, determining to overcome his lack of speed with a power-attack to the body. Williamson met him. His corner begged him to “keep it at range” between the first and second round. Williamson tried and the second was quieter but these two had determined to dominate one-another. When Cheeseman rattled Williamson with power-punches at the end of the second, the equal and opposite reaction awaited only the bell to begin the third.

When does such strategy become attrition? Sometimes it happens almost in secret, you glance down at your scorecard, and you glance up and two men are at war. This one arguably didn’t catch fire in the same way as Cheeseman-Eggington had the year before, but every minute of every round was closely contested, with clean, hard punches landed in turn-and-turnabout, a pattern that soon became both alarming and inspiring.

Every time Williamson’s right-handed shots seemed about to decide matters, Cheeseman would find a risky uppercut or left-hook to the body; either the sixth or seventh could have been the British round of the year. By the tenth, both had been hurt and both were near the bottom of their respective wells.

Cheeseman was absolutely deboned in that fateful tenth, rendered senseless by uppercuts and then a winging left-hook. Williamson delayed his celebration until Cheeseman’s disastrously failing nervous system could be brought under control. He was walked from the ring before the winner was announced and would have been passing out of the auditorium as news of Williamson’s victory reached his ears. His thoughts in that moment remain private.

“I wasn’t backing down from no tear up,” were the thoughts of the winner.

Quite.

British Breakthrough Fighter of the Year: Lerrone Richards

The future’s bright. I just can’t wait. – Lerrone Richards.

There is very little excitement about Lerrone Richards.

This is odd given that he currently ranks number five to the super-middleweight championship martialled by Canelo Alvarez. Richards had a huge year, and it makes no sense that he continues to fly below so many radars.

Lerrone

Twenty-nine years old, Richards is out of Surrey, England and is on the short side at 5’11 with a 71” reach. Sporting both a physique and a flattop that recalls the prime of one Chris Eubank Snr., Richards is working on a line in patter to match. Stop-start in the early part of his career, he seemed in danger of stalling, but a chance meeting with trainer Dave Coldwell has led to a hound-like commitment to fighting and seemingly to excel in fighting. Last week, on the undercard of Joseph Parker’s second meeting with Dereck Chisora, Richards landed in earnest, defeating number seven 168lb contender Carlos Gongora.

Gongora, who holds a 2020 victory over the much-touted Kazak Ali Akhmedov, was in possession of a strap but Richards, a former British, Commonwealth and European champion seemed in no way intimidated by the occasion. This is the benefit of what is known in Britain as “doing it properly”, of fighting an apprenticeship at three defined title levels before stepping up to match a boxer from the top ten. Richards is massive across the back and huge across the shoulders, a man of real strength, but he uses footwork and quick-handed forays to score points. It was Gongora who seemed the more bemused of the two by the midway point, while Richards hoovered up points.

No puncher, Dave Coldwell has promised that the stoppages will come as Richards evolves, but now 16-0 with zero stoppages, that seems unlikely. But he is learning his trade and despite the bizarre split decision the judges found, he dominated Gongora with skill.

At the end of 2020, Richards was boxing an eight-rounder against a fighter called Timo Laine. At the end of 2021, he is one big win away from joining the conversation as to Canelo’s next opponent. A breakout year indeed.

I’ll sneak him one more gong before we bid him farewell: Lerrone “Sniper the Boss” Richards also has British boxing’s best nickname.

British Prospect of the Year: Galal Yafai

Being a world champion, it might financially be better in the long run, but being Olympic champion is something I can live with forever. – Galal Yafai.

British boxing, then, is healthy, despite the odds and despite the ravages that have afflicted it not. We sport two men in the pound-for-pound top ten and three of the world’s four premier heavyweights – most of all though, the sport is festooned with prospects of both genders and in many weight-classes. A short list of honourable mentions would have us here for a while but fortunately there is a standout prospect who will emerge as a professional in the coming year having conquered the world as an amateur in 2021.

Galal Yafai, one of three fighting brothers, will turn professional in early 2022, at either 112 or 115lbs.

His path to an outstanding gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics was not an easy one. Yafai drew Cuban legend Yosbany Veitia, a 190-fight veteran, in his opening match. A victory saw him rewarded with a semi-final against Kazakh nationals finalist (Sweet Scientists will know the true meaning of that sentence) Saken Bibossinov. In the final, he dropped Carlo Paalam to his haunches among the ropes in the first round and cantered home to win the gold.

“I’m at the top of the tree now with [my] brothers,” he told a British newspaper this year. “I think so, I won’t tell them that though!”

In truth, Galal has a long way to go to emulate Khalid, who held a belt and measured one of the best superflies in the world before running into all-time great Roman Gonzalez in 2020.

At the cusp of 2022 with a record of 0-0, anything seems possible.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 289: East LA, Claressa Shields and More

East Los Angeles has long been a haven for some of the best fighters around if you can keep them out of trouble. For every Oscar De La Hoya or Seniesa Estrada there are thousands derailed by crime, drugs or drinking.

Boxing has always been a favorite sport of East L.A. Every family has an uncle or two who boxes.

On Friday, 360 Promotions’ Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) fights Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1) in the main event at Commerce Casino, in Commerce, CA. UFC Fight Pass will stream the fight card.

The City of Commerce used to be part of East L.A. until 1960 when it incorporated. It’s still considered to be part of East Los Angeles, but informally.

Plenty of fighters come out of East L.A. but few make it all the way like De La Hoya and Estrada. Will Trinidad be the one?

The first world champion from East L.A. or “East Los” as some call it, was Solly Garcia Smith back in the late 1800s. Others were Richie Lemos, Art Frias and Joey Olivo. There is also 1984 Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzalez.

Once again 360 Promotions brings its popular brand of fights to the area. On this fight card includes two female bouts. One features Roxy Verduzco (1-0) the former amateur star fighting Colleen Davis (3-1-1) in a featherweight fight.

All that action takes place on Friday.

Elite Boxing

The next day, also in East L.A., Elite Boxing stages another boxing card at Salesian High School located at 960 S. Soto Street in the Boyle Heights area of East Los Angeles.

Elite Boxing has promoted several successful boxing cards at the Catholic high school grounds. The area is saturated by many of the best eateries in Los Angeles. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out yourself and grab some of that delicious food.

Boxing has long been a favorite sport of anyone who lives in East L.A. It’s a fight town equal to Philadelphia, Brooklyn or Detroit. There’s something different about the area. For more than 100 years some of the best fighters continue to come out of its boxing gyms. Some will be performing on these club shows.

For tickets or information go to www.eliteboxingusa.com

Claressa Shields in Detroit

Speaking of fight towns, pound-for-pound best Claressa Shields who won two Olympic Gold Medals in boxing, moves up another weight division to tackle the WBC heavyweight world champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse on Saturday, July 27, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

DAZN will stream the heavy-duty fight card.

Shields (14-0) cleaned out the super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight divisions and now wants to add the big girls to her conquests. She will be facing Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) who holds the WBC belt.

The last time Shields gloved up was more than a year ago when she fought Maricela Cornejo. Don’t blame Shields. She loves to fight. She loves to win. The last time Shields lost a fight was in the amateurs and that was three presidential administrations ago.

Shields doesn’t lose.

I wonder if Las Vegas even takes bets on her fights?

The only fight she may have been an underdog was against Savannah Marshall who was the last opponent to defeat her. And that was in 2012 in China. When they met as pros two years ago, Shields avenged her loss with a blistering attack.

Don’t get Shields mad.

Perhaps her toughest foe as a pro was in her pro debut when she clashed with Franchon Crews-Dezurn in Las Vegas. It was four rounds of fists and fury as the two pounded each other on the undercard of Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev in November 2016.

That was a ferocious debut for both female pugilists.

Assisting Shields on this fight card will be several intriguing male bouts. One guy you should pay special attention is Tito Mercado (15-0, 14 KOs) a super lightweight prospect from Pomona, California.

Many excellent fighters have come out of Pomona including Sugar Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley Jr., Alberto Davila and Richie Sandoval who just passed away this week.

Sandoval was best known for his 15-round war with Philadelphia’s Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight world title in 1984. Read the story by Arne K. Lang on this link: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-boxing-articles-boxing-news-videos-rankings-and-results/81467-former-world-bantamweight-champion-richie-sandoval-passes-away-at-age-63 .

Fights to Watch

Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Omar Trinidad (15-0-1) vs Viktor Slavinskyi (15-2-1).

Sat. ESPN+ 12:30 p.m. Joe Joyce (16-2) vs Derek Chisora (34-13).

Sat. DAZN 3 p.m. Claressa Shields (14-0) vs Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-1), Michel Rivera (25-1) vs Hugo Roldan (22-2-1); Tito Mercado (15-0) vs Hector Sarmiento (21-2).

Omar Trinidad photo by Lina Baker

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Arne’s Almanac: Jake Paul and Women’s Boxing, a Curmudgeon’s Take

Published

3 days ago

July 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Jake Paul can fight more than a little. The view from here is that he would make it interesting against any fringe contender in the cruiserweight division. However, Jake’s boxing acumen pales when paired against his skill as a flim-flam artist.

Jake brought a 9-1 record into last weekend’s bout with Mike Perry. As noted by boxing writer Paul Magno, Jake’s previous opponents consisted of “a You Tuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized and inactive fall-guy boxers.”

Mike Perry, a 32-year-old Floridian, was undefeated (6-0, 3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle boxer after forging a 14-8 record in UFC bouts. In pre-fight blurbs, Perry was billed as the baddest bare knuckle boxer of all time, but against Jake Paul he proved to have very unrefined skills as a conventional boxer which Team Paul undoubtedly knew all along. Perry lasted into the eighth round in a one-sided fight that could have been stopped a lot sooner.

Jake Paul is both a boxer and a promoter. As a promoter, he handles Amanda Serrano, one of the greatest female boxers in history. That makes him the person most responsible (because the buck stops with him) for the wretched mismatch in last Saturday’s co-feature, the bout between Serrano and Stevie Morgan.

Morgan, who took up boxing two years ago at age 33, brought a 14-1 record. Nicknamed the Sledgehammer, she had won 13 of her 14 wins by knockout, eight in the opening round. However, although she resides in Florida, all but one of those 13 knockouts happened in Colombia.

“We found that in Colombia there were just more opportunities for women’s boxing than in the United States,” she told a prominent boxing writer whose name we won’t mention.

The truth is that, for some folks, Colombia is the boxing equivalent of a feeder lot for livestock, a place where a boxer can go to fatten their record. The opportunities there were no greater than in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995. It was there that Peter McNeeley prepped for his match with Mike Tyson with a 6-second knockout of professional punching bag Frankie Hines. (Six seconds? So it would be written although no one seems to have been there to witness it.)

Serrano vs Morgan was understood to be a stay-busy fight for Amanda whose rematch with Katie Taylor was postponed until November. Stevie Morgan, to her credit, answered the bell for the second round whereas others in her situation would have remained on the stool and invented an injury to rationalize it. Thirty-eight seconds later it was all over and Ms. Morgan was free to go home and use her sledgehammer to do some light dusting.

The Paul-Perry and Serrano-Morgan fights played out in a sold-out arena in Tampa before an estimated 17,000. Those without a DAZN subscription paid $64.95 for the livestream. Paul’s next promotion, where he will touch gloves with 58-year-old Mike Tyson (unless Iron Mike pulls a Joe Biden and pulls out; a capital idea) with Serrano-Taylor II the semi-main, will almost certainly rake in more money than any other boxing promotion this year.

Asked his opinion of so-called crossover boxing by a reporter for a college newspaper, the venerable boxing promoter Bob Arum said, “It’s not my bag but folks who don’t like it shouldn’t get too worked up over it because no one is stealing from anybody.” True enough, but for some of us, the phenomenon is distressing.

—

The next big women’s fight happens Saturday in Detroit where Claressa Shields seeks a world title in a third weight class against WBC heavyweight belt-holder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist, undefeated in 14 fights as a pro, Shields is very good, arguably the best female boxer of her generation which makes her, arguably, the best female boxer of all time. But turning away Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs) won’t elevate her stature in our eyes.

Purportedly 17-4 as an amateur, the Canadian won her title in her second crack at it. Back in August of 2017, she challenged Cancun’s Alejandra Jimenez in Cancun and was stopped in the third round. Entering the bout, Lepage-Joanisse was 3-0 as a pro and had never fought a match slated for more than four rounds.

Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse

True, on the women’s side, the heavyweight bracket is a very small pod. A sanctioning body has to make concessions to harness a sanctioning fee. Nonetheless, how absurd that a woman who had answered the bell for only 11 rounds would be deemed qualified to compete for a world title. (FYI: Alejandra Jimenez was purportedly born a man. She left the sport with a 12-0-1 record after her win over Franchon Crews Dazurn was changed to a no-contest when she tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol.)

Following her defeat to Jimenez, Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, now 29 years old, was out of action for six-and-a-half years. When she returned, she was still a heavyweight, but a much slender heavyweight. She carried 231 pounds for Jimenez. In her most recent bout where she captured the vacant WBC title with a split decision over Argentina’s Abril Argentina Vidal, she clocked in at 173 ¼. (On the distaff side, there’s no uniformity among the various sanctioning bodies as to what constitutes a heavyweight.)

Claressa Shields doesn’t need Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse to reinforce her credentials as a future Hall of Famer. She made the cut a long time ago.

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Former World Bantamweight Champion Richie Sandoval Passes Away at Age 63

Published

4 days ago

July 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Richie Sandoval, who won the WBA and lineal bantamweight title in one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s and then, not quite two years later, suffered near-fatal injuries in a title defense, has passed away at the age of 63.

News circulated fast in the Las Vegas boxing community on Monday, July 22, the grapevine actuated by a tweet from Hall of Fame matchmaker Bruce Trampler: “Boxing and the Top Rank family lost one of our own last night in the passing of former WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval. It hurts personally and professionally to know that Richie is gone at age 63. RIP campeon.”

Details are vague but the cause of death was apparently a sudden heart attack that Sandoval experienced while visiting the Southern California home of his son of the same name.

Richie Sandoval put the LA County community of Pomona, California, on the boxing map before Shane Mosley came along and gave the town a more frequently-cited mention in the sports section of the papers. He came from a fighting family. An older brother, Albert “Superfly” Sandoval, became a big draw at LA’s fabled Olympic Auditorium while building a 35-2-1 record that included a failed bid to capture Lupe Pintor’s world bantamweight title.

Richie was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team that was stranded when U.S. President Jimmy Carter (and many other world leaders) boycotted the event as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

As a pro, Sandoval’s signature win was a 15^th-round stoppage of Jeff Chandler. They fought on April 7, 1984 in Atlantic City. Chandler was making the tenth defense of his world bantamweight title.

Despite being a heavy underdog, Sandoval dominated the fight, winning almost every round until the referee stepped in and waived it off. Chandler, who was 33-1-2 heading in and had avenged his lone defeat, never fought again.

Sandoval made two successful defenses before risking his title against Gaby Canizales on the undercard of Hagler-Mugabi in the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace. In round seven, Sandoval, who had a hellish time making the weight, was knocked down three times and suffered a seizure as he collapsed from the third knockdown. Stretchered out of the ring, he was rushed to the hospital where doctors reduced the swelling in his brain and beat the odds to save his life. This would be Richie’s lone defeat. He finished his pro career with a record of 29-1 (17 KOs).

Bob Arum cushioned some of the pain by giving Richie a $25,000 bonus and offering him a lifetime job at Top Rank which Richie accepted. And let the record show that Arum was good to his word.

A more elaborate portrait of Richie Sandoval was published in these pages in 2017. You can check it out HERE. May he rest in peace.

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