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Venerated Sportswriter William Nack Had a Soft Spot for the Sweet Science
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William Nack came late to sportswriting, but once he did, it was gangbusters.
Nack, who would have celebrated his 81st birthday on February 4, spent 11 years at New York Newsday and 23 years at Sports Illustrated, and at each stop left an indelible mark.
At the Long Island-based daily, Nack, a native of Chicago, a graduate of the University of Illinois, and a Vietnam veteran, covered the environment and politics in addition to sports where his main focus was on horse racing and boxing.
Honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America with the 2004 A.J. Leibling Award and the 2017 recipient of the ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting, Nack found time to pen three books, including “Secretariat: The Making Of A Champion,” and his memoir, “My Turf: Horses, Boxers, Blood Money, And The Sporting Life.”
Richard O’Brien worked with Nack at Sports Illustrated. “I was a boxing reporter, writer, and the beat editor at S.I. for more than 25 years. As foreground, I was – and remain – a huge fan of Bill’s writing, and of Bill the man. Sentence for sentence, he was as good as anyone ever at the magazine, and he brought such a keen eye and such a huge heart to every story,” he said. “This was a man who could – and often did in the closing hours of an S.I. Christmas party – quote the final pages of ‘The Great Gatsby,’ word for word, in both English and Spanish. His command of language was just as lyrical.”
“Bill had an enormous passion for his writing, for diving into his subjects, gathering every possible detail and nuance, and working and reworking his stories until he felt he had everything just right,” he said. “I attended the first [Pernell] Whitaker-[Julio Cesar] Chavez fight with him at the [San Antonio] Alamodome in 1993. I was just a reporter then, running quotes for him, but he called me later that night – or, I should say, in the early morning hours long after the fight – to read me his lede. It was beautiful, perfect, but Bill was sweating it, working it, turning it over, worrying about it, as I think he did every story. I remember being thrilled, and honored, listening to him read it.”
“Bill wasn’t the kind of boxing writer you find hanging out in the gym all the time, or scrounging the press room buffet while gossiping with the rest of the media in the week before a big fight,” O’Brien offered. “He wasn’t covering four-rounders in Atlantic City or arguing over the latest junior middleweight rankings. His heart and his eye were drawn to the largest moments and greatest figures, yet he was able – again, in his passion and his commitment to research, reporting and interviewing – to get deeper with those subjects than anyone else.”
O’Brien referenced some of Nack’s boxing features to explain what made his work sparkle.
“His profiles of Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Larry Holmes, and others are brilliant (free from the accepted wisdom and clichés found in the stories of so many of his contemporaries),” he said. “I still go back now and then to read his piece on Sonny Liston, just for the beauty and the humanity that flows through it. Another great one is the piece he did in 1996 (“The Fight’s Over, Joe”) about Joe Frazier’s undying resentment towards Muhammad Ali. Just sad and beautiful.”
Nack was ringside in June 1980 when the ferocious Duran took on the slick and polished Leonard in their first meeting. Here are Nack’s first two paragraphs from Sports Illustrated of this 15-round battle:
Roberto Duran had finished his steak and potato, polished off a helping of sausages and now was working on his second soft drink of the afternoon. It had been weeks since Duran had been able to indulge his prodigious appetite, to yield to his weakness for Coca-Cola and 7-Up, but he was getting his fill now as he held court in a restaurant of the Hotel Bonaventure in Montreal. Just 13 hours earlier, in a ring set above second base at the Olympic Stadium, Duran had taken the World Boxing Council’s version of the welterweight championship of the world from Ray Leonard.
Duran’s child, 6-year-old Robertito, slipped away from the table and wrapped himself in the green belt with the huge gold medallion signifying that his father was now the champion. Duran spotted him and laughed. “Show them how you box,” Roberto said. The boy threw a straight right through the air and grimaced dutifully. “Hey hey!” Duran cried. For the first time in days, he was relaxed. He signed autographs. He posed for photographs. And he showed off his two new diamond rings, one for each hand, that his wife, Felicidad, had given him for his 29th birthday on June 16. There were only two visible signs of Duran’s whereabouts the night before – manifestations that he took as well as gave. A mouse, violet and red, swelled below his left eye – the work of Leonard’s right hand. And there was his own right hand, swathed in an Ace bandage that covered the bruises sustained when he pounded Leonard’s head and ribs.
Jack McCallum also worked with Nack and, like O’Brien, was impressed.
“What you have to understand, first, is that Bill was a superlative writer of anything. He was quite literally one of the best writers in the country on any subject,” he said. “Had he been writing politics or music or whatever interested him, he would be near the top. He just knew how to write – pacing, word choice, transition, all that stuff. We use tools to build a story, just like a carpenter uses them to build. Bill had all those tools.
McCallum, who primarily covered the NBA for the magazine and is the author of more than a half-dozen books, saw the difference between Nack and so many others.
“I think we all care about our subjects and want our pieces to be good, but Bill cared more,” he said. “I always tossed out this line about myself: It was easy for me to be pretty good. And sometimes I left it at that. Bill never left it at that. He wanted every piece to be great. He slaved over them. I don’t think all of us did that. Google his piece about Bobby Fischer, the chess genius.”
Boxing lends itself to great writing and Nack was extremely comfortable in this milieu.
“I do know that we all love characters. Those fly-by-night, shady [Damon] Runyonesque characters who don’t exist much anymore,” McCallum said. “But they’re still there in boxing, and Bill plugged into that.”
Nack was perched ringside for much of Duran’s legendary career.
Here are the first three paragraphs from Sports Illustrated of his November 1983 clash with Marvin Hagler at Caesars Palace:
Toward the close of the 12th round last Thursday night, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran fought at a savage pace. Duran scored with hard, straight right hands to Hagler’s face, and just before the bell, blood trickled from Hagler’s swollen left eye, as Duran taunted Hagler by pointing to his chin and saying, “Hit me! Hit me!” Hagler, the undisputed middleweight champion, obliged with a hard right as he chased Duran into a corner.
The crowd of 14,600 in the stadium at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas was on its feet roaring long after the bell had sounded. But the 12th, which Duran won with such a flourish, was mere prelude to what would happen in the next round. Duran brought the multitude up again, and again, and then it was chanting, “Dooooran! Dooooran! Dooooran!” Spurred on by the crowd and driven by the force of his own furious will and considerable talent, Duran, the WBA junior middleweight champion, appeared to seize control of the fight.
Midway through the 13th, Hagler struck Duran with a mighty left to the face, but Duran countered to the body, jarred Hagler with a sharp right to the head, cracked him with another right and then a third, and followed with a left and a right. Now someone in the crowd was blowing a bugle, a clarion call, it seemed, for Duran. At the bell he landed a final right to Hagler’s head, and Hagler smiled sarcastically as he went to his corner. It was Duran’s round, and Hagler knew it.
Alexander Wolff was the longest tenured writer at Sports Illustrated, retiring in 2016 after 36 years. An author or co-author and editor of nine books including his most recent, “Endpapers: A Family Story Of Books, War, Escape, And Home,” Wolff also admired and appreciated Nack’s unique gifts.
“Bill wrote a lovely sentence. And for all he had lived through, in Vietnam and on big-city newspaper beats, he never lost the childlike curiosity that’s a mark of every good journalist,” he said. “When he took on a subject, he seemed to burrow down some hole and root around in it, then emerge into the sunlight with this fully formed, carefully considered take.”
Wolff went on: “He would tell tales of how hard he found the process, but the miracle was that the finished product, on the page, betrayed none of that,” he said. “In a way, boxing mirrors a Bill Nack story: lots of suffering and pain beneath the surface that might be called “sweet,” as in “sweet science.”
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Cain Sandoval KOs Mark Bernaldez in the Featured Bout at Santa Ynez
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Northern California’s Cain Sandoval remained undefeated with a knockout win over Mark Bernaldez in a super lightweight battle on Friday on a 360 Promotions card.
Sandoval (15-0, 13 KOs) of Sacramento needed four rounds to figure out tough Filipino fighter Bernaldez (25-7, 14 KOs) in front of a packed crowd at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez.
Bernaldez had gone eight rounds against Mexico’s very tough Oscar Duarte. He showed no fear for Sandoval’s reputed power and both fired bombs at each other from the second round on.
Things turned in favor of Sandoval when he targeted the body and soon had Bernaldez in retreat. It was apparent Sandoval had discovered a weakness.
In the beginning of the fourth Sandoval fired a stiff jab to the body that buckled Bernaldez but he did not go down. And when both resumed in firing position Sandoval connected with an overhand right and down went the Filipino fighter. He was counted out by referee Rudy Barragan at 34 seconds of the round.
“I’m surprised he took my jab to the body. I respect that. I have a knockout and I’m happy about that,” Sandoval said.
Other Bouts
Popular female fighter Lupe Medina (9-0) remained undefeated with a solid victory over the determined Agustina Vazquez (4-3-2) by unanimous decision after eight rounds in a minimumweight fight between Southern Californians.
Early on Vazquez gave Medina trouble disrupting her patter with solid jabs. And when Medina overloaded with combination punches, she was laced with counters from Vazquez during the first four rounds.
Things turned around in the fifth round as Medina used a jab to keep Vazquez at a preferred distance. And when she attacked it was no more than two-punch combination and maintaining a distance.
Vazquez proved determined but discovered clinching was not a good idea as Medina took advantage and overran her with blows. Still, Vazquez looked solid. All three judges saw it 79-73 for Medina.
A battle between Southern Californian’s saw Compton’s Christopher Rios (11-2) put on the pressure all eight rounds against Eastvale’s Daniel Barrera (8-1-1) and emerged the winner by majority decision in a flyweight battle.
It was Barrera’s first loss as a pro. He never could discover how to stay off the ropes and that proved his downfall. Neither fighter was knocked down but one judge saw it 76-76, and two others 79-73 for Rios.
In a welterweight fight Gor Yeritsyan (20-1,16 KOs) scorched Luis Ramos (23-7) with a 12-punch combination the sent him to the mat in the second round. After Ramos beat the count he was met with an eight punch volley and the fight was stopped at 2:11 of the second round by knockout.
Super feather prospect Abel Mejia (7-0, 5 KOs) floored Alfredo Diaz (9-12) in the fifth round but found the Mexican fighter to be very durable in their six-round fight. Mejia caught Diaz with a left hook in the fifth round for a knockdown. But the fight resumed with all three judges scoring it 60-53 for Mejia who fights out of El Modena, Calif.
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The Return of David Alaverdian
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By TSS Special Correspondent David Harazduk — After David Alaverdian (8-0-1, 6 KOs) scored a gritty victory against a tough Nicaraguan journeyman named Enrique Irias, his plans suddenly changed. The flashy flyweight from Nahariya, Israel hoped to face even tougher opposition and then challenge for a world title within a year or so. But a prolonged illness forced David to rip up the script.
The Irias fight was over 22 months ago. On Saturday, Feb. 22, Alaverdian will be making his first appearance in the ring since that win when he faces veteran road warrior Josue “Zurdo” Morales (31-16-4, 13 KOs) at the Westgate Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It’s the fifth promotion by Las Vegas attorney Stephen Reid whose inaugural card was at this venue on Feb. 13, 2020.
“I’m excited to come back,” Alaverdian declared.
During his preparation for Irias two years ago, Alaverdian felt fatigue after a routine six-round sparring session. “It was on April 1, 2023, about ten days before my fight. It felt like an April Fool’s joke,” he said. He came down with a sore throat, a headache, and congestion. He soon developed trouble breathing. At first, he thought his seasonal asthma had flared up, but his condition soon worsened. No matter what he did, Alaverdian could no longer take deep breaths. Fatigue continued to plague him. His heart constantly raced. Instead of breathing from his diaphragm, he was breathing from his chest. He sought out numerous doctors in the United States and in Israel.
His symptoms were finally diagnosed as Dysfunctional Breathing (DB). DB is a condition that can stem from stress and is often misdiagnosed. Its symptoms include dyspnea and tachycardia, both of which David experienced.
While receiving treatment, the Vegas-based pro went back to Israel where he coached aspiring fighters. “David’s influence on Israeli boxing is amazing, because he shows we can succeed in a big business even though we come from a small country,” said another undefeated Israeli flyweight, 20-year-old Yonatan Landman (7-0, 7 KOs). “A lot more Israelis are going to dare to succeed.”
Landman was able to work with Alaverdian during David’s return to Israel. “He is a great guy and a friend,” Landman said. “He has a lot of willingness to help, share his knowledge, and help you move forward.”
Alaverdian finally started to feel like he could compete again eight months ago. He won last year’s Israeli national amateur championship and competed in Olympic qualifiers. Now, he’s preparing to fight as a professional once again. “He doesn’t mention anything about [his breathing issues] like he did before,” his coach Cedric Ferguson said about this camp. “He’s been working like there’s no issue at all.”
It has been a whirlwind week for the 31-year-old Alaverdian. In addition to putting the finishing touches on his preparation ahead of Saturday’s comeback fight, David got married on Tuesday. His mom came over from Israel for the wedding and will stay for the fight. “It’s a good distraction,” David said of this week’s significant events. “It helps me. That way I don’t have to focus on the fight all day.”
Josue Morales, a 32 year old from Houston, hopes to play spoiler on Saturday. The crafty southpaw has never been stopped during his 52-fight career. “He’s a seasoned guy with a lot of experience,” Alaverdian said of Morales. “He knows how to move around the ring and is more of a technical boxer. He’s a tough opponent for someone who has been out of the ring for two years.”
A win Saturday night would complete a monumental week for David Alaverdian, both in and out of the ring, repairing the once-shredded script.
Doors open at the Westgate fight arena at 6:30 pm. The first bout goes at 7:00. Seven fights are scheduled including an 8-round female fight between Las Vegas light flyweight Yadira Bustillos and Argentine veteran Tamara Demarco.
NOTE: Author David Harazduk has run The Jewish Boxing Blog since 2010. You can find him at Twitter/X @JewishBoxing and Instagram.
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
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Two Candidates for the Greatest Fight Card in Boxing History
Saturday’s fight card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, topped by the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol for undisputed light heavyweight supremacy, was being hyped as the greatest boxing card ever. That was before Daniel Dubois took ill and had to pull out of his IBF world heavyweight title defense against Joseph Parker, yielding his slot to last-minute replacement Martin Bakole.
The view from here is that the card remains in the running for the best fight card ever, top to bottom. The public didn’t view Dubois as the legitimate heavyweight champion. That distinction goes to Oleksandr Usyk.
Terms like “greatest” are, of course, subjective. Are we referring to the most attractive match-ups or the greatest array of talent, or the card that gives the most satisfaction by churning out a multiplicity of entertaining fights?
We won’t know how satisfying this card is until after the fact. We won’t know whether the talent on display was the greatest ever assembled on one night until many years have passed. Contestants such as Shakur Stevenson, Vergil Ortiz Jr, and Hamzah Sheeraz are still in their twenties (Stevenson is the oldest of the three at age 27) and it’s too soon to gauge if they will leave the sport with a great legacy.
As for which fight card in history had the deepest pool of attractive match-ups, this is a query that is amenable to an operational definition. Betting lines are a useful tool for informing us whether or not a fight warrants our attention if the likelihood of witnessing a closely-contested bout is our primary consideration.
Based on these factors, I would submit that the current leader in the race for the best card ever assembled goes to Don King’s May 7, 1994 promotion at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Six future Hall of Famers – Julio Cesar Chavez, Ricardo Lopez, Azumah Nelson, Terry Norris, Julian Jackson, and Christy Martin — were on that card, an 11-fight, eight-hour marathon with five WBC world title fights, four of which were rematches.
These were the five title fights:
140 pounds: Julio Cesar Chavez (89-1-1, 77 KOs) vs. Frankie Randall (49-2-1, 39 KOs)
Odds: Chavez 3/1 (minus-300)
154 pounds: Terry Norris (37-4, 23 KOs) vs. Simon Brown (41-2, 30 KOs)
Odds: even (11/10 and take your pick)
160 pounds: Gerald McClellan (30-2, 28 KOs) vs. Julian Jackson (48-2, 45 KOs)
Odds: McClellan 7/2 (minus-350)
130 pounds: Azumah Nelson (37-2-2, 26 KOs) vs. Jesse James Leija (27-0-2, 13 KOs)
Odds: Nelson 17/10 (minus-170)
105 pounds: Ricardo Lopez (36-0, 27 KOs) vs. Kermin Guardia (21-0, 14 KOs)
Odds: none
Results
Chavez-Randall — Julio Cesar Chavez avenged his loss to Frankie Randall, but not without controversy. An accidental clash of heads in the eighth round left Chavez with a bad gash on his forehead. Ring physician Flip Homansky would have allowed the bout to continue if that had been Chavez’s preference, but El Gran Campeon wasn’t so inclined. A WBC rule specified that in the event of a significant injury accruing from an accidental head butt, the less-damaged fighter is penalized a point. The fight went to the scorecards where Chavez won a split decision that would have been a draw without the point deduction. The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Chavez, but the big bets were mostly on Randall and the odds got nicked down on the day of the fight.
Brown-Norris — In their first meeting in December of the previous year, Simon Brown dominated Terry Norris from the opening bell before stopping him in the fourth round. It was a massive upset. Norris was in the conversation for the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. In the rematch, Norris opened a slight favorite, but the late money was on Brown. And, once again, the so-called “sharps” were on the wrong side. Terry Norris, the would-be avenger, won a comfortable decision.
McClellan-Jackson — A murderous puncher, Gerald McClellan bombed out Julian Jackson in 83 seconds, or four rounds quicker than in their first engagement. Jackson was also a murderous puncher and attracted money in the sports books, lowering the price on the victorious McClellan who yet remained a solid favorite.
Nelson-Leija – WBC President Jose Sulaiman mandated this rematch after the first meeting ended in a draw after an error was found in the tabulation of one of the scorecards, overturning the original verdict which had Nelson retaining his title on a split decision. Leija thought he was robbed and was the rightful winner in the do-over, outworking Nelson to win a unanimous decision. At age 35, Azumah was getting long in the tooth.
Lopez-Guardia – Before the digital age, bookmakers didn’t trifle to post lines on bouts that on paper were egregious mismatches, save perhaps a fight of great magnitude. Guardia, the Colombian challenger, overachieved by lasting the distance in a fight with no knockdowns, but “Finito” won a lopsided decision.
A Note on Odds
Betting lines serve a useful purpose for boxing historians; they quantify the magnitude of an upset. However, quoting odds is tricky because they are fluid and vary somewhat from place to place. What this means is that two journalists can quote different odds on the same event and they both can get it right – unless there is a significant disparity. The odds quoted above are the closing lines at the MGM Grand or, at the very least, a very close approximation.
Saturday in Riyadh
One reason why tomorrow’s fight card is the best ever, said the tub-thumpers, is that the card (in its original conformation) included seven world title fights. But that’s no big deal There are so many title fights nowadays that the term “world title” has been trivialized. And what wasn’t acknowledged is that three of the title fights were of the “interim” stripe.
However – and this is a big deal — a glance at the odds informs us that tomorrow’s card is chock-full of competitive match-ups (at least on paper) and from that aspect, a blend of quality and quantity, it is a doozy of a boxing card.
The greatest boxing linemaker of my generation, now deceased, once told me that any fight where the “chalk” was less than a 3/1 favorite is essentially a “pick-‘em” fight. Yes, I know that makes no sense mathematically. However, I know what he was getting at. In a baseball game, for example, it’s very rare to find a team favored by odds of more than 3/1. In boxing, where self-serving promoters are constantly feeding us King Kong vs. Mickey Mouse, odds higher than 3/1 are the norm.
As this is being written, there are six fights on Saturday’s card where one could play the favorite without laying more than 3/1. I believe this is unprecedented. Moreover, the main event and a fascinating match-up on the undercard, Vergil Ortiz Jr vs Israil Madrimov, are virtual toss-ups with the favorites, Beterbiev and Ortiz, currently available at 5/4 (minus-125). Another very intriguing fight is the heavyweight contest between late bloomers Agit Kabayel and Zhilei Zhang which finds the less-heralded Kabayel cloaked as a small favorite. And kudos to Joseph Parker for accepting Martin Bakole when he could have held out for a lesser opponent. If Bakole is in shape (a big “if”), he will be a handful.
And so, where does tomorrow’s card rank on the list of best boxing cards ever? Right up there near the top, we would argue, and, if the bouts in large part are memorably entertaining, we would push it ahead of Don King’s May 7, 1994 extravaganza.
That’s the view from here. Feel free to dissent.
Postscript: If you plan to watch the entire card ($25.99 on DAZN for U.S. buyers), it would help to stock up on some munchies. The first fight (Joshua Buatsi vs. Callum Smith) is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 a.m. for us viewers in the Pacific Time Zone / 11:45 a.m. ET. If the show adheres tight to its schedule (no guarantee), Beterbiev and Bivol are expected to enter the ring at 3:00 p.m. PT/6:00 p.m. ET.
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