The Hauser Report: Dmitry Bivol Should Not Be Allowed to Fight Canelo Alvarez

Published

2 years ago

March 12, 2022

The Hauser Report: Dmitry Bivol Should Not Be Allowed to Fight Canelo Alvarez

“The ambition is global domination. It is like a snowball that keeps on growing. We never stop trying to do more or be bigger or go to new territories.”

No, that wasn’t Vladimir Putin. It was Eddie Hearn (as reported by Ron Lewis on May 16, 2021). Hearn, of course, didn’t say it in the context of geopolitics. He was talking about Matchroom Boxing and DAZN.

Matchroom and DAZN are now planning to promote and stream a championship fight between Canelo Alvarez and Dmitry Bivol at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 7. Because Bivol is a Russian citizen who lives in Russia, there have been calls to replace him as Canelo’s opponent.

On March 8, Wladimir Klitschko (who has returned to Kyiv to help defend his Ukrainian homeland against Russian aggression) was interviewed by BBC 5 Live Radio and urged the broadest possible economic sanctions against Russia including a global boycott of Russian athletes. When asked if Canelo-Bivol should proceed, Klitschko answered, “Absolutely not. Every sanction – and it’s nothing against the personalities or athletes, it’s about the politics of Russia – every Russian representative in this case needs to be sanctioned because this way we show to Russia that the world is against his [Putin’s] senseless war and there is no good in this war.”

“To isolate Russia from all sporting competition is not an act of aggression,” Klitschko continued. “We do this to stop the war, in the name of peace. I have nothing personal against the athletes, but I have a lot against the aggression of Russian leader Putin. We believe sanctions on different levels, including sport, are crucially important. If you take away sporting competition, the athletes will ask their leader, ‘Why will nobody compete against us?’ I repeat, this is not against the athletes. It’s in the name of peace in Ukraine.”

Bivol was born in Kyrgyzstan but has lived in Russia for most of his life and is a Russian citizen. Those who support his right to fight Canelo on May 7 say there’s nothing to indicate that he favors Putin’s war of aggression and that sports should be kept separate from politics. But the arguments against allowing Canelo-Bivol to proceed are overwhelming.

At the March 2 kick-off press conference for Canelo-Bivol, Dmitry told reporters, “None of us are enjoying what is happening. I have a lot of friends in Ukraine. I have a lot of friends in Russia and my family is in Russia. I wish everyone peace and only the best.”

That’s an empty statement. I have no idea what Bivol’s political views are. He seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. One empathizes with the fact that his family in Russia would be at risk if he spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine. The war isn’t his fault. But I have more sympathy for the people who are being killed as a consequence of Russia’s brutal aggression.

Sports are important to geopolitics. Indeed, it’s widely believed that the Chinese government asked Putin to not invade Ukraine until after the Winter Olympics in Beijing came to a close. Far from being a bastion of good will, sports are a money-making machine and, to borrow a phrase from Karl Marx, the opiate of the masses.

Despite calls for the United States to boycott the 1936 Olympics in Germany, the games went ahead with American participation. Some people look back fondly on those games because of the gold-medal performances by Jesse Owens. But Germany led the medal count at the 1936 Olympics by a wide margin. The games strengthened Adolph Hitler’s standing with the German people and were the subject of Leni Riefenstahl’s influential propaganda film, Olympia.

Vitali Klitschko’s own political career speaks to the power of sports as a platform for political action (he is now mayor of Kyiv), as do the lives of Muhammad Ali and Manny Pacquiao.

Canelo-Bivol isn’t just any fight. Because of Canelo’s stature, a victory for Bivol would make Dmitry a potent symbol of Russian might and be heralded as a great victory for Russia. Some people point to the 1938 rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling and ask, “If Schmeling fought then, why can’t Bivol fight now.” The answer is that (1) those were different times; (2) even then, there were calls to boycott Louis-Schmeling II; and (3) it was personally important to Louis that he fight Schmeling, whereas Bivol is a fungible opponent for Canelo. And think of the boost it would have given Hitler’s vile regime if Schmeling had won.

Is it fair to deprive Bivol of a large payday, thereby imposing a financial sanction on one man who is not responsible for the carnage in Ukraine?

That’s the way economic sanctions work. Is it fair to deprive oil workers in Russia or Russians who work at McDonald’s and Starbucks of their jobs? Financial sanctions are designed to impact upon an aggressor nation’s people. It’s better than killing them. If Bivol loses the opportunity to fight Canelo, I’ll have a degree of sympathy for him. But not as much sympathy as I feel for the people in Ukraine who are being brutalized by the Russian invasion.

And by the way; paying higher prices for gas as a consequence of the economic sanctions being imposed on Russia is a small price for Americans to pay. It’s a far lesser sacrifice than being bombed or sending soldiers to die in battle.

Neutrality isn’t an acceptable option in the present crisis. In Dante’s Inferno, it’s written of those who refuse to take a stand on moral issues, “Let us not talk of them, but look and pass.” Later, those words were interpreted and quoted by John F. Kennedy as “the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.”

As the Irish-born British statesman Edmund Burke wrote more than two centuries ago, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Randy Roberts is uniquely qualified to comment on the present situation. Roberts holds the title of Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University where he teaches a course on World War II. He has also been a visiting professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point where he taught courses on military history and the history of sport. And he has been honored with the A.J. Liebling Award by the Boxing Writers Association of America for biographies of Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey, and Jack Johnson.

Roberts says unequivocally, “Bivol should not be allowed to fight Canelo. The world community has to put as much pressure as possible on Russia. Sports are a national unifying factor. Sports are a way to measure international greatness. That’s why they count Olympic medals. It shouldn’t be that way but it is. To deny a world stage in sports to Russia is important. The Russian people aren’t responsible for what’s happening today in Ukraine. But it’s impossible to separate Russia from the Russian people. Denying Bivol the opportunity to fight would be an appropriate extension of economic sanctions.”

“This is a scary time,” Roberts continues. “Never in my life since the Cuban Missile Crisis have I thought there was a real possibility of nuclear war. I always felt that sane people were ultimately in charge. But Putin doesn’t fit that mold because, like Hitler, he shows a willingness to take unthinkable steps. I don’t think he has wide support for this war in the military or among the Russian people. There have to be generals in Russia who, right now, are thinking that what’s happening in Ukraine is wrong. But can they halt the use of nuclear weapons if Putin orders it?”

Where do we go from here?

First, let’s acknowledge the heroic role being played by Vitali Klitschko as mayor of Kyiv. Vitali (pictured) and Wladimir are inspirational figures. Vasyl Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk have returned to their homeland and also joined the defense effort.

As of this writing, Matchroom and DAZN seem to be moving ahead with Canelo-Bivol. Let’s not forget; this is the same team that staged the 2019 rematch between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz in Saudi Arabia despite compelling evidence that the Saudi government was responsible for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.

DAZN founder Len Blavatnik is Ukrainian-born and a citizen of both the United States and United Kingdom. His personal fortune has been estimated by Bloomberg and other sources as being well in excess of $20 billion. A substantial portion of his wealth came from buying formerly-state-owned oil and aluminum assets in Russia as they were privatized by the Russian government.

Blavatnik could unilaterally pull the plug on Canelo-Bivol in an instant. And if he’s concerned about the financial impact that would have on Bivol, he could reach into his pocket to make Dmitry whole.

Or maybe, at the opposite end of the spectrum, someone will cynically decide that the controversy over whether Bivol should be in the ring on May 7 is good marketing for Canelo-Bivol and that it will engender more subscriptions and pay-per-view buys.

Meanwhile, if DAZN proceeds with its plans to stream Canelo-Bivol, DAZN subscribers can cancel their subscriptions in protest. At the very least, if the fight goes ahead, boxing fans should donate $79.99 to a Ukrainian relief fund rather than buy the fight. Don’t fall for someone saying, “Oh, we’ll donate a portion of the proceeds from the promotion to charity.” Take matters into your own hands, boycott the fight, and donate the full $79.99.

Which is more important: being entertained by two men in a fistfight or making an effort to halt a senseless slaughter?

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – Broken Dreams: Another Year Inside Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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

Published

1 day ago

July 25, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-289-East-L.A.-A-Fight-Town-Claressa-Shields-and-More

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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