Larry Holmes Challenged Me to a Fight (I Declined)

Published

2 years ago

May 26, 2022

Larry Holmes Challenged Me to a Fight (I Declined)

“Mama always said, life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get,” said the Tom Hanks character Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name. I always think of that famous line when I pop into a local boxing gym and chance upon an interesting person I had never formally met and never expected to find there. It actually happens quite frequently. For a boxing writer, it’s one of the nice little perks about living in Las Vegas.

The Bones Adams gym is the closest gym to my house. I could walk there, if need be, but prefer to detour there on one of my daily bicycle rides. The gym sits deep behind an iron gate that is almost always locked, but for those that are privy to the entrance code it is the most welcoming gym in the city.

I popped in yesterday afternoon and who should I find there but none other than Larry Holmes. He was there at the behest of Don King and King’s chief lieutenant Stacey McKinley to size up Trevor Bryan who defends his WBA secondary heavyweight title against Daniel Dubois on June 11.

“No cheering in the press box” is the admonition that is writ large in the canon of sports journalism. In other words, don’t get emotionally attached to the athletes that you cover. But that’s easier said than done and my favorite boxer of all time is Larry Holmes.

Larry Holmes turned pro in 1973 at age twenty-three and captured the world heavyweight title five years later with a razor-thin decision over Ken Norton. He needed a big 15^th round to pull that fight out of the fire and the expectation was that his reign would be brief, but he fooled us; he just kept winning and winning. Holmes’ final record, 69-6, included a 21-6 mark in bouts sanctioned as world title fights. The first two of those six setbacks, coming at the hands of Michael Spinks after Larry had advanced his record to 49-0, were controversial.

Larry Holmes wasn’t flashy in the ring; he was methodical. To say he was my favorite boxer misses the point. He was my favorite ring personality; the person that I most admired among those that happened to box and do it well.

When I first started covering boxing, I was very conscious of the fact that I wasn’t in the same league as the reporters from the major metropolitan dailies. I was deemed worthy of a press badge only because the PR people at the hotels took care of the local guys and I was a local guy with a small footprint in radio and in one of the weekly rags.

The fighters at the top of the food chain had their own PR people who culled the herd, so to speak, giving a small cadre of “A list” writers access to their clients in settings more intimate than a formal press conference. The fighters themselves came to know which members of the media were most useful to them and acted accordingly.

And that is why I became a big fan of Larry Holmes. He didn’t compartmentalize; he treated everyone the same. He wanted to vent after his first fight with Spinks and invited everyone crowding around him up to his suite in the Riviera Hotel. In that cramped space we were all “A list” guys.

As is common with folks in other lines of work, boxers tend to change when the money starts rolling in and they become increasingly more well-known. In the vernacular of old friends left behind, they start to put on airs.

Larry Holmes never changed. He could have purchased a mansion in Beverly Hills and hobnobbed with the Hollywood elite, but after each fight he returned to Easton, an old industrial town in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley where the workforce is still primarily blue-collar. Throughout his long career there was never a whiff of scandal.

Larry Holmes didn’t have his clothes customized by a tailor on Rodeo Drive. The duds he wore yesterday – well-worn blue jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, a ball cap – were of the sort a man would wear on a tractor. There were two fancy rings on his fingers but otherwise no bling.

Inside Bones Adams’ gym, Holmes moved at a slow gait; almost, but not quite, shuffling. Every boxing gym has a full-length mirror where preening boxers shadow-box, and there was a precious moment when Holmes stood before it, peppering an invisible opponent with his inerrant jab, his signature punch.

It had been many years since I last talked with Larry Holmes. It was a call-in interview arranged by the producer of our radio talk show. Larry was in a happy mood that night. The Easton Police Department had just leased one of the buildings that he owned. “I believe I’m the only black guy in the country that owns a police station,” he said.

Holmes was in a convivial mood again yesterday and I’m happy to report that although his gait was slow, his mind was clear. There was nothing in the words that came out of his mouth that betrayed a hint of incipient dementia. He could re-visit old fights with vivid recall, a marvel considering that he answered the bell for 579 rounds during the course of those 75 pro fights while trading blows with some of the biggest punchers of his era.

“I must be older than you,” he said after we made eye contact. I corrected him: “No, I’m older than you.”

“Well,” he said, “one of us has to be right and I know how we can settle it.” He gestured toward the door, a mischievous look in his eye.

One of the quotes ascribed to Larry Holmes was a line about Don King: “I knew he was ripping me off, but I also knew I wouldn’t have made more money with any other promoter.” Holmes says he never said it; a reporter was taking liberties. “Sure, Don and I had our differences, but I have my differences with her too,” he said, playfully nudging his wife Diane, the pleasant woman seated on his left scrolling through her iPad. “If I could have made more money with someone else, why didn’t they come and see me?”

Holmes was pleased when I reminded him that his 1982 bout with Gerry Cooney – we’re approaching the fortieth anniversary – still holds the record for the largest attendance at a boxing event in Nevada. A crowd of 30,000-plus (29,214 paid) that included an international press contingent of eight hundred, squeezed into the makeshift outdoor arena at Caesars Palace to witness the conflagration.

“What I remember is that everyone there was rooting for Cooney,” he said, which wasn’t that far from the truth. When I told him that I wasn’t one of those cheering for Cooney because I had bet against the lantern-jawed Irishman, he said, “Where’s my cut?” while extending his open palm.

The fight, which lasted into the thirteenth round, ended when Cooney’s trainer Victor Valle bounded into the ring to save his man from taking any more punishment. The bout was tight on the scorecards through the completed rounds notwithstanding the fact that Cooney had three points deducted from his score for low blows. After the bout, Holmes said, “Gerry was in my pants so often tonight that I thought he wanted to marry me.”

The fight was fought against a sinister shadow. In their pre-fight screeds, some pundits contorted the match into the reincarnation of the 1910 bout between Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries that stoked the flames of racial discord, America’s first Fight of the Century. The Cooney camp took pains to downplay the racial subplot which only made it louder.

It’s common knowledge that Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney have become fast friends. “I see Gerry a lot,” he says, noting that they will be getting together again early next month at a public appearance in Miami. “Gerry had nothing to do with all that rubbish. He’s a nice guy. But,” he continued impishly, “if he gets out of line, I may have to whip his ass (he paused for dramatic effect)…again!”

As for Trevor Bryan, Holmes, who has five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, avers that he likes what he sees. “He needs to get more extension on his jab,” he says, “but he’s almost there.”

When Trevor Bryan had finished his workout, Stacey McKinley, his face dripping with sweat, joined our conversation and the talk turned to old fights, old fighters, and old trainers which is what old salts talk about when the subject turns to boxing. McKinley, born in the same year as Larry Holmes, has a bone to pick with Gervonta “Tank” Davis who fights this Saturday in Brooklyn. Davis, who represents Baltimore, has apparently never heard of the immortal Joe Gans, the greatest Baltimore fighter of them all. Young boxers today, laments McKinley, are ignorant of their forefathers. It is a lamentation that has redounded through the generations.

And so, I happened to duck into Bones Adams’ gym on a Wednesday afternoon and found myself shooting the breeze with none other than Larry Holmes. It was as if we were sitting in a barbershop, two guys from the neighborhood chatting about this and that as we awaited our turn in the chair.

Yes, Holmes is still my all-time favorite fighter, but please keep that under your hat. There is to be no cheering in the press box.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum, CLICK HERE

Arne K. Lang’s latest book, titled “George Dixon, Terry McGovern and the Culture of Boxing in America, 1890-1910,” will shortly roll off the press. The book, published by McFarland, can be pre-ordered directly from the publisher (https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/clashof-the-little-giants) or via Amazon.

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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

2 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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