Jason Cunningham and Zolani Tete at the Crossroads This Weekend

Published

2 years ago

June 28, 2022

Jason-Cunningham-and-Zolani-Tete-at-the-Crossroads-This-Weekend

It is probable that one must go all the way back to the mighty Dick Tiger to find a fighter who courted the British public with the determination Zolani Tete has exhibited during the last decade. Between the final days of 2015 and the final days – the disastrous final days – of 2019, he fought on this country’s soil on six occasions, dashing not the hopes of native sons but rather turning away Filipinos, Mexicans, Argentines and even a fellow South African. Slowly, surely, Tete was earning British trust, pounding out impressively one-sided decisions over the once dominant Omar Narvaez and Arthur Villanueva, dusting others with impressive punching power and a pleasing, aggressive style.

When Tete met John Riel Casimero in Birmingham, it was a fight he was favoured to win, despite their being ranked neck-and-neck by the TBRB. Tete, who had been scheduled to face Nonito Donaire for the right to meet Naoya Inoue earlier in 2019, had been forced to withdraw from that match with a shoulder injury. Donaire went on to lose to Inoue in the TSS Fight of the Year and Boxing News was far from alone in looking ahead to Tete’s seemingly inevitable showdown with Inoue in a preview of the Casimero fight. Tete was “granite tough” and Inoue’s “closest 118lb rival…he might also turn out to be his worst nightmare.”

BN was far from alone in taking the bait, but it’s certainly possible to see strains of the defence of a British pugilist in the legendary London publication’s enthusiasm.

Casimero, with what seems retrospectively to be a certain inevitability, stepped in to wreck both these plans and Tete himself. The Filipino, who had been active while Tete recovered from injury, fought low-handed and in small, clever increments, popping Tete out in three with short sharp shots in what looked an awful lot like an exposure. Tete’s technical acumen seemed brittle and tired in the face of Casimero’s quickness. Silence followed.

While Tete was recovering from an injured shoulder, Yorkshireman Jason Cunningham was in a rehabilitation of his own, overcoming the most hurtful sporting injury of them all: a series of hidings in the boxing ring. He picked up the commonwealth featherweight title in 2017 by way of split decision over Ben Jones in a close fight in which Jones was the aggressor. Cunningham lost the title by way of a brutal stoppage sixth months later to Reece Bellotti in a fight where he was clearly the quality operator but was mowed down by a bigger man throwing bigger punches. He betrayed a certain fragility in finding himself on the canvas in five before the fight was waved off in the sixth. When he lost a British featherweight elimination match to Jordan Gill in 2018 and then dropped a harrowing decision to Michael Conlan that December, Cunningham teetered on the most desperate of ledges and in the eyes of some had already slipped. Still in his twenties and with a paper record of 24-6 he was now little more than a journeyman.

So, while Tete nursed apparent tendonitis, Cunningham nursed a broken career, turning out at the Doncaster Dome for a series of short fights at a series of random weights coming in just over bantamweight one minute, over the lightweight limit the next. Then he got a call from Gamal Yafai’s people.

Gamal, younger brother of former world champion Kal, was on his own comeback trail after losing out to the excellent Gavin McDonnell. For Cunningham it looked like something of a last chance at the big time and the odds were not in his favour.

“This has been probably the quickest camp I’ve had,” he told Boxing Social. “I’ve had three weeks’ notice…but this time I’ve had to renew my medicals, sort out kit and everything else, so I’ve been flat out for this.”

He was flat out in the ring, too, using his southpaw range and footwork to out-punch and out-work the younger Gamal for a clear twelve-round decision. It was the best fight he had been involved in, one of the best domestic matches of 2021 and it was, in his own words, his best performance. He had dropped the favourite three times on the way to restoring twelve-round status and much more importantly, respect. It brought with it the EBU European Super Bantam Title and a fight with Brad Foster where the British, Commonwealth and European titles would all be at stake.

Once more, Cunningham defeated a favoured house fighter in a raucous, dirty fight I saw 114-113 to Cunningham, victorious by the single point referee Foster had deducted for a range of fouls from heeling to low blows to headbutts. Better was to follow – in April of 2022, Cunningham defeated Frenchman Terry Le Couviour via sixth round stoppage on body shots. Cunningham has always had a nice line in body attack, often opening up the midriff with feints off the jab, but in these two fights it matured to a weapon of real substance. These punches had dragged Cunningham from the bottom of the pile to the top of the domestic heap.

And then the ostensibly world-class Tete hovered into view.

While Cunningham had been motoring, Tete had found himself in the doldrums. COVID-19 controls in South Africa made travelling nearly impossible and there were even rumours of a car crash. Finally, just before Christmas 2021, in a tiny ring in the Booysens Boxing Club in Johannesburg, Tete returned against 14-4-1 Tanzanian Iddi Kayumba. Tete blew him out in fifty-five seconds.

What all this means is that Tete has boxed just under a minute in the best part of three years. When he steps back into a British ring this weekend on the undercard of the Joe Joyce-Christian Hammer match in the Wembley Arena, he will be fighting a tough, primed fighter who has boxed the thirty toughest and the thirty best rounds of his career in the past fourteen months, while Tete cooled his heels and blasted out a sparring partner. That this fight is being ignored in favour of a stay-busy contest being fought by a heavyweight contender is strange and Sweet Science readers should not count themselves among the number: Tete-Cunningham is the real main event in London on Saturday.

What will occur?

Tete, at thirty-four, two years older than Cunningham, is no longer ancient for the weight – but he is old to be stepping out of the garage. Cunningham, who is running on high quality experience now, is as good a manifestation of himself as is likely ever to be seen and Tete, it must be presumed, will be at or around his worst. Tete is still likely to hit as hard as anyone Cunningham has boxed, featherweights included, but does he still have the technical apparatus and speed to get those punches to where they need to be?

It is impossible to know, but therein lies the rub. Essentially this fight stacks a very good domestic fighter who is big at the weight against the remains of a world-class one. The question in these circumstances is always the same: how much does the world-class fighter have left? If it’s a lot, he will win (see Vitali Klitschko versus Samuel Peter); if it’s a little, he will lose (see Ricky Hatton versus Vyacheslav Senchenko). Then, of course, there is a sweet spot somewhere in between where the fight hangs in the balance. More, because the traditional strengths of Tete – power and technical competence on attack – line up so dramatically with Cunningham’s – grit, toughs, quick-footed, awkward persistence – we could be in line for a dual sweet spot.

But whether we see a sweet spot war, or Cunningham grinding out a decision, or even if Tete just marches in and bangs Cunningham out like he did Kayumba or Siboniso Gonya or the dozen others he’s dispatched in the first round, we will have seen something special.

Like so much of Jason Cunningham’s career this fight is dipping under the radar. Do not miss it.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 282: Ryan’s Song, Golden Boy in Fresno and More

Published

22 hours ago

April 26, 2024

David A. Avila

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Don’t call it an upset.

Days after Ryan Garcia proved the experts wrong, those same experts are re-tooling their evaluation processes.

It’s mind-boggling to me that 95 percent thought Garcia had no chance. Hear me out.

First, Garcia and Haney fought six times as amateurs with each winning three. But this time with no head gear and smaller gloves, Garcia had to have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. He is faster and a more powerful puncher.

Facts.

Haney is a wonderful boxer with smooth, almost artistic movements. But history has taught us power and speed like Garcia’s can’t be discounted. Think way back to legendary fighters like Willie Pep and Sandy Sadler. All that excellent defensive skill could not prevent Sadler from beating Pep in three of their four meetings.

Power has always been an equalizer against boxing skill.

Ben Lira, one of the wisest and most experienced trainers in Southern California, always professed knockout power was the greatest equalizer in a fight. “You can be behind for nine rounds and one punch can change the outcome,” he said.

Another weird theory spreading before the fight was that Garcia would quit in the fight. That was a puzzling one. Getting stopped by a perfect body shot is not quitting. And that punch came from Gervonta “Tank” Davis who can really crack.

So how did Garcia do it?

In the opening round Ryan Garcia timed Devin Haney’s jab and countered with a snapping left hook that rattled and wobbled the super lightweight champion. After that, Garcia forced Haney to find another game plan.

Garcia and trainer Derrick James must have worked hours on that move.

I must confess that I first saw Garcia’s ability many years ago when he was around 11 or 12. So I do have an advantage regarding his talent. A few things I noticed even back then were his speed and power. Also, that others resented his talent but respected him. He was the guy with everything: talent and looks.

And that brings resentment.

Recently I saw him and his crew rapping a song on social media. Now he’s got a song. Next thing you know Hollywood will be calling and he’ll be in the movies. It’s happened before with fighters such as Art Aragon, the first Golden Boy in the 50s. He was dating movie stars and getting involved with starlets all over Hollywood.

Is history repeating itself or is Garcia creating a new era for boxing?

Since 2016 people claimed he was just a social media creation. Now, after his win over Devin Haney a former undisputed lightweight champion and the WBC super lightweight titleholder, the boxer from the high desert area of Victorville has become one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

Ryan Garcia has entered a new dimension.

Golden Boy Season

After several down years the Los Angeles-based company Golden Boy Promotions suddenly is cracking the whip in 2024.

Avila

Vergil Ortiz Jr. (20-0, 20 KOs) returns to the ring and faces Puerto Rico’s Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1, 17 KOs) a welterweight gatekeeper who lost to Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Eimantas Stanionis. They meet as super welterweights in the co-main event at Save Mart Arena in Fresno, Calif. on Saturday, April 27. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card live.

It’s a quick return to action for Ortiz who is still adjusting to the new weight division. His last fight three months ago ended in less than one round in Las Vegas. It was cut short by an antsy referee and left Ortiz wanting more after more than a year of inactivity in the prize ring.

Ortiz has all the weapons.

Also, Northern California’s Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1, 18 KOs) meets Cuba’s Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1, 15 KOs) in a welterweight affair set for 12 rounds.

It’s difficult to believe that former super lightweight titlist Ramirez has been written off by fans after only one loss. That was several years ago against Scotland’s Josh Taylor. One loss does not mean the end of a career.

“My goal is to get back on top and to get all those belts back. I still feel like I am one of the best 140-pounders in the division,” said Ramirez who lives in nearby Avenal, Calif.

An added major attraction features Marlen Esparza in a unification rematch against Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz for the WBA, WBC, WBO flyweight titles. Their first fight was

a controversial win by Esparza that saw one judge give her nine of 10 rounds in a very close fight. Those Texas judges.

In a match that could steal the show, Oscar Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs) faces former world champion Jojo Diaz (33-5-1, 15 KOs) in a lightweight match.

Munguia and Canelo

Don’t sleep on this match.

Its current Golden Boy fighter Jaime Munguia facing former Golden Boy fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a battle between Mexico’s greatest sluggers next week at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on May 4.

“I think Jaime Munguia is going to do something special in the ring,” said Oscar De La Hoya, the CEO for Golden Boy.

Tijuana’s Munguia showed up at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood where a throng of media from Mexico and the US met him.

Munguia looked confident and happy about his opportunity to fight great Canelo.

“It’s a hard fight,” said Munguia. “Truth is, its big for Mexico and not only for Mexicans but for boxing.”

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 6 p.m. Yoeniz Tellez (7-0) vs Joseph Jackson (19-0).

Sat. DAZN 9:30 a.m. Peter McGrail (8-1) vs Marc Leach (18-3-1); Beatriz Ferreira (4-0) vs Yanina Del Carmen 14-3).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Vergil Ortiz (20-0) vs Thomas Dulorme (26-6-1); Jose Carlos Ramirez (28-1) vs Rances Barthelemy (30-2-1); Marlen Esparza (14-1) vs Gabriela Alaniz (14-1).

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions

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Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

3 days ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

Co-Feature

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

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

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

Also

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

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

—

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

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

5 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harvey Dock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

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

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

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

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