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Gridiron Stars Bell and Peterson to Give, Take Some Really Off-Tackle Hits
NFL running backs Adrian Peterson and Le’Veon Bell face off Saturday night in the co-main event of Social Gloves 2
You see it at virtually every much-anticipated, big-ticket boxing event. The premium seats at or close to ringside are often occupied by standout athletes in other sports, there to witness the action, of course, but also to indulge in the sort of what-if daydreams that can fire the imagination of even the most sedentary of couch potatoes.
Each daydream, individually tailored though it might be, goes something like this: If I took time to train and get myself into decent shape, I bet I could do that. By “that,” the dreamer imagines being inside the ropes, winging loaded-up shots and knocking his (or, increasingly so, her) opponent colder than a gutted mackerel stashed since the preceding month or two in the freezer compartment of their kitchen refrigerator.
Two outstanding NFL running backs of reasonably recent vintage, Adrian Peterson and Le’Veon Bell, get to possibly live their shared dream Saturday night as the co-main event of a highly dubious pay-per-view card to be televised via FITE.tv from Banc of California Stadium, home of MLS’ LA Galaxy. How dubious is most of the 10-bout lineup, collectively titled Social Gloves 2? Well, Peterson and Bell, who collectively have made millions of dollars from football and have six first-team All-Pro selections between them, are getting secondary billing to a matchup of somebody named Austin McBroom (0-0) against another somebody named Ali Eson Gib, who is 0-1 with his only previous bout a technical-knockout loss to Jake Paul, the YouTube guy who has a gazillion social media followers and now is the undisputed champion of all those pugilistic daydreamers who once got the better of a classmate in a sixth-grade schoolyard fight.
Also on the card is a bout between former Los Angeles Lakers guard Nick Young, who now prefers to go by his nickname, Swaggy P, and whomever is the last-minute replacement for rapper Blueface, whose birth certificate lists him as the much less intriguing Johnathan Jamall Porter.
Make no mistake, Jake “The Problem Child” Paul now would seem to be an erstwhile combination of Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali in comparison to McBroom and Gib, who are said to have substantial presences on such platforms as TikTok. When Paul (5-0, 4 KOs, but with none of his wins coming against an actual professional boxer) swaps punches in the ring with UFC legend Anderson “The Spider” Silva on Oct. 29 in Glendale, Ariz., it will be the most legitimate step yet taken by the incrementally more-proficient fighter and extraordinarily adroit self-promoter. Silva might be 47, but he has some boxing experience (going 3-1) and was a lights-out striker in the Octagon, where he was 34-11, but lost seven of his last nine fights, including one no-decision. If Paul gets past Silva, you can bet he’ll grab a bullhorn and call out, say, Canelo Alvarez. Wait a second … he’s already done that.
Peterson’s glory seasons were with the Vikings, for whom he played through the 2016 season, whereupon he became something of a vagabond ball-carrier for hire, logging cameo stints with the New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, then-Washington Redskins, Detroit Lions, Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks. Playing in just four games in 2021 with the Titans and Seahawks, he rushed for a total of just 98 yards, seemingly finishing a career that should earn him first-ballot induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with 14,918 yards, fifth on the all-time list. Bell, 30, had a more abbreviated prime, mostly for the Pittsburgh Steelers with stopovers with the New York Jets, Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was a capable receiver too, apparently finishing his nine-year NFL career with 6,554 rushing yards and 3,289 more through the air.
Given their production while wearing helmets and shoulder pads, Peterson and Bell both express confidence that their transition will be successful, if not necessarily seamless.
“At the end of the day, I’m leaving with a `W,’” Peterson said when asked by an interviewer for his expected outcome.
Countered the slightly favored Bell, mostly based on his being seven years younger and presumably having less wear-and-tear on his body, “I think it’s a great opportunity to showcase my skills and show what I’m working hard on,” he said when asked the same question. “I’m obviously confident in myself.” Another potential factor that might prove to Bell’s advantage is the running style he exhibited to great effect with the Steelers, that being an ability to patiently wait for holes to open, then stomping on the accelerator and bursting through them.
“Picking and choosing your shots,” Bell said of the one trait of his on the field he hopes translates well to the ring. “When to turn it up and when not to. It’s a little different in football. In football, you get a play, you run the play. In boxing there ain’t no play. You get a read on the guy as you go.”
The history of football players who daydream of becoming heavyweight champion of the world – or in whatever weight class they might find themselves – is spotty at best and depressing at worst. Maybe the best of the lot is former San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders wide receiver Charlie Powell, who at one point in the late 1950s rose as high as a No. 2 ranking. At least Powell’s resume, which saw him go 25-11-3 with 17 wins inside the distance and eight losses in similar fashion, was mostly compiled against legitimate competition. He was 5-8-1 in his final 14 appearances, the last of which was a third-round stoppage at the hands of Muhammad Ali, still known then as Cassius Clay, on Jan. 24, 1963.
Many of the football guys following Powell, some of whom were quite accomplished on the field, were able to milk their fame in that sport en route to building artificially inflated records that crumbled like sand castles once they stepped up in class. Cowboys defensive end Ed “Too Tall” Jones tried his hand at boxing for a year and all six of his bouts were nationally televised by CBS. He was 6-0 against a parade of pretenders especially picked for the likelihood they would fall down quickly if hit, but even though he had shown some ability fighting as a young kid, enough to convince one notable observer, Angelo Dundee, with whom Jones was not associated, that he might have had something going had he stuck with it, the fight game is not something you can walk away from for two decades and pick up just like that.
Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau, former NFL single-season record holder for sacks, went 15-2 with 15 KOs in his five years as a pro, but all his wins came against carefully selected designated victims. He retired after being stopped in two one-sided rounds by another former NFL star, running back Alonzo Highsmith, who was 27-1-2 with 23 KOs. Highsmith rightly took umbrage in being compared to the mostly inept Gastineau, but he never took the kind of step-up bouts that might have stamped him as something more viable than a curiosity item.
More recently, there was Golden Boy-backed former Michigan State linebacker Seth Mitchell, whom some saw as a superstar-in-the-making during a quick ascent into semi-prominence. But Mitchell (26-2-1, 19) lost two of his last three fights, both on stoppages, one against Johnathon Banks and a bit later against Chris Arreola, which convinced him that the best way to enjoy the rest of his life was to walk away and stay away from that squared circle.
Still, Peterson and Bell are clinging to the remote possibility that whatever best part of themselves they didn’t leave between those chalked sidelines might be resurrected if they don’t embarrass themselves Saturday night. And you can hardly blame either for daring to think that way. They were, after all, once great at their former jobs. Peterson remarked that he even kayoed an unidentified sparring partner in preparation for squaring off against Bell.
“It was in the last minute of the fifth round,” he recalled. “He threw a good combination. I was able to block (most of the punches). Then I came back with a left and was able to swing through his guard with the right and it landed.
“It didn’t really feel like I hit him with a lot of power, but I was talking to some of the fighters (in his Houston gym) and they said that’s kind of how it goes.”
Sometimes it does go like that for a fighter, even a football player on a busman’s holiday. Then again, a lot of times it does not.
I’ll be interested in reading about how this particular bout goes. And no, I won’t be springing for the PPV.
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Bernard Fernandez, named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the Class of 2020, was the recipient of numerous awards for writing excellence during his 28-year career as a sports writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. Fernandez’s first book, “Championship Rounds,” a compendium of previously published material, was released in May of last year. The sequel, “Championship Rounds, Round 2,” with a foreword by Jim Lampley, is currently out. The anthology can be ordered through Amazon.com and other book-selling websites and outlets.
Two below-the-radar super welterweight stars show off their skills this weekend from different parts of Southern California.
One in particular, Charles Conwell, co-headlines a show in Oceanside against a hard-hitting Mexican while another super welter star Sadriddin Akhmedov faces another Mexican hitter in Commerce.
Take your pick.
The super welterweight division is loaded with talent at the moment. If Terence Crawford remained in the division he would be at the top of the class, but he is moving up several weight divisions.
Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) faces Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs) a tall knockout puncher from Los Mochis at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, Calif. on Saturday April 19. DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also features undisputed flyweight champion Gabriela Fundora. We’ll get to her later.
Conwell might be the best super welterweight out there aside from the big dogs like Vergil Ortiz, Serhii Bohachuk and Sebastian Fundora.
If you are not familiar with Conwell he comes from Cleveland, Ohio and is one of those fighters that other fighters know about. He is good.
He has the James “Lights Out” Toney kind of in-your-face-style where he anchors down and slowly deciphers the opponent’s tools and then takes them away piece by piece. Usually it’s systematic destruction. The kind you see when a skyscraper goes down floor by floor until it’s smoking rubble.
During the Covid days Conwell fought two highly touted undefeated super welters in Wendy Toussaint and Madiyar Ashkeyev. He stopped them both and suddenly was the boogie man of the super welterweight division.
Conwell will be facing Mexico’s taller Garcia who likes to trade blows as most Mexican fighters prefer, especially those from Sinaloa. These guys will be firing H bombs early.
Fundora
Co-headlining the Golden Boy card is Gabriela Fundora (15-0, 7 KOs) the undisputed flyweight champion of the world. She has all the belts and Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1, 3 KOs) wants them.
Gabriela Fundora is the sister of Sebastian Fundora who holds the men’s WBC and WBO super welterweight world titles. Both are tall southpaws with power in each hand to protect the belts they accumulated.
Six months ago, Fundora met Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz in Las Vegas to determine the undisputed flyweight champion. The much shorter Alaniz tried valiantly to scrap with Fundora and ran into a couple of rocket left hands.
Mexico’s Badillo is an undefeated flyweight from Mexico City who has battled against fellow Mexicans for years. She has fought one world champion in Asley Gonzalez the current super flyweight world titlist. They met years ago with Badillo coming out on top.
Does Badillo have the skill to deal with the taller and hard-hitting Fundora?
When a fighter has a six-inch height advantage like Fundora, it is almost impossible to out-maneuver especially in two-minute rounds. Ask Alaniz who was nearly decapitated when she tried.
This will be Badillo’s first pro fight outside of Mexico.
Commerce Casino
Kazakhstan’s Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0, 13 KOs) is another dangerous punching super welterweight headlining a 360 Promotions card against Mexico’s Elias Espadas (23-6, 16 KOs) on Saturday at the Commerce Casino.
UFC Fight Pass will stream the 360 Promotions card of about eight bouts.
Akhmedov is another Kazakh puncher similar to the great Gennady “GGG” Golovkin who terrorized the middleweight division for a decade. He doesn’t have the same polish or dexterity but doesn’t lack pure punching power.
It’s another test for the super welterweight who is looking to move up the ladder in the very crowded 154-pound weight division. 360 Promotions already has a top contender in Ukraine’s Serhii Bohachuk who nearly defeated Vergil Ortiz a year ago.
Could Bohachuk and Akhmedov fight each other if nothing else materializes?
That’s a question for another day.
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Charles Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs) vs. Jorge Garcia Perez (32-4, 26 KOs); Gabriela Fundora (15-0) vs Marilyn Badillo (19-0-1).
Sat. UFC Fight Pass 6 p.m. Sadriddin Akhmedov (15-0) vs Elias Espadas (23-6).
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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.
Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.
Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)
Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.
The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).
Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”
A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.
Other winners:
Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon
Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney
Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire
Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix
The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.
The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.
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To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
Spared Prison by a Lenient Judge, Chordale Booker Pursues a World Boxing Title
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 318: Aussie Action, Vegas and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More
Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello
Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights
Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser
Avila Perspective, Chap. 322: Super Welter Week in SoCal
TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts
Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday
Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City
Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser
Avila Perspective Chap 320: Boots Ennis and Stanionis
Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams
Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights
Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello
Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester
Avila Perspective, Chap. 320: Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, Heavyweights and More
History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era
Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan
William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0
Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More
Boxing Odds and Ends: The Wacky and Sad World of Livingstone Bramble and More
A Paean to George Foreman (1949-2025), Architect of an Amazing Second Act
Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas
Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
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